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Faith & Shawn’s dedication

November 21, 2012 at 11:31 AM 2 comments

This past Sunday we had the privilege of having our kids both dedicated by our church. Dedicated to God. Like Samuel was in 1 Samuel 1:20-26. It might seem weird having the kids dedication because they are a bit older than most kids usually dedicated. Most dedication are done after a few months of the child’s birth. But we wanted to wait for the final adoption of both kids. Faith, as you know, was adopted over 2 years ago but Shawn just joined our family last summer. However we had to wait until this May 2012 for him to officially become a DeGraaf.

Even though the kids were older than usual dedication candidates, we wanted to dedicated them to the Lord. Our pastor wanted to make the day very special so he to dedicated our whole family and celebrated the final adoption of both Faith and Shawn. He said very kind words and interacted with the kids as he shared with the congregation our story.

Usually our pastor has the parents stand on either side of him and one of the parents holds the baby, but because Faith and Shawn were much older he had them sit on either side of him and De-Ann and I sat beside the kids each. He even had a gift for each kid–mega blocks set. And a Bible with their names inscribed in them to commemorate this special day.

The kids were so good and Faith, of course, interacted with our pastor quite a bit. She even got the congregation laughing as she noticed the picture of her and Shawn on the big screen. She said “look, there’s me and Shawn!”

Afterwards many of the congregation members came up to say “congratulations” and give us hugs and love. So thankful for our church family. We felt so loved and accepted by them all.

Thankfully one of the young adults took a few pictures of us on the stage. He took them with his smartphone so the pictures are a bit blurry but you can see how much fun the kids were having.

Entry filed under: City Centre, Family, Friends. Tags: 1 Samuel 1:20-26, adoption, Bible, church, church family, congregation, dedication, Faith, hugs, love, mega blocks set, our pastor, our story, Shawn, special day.