It was a quiet celebration today.

This 4th of July, we did not celebrate with fireworks or sparklers. We did not gather with friends and have a cook out. We did not eat apple pie and hot dogs or watch baseball. I did not bake my traditional American flag cake.

We did not do anything typically American today to celebrate our Independence.

It was a quiet celebration today.

Today, on Isaak's "day" off (he is working tonight at the Embassy for more of a political party centered around our 4th).....

we chose to drive out to Yako. We drove north and took in the beauty of Burkina during rainy season. We soaked up the beauty of the bush in her lush shades of green. We drove through new filled rivers that used to be roads. Be bought bananas through our window and ate the perfectly ripe fruit from Ghana. I looked out the window and reveled in the freedom and glory we discovered when we chose to follow Christ no matter the cost.

And then we arrived at Les Ailes des Refuge. We went back to the orphanage for the first time since bringing Steven home over two months ago. We visited our dear friends, and Steven was able to return and reconnect with everyone, including his closest friend Guelil. We have talked a lot about when or if we would bring Steven back to Yako to see everyone. We wanted to proceed with great caution for him, as well as the other children and how they would fare seeing him again. We talked to Steven the past couple of days and tried to explain that we were going to go see Mike and Amy and Guelil and the tantes. And he was excited. But then this morning he shook his little finger and said "no", he did not want to go. He was nervous. I can't even fathom all the things that he was thinking leading up to going there. But as soon as he arrived he ran straight to Amy and Becca, giving them giant hugs. He was not interested in talking to his tantes, or even his friends at first....but after just a few minutes he seemed to find his familiar comfort and ran off playing with his best bud. And when it was time to go home he left in peace, knowing that he was no longer staying at the orphanage....but that his home was now with us.

It was a quiet celebration today.

This year the extent of our celebration of freedom came in the form of simply living in the land away from our home country that the Lord has called us. It was the recognition of what it means when Christ says, "whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it," and seeing the freedom that the Lord opened up to us when we embraced that truth. And it came in the form of a little boy returning to his orphanage no longer an orphan. He was able to leave, no longer carrying the yoke of rejection and denial, but having found freedom in the form of a forever family.

Our celebration of freedom, true freedom, was hard fought, by all involved. It did not come without great loses and monumental sacrifices. It was fought by a little boy, who battled for his life and refused to give up, because he had an incredible will to survive. It was fought by his family, in the battle that played out to simply follow God to Burkina, and then to bring him home once who God led us here. A family that warred on his behalf, who refused to give up and quit, so that he might come to experience the kind of freedom you can only find in love. This year, the extent of our celebrating came in the form of a prayer offered over dinner to bless our country, to help her people live in ways that glorify God, and that as a nation we would be a people who would always fight for justice and freedom for all.

Today, I witnessed a beautifully subtle aspect of the freedom that we fought for, that I helped fight for, that my children fought for...something that I may have overlooked if our day had been drowned out with louder more distracting things. Sometimes, it's good to strip holidays down. To make them bare. To not let the noise in. To drown out the commotion. And focus on the subtle. To paid heed to the finer details.

There is beauty in that.

It was a quiet celebration today....but we celebrated nonetheless.