New Mosaic Steering Committee member Debbie Monterrey's story:--My Extended Family & Crashing the Party | KMOX-AM
There's the family you're born into (and I'm so lucky to have a fantastic one). There's the family you marry into (and I have great in-laws).
And then, there's the family you acquire. In our case, through adoption.
Everyone's adoption journey is different, but for us, we not only gained two children, but an extended family made up of the people we traveled through foreign nations with to get our children. Added benefit is gaining yet two more nations on our planet with which to connect (and sometimes stumbling upon an opportunity to see the Ethiopian Prime Minister! More on that later).
This year, 2018, has been The Year of Reunions. In January, it was a family cruise with my parents, my sister and her crew and my husband and kids.
In June, it was our biennial Hubei Reunion. In 2005, my husband and I traveled to China to bring home our beautiful daughter. We traveled for two weeks from Beijing to Wuhan (a sister city of St. Louis) to Guangzhou with 10 other families. To say we bonded during the experience would be an understatement, and the majority of us have kept in touch even before Facebook made it easy. We've had reunions held around the country, watched our families grow and relished not just watching our daughters run in a pack, but all the little brothers in this group becoming fast friends.
by Debbie Monterrey, debbie.monterrey@entercom.com
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