Last night a little girl was told she was going to a forever family. This was a day that her new mom and dad, who she hasn't met yet, have waited for months to come. For her the news came with some fear and excitement, but fear mostly. It's a new and scary time in the life of this little girl, and her mom & dad have prayed for the peace of Christ to be with her. When she was told the news her new parents wrote a letter for her to read, and this is what it said:
Dear Jessica,
You don’t know us as we haven’t met before, so we’re writing this letter to introduce ourselves to you. Our names are Hendrick and Angel, and we would love to become your new Mom & Dad. We know that this is very sudden for you, even though we know that you’ve been waiting for what feels like forever for you to be adopted. Dale has told us a lot about you, and we feel like we know you even though we haven’t met. We know this may not sound fair since you don’t know anything about us. So let us tell you a bit about who we are. Both of us are 39 years old (which sounds ancient to a 10 year old!); we are Christians and we’ve been married for 18 years. Hendrick works with handicapped adults and Angel works in an office, but she plans to take time off so she can focus on being mom. Hendrick likes swimming and reading, and is about to graduate from a Bible college. Angel is pretty creative; she does photography, crafting, likes to cook and we both like to sing and go camping.
We have no children of our own and would love to give you a home to call your own. In this home there is a room all set up just for you and we have a cat named Spunky who loves to play and cuddle. There’s a pool close by and a park across the road, with a playground in summer and a big toboggan hill in winter. Lots of kids live in our neighborhood, some your age and some younger, to play with. But if you like to play indoors we have lots of stuff like a foosball table, a Wii and plenty of board games to have fun with. Our family is big but there’s always room for one more, with lots of new cousins, uncles, aunts and grandparents who would love to make you a part of their lives. We go to a church with lots of kids. How do you like the idea of going to Sunday school with them? The people in our church are very kind and the idea of you becoming a part of our family makes them feel very happy.
But how do you feel about becoming a part of our family? We know this is a big step for you, and that you probably have a lot of mixed feelings about it. Everything we’ve described may sound so wonderful and strange all at once. You may be excited and scared, happy and sad, all at the same time. But you know what? We feel the same way too! We would love to become your forever family, but we also know that it won’t be easy for you and it might not be easy for us either. We may not be the parents you expected or dreamed about. But we promise you that we will love you no matter what. The fridge will always be full, the bed will always be warm and safe and the hugs and kisses will always be there when you want them. We will do our best to listen to your feelings, give you a shoulder to cry on and help you to become the person you want to be. Most of all our hope and prayer is that you will know how much God loves you and how precious you are in His eyes
We look forward to meeting you finally, and believe us it’s been hard for us to wait. Over the next few weeks we’ll get to know each other better, and your foster-parents and your friend Dale will be there to help us all along the way. And as much as we would like to adopt you as our daughter, we hope you would like to adopt us as your mom and dad. See you soon.
Love,
Hendrick & Angel,
Your new Mom & Dad
We wished that we could have been a couple of flies on the wall to see the reaction for ourselves, but we had to settle for an e-mail from her worker. Here's clip from that e-mail:
Jessica (who prefers to be called "Jess") went through the album with curiosity and looked at each page closely reading who each individual was. She had a smile on her face when she read that she would be a part of choosing the color for her walls and decorating her new room. As was expected Jess has some mixed emotions regarding moving, she indicated that she was scared as she really likes it at her foster-parent's, but still wanted her own family.
The photo album mentioned is one that we were asked to put together for her. In it were pictures of us, our home and our families. This gives the adoptive child an idea of what her new life will be like. Speaking of pictures we have yet to receive any yet, and we're anxiously checking our e-mail for them. I'm sorry to say that once we get them we won't be posting them on my blog, for reasons of privacy. But what we're even more anxious about is meeting Jess on Thursday... for the very first time...
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