Birth Family Letter and Album

What a difficult and beautiful opportunity we've been given, to try and communicate with our little guy's birth family via letter and photo album! How to express all of the joy, anticipation, excitement, and love you're feeling while also acknowledging the many emotions that his birth family must be feeling - loss, sorrow, grief, worry, not knowing...and how to represent the entirety of who we are as a family in the best way possible through 20 images/photos in an album our baby boy's birth family will receive...

It's been quite a task this past week. And, while we're not prepared to share our letter with you all out there (we feel that this should be seen by our little guy's birth family first, and perhaps, only), we did want to show you some of the images/photos we selected to include in this album. It's more difficult than you might think, narrowing down your existence to 20 photos in an attempt to describe the who's, what's, when's, where's, why's, and how's of your life to a family you've never met in another country. And, not just any family, but the family who has entrusted YOU with the bringing up of their precious child. WOW.

Nathan and I found ourselves thinking a lot about what we would want to know about "the other family" if (God-forbid) we ever had to hand over our children to anyone other than ourselves to raise, to love. Our conclusion: Yes, some of the "externals" are important - will they have a roof over their heads, enough food to eat, a good education, a place to attend church, access to health care? But, much more than that, it's the "internals" - the things inside the person who would be raising our children - the character of that person, whether or not that person can love our children unconditionally, what kind of advice they would give our children in a variety of life circumstances, if their faith in God is real and based on their understanding of who Jesus is, how they respond to conflict, if they can give thanks in all things, etc. And how in the world can one communicate all of those "internals" in a 1-page letter and 20-picture album?

That said, here are a number of images/photos that we selected...















And there you have it! Our attempt... :)