Writing a letter can be difficult for many people. What to say, how to say it, what impressions you’re going to make, knowing how certain things will be taken when read… it can be a daunting task.
But that’s not usually my problem. Give me a topic or reason to write to someone and I’ll have a letter written within a few minutes. I may have to edit it then, but at least I’ve got it written. Joel’s more toward the “write it right the first time” side of things, so it takes him a lot longer to write than it does me, but he often doesn’t have much editing to do when he’s done. Of course, his often sound much more polished than mine, too.
And now I’m stuck in that world – the world of not knowing what to say or how to say it and being afraid that something won’t be understood or taken the way I mean it. It’s one thing to write to people you know or to write a letter knowing it’s going to a specific person in the government (immigration official, for example) or a company, but it’s another thing entirely realizing that your letter is going to someone you really don’t know yet and who will get a very important first impression from what you put into those pages.
In short, I want to write a letter to the girls we’re trying to adopt.
I don’t know that I would be considering this under normal circumstances. I remember that last time we were encouraged not to write a whole lot with the pictures that we sent because anything we wrote would either have to be translated or not understood at all. I stuck to writing brief captions under the pictures including the names of the family members in them and such, but I didn’t write much more than that. This time is different, though. The older girl we’re adopting already knows English enough to do her video interview without an interpreter. If she can understand and speak it that well, I’m guessing she’d probably understand written English fairly well, too. Knowing this, I feel like I’d be remiss to not give them a chance to get to know us as early as possible. It seems like that could really help the transition for them.
But what do you write to a young teenager and her elementary age sister who are, hopefully, going to be part of your family soon… but who have never heard of you before. Talk about nerve wracking.
I considered writing an in-depth letter about all of us, our likes and dislikes, our personalities, etc., but I’m afraid that might be a tad overwhelming. The older girl may read English, but I don’t want to wear her out with my first letter. At this point, I think I’m going to create a document with pictures that basically have extended captions. I can put a separate picture of each family member and write their names and just a few lines about them. I can include a picture of our house and write a few lines about where we live. It’ll be hard to stick to just a few lines about each thing, but that’s probably better than sending them a long epistle before they’ve had a chance to get used to the idea of us being their future family.
One thing I’m still wrestling with is whether or not to include our contact information when I send it. I’d really like to, because I’d love to have a chance to get a letter back from them. I know, though, that our agency generally discourages sharing personal contact information with any family members remaining in Ethiopia. I’m still trying to decide on that one, and I may not make a final decision until right before I print out the letter. Joel suggested that we could mention in the letter that they could send something back through the agency, so maybe that’s a possibility. We’ll see.
In any case, this will be one letter that will be perhaps a little more thought through than my usual ramblings.