Photo Album

So, we mailed off the photo album to Mei today.

A new friend who is Chinese went over my translations (from the Internet) with a fine toothed comb and made sure everything I said was appropriate/correct. In the process she taught me loads about Chinese culture. For instance, it is proper for Chinese girls to call their older brothers "Big Brother" instead of by their name. She said that shows them much respect. Interesting.

I thought creating this album was going to be an emotional process but it wasn't. I kept picturing my niece (who is 4 months younger then Mei) receiving the pictures and I know all she'd want to do would be to eat them...probably. Regardless, Jorie and I had fun covering the book with stickers. (I have hope that if Mei doesn't care about the pictures then at least she'd have fun looking through the album to find the stickers)

The only picture that brought some emotion to me was Jorie's picture. I looked at it and prayed that Mei would come home with a connection already in her heart for her older sister. There is no one more excited about this adoption then Jorie. I hope that Mei sees that in Jorie's face.

You know, you always wonder if this little album will even make it to Mei. I don't know. I hope it does. Our agency said we couldn't send anything else. That's fine with me just because I am such a skeptic about if it would even arrive. Anyway, I will be praying over this album. I will pray that it, in some way, starts helping Mei and her caregiver to prepare for the transition that awaits them. As they look at our pictures and read the words that I wrote, I hope they will both start to see how much LOVE awaits little Mei and that that will be a comfort to them both.