Dear Callyrose

Dear Callyrose Melat,

I wish I could find a way to describe what it felt like to see your picture, your pensive little face, on my computer screen for the first time...with those incredible eyes of yours.  The anticipation, the butterflies in my stomach, the sheer excitement of that moment.  It was the culmination of everything - of months of paperwork and dreaming, prayers and tears, hope against hope that it would really be you who was referred to us.

What scares me is that you may never know how loved you already are...but I want to keep telling you, over and over.  It kills me...right now, you are in an orphanage, all alone, seemingly lost and yet, on the other side of the world almost, there are already so many people who love you, who pray for you, who are doing whatever they can to help us get you home.  You are going to bed tonight, in a small room somewhere, and you don't know it...but you have 3 sisters praying for you to sleep well.  You have a Daddy and a Mommy that will do anything to get to you so that they can tuck you in at night and make you feel safe. You have two sets of grandparents who are hosting yard sales and bake sales, selling their possessions, all the while proudly showing your picture off to everyone they know.  You have aunts and uncles and cousins who want to cuddle you and you already have little girl friends just waiting to have playdates.  You have a church to be a part of, neighbors to help push you on the swings.  You probably feel so unloved...and yet you are so loved.

I don't know when I will get to meet you...I don't know how it will all end up or work out...but I am overwhelmed by my love for you...and by the love of all those around me for you.  And by a God who loves us both even more.