Our Letter to the Board of the Orphanage

One of the things we will submit along with our dossier is a letter to the board of our orphanage. (We've been calling it "our orphanage" all this time, even though it isn't at all ours. But that shows you how attached we already are to these people and what they are doing for us.) It was a really hard letter to write, because these are the people that will change our lives forever. It's amazing. We are so excited that we almost felt compelled to start the letter with, "We're your number one fans! Really! We totally dig people who help give babies homes. Baby-home-givers are our favorite kinds of people ever!" But we didn't do that.

Dear Board of Toukoul,

We want to express our sincere gratitude to you for taking a moment to read this letter. We know that you have the power to change our lives, and we are deeply indebted to you for this. It is difficult to put our thoughts and feelings into words as we embark on this amazing journey to become a family, but we wanted to tell you more about ourselves and how we came to this point in our lives.

We met for the first time when we were both asked to participate in a mutual friend’s wedding. The bride was certain we would make a perfect match and encouraged us to date, but we lived in different parts of the country at that time, so after our friend’s wedding we went our separate ways: Xander to Pennsylvania and Alana to Georgia. Four years later, we met again in Athens, Georgia at a dinner hosted by the same friend. We fell in love almost immediately and knew we wanted to be together forever. We were engaged to be married just a few months later. We have been married for almost six years, and we are looking forward to many wonderful years to come. Our marriage is truly the biggest blessing in our lives, and we draw strength from our relationship on a daily basis.

We were interested in adoption from very early on in our relationship. As we became closer in our marriage, we moved closer to the idea of starting a family. We are very excited about becoming parents. We cannot wait to have children with whom to share laughter, tears, hugs, stories, meals, and memories. Although we do not know what our children will look like, how old they will be, what their names are, or what their personalities are like, we do know one thing: we already love them. They already occupy a very large place in our hearts, and we cannot wait to meet them. We are completely committed to doing everything we can to make sure our children grow up to be happy, healthy, educated, and caring citizens of the global community of which we are all a part.

Our interest in adopting from Africa began when our cousin moved to Benin to work as a member of the Peace Corps. Her stories about the wonderful people she was meeting and the beautiful country she lived in inspired us to learn more about Africa. A work colleague was in the process of adopting from Ethiopia at the time, and as we read about her experience and learned more about this marvelous country, we realized this was a perfect match for us. There are places we feel inspired by and called to in our lives. Scotland, where we were married, has been one such place. Georgia, where we met and Alana grew up, has been an important part of our lives as well. New York, where we spent the first five years of our marriage, is another treasured place. And Ethiopia, with its mix of beauty, culture, and history, is another, and we are very much looking forward to making it part of our lives. Even if we were not adopting, we believe that our visit to Ethiopia would make it part of our hearts forever. We are all connected, and it is impossible for us to envelop ourselves in another place without it becoming a part of who we are.

We would like to adopt a boy and a girl under twelve months, including children who are related, unrelated, or twins. We know there are many older children waiting to be adopted; however, as first-time parents, we feel best prepared to care for infants.

Once again, our sincere thanks to you for taking the time to read this letter and for considering us to become guardians of two of Ethiopia’s precious children. We hope to meet you and thank you in person for everything you do to improve the lives of people by creating families. We will be eternally grateful to you for this marvelous act.

Respectfully yours,

Alexander and Alana Cole-Faber