A gift from my Secret Pal

For the last eight months we have been sending secret pal gifts to Cathy & Cecil. Every month, we set out on a shopping expedition to find the perfect gift to send. Shopping for a secret pal is no easy task. At the beginning you are given a snapshot of your secret pals. From the outset we could see how lucky we were to have been matched with them both. It was a truly amazing experience. Mike & I had so much fun putting the gifts together and even more fun waiting to see their reactions.

Although every gift was special there was one gift that really stood out. Every month during the exchange we had a theme. One of the themes was "Welcome to America". I had recently joined the "100" Good Wishes Quilt Yahoo Group and had seen a member post requesting squares & wishes for her secret pal. I thought to myself what a great idea! I decided to put a little twist on it by collecting them myself. I started in Februrary and by the beginning of June, I had over seventy squares & wishes. I received such an overwhelming response from families over the world. Not only did they want to swap, some even went out of their way to address the wishes to Cathy & Cecil's future daughter "Camie-Ann". Working with Mike we created a memory book full of all the wishes.

We waited full of anticipation for July to arrive!

In July, we sent out our gift. It was so emotional. I remember reading our wish and note that we sent thinking Wow! All of these families were a part of our extended adoption community. They didn't know me, they didn't know them, but yet we were all connected. We all wanted the same thing.

To welcome our children home, to let them all know they were loved before they arrived. This knowledge was so overwhelming. The experience was priceless.

Their

response

(July 6, 2006) brought tears to my eyes.

We sent our last gift out in October. We waited to see their response.

And then we got nervous.

We kept checking the blog. Checking...Checking...

We worried that the gift had not made it there....

Our poor secret pal coordinator did her best to keep us calm...

This week we received our response....

Mike at first did not realize who it was from.

I was upstairs on the computer when he called up. "Our secret pal" gift has arrived.
I ran downstairs as I always do when a gift arrives and immediately saw my secret pal's names.

Enclosed in the box was a card. The card was handcrafted with bamboo and thank you written in Chinese. As I started to read the card, I felt the tears start. It was so beautifully written. Cathy mentioned that she had a hard time reading our last letter and that she also had tears in her eyes.

I understood why.

I'm not good at goodbyes.

Enclosed were beautifully wrapped gifts stamped with the "Year of the Dog" and lanterns. We loved each and every gift! The outfit is absolutely adorable! The Chinese Lullabye CD will be opened tommorow and I can't wait to listen to it. Last but not least was a handcrafted photo album that awaits pictures of our little one. That gift touched my heart the most because I know just how much time and effort must have gone into creating it:)

We can't thank them enough!

((HUGS)) to you both!