How...

How do you write a letter to a little boy in a country half a world a way in a language you cannot speak let alone write? How do you send hope and promise and love through the mail?
Every Monday (except the weeks I've called) I send my Alex a letter. I started sending letters before he left so he would have a letter soon after he got back.
So, this week is about my 14th weekly letter (This total is not the total amount of letters, as many weeks I have written two or three letters but how many Monday's I've sent them off.)
Tonight, I have writers block. I just don't have any news or exciting things to tell him. Our papers are being submitted on Wednesday but he knows this and by the time my letter gets there (takes about two weeks) it will be old news anyway. So nothing to write about in the way of how the adoptions going.
He knows about the girls plays, basketball season, Rylee's birthday, and I guess it's just that bleak boring time of year when not a whole lot is going on. Or more so that bleak, boring time of the adoption process when all we're doing is waiting.
I do translate my letters back into English to make sure I haven't said something so awful or bizarre that he'll question his decision to join our family. I find that most my heart warming letters translate into weird sentences that make even I question my sanity. So what to write...
During our phone call last week James asked him how things were in the Ukraine. His response was "Normal". So despite my many, many questions I've asked through letters about him, life there, his thoughts, his dreams and ideas, what answers I do get back are vague and at the most like his answer to James, "Normal".
Don't get me wrong, I don't blame Lex. I mean our conversations on the phone cannot be easy. I can hear people in the background, phones ringing and I picture him standing with his back to the bustle of people trying to listen to me, then the translator, then answer and wait for his words to be translated back to me. Our conversations are awkward at best.
Last week, when I'm sure he was crying on the phone, had to be hard for him with all those people around and I'm sure part of his emotion was due to the fact he probably thought we'd forgotten him, as it took six days to get through from the date I told him I'd call. So it's not like I expect him to go on and on and have a stimulating two way conversation.
His letters (the two I've had in almost three months) are somewhat the same, sweet and short and leave little left to build a continuing conversation on. I've asked him all sorts of questions in my letters that go unanswered. (Literally unanswered as I haven't had a letter since the first of December?)
And so I sit before my computer on Sunday night, trying to dig deep for words of encouragement that will lift his spirits, give him hope and courage and convey how much we love and miss him.
I asked the kids if they'd like to write a letter and Kambree said it best, "I just keep saying the same things. I don't know what else to say."
I've resorted to sending a page of pictures of what we've been doing that week, but then I wonder if that's worse as it shows the fun things we're doing and the life we have here. Something I know he so desperately wants to be a part of.
Saying "We miss you." in letters translates into "We lack". Oh, that's sweet. We lack. "We really miss you." translates into "We want you." Which is true but not exactly what I'm trying to say. See my dilemma?
Someday when he's been here for awhile, settled in and speaking English, I think it will be interesting to get his take on this. I'm going to ask him about my letters. Did they confuse him? Did he wonder what kind of crazy mother I might be? Did they make him smile? Did he share them with his friends and laugh at my crazy sentences?
I do hope that somehow he can feel the spirit and love that I write these letters with and despite the crude translation, he feels loved, missed and knows that "we wanted" him.