Last evening I fired off an urgent e-mail to Michiganders who were previously involved with the Lighthouse Project, pleading for host families. Early this afternoon, having just hung up with a lady destined to be Maya’s host mom, my quest to find Valentina’s family ended sadly when my next caller was the Lighthouse Project director. Her news was discouraging: Valentina’s orphanage is quarantined, precluding her from traveling next week to Michigan. We’re now reduced to an eleventh-hour attempt to find her parents on a July 3-13 Rolla, Missouri, trip that I am only tangentially involved with. Timing leaves no margin for error; without an adoptive family in Missouri, Valentina will live out her days, however many they’ll be, in Russia somewhere, with no one who cares.
On the cusp of finding a family in Michigan, Valentina instead is victimized by orphanage quarantine, keeping her “home”. Worse is the worry her hope has been quarantined, too.
