Sasha's Dream, My Dream

Sasha, 4, in September 2011

Sasha barely mustered a smile the first time I saw her, even with Love’s gentle urging.  The four-year-old’s mother recently died, and she was struggling with her new orphanage life.  But as she stoically answered our Russian adoption coordinator’s questions, the poise of a tyke so little and lonely was equal parts unexpected and unmistakable.

Young girls are highly prized by adoptive families, yet seven months after meeting Love, Sasha still waits to be chosen.  Diagnosed with hepatitis C, a chronic and currently incurable illness of variable course and prognosis, the risks and the unknowns have been sufficient to leave this precious girl languishing motherless in an orphanage far longer than her age suggests would be necessary.

So she joined our Lighthouse Project trip to her region in April.  The chaperone, Svetlana, a soft-spoken caretaker from Sasha’s orphanage, kept the small girls close.  Sasha didn’t know me, and maintained a healthy distance as I watched her settle into the room she and Svetlana shared.  While the chaperone tended another child, Sasha shed her coat and hat, and began combing her hair. Tongue outside her mouth in focused concentration, every task was dispatched as an urgent mission. 

Sasha in her thinking pose

Our second day with the kids, I spoke to those without waiting families.  Never having interviewed orphans before, I fretted about balancing my need to glean compelling writing material with the kids’ need for sensitivity regarding the traumas of their pasts.  Sasha was an early interviewee, and my inexperience paired with her reserve squeezed a prayer from me as she shuffled into my room clad only in shirt, tights, and sandals.  She sat where I pointed, and nodded solemnly when I explained my hope of knowing her better.  Promising her a Pixy Stix afterward, I asked her to answer my questions as best she could.

Sasha in the young orphan's "uniform"
she wore for her interview with me

Sasha’s definite responses reflected her determined approach to everything.  She liked the orphanage which once had grieved her, extolling their toys, cars, and a dog named Susha.  As she praised the kindness of caretakers like Svetlana, I was gratified to know she felt at peace there now.  Near the end of our session, I kicked myself when I let slip a query about what she wanted to be when she grew up, an idiotic question for one so young.  But she had an answer, one requiring no translation: “Mama.”   She would be a good mother she said, walking and playing with her children. Delving into the crannies of her mind to recall what her own mother had done for her before she died, Sasha added she would wipe dust from the shelves.  I was deeply touched that one so prematurely bereft of her mother would already aspire to nurture children herself one day.

I asked Svetlana’s opinion later.  She laughed as she described Sasha as “serious and responsible,” remembering that whenever instructed to commit a poem to memory, she fully engaged the assignment.  When it was her turn to set the table for her group, she would don the required uniform as if her job were a weighty matter. Eyewitness to those traits all week, I was smitten with the little girl. 

Sasha swimming with the help of kind Denis, who along
with his three siblings now has a family of his own

Once during our daily swim, an older boy thoughtfully assisted Sasha in the pool; watching them interact without any direction from Svetlana was heartwarming.  After swimming, Sasha could easily dress herself, but I hated that she needed to, so I started helping her.  She cooperated with every request, though my technique was decidedly American.  As I dried her hair with a blow dryer, running my fingers through the strands, she melted at being cared for.  The dichotomy between her necessity-birthed ability to fend for herself and her God-given desire to be mothered was striking, and most moving.

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Sasha's smile for me

The last day of our visit, I still needed photos of Sasha for our program, so I asked her to come with me.  She thrust her hand in mine, a five-fingered gift of trust, and we walked together to my photo “studio.” There, she smiled for me.

While Sasha dreams of being a mother someday, at four she needs a mother herself, one whose mission is to face with her the unknowns of a difficult diagnosis, and to shepherd her through life's other trials and triumphs.   It would be a tragedy if Sasha’s gauzy understanding of “mama” ended at the dusting of shelves or playing and walking. 

So my dream is that she’ll learn soon of the comfort of a mother there to guide her and treasure her always.

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Donate Now to Help Sasha Find Her Family

If you would like to make a 100% tax-deductible contribution to a fund designated to benefit Sasha's adoption, it could help her find a family, and then get home sooner.  Please note that if Sasha's future adoptive family does not need assistance, or if Sasha enters foster care in Russia or elsewhere, any donations to this fund will benefit the adoption of another needy Lighthouse Project child.  If you have questions, please call (616) 245-3216, or e-mail me a becky@lhproject.com.  Thank you for your compassion and generosity!

Going To Be Extraordinary

Tim dislikes his wheelchair and seldom uses it, so it’s an ironic first impression I have of the 12-year-old being wheeled onto the YMCA stage to present a monologue he wrote himself. My friend Hope, director of the Lighthouse Project, ages ago lost track of exactly how many adoptions she’s done, though she pins the number at over 1,000. And after devoting her entire adult life to the work, this boy, a triple congenital amputee, has stolen her heart more than any other child she’s helped. 

She’d mentioned Tim before, only a snippet here or there, so it was a surprise a few days ago when she entreated me to attend a play of his in Chicago.  It’s an inconvenient 200 miles southwest on a weekend that already has me traveling north to a four-hour board meeting Saturday morning, then to a Sunday morning church adoption fair.  But before I could wield this iron-clad excuse, she reminded me that Tim was her most special adoption, ever. Hope always gives, and I’d yearned to reciprocate, but never had an inkling how.  So to honor her commitment to the orphans of Russia, not least of whom were my own two kids, I acquiesced and agreed to go with my family.

On the day of the play, I rush home from a most wearisome meeting. My husband and kids are waiting at the door, and they leap into the van without my ever shutting it off.  If we aren’t ensnarled in traffic, we should make the play, Relentless Is My Middle Name, with a half hour wiggle room. I don’t fritter away a second of the journey, finishing a photo sheet of kids seeking their families on our next Lighthouse Project trip, and speaking with several hosts and Hope, who’s worried we’ll be late.

Traffic parts like the Red Sea though, and we arrive even before the doors open.  Tim begins his production draped in black cloth, which is theatrically removed.  Lifted onto a podium, he recounts the story of his birth in Ukraine, adoption at age three from Russia, and life with his family as one of eleven children. His poise, humor, and transparency are mesmerizing, and make seeing him as a completely normal boy, just with one arm, effortless.

His biological mother was exposed to radiation near Chernobyl, he tells us. Though many children from the area suffer anomalies, she was young, and unprepared to parent him. Somehow, Tim left Ukraine and ended up in a baby house north of Moscow. Besides life, her only gift to him before relinquishing him to the orphanage was his name, meaning iron.

While his orphanage was filled with kids with special needs, there was nothing else unusual about the institution where Hope first met Tim in 1999.  Drawn to his intelligent eyes, she recalls him as a sensitive boy. Deeply moved by his sadness, and at his crying when she took pictures and video, she used extra care to make them perfect. Afterward, she found excuses to visit him during frequent trips to deliver candy and humanitarian aid. Wanting him to feel loved, she would hold him and feed him cookies. 

Our translator Faith, with Tim at home

The orphanage director was a lady who genuinely cared; Hope judged her one of the best she ever encountered in visits to hundreds of orphanages. Other kids there had been adopted previously, but the director believed such a happy outcome impossible for Tim. Hope, undeterred, wrote his profile, and forwarded the photos and video to the American agency employing her. A social worker posted the information on the International Child Amputee Network, an Internet support group for families of young amputees. In August 1999 a friend sent Virginia Monroe, an Illinois mom, Tim’s picture from the website. Virginia connected with the little boy instantaneously, and she made a decision, legendary within her family, to adopt him as quickly as possible. The agency sent Virginia the video Hope had filmed, but noting Tim’s lack of expression, cautioned her against adopting him. A social worker dissented. “He’ll be fine,” she soothed, as Virginia made plans to visit.  Hope was thrilled.

At nearly three years of age, Tim had never spoken. Only three weeks after viewing his photo, Virginia met him in the baby house, where he was clutching a piece of bread. He refused eye contact, so she sang, made fish faces, and carried him all day. At a meeting that afternoon, the director wailed dramatically, “What will become of him? He’ll never have a normal life. It’s such a tragedy!”
 
“Who are you talking about?” Virginia demanded, as Tim laughed. Her family would welcome him, just as soon as they could complete the paperwork. While the Monroes focused on the adoption from home, Virginia sent Hope’s friend to feed Tim fruit every week, as supplement to his typical oatmeal and water diet at the orphanage, and to practice different skills with him.

When Virginia and her husband returned in February 2000, Tim again resisted eye contact. But so completely did they trust their social worker’s judgment that they never feared adopting. The workers cried tears of joy for Tim as he left; when he was put into the car, his eyes began sparkling, he patted Mr. Monroe’s back, and he was born a new boy. In just the few days before his homecoming, he learned 300 words of English, and started chattering incessantly. Within a few months, he was a blur of motion.  Nearly ten years later, the talking and activity have yet to subside; his sister claims anyone who talks as much as he does must have a purpose.

In Relentless, Tim notes children with challenges like his were once consigned to circus freak shows. Lamenting that people now turn away from those with disabilities, he welcomes questions from those he meets, hoping they’ll become more comfortable around kids with special needs. He references other amputees, and their contributions to society. “With a little creativity, we can manage anything!” he bubbles. 

After his performance, I interview Tim at a reception. His maturity, insight, and personality are captivating. As the most quotable tween I’ve ever met, I tell him he’s articulate. “Thank you,” he beams, “but I feel like a normal kid!” At school, he is treated like everyone else, which he appreciates. Without a hint of malice, he calls his teachers “tough old broads” who don’t feel sorry for him or let him charm them. I chuckle; it’s a mature sentiment, but he’s naïve if he thinks no one is charmed.

He finds friends quickly; with his personality and the bevy of kids mobbing him, I have little reason to doubt. He likes acting, hanging out, using the computer, and playing games. His best friend has muscular dystrophy, but Tim says he’s friends with anyone who is willing. Having had plenteous opportunities to interact with disabled kids, he’s found that they want normal lives and don’t want to be considered freaks. “That gets my heart,” he adds soulfully. He doesn’t see himself as truly different, despite common questions from other kids about where his arm and legs are.

His mom supports him as he becomes who he’s meant to be. She encouraged him to act, and he confides he wouldn’t have done it without her. She doesn’t want him letting people wait on him; sometimes, when she asks his help in getting things, he laughingly scolds, “Mom, I can’t reach.”

“Oh, yeah,” she’ll remember.

Of his siblings, eight were adopted from various countries. There’s also Akiki, an Abyssinian he calls “a magnificent cat. All of our family have something wrong,” he says, explaining even the cat was abandoned in an apartment without food or water when they rescued him. “I look out for my family, and I love them a lot,” he adds with a smile.

Tim wants to visit Russia, though he has no desire to stay there. He isn’t angry with his birth mother, accepting she was scared when she first saw him.  But he would not live with her, even if she offered, since “I am just so happy with my family. It’s a joy!”

I asked if he ever wished for legs and another arm. “I never wished that,” he says philosophically. “I would not be who I am with legs. I like to be me. It turns out you don’t need legs to survive. I don’t regret being born without legs.”

Tim's hero Nick Vujicic

Tim has role models, guys whose differences in limb are less notable than the differences they make in life. “I want to be like Nick Vujicic, who carries a message.  My heroes are Nick Vujicic and Kyle Maynard… I would like to tell them how much I admire people who do what they do and don’t give up. If I met them, which I probably will, words will just be flowing out of my mouth!”

Virginia tells me later she’s never seen Tim depressed about his disabilities. As matriarch of a large and diverse family, she doesn’t pay any attention to people’s stares. “You have to get comfortable with being conspicuous. Confront your self-consciousness and walk through it. You have to develop a sense of humor,” she says. For families new to the journey, she counsels being natural.  Tim calls it being “oblivious,” which he says proudly, like it’s a compliment.

It never occurred to Virginia to say no to Tim’s adoption. “When God gives an assignment, when you’re called to do something, you have to do it. You’re not in charge of the outcome. Amazing things happen all the time.” We end up talking so long that the janitor asks us to shut off the lights at the Y when we leave. I have never met such a family before, and I can’t help but adore them for their faith, humor, and honesty. Meeting them was such a worthwhile reward for our four-hour drive here, and the four-hour return trip ahead. It’s a cinch to see why Hope reveres this as a “very, very special adoption.”

Tim aspires to a career in theater, to have a wife and kids, and of going to Russia, and all over the world, to help adopted kids. I ask what he would do for them. “I want them to have food, clothes, and things that belong to them. A family. That’s what I’d like to give them. Some kids are going to be extraordinary when they come and get families!”

This very extraordinary kid, Tim “Relentless” Monroe, is proof positive of that.

One Small Child

While much of the Christian world is commemorating the birth of a baby adopted by His earthly father 2,000 years ago, the Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas January 7. For most Russians, today is like any other, but for a nine-year-old boy from a forsaken hamlet, this December 25 will be one to treasure always.

An orphan most of his life, two years ago, Yuri, then seven, looked out his orphanage window and recognized a family he had met on a Lighthouse Project trip to Wisconsin. Elated they had come for him, he bounded from the building, leaped into their arms―and found they were there for another child. Devastated by his despondency, our entire program intensified efforts to find his family. Subsequently, he was scheduled for three different trips, though illness always precluded his travel. When an orphanage director’s fiat later prohibited Yuri, an insulin-dependent diabetic, from traveling again, advocating for him became more rigorous, since any family would now need to visit him in the motherland, rather than the States. After impassioned conversations with scores of families, one finally promised to adopt him, but abandoned the process after several months.

One year later, in desperation, I wrote about Yuri in this forum (Waiting Heart, Wrong Arms, 5/8/09). In June, Aaron and Robyn, adopting a child from my January 2009 Tulsa trip, read the post. In faith, recognizing him as their son, they visited him in Russia. On their first morning together, an awakening Yuri opened his eyes cautiously, fearing he had sabotaged a magnificent dream. But seeing Robyn’s smile, he beamed, chirped “Mama!” and stretched out his arms for a hug.

It was real. He had a family.

While Yuri had waited much longer, my role as matchmaker was two years coming, and wholly satisfying. A much-loved aunt, to whom my mom donated a kidney, is a lifelong diabetic, so I felt a deep connection though I had never met him. In October, when I visited his orphanage, Yuri was the child I most hoped to see; while I am not especially maudlin, I brushed away tears as Faith introduced me as a friend of his family-to-be. Gifted a shy smile by this boy we’d hoped to help forever, it was my most gratifying Lighthouse moment.

Celebrating the birth of another adoptee this day, our presents recall that first Christmas when the greatest gift was given. Early this morning, half a world away, another gift was lovingly bestowed and joyously accepted, mirroring God’s own compassion. While we were still sleeping, Aaron and Robyn became Yuri’s parents in a Russian courtroom. His wait over, his leap into the wrong arms history, his life in a family just beginning, a world of promise awaits this one small child.

Yuri, it’s real. You have a family. Merry Christmas!

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Widows and Orphans

Having coordinated ten Lighthouse Project trips, I’ve heard every excuse in the book for not hosting. Some reasons are legitimate, some less so. A caller once claimed she couldn’t host because the trip was coming up too soon. Next time she had a few months’ notice, but she couldn’t plan that far ahead. I tire of the charade; sometimes I wish people would just say they’re not interested.

Copious notes taken during the course of myriad phone conversations show I can expect to speak with ten callers to come up with one host family. While I try not to judge callers’ decisions, it appears many people choose not to host when they reasonably could. Others can reasonably host, and do. But my favorite callers have good reasons not to host, and choose to anyway. They understand they can make a difference in the life of a child, and whatever legitimate excuse they might have voiced is silenced by this more substantial realization.

Justine called me for the first time one morning when I was in Missouri with the Lighthouse Project. Running late for Vacation Bible School, I begged out, asking if I could call her later in the day when I had time to do the conversation justice. She agreed, but I fretted all day that her first impression of my availability might discourage her from hosting. Back in my hotel room that evening, we spoke. As she shared her story, I was relieved to find it would take more than a conversation deferred to discourage her.

Justine had always wanted to adopt. She and her husband discussed it, opting to pursue it after they’d had biological children. Son Alden arrived. Two and a half years later she was eight months along in a pregnancy when her husband fell ill; one day later, he died of complications related to diabetes. Justine was left to deliver daughter Lilly alone.

She grieved, but found the hardest part was the demise of her dream of a large family. Over time, she began researching adoption online. Hong Kong stood out based on cost and openness to single mothers, but almost all available children had moderate to severe special needs. Justine decided to wait, believing Hong Kong was not in her future. She bought a house, her parents bought next door, and she began home schooling. Life was good again; she was content and hoping for no changes.

But two years ago, she began a word study of every use of “widow” in the Bible. As the months passed, she handwrote most Biblical references to the subject. God’s concern for widows clarified, she discovered that in almost every passage, orphans, too, received specific mention as recipients of God’s special compassion. Within a year, God rekindled her desire to adopt; Hong Kong was her clear directive. As she shared her plan with her children, family, and friends, she found unanimous support.

Beginning her home study, she hoped to adopt a child between the ages of Alden, now 9, and Lilly, now 6. Her agency balked at her plan to adopt out of birth order, preferring that she make her new child the youngest. Justine was open to physical needs like blindness or cerebral palsy; Down syndrome was on the list of special needs she did not expect to consider. But scanning a list of Hong Kong’s waiting children, an eight-year-old boy with Down syndrome tugged at her heart. Already traveling a circuitous path, both Justine and her agency altered course. The agency allowed her to sandwich a child between her two biological children, and Justine realized the little boy she’d seen with Down syndrome was her son. Wondering why such a precious soul waited alone over eight years, she concluded he was “just reserved for our family.”

In November 2008, Justine heard about the Lighthouse Project trip through a friend’s blog. She hoped to host next time in Tulsa, but we were already in town for the January 2009 trip before she was aware of it. When she got word that we’d be returning to Tulsa a third time, her initial reaction was dismay since she obviously couldn’t host in the middle of her adoption. She might need for her own adoption the $1000 it cost to host a child. Worse, if she hosted, she’d fall in love, want to adopt, and be unable due to Hong Kong law prohibiting concurrent adoptions through other sources. God reminded her she had $1076 in a memorial fund in her husband’s name, and brought conviction that her reason not to host was flimsy. Would she let a child stay in a dismal orphanage with a hopeless future because she might be hurt if she opened her heart? She had the money, and she had the time. The only issue was fear of emotional injury. All the while, God was asking, “How selfish can you be?”

Not very, as it turns out. Justine did call as I flew out the Missouri door toward VBS, and she was still polite when I finally called her back over twelve hours later. When she told me about her special needs adoption, needing to fund her own process, single parenthood, and busyness home schooling, I knew her excuse for not hosting would be more watertight than most. Remarkably, after listening to all the obstacles and mentally rehearsing my speech for when she would end, “God bless you, but I can’t host,” those words never came. Instead, she matter-of-factly told me her husband’s memorial fund had waited for just such a time, she planned to host, and to send her the details. Justine had enough potential excuses to fuel several of my callers who decline to open their homes; she didn’t use even one, choosing to give a little of herself to give a second child a chance at a future. “I’m just going to follow God’s leading,” she declared.

As I struggle to find hosts for kids for whom precious little hope exists outside traveling on such a trip, Justine sends out e-mails to her friends, asking them to consider hosting a child alongside her. She lamented tonight that she hadn’t yet found anyone. Meanwhile, her “yes” is far more moral support for this discouraged coordinator than all the “God bless you”s with which I’ve ever been rejected while promoting the Lighthouse Project.

Oh, that enough families would follow God’s leading so that none of our sixteen Lighthouse Project kids have to stay behind in Russia, staring down hopelessness! God can bless, and I trust He will, but it happens through people who, like Justine, put others before themselves to be part of that blessing.

"He Just Won Our Hearts"

Eyes brimming with tears, Egor waited alone at the St. Louis airport. Each of the other orphans in his group had a family. Where was his? The translator tried consoling him, reminding him the plane had arrived 30 minutes ahead of schedule and his family was driving from far away.

On time but for the plane’s early arrival, Egor’s family had fears of their own. They’d felt God’s Spirit moving when they first saw Egor’s photo on this humble blog. (Unmasked, 4/22/09) Everything pointed exactly to him, yet questions of their adequacy gnawed. They weren’t sure they could afford Russian adoption. Maybe people would stare.

Mutually allaying their concerns, the van continued toward the airport, and Egor tried to believe that someone who’d treasure him was coming. The moment they finally saw each other, hope, trust, and love replaced the fear. Egor had wished for a mama and papa in his orphanage interview a few months before, and he’d soon find they’d been worth the wait. The family would make their own discovery: a son and brother whom, until recently, they’d not known they were missing. (Eager, 5/28/09)

Egor’s family calls Michigan home. With only a few weeks’ notice, their hearts adopted Egor and they planned their trek to Missouri. They expected to love Egor, to make him their son.

The depth of that love surprised them.

From the first meeting on, Egor conquered his fears. Day two, getting into a go-cart, he shook visibly. The car rocketed off when he was too aggressive with the accelerator; chastened, he drove the first lap Buick-tentatively. Emboldened once around, he then drove as maniacally as the rest of the kids. It made an impression: asked at the evening program what his favorite activities had been, he gave the go-carts a serious “thumbs up.”

His family reveled in the special relationship he developed with each of them. He watched baseball nightly with his soon-to-be older brother. While he didn’t really understand the game, he knew enough to cheer whenever Chandler did. Not seeing a reason to wait until his adoption is finalized, he playfully teased his future sisters, demonstrating a sense of humor and personality in spades. He started pillow fights with Arianna. Older brother Riley took seriously his self-appointed role as Egor’s protector, and sang a song in his honor at the evening program. Egor had a kind and generous spirit, too. Gum is a prized possession amongst all Russian orphans. When the baby of the family asked Egor for his penultimate piece of gum, he didn’t hesitate. Two other sisters saw his largesse and asked for the last piece. Egor eyed the two of them, then tore the remaining stick in half and gave each a piece, leaving none for himself. He proved a quick study in chivalry. Seeing his new dad opening doors for his new mom, and not wanting to be outdone, Egor started opening and closing the car door for her. When Egor gallantly tried to open the doors at all the stores they went to, it hardly mattered to his mom that he frequently wasn’t strong enough, and that she had to help him anyway.

In the ten days they spent together before Egor’s return to Russia, he smiled perpetually. Nobody stared, except a few small children. Almost all the comments were positive, focusing on how cute Egor’s smile and enthusiasm were. He flexibly went along with whatever they planned. He had fun and instigated it. He sought help from his family; that they might let him down rightfully never occurred to him. Miracles happened.

Two dear and saintly ladies adopted the family during the week. At a sweetly informal ice cream sundae party Egor’s family hosted for them in the hotel lobby, the ladies ate up the family’s story, encouraging them to follow God’s direction. At the end, each pressed a check into a Michigan hand to help them do so. Their message was a clarion call: you are sufficient for this!

On the way to Missouri, Egor’s family had expected to be obedient to God no matter what. Having met him, their act of obedience was transformed into an act of love when Egor won their hearts. The day after they arrived home in Michigan, his mom was feverishly filling out adoption paperwork, explaining, “We love this kid. We want him, and we want him now!”

Their last full day together, Egor’s family visited a cave. The floor was slippery, and he was afraid. As he grasped his long-awaited mama’s hand and clutched it until they were back in the light, she imagined the times in the future when Egor will face frightening situations. He’ll have to trustingly hold their hands. He’ll find they’ll be there for him, helping him along, when he wonders if he can make it. Likewise, they will hold their Father’s hand. Their Father will be there, too, guiding them along, when they’re not sure they can make it. He’s already led them this far, to a little orphaned Russian boy whose most wondrous wish at last is coming true.

Little Family

Many circumstances confer on orphans a “special needs” moniker. If older age, developmental delay, physical need, or being part of a sibling group make finding the right family more challenging and success more rewarding, imagine the emotional reward that would accompany finding a mom and dad with room in their hearts and home for five!

Our Lighthouse Project translator told me last week of Artemiy, 9; Ruslan, 8; Ekaterina, 7; Alla, 4; and Oksana, 3, five brothers and sisters who await adoption, hopefully together. While the Russian government is generally loath to split up families, the translator postulated an exception might be made here. It is unusual for children under the age of five to live in the same orphanage as older children, but in this small orphanage in small town northern Russia, all five kids are together. Since they know and care for each other, it seems all the more heartless to acquiesce to such a placement strategy.

As if five children seeking one family were not a tall enough order, another issue conspires to compound the challenge. Ideally, interested families would have a completed home study in hand, along with USCIS approval to adopt internationally from Russia. Time is of the essence; the longer the children must wait for their adoptive family, the greater the risk they might be separated forever by the Russian foster care system.

While it strains credulity to believe a family wanting quintuplets both exists and reads this tiny blog, waving the white flag without even an attempt at locating that family is repellent to me.

Eager

A family in Michigan can’t stop thinking about Egor; can’t stop praying for him, either. When seeking updates on my blog for another Lighthouse child, an incredible mom stumbled across my post about this extra-special boy, (Unmasked, 4/22/09). Kind-hearted souls have seen him, expressing sympathy for his plight, but her maternal eyes saw more: her son, waiting hopefully in his orphanage for an emergency dose of compassion. Six brothers and sisters love him already; Mom and Dad think he’s precious, just as he is. Eagerly anticipating hosting him on the July Missouri Lighthouse Project trip, they especially hunger to get him home forever to share the love and attention he starves for now.

It’s rare a family combines both willingness to adopt an older child and ability to pay without help. I’ve lost count of the number of potential adoptive families with whom I’ve spoken, and have finally concluded that while a wedding of willingness and ability are ideal, I’d take willingness over ability any day if forced to choose. I sense this more acutely in Egor’s case; if his adoption were free, would there be more aspirants? As it transpires, the cost of adoption is the only obstacle Egor’s hopeful family faces. While the director of the Lighthouse Project will complete the adoption at cost, the many other people involved still need to be paid, so even with this nod, Egor’s adoption would be cost-prohibitive for the family without external assistance.

In my most fervent prayers, I never expected a family to pick Egor so swiftly. As the perfect family awaits God’s provision, Egor waits shyly, his dream of a mama and papa within his grasp.

***

A tax-deductible account is being set up to receive contributions for Egor’s adoption. If you would like to help Egor join his family, please contact Becky via phone at (616) 245-3216 or through the Lighthouse Project .

Waiting Heart, Wrong Arms

Seven-year-old Yuri was looking out a window when he got the thrill of a lifetime. Heading toward his orphanage were people he recognized from a Lighthouse Project trip he’d been on several months previous; his family had come! Sprinting down the hallway, bounding out the door, Yuri leaped into their arms, overjoyed his wait was over.

It would have been a heartwarming scene, except for one problem: the couple had come for a different child they’d met on his trip. It was devastating for all involved. A pall was cast over the family’s joy, Yuri was crushed, and others who’d witnessed it suffered vicariously with him in his bitter disappointment. I heard the next day, and with aching heart resolved to do my part to locate parents for him who would show up soon.

Yuri, now nine, is a smart boy, as confident and articulate as his age allows. Charming with his darling smile and quick laugh, he’s still young enough that age does not pose an undue hurdle in recruiting. My notes on him are categorically succinct: “complete winner.”

Eighteen months after Yuri’s colossal letdown, I’ve mentioned him to a myriad of families. Thrice since, he’s been scheduled to travel on Lighthouse Project trips I’ve coordinated, but illness conspired to keep him home. His health is fragile, though as an insulin-dependent diabetic, his very life depends on finding a family. Russian orphanage directors have expansive latitude in deciding who can leave and who must stay, and Yuri’s cautiously felt his first trip to America was too taxing. Now, if he is ever to be adopted, a family will have to visit him in Russia first rather than meeting him in America on a Lighthouse trip.

This chafes: as a seasoned coordinator, I am more cognizant than I’d like of the difficulty finding families willing to go to Russia to meet an older child. The Lighthouse Project concept is predicated on our experience that precious few families do so. Most who adopt older international children do so having met them in America with a relatively minimal commitment prior to the meeting. Parents first meeting children in Russia are much further along in their paper chase than families meeting Lighthouse children here. Worse, Yuri’s medical issues do not engender confidence amongst would-be adoptive families who might otherwise visit him. It’s “safer,” for everyone other than Yuri, to just meet a different child here before becoming overly involved. I’ve spoken to hundreds of families in thousands of conversations, so my brain understands the logic.

Envisioning Yuri in his despondent trudge back up the steps of his orphanage, my heart is less acquiescing.

Unmasked

“Ordinary” would be a compliment for Egor, nine. The second grader plays soccer, favors macaroni for lunch, loves reading, and, like many boys his age, aspires to become a policeman. He wants friends, and is legitimately choosy when picking them.

Thoughtful and soft-spoken, Egor expressed basic desires with a gentle demeanor that sought reassurance. His interview translator asked, almost apologetically, if he had a dream, as if such a boy might not dare to dream. When Egor looked heavenward, finally answering simply, “Mama, Papa,” the entirely ordinary orphanage dreamer needed no translation for an answer that broke this heart with its simplicity.

Calling Egor an orphan, while true, falls flat in conveying the gravity of his circumstances. Born with a cleft lip and palate, he also suffers ocular, facial, and hand deformities. An American plastic surgeon opined the cleft palate could be repaired in one extensive surgery; the ocular and facial disfigurement, a likely result of a rare congenital disorder, would require more complex surgeries spanning a period of weeks to months. It would take commitment: all parenting does, but Egor’s life could be transformed by a family minded to give him a chance.

Watching him offer his measured responses, I come up with my own questions the interviewer mercifully leaves unasked: How much of his desire to protect others as a policeman is seeded in his own unmet need for protection? When Egor says he chooses as friends only good kids, elaborating he’ll not play with any boy or girl who calls him names, I mentally counter: In an orphanage with minimal adult guidance, how much does that stipulation narrow the pool of potential friend candidates?

It seems cruel that any child, faced with such challenges, should be doomed because of them to become, and remain, an orphan. A boy, whose most grandiose dream is shyly contained in the two words he would have uttered thoughtlessly under different circumstances, might never use them as more than an answer to an interviewer’s query about some unattainable wish. A little boy with perfectly average aspirations waits trapped behind a mask that might deny him their fulfillment.

I know Egor defies his physical challenges, unmasking his soul when he whispers his dream. But the silent interviewer within frets, wondering if he really thinks the translator can make this far-fetched dream of a mama and papa come true, worrying whether anyone, anywhere, will even want to make it come true.