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!

Update on Zulya and Lora

Zulya and Lora are still in need of a family.   Time is short before Zulya ages out and is unavailable for adoption.  My hope is to have her travel on our June 12-18 trip to Moscow, host or no host.  If no potential family is there to meet her, I hope to mine enough winsome material to better promote her in her waning hours of availability.   I have no intention of surrender before she turns sixteen.

If you have any desire to travel with us in June to meet any of our kids, please contact me immediately.  There may be financial assistance available to a qualified family wanting to host Zulya and Lora.

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Rushin' Round

Friday morning I face the metro on my own. Faith plans to meet me outside a McDonald’s across town and worries I’ll get lost, but I’m better with directions than she thinks, and I arrive first. We’re investigating a new hotel for our program. The proprietor shares a numeric code for the front door and a deceptively jaunty “Come on in!” in his correspondence with me. Faith and I find the door easily, but it doesn’t budge as we repeatedly enter “005” as instructed. Via intercom, Faith cajoles a man at another business to let us in, but he adamantly refuses. Seeking pity, I beg in broken Russian, but he disdains even to acknowledge my plea. We are contemplating leaving when someone exits the building, allowing our admittance. The hotel rooms are cramped, malodorous, and reverberating with street noise; the website promises a kitchen, but delivers a sinkless, closet-like space seating four who don’t mind getting cozy. The outfit is wholly inappropriate; touring it, I realize for all the shortcomings of our current digs, how fortuitous our accommodations are.

Walking back, Faith confesses she’s purchased circus tickets, even though I’ve vowed not to attend again. She pacifies me, having asked the ticket vendor if the show “has nakedness”. The puzzled vendor assured her, “No nakedness, just animals.” When Faith complained the competing circus was a “strip show”, and explained we had the morals of orphans to consider, the seller nodded, agreeing solemnly. Feeling mildly dubious, I agree to give the new circus a chance.

Back at the hotel, I pace the hall, awaiting entrance of my host families from the airport. I am giddy to make acquaintance with all who share my mission, and hours on the phone and e-mail later, attaching faces to voices and names is great joy. Our band includes an extremely well-travelled couple from Washington, a single man from Colorado planning a domestic foster care adoption, Iowans called by God to add an older child to their family, a single lady and her mom from New York seeking a little boy, a couple from Florida hosting the boy who is my favorite Lighthouse child ever, and a single Michiganian home in October with a girl she’d hosted on one of my past trips.

The group arrives, predictably bleary-eyed, but after lunch, they opt to sightsee. When I’d adopted my own kids, the five ancient churches of the Kremlin bored them silly; wizened, I’d not brought a child there since. But the kids aren’t with us yet, and as responsible adult travelers it seems a perfect day to check the seat of Russian government off our sightseeing to-do list. We meet Faith in Red Square; all are dazzled by St. Basil’s Cathedral, and it takes effort to goad them from the square and into the Kremlin. The sun joins our excursion, and we see four of the churches, the State Kremlin Palace, a massive cannon, and a bigger bell. While both the cannon and bell are the world’s largest, ironically neither fulfilled their intended purpose even once.

Next morning we rise early to meet the kids. In Moscow after a twelve-hour overnight train ride, they rode in a car with about fifty bunks for sleeping. Dima drops them off earlier than expected, and a few families aren’t ready. We’re preparing breakfast and offer it to the kids, all of whom decline. As the hosts congregate in one corner of the dimly-lit room and the kids mass shyly in another, we’re two teams loathe to mingle. Though I’ve warned the families that the meeting is typically awkward, as our groups stare each other down wordlessly, I hope they’re not lamenting they’ve travelled halfway around the world for this. I know we only need add Faith to the mix and all will be well, but for now, she’s not here. When she comes and flips on the lights with a chipper “Zdrahstveetsa!”, kids who refused nourishment before suddenly become hungry, and much-needed levity is injected into the proceedings.

I abandon the group, headed for the airport with Dima to pick up an adoptive family from the first Moscow trip traveling to pick up their son, another host, and my luggage. He shows me where to claim my bags, then leaves, thinking I’ll clear customs more expeditiously without a Russian speaker in tow. His logic passes muster; x-raying my bags, the monoglot customs agent points to shadows in my suitcase. From his gesticulations, I deduce he’s asking what they are. Providentially, I’m wearing a necklace, and I point to the image on his screen and the beads around my neck. “Beads,” I instruct, wondering how many English words he’s learned this way. Satisfied, he waves me through; Dima is incredulous to see me back so quickly.

After four days in one outfit, new clothes are a breath of fresh air. When I emerge clean and relieved, Faith is in the kitchen, finishing up a lunch she’s cobbled together from things we’d bought for breakfast. While quality and quantity might be impugned, the creativity Faith possesses in spades is on display in all her meal preparations. In my absence, the kids went outside to play. They’ve been flying airplanes and walking with the families, and already all ages are mixing brilliantly. After lunch, we take in the zoo, my first foray there in five trips to Moscow. After the negative reviews I’ve heard, I find the exhibits quite passable, with the exception of a cage housing only a rotund, but deceased, rodent. In the elephant house, a baby frolics in a shallow pool, supervised by two wary adults. As we watch entranced, I wonder if our orphans begrudge the calf the care and protection his parents instinctively lavish on him.

Dinner is at a packed McDonald’s. Even with two floors, there is insufficient seating for our throng of 27. Somehow Faith extracts permission from a churlish manager to use a festive room reserved for birthdays. To ensure equity in menu between the hosted and unhosted, I order for all the kids this time. Piles of cheeseburgers, fries, Cokes, and milkshakes later, we return to our hotel feeling like engorged ticks.

On the streets, unseasonable warmth is melting snow. Inside our hotel, the morning’s icy meeting is a distant memory. The kids have settled in, thrilled to be here. Youthful charges in bed, hosts mingle in the common room. I delight in the dynamic between families considering adoption, the family finishing adoption, and the mom so happy with her new daughter that she’s hosting on six days’ notice to see about adopting again.

I love this trip.

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Wonderful World

My last day home starts out on an inauspicious note when one of my host families drops the bombshell that they won’t be traveling to host Yana, age seven. Other families would have jumped at the chance to host her, and I turned them away in favor of the defector. Yana’s age and orphanage make her a prime target for Russian foster care; she’ll never last until my June trip. Believing her life might depend on it, I work the phones for five hours I can ill-afford. One family sounds promising; I try to entice them by offering a complementary trip, and derive a short-lived thrill when they consider the offer, ultimately declining due to the short notice. Late afternoon, I get my final “no”; out of time and having exhausted reasonable leads, I concede defeat. In my dejection, I call Elaine, who commiserates patiently with me. While I know the results are in God’s hands, the knowledge things might have ended differently had only I offered Yana to a different family chafes.

Wednesday morning finds me hobbling, having aggravated an old knee injury I sustained during a run-in with a horse in veterinary school. At the airport, I’m offered a wheelchair, but in my vanity refuse, worried I’ll look more lazy than injured. Inching along, I arrive at my gate to await my jaunt from Detroit to Amsterdam. Retreating to a serendipitously appointed phone booth, I score a small desk, seat, pay phone, and plug for my computer. My husband e-mails me a phone card, and I dial with abandon, in the rarified position of seeking activities to fill time. From my phone booth office, I spy a potted Ficus tree sporting the scrawled words “Jesus is Lord” in marker on its trunk, and I’m struck by the incongruity between message and delivery.

My flight to Amsterdam is a non-event. Aeroflot, a Russian airline, operates my connecting flight from Amsterdam to Moscow. They name their aircraft, and I’m charmed when they preface the safety demonstration with an announcement that our “ship” is dubbed Afanasiy Nikitin, after the fifteenth-century Russian explorer. Russians eschew smiling at those they don’t know, branding indiscriminate smilers lunatics, making the country a little chillier. Maria, one of our flight attendants, seeks to change that as she patrols the aisle wearing a perpetual smile.

A British couple with an infant is in my row. The child’s outbursts, timed with 1984-esque distraction prowess, remind me why I like older child adoption. As the baby shrieks rhythmically, the Brits sully their reputation for unfailing composure when the woman has a cow, told there are no vegetarian meals on board. Her withering diatribe finally wipes the smile from Maria’s face. When a meatless meal is conjured up, another attendant presents it with a triumphant look that expects the Brit will be pleased. Alas, two meals were ordered, and the resultant verbal smack down leaves me wincing and praying the attendant’s English is proficient enough to distinguish between their British English, and my American English.

Russians returning from abroad cheer on landing in the motherland, and at touchdown, I join their giddy applause. Entering the terminal, I am pushed along in a stampede toward three open immigration lanes. The line jumping is so brazen and aggressive that the ensuing chaos slows everything. Several immigration officers witness the melee, seemingly powerless to open the other lanes, despite the glaring want. I finally make it to the front of the queue by trebling my width with my carry-ons. Even then, it is with difficulty that I retain position.

Most luggage is out before I get to the baggage claim area; unfortunately, mine is not. After a futile search, I go the lost luggage area. A lady directs me to look again; I have little hope, but don’t possess the Russian skills to argue. Predictably, the luggage is absent, so she directs me to fill out a claim form in three parts. In Russia, inefficiency is a lifestyle; filling a form in triplicate means filling out the same single form three times. I am almost finished when the first worker goes home without explanation. A new worker clocks in, clucks when she sees my paperwork completed improperly, and presents me three clean forms. Russian workers, no matter their station, have a propensity for wordlessly interrupting their service to the polite to assist brassier clientele. During the ordeal, the episode is replayed until I despair of ever leaving the airport. When I am at last dismissed, the command to return to the airport myself to retrieve my bags myself is ringing in my ears.

Our driver Dima knows I’m tired, and he is thoughtful enough to let me lie down on the trip from the airport to the hotel, covering me with a blanket and giving me a furry Russian hat for a pillow. When the radio comes on, Louis Armstrong is crooning “It’s a Wonderful World.” It’s a timely reminder that, minor inconveniences in my journey notwithstanding, I am blessed to see the world again with a program I love, striving to make the future wonderful for our Lighthouse Project kids.

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See Moscow and Visit a Russian Orphan in January

This January, visit Russia and spend time with a Russian orphan! Travelers will choose a child, fly to Russia as a group, meet and spend time with the child in Moscow, sightsee together, and decide whether to pursue the child’s adoption. Travelers not interested in adoption are welcome to join us. Single boys and girls, ages 7-14, and sibling groups, ages 7-16, are available. The Lighthouse Project will arrange transportation in Russia, lodging, activities, and most meals. Sightseeing plans include Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral, and other culturally appropriate activities. Cost depends on which lodging option is selected, but ranges between $1500-2000 per person, including airfare, assuming double occupancy. This is more cost-efficient than making a “first trip” to visit a child in the standard, two-trip adoption procedure. Basic paperwork includes an application and a statewide background check. Those deciding to adopt will complete the requisite paperwork in the US, returning to Russia to finish their adoption in typically one trip six to nine months later. To see photos, videos, and commentary from our November Moscow Lighthouse Project trip, read on below. For more information, contact trip coordinator Becky at (616) 245-3216, or visit our website.

A new series begins Tuesday, featuring stories of kids hoping to travel on our January Moscow trip. Stay tuned.

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Seatbelts

In Russia: Day 11

Wednesday dawns with more dread than anticipation, since today is good-bye. When we get to the kids’ area, they’re not awake, so our breakfast is overly peaceful. Driver Dima comes and the kids get up; we gather in the common room for a tearful farewell. Love, our Russian coordinator, revered by our adoptive families, makes an emotional speech about how we have encouraged the kids this week, and given them reason for hope. I concur silently; it’s what keeps me coming back. Love adds that she hopes we’ll come again. I’m thinking I’ll be back in January for our next Moscow Lighthouse Project trip, but she really hopes to see the families, when they return to claim their kids. Forever.

Hugging each child, all express gratefulness in charmingly accented English. The oldest boy, one whom I wondered much of the week if would agree to adoption, gives me hope with his teary eyes as Love shares. Yulya hugs me tightly, but pins a heart-shaped plastic brooch with the word “Love” on Amy’s coat. Clinging to Amy, Yulya flips a switch and lights on the brooch flash. Another girl, Larisa, hangs from Amy and insists the gift is also from her. It’s at once tacky, sweet, and pitiful.

Todd and Ellen hug their two kids; one is Denis, my favorite child from my March Grand Rapids trip, whom they’ve planned since then to adopt. They’ve come now to visit an eight-year-old girl, a possible sister for Denis. I swiftly realized the four were a family. As they leave, they turn to look again at the kids. I feel for them; letting your kids return to an orphanage is one of the hardest things in the world to do. I’ve done it before, and don’t envy them.

I exit the hostel with Jamie. She’s saying she’ll travel in January so her husband can meet Dmitry, one of my favorite kids this trip. Wives don’t usually drag husbands halfway round the world to meet orphans, so for Dmitry, who confided earlier, “I hope someone will take me,” I am blissfully encouraged.

Larry and Ahna leave conflicted, unsure of which child they’ll adopt. They’re already adopting a boy I loved from my January Tulsa trip, and they’re after a brother for him this trip. While I’m not sure who their new son will be, I know another older boy has a family, so I enjoy a generalized delight.

As we pile into Dima’s van, Love wishes us well, blowing kisses. She’s still waving as we drive away and round the corner. Once she’s out of sight, I’m already missing her. A few minutes in, Dima tells us it’s a new Russian holiday today, Family Day, just initiated a year or two ago. It seems fitting that as we leave on a day set apart for Russian families to visit loved ones, each of my host families silently mulls whether to add a child they’ve just visited to their family. Down Moscow’s wide avenues, I see place after place with significance for me. Some are special from this trip, while others are sacred from my trip to adopt my own kids. Moscow isn’t home, but I have as many happy memories here as anywhere outside the Great Lake State.

At the airport, we walk through another dusting of snow. Inside, an agent advises our flight to New York City is delayed. Seeing the others’ dismay, I’m ashamed that I’m tickled pink. I was to arrive in Grand Rapids at 9:30 tonight, and leave at 3:00 a.m. tomorrow for an 870-mile drive to Tulsa. I had cursed my inopportune planning repeatedly; now the delay solves what my organizational skills couldn’t. I ask the agent to reroute me to Tulsa, rather than landing me in Grand Rapids at noon. With flexibility stateside airline agents should emulate, she cheerfully gives me several options as she rearranges my flights. I’ll overnight in New York and fly tomorrow to Tulsa, where I’ll meet my long-suffering husband and four angels after their drive.

When we finally depart Moscow, I eat dinner, then fall into a deep slumber. I never sleep more than a few minutes on planes, but this flight comes at the end of an almost sleepless eleven days. The trip is over in no time, and I awaken to a flight attendant’s welcome to JFK. Clearing customs and immigration with bleary eyes, I am saddened by the imminence of my farewell to my host families. Bidding adieu, my heart swells for these friends who will help the orphans so close to my heart.

At the hotel, I play insomniac. I talk to Elaine two hours, as she debriefs me on the Lighthouse portion of my trip. She is hungry for details, since she left just as the families arrived. I hear my husband’s voice for the first time since I left; it’s better than e-mail. When I finally nod off, it’s with thoughts of a repeat in just over two months. I can’t contain myself; I’m excited already.

In morning’s wee hours, a taxi speeds me toward the airport. I should be thinking profound thoughts of some eloquent way to close my series on the Lighthouse Project’s first trip to Moscow, but I think only about how strangely glorious it feels, tearing through a strange city in a taxi, buckled in a working seatbelt.

Until next time, “Pah kah” from Russia.

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So Spoiled

In Russia: Day 3

In the region, we meet a lady who came once as a chaperone on my trip, and she greets me with “Becky!” and outstretched arms. In her office, she pours me tea. I’ve never drunk tea before, and doubt I’ll like it, but I say yes to be polite. It figures I end up with the largest cup, but I smile anyway, hoping my mannerly sacrifice might lead another child to a family. The first snow I’ve seen all year dusts the ground as I drain the last drop of tea from my cup, fearing it might earn me a second.

We need wheels, and Faith tries, unsuccessfully, to hail a cab. It feels like hitchhiking to me, but finally a parked car we’d been standing in front of for ten minutes takes the bait and offers a ride. Along the way, the driver and his wife Yelena share an unprompted synopsis of their lives. When they hear we’re visiting an orphanage in a certain town, Yelena asks if we know such-and-such, who once lived at said orphanage. I say yes, she went home to Michigan recently, and Yelena registers surprise, exclaiming she’d been this child’s teacher. Yelena's daughter Kristina lives in New Jersey. Kristina is shocked by the daily shipments one store has of fresh produce; odder still, things are thrown away if they don’t sell the first day. Yelena sounds scandalized as she leans forward and whispers, "I heard people in America take mortgages." Faith counters that mortgages in Russia currently carry about 17% interest. Yelena edifies, “We like to pay for what we get,” and helpfully adds, “We never borrow any money because it’s not good.” When her husband drops her off, Yelena refuses our request for a photo.

As we dash between orphanages, we eat on the run. Faith offers me a yellow Antonovka apple, native to Russia. She tells me they are tough as stones and don’t rot. She hands me half, and it’s delicious, the tartest apple I’ve tasted. My window doesn’t roll down so I hold the core. Faith offers to take it, so I reluctantly fork it over. She eyes it with disdain. “This is meat!” she chides, adding, “You’re so spoiled!” Offered a second half, I leave practically nothing this time, assuming she’ll be impressed. Reality bites when she hands me a third half, this time with the core already removed. I reminisce that the day we arrived home with our Russian children, my new son ate an entire apple. Queried as to where the apple was, my little one presented a stem. He’d eaten the apple, core, seeds, and all, as he’d been taught in the orphanage. I told him this wasn’t necessary in America; if he wanted more, he should take another one instead.

At our second orphanage stop, we meet one of my favorite chaperones from past trips. Svetlana hugs me tightly and invites us to dinner in the cafeteria. We decline, but it’s clear she wants to feed us. We finally agree, and dine on bread, cheese, tomatoes, hot chocolate milk, and plain penne pasta topped with chicken meatloaf. Disliking ground meat, I shudder at the white loaf, but my distaste turns to horror sighting the heaping mound of pickled beets topped with sour cream. Svetlana sits down with us, and explains each item. She is so kind I haven’t the heart to reject the beets, a vegetable I’ve loathed since childhood. I strategize, tackling my meatloaf first, buying time to make peace with consuming beets. When the beets’ turn comes, I eat them with purpose, opting not to linger and prolong the agony. I somehow finish, and Svetlana walks out with me arm in arm. While my stomach churns, I treasure the kindness she shows both the orphans and us.

The next day, I drink tea again at another orphanage. It’s not growing on me, but the fruit flavor in this variety marginally increases palatability. I drink it all, but a teacher, unmoved by my etiquette, gives us the coolest reception we get all trip. She’s upset since one of her orphans is not able to travel to Moscow with the Lighthouse Project this weekend. I promoted him as my favorite child but still didn’t find a host family. She is slighted by his omission from our list, and feels entitled to let us know. I leave that place with a little shiver.

Our warmest welcome comes from Boris, chaperone of my March Grand Rapids trip. Boris speaks excellent English and epitomizes warmth and sincerity. He wants us to see his children, so he leads us to a classroom where Andrei, from Elaine's July Missouri trip, sits. He announces to everyone Andrei has visitors from America, and the boy leaps to his feet, stands by his desk, and beams with pride when he sees it’s us, for him. His smile makes our trip to this orphanage to see only him worthwhile.

Boris invites us to dinner and is so insistent we would be heartless to refuse. He brings us to a storage room off the cafeteria where 40 thin mattresses are stacked beside a table. When we see the place settings and food waiting, we know it was right to stay. We eat pickled cabbage with canned peas, beef and buckwheat, bread, oranges, and bananas. Over dinner, he asks about Losha, just adopted in July. He’s hungry for news, and I promise to get an update from the family. I am touched by his concern for his 127 kids. He seems sad that the kids eat in five shifts for lack of seating.

He's delighted we’re here, and he throws open his cabinet, revealing a bottle of cognac he’s purchased for the occasion. As my teetotaling throat tightens in revulsion, my glass is filled. He makes a toast to his guests from America, and I have no choice but to take a sip. It takes my breath away, and I am nauseated instantaneously. Boris doesn’t notice. Within a few minutes, he refills Faith’s glass and reaches for mine. I croak out a still-incapacitated, “N—" but it’s too little, too late; now my glass holds more than when I started. When Boris makes another toast to our visit, I grimly realize my only out is to down the beverage in as few sips as possible. My first big gulp smacks me like a two by four, and I know there’s no way I can finish this potion. Thankfully, Boris leaves the room for a minute, and Faith lets me pour what’s left into her glass. Elaine doesn’t need an invitation and she follows my lead. When Boris returns, he’s pleased we liked our drinks well enough to finish them. We rise before he can give us a refill.

As we go, Boris apologizes in English for the fare, “I know you would have better in America, but this is the best we have. It is the same thing we feed ourselves.” I wince as he downplays his most memorable and genuine hospitality. His kindness to us and his care for his kids shames my condescending assessment of the meals we’ve been served with such warmth. He walks us to our car and gives me a gentlemanly European peck on the cheek.

Maybe Faith is right: I am blessed everywhere beyond words, too spoiled even to know it.

Orphan Trains

Lack of host families cut six kids from the October-November Moscow Lighthouse Project trip last week. The brutally painful deliberation caused equivocation much of the day, but in the end, Alena, Andrei, siblings Vitaly and Alexandra, Dmitry K., and Dmitry V. will travel in January to Moscow, or the US if the swine flu travel moratorium ends soon enough. The kids will wait longer, and if all goes well, avoid foster care until their turn at Lighthouse finally comes.

Recognizing we have no viable option other than to wave the white flag crushes me, especially with Alena, as I liked her so much. Under different circumstances, she might already be my daughter; we would do famously together, since we share a love of laughter, and both our hopes spring eternal. Unlikely as I now am to be her mom, I still yearned to see her and find her the lady who would.

Nine kids still scheduled to travel hail from a region twelve hours from Moscow by train. I’ve taken the train there twice for our own adoption; for a spoiled American, the trip is a grand adventure. Traveling overnight in a private compartment with two beds, the clackety-clack of the wheels and the rocking of the car induce sleep once you’re sufficiently tired to suppress your adrenalin. A doily substitutes as a tablecloth at the compartment’s table in miniature, where you take tea and meals. Warmth is guaranteed, summer or winter. Smoking is neither disallowed nor frowned upon.

As the Russian countryside whizzes by, your window frames a living museum into your child’s “normal.” Adoptive parents of older kids have missed so much of their son or daughter’s life. We naturally feel shortchanged fretting we have missed every first: steps, words, a lost tooth, a school day. While it’s tempting to pretend our children had no existence before us, it’s disingenuous and counterproductive. Seeing the country that molded them and made them the person we love is an antidote to our mental dishonesty, and a treasure to seize with abandon. Russia has rather blatant problems, but a country that allows its greatest asset, its children, to leave for the chance of better life elsewhere is most surely doing something right.

Train stations in Russia’s larger cities have huge platforms where trains queue. Disenfranchised orphans live under these platforms, kids who have either aged out of orphanages or run away from institutions or abusive families, trying to make their own way in squalid orphan “cities” beneath the feet of those who travel between the regions. Russian social workers claim large metropolises like Moscow and St. Petersburg have at least as many orphans on the street as in the orphanages, and train stations are the end of the line for many. Traveling here, an overactive imagination is not required to wonder how many kids eye you, kids for whom help arrived too late, if at all. Life in the train city is hellish, as kids spend their days stealing, strung out from sniffing glue, or trying to eke out a meager existence in any way imaginable.

I intend to go to my kids’ region this fall and visit a few of the orphanages where we routinely work. I’ll pass through the Moscow train station, the orphans there little knowing my journey purposes to keep others from joining them. Traversing my kids’ region, I’ll wonder which ramshackle house was theirs before we adopted them; wonder which places I see, they’ve seen. In adoption, questions always outnumber answers. But knowing the joy my kids have brought, and seeing what might have been for them and what already is for others, both questions and answers are rendered superfluous by the quest for families for the kids for whom our October trip comes a little too soon.

Cutting Dreams

With so many things I love about the Lighthouse Project, it seems petty to blog about the one I don’t. But since it slapped me last week and threatens again now, I call it fair.

Coordinating Lighthouse Project trips is exhaustingly labor intensive; oddly, the bulk of the work is seeking host families. Through nine trips, I have found I need to speak with ten families on average to find one host. My goal is finding one per week; a good week nets two.

Though I am never slothful, my efforts aren’t always requited. At those times, my friend Hope calls; as director of the program, she has a gigantic heart for children. She’ll tell me we need to cut kids from the trip because they can’t travel without a host. Sometimes she spends sleepless nights thinking about it. Before, she’d choose who was off; lately, as I have gained experience, she’s asked me to decide myself. Crueler still, sometimes I have to rank them.

So I ask myself, which girl should seek employment in prostitution when she’s not adopted? Which boy might be part of the 10% of aged-out orphans who commit suicide? Which child, needing just a chance, should I deny?

It’s not exactly a feel-good job.

This past week, I had to remove kids to eliminate need for six families, but I cheated a little and just picked six kids. I settled on a sibling group; Andrei, a boy who already came twice; Alexandra, a girl about whom I knew nothing; Dmitry B., a boy Hope liked; and a girl who was ill during her interview. Even after prayerfully weighing each situation and doing my best, there was no satisfaction.

When Hope saw my list, she wanted Andrei on the trip. It worked out splendidly: within hours, a Missouri family who had been praying almost two months called to say they wanted to adopt him. He was off the trip, but for the right reasons. (Transformed, 11/8/08) Hope said Dmitry B. was a “good boy,” so he’d travel, too. That day, I saw Alexandra's interview; ultimately, I had ranked her first to come off the trip, since lacking information makes promotion impossible. After seeing her, I couldn’t leave her behind. While she was not charming, she exuded neediness, and need always trumps charm. Alexandra told about a group of younger orphan girls she’d befriended; she visits, eats with, and plays with one particularly special five-year-old. Alexandra hoped to be included on the trip, and she wants a mama and papa. The neediness cooked my plan; she would travel, too.

As I ponder how to champion our upcoming trip to Moscow, I have no experience to summons. I have statistics on my Lighthouse Project trips to the States, but it seems risky to extrapolate between US and Russian versions. Finding hosts willing to travel to Moscow has been an uphill battle, even though the cost to fly, stay, sightsee, and eat in Russia is only slightly more than hosting here.

Hope told me yesterday to decide again whom we retain for Moscow. Having a host family keeps a child on the trip, but now the discussion revolves around which kids are even options for travelers. So while the children’s fates seem more God’s prerogative than mine, tomorrow I make choices that feel all too reflective of my impotence.

Whom should I pick?

Evgeniy, 12, whose enthusiasm I loved, who says he tries “so hard” in school? His dream is for everyone to be good, and to make the world a better place. Should I rob him of his chance to have his world be a better place?

Maybe Dmitry B., 13, the good boy? When asked how long he’d been in the orphanage, he immediately gave the exact date he’d entered, and added he had no regrets. He said he hoped someone would “take him” and he’ll get to live with a good family, neither too rich nor too poor. Siblings would be a bonus.

Vasily, 10, who won me over in Missouri with his jolly answer and firm handshake in response to my butchered Russian greeting? Vasily had a family, but lost them when another child became available.

Dmitry K., 13, who counts as his goals to do better in school and help the poor? This aspiring Egyptian archeologist likes honest, fair people and dislikes fighting.

Alena, 10, with one of the most charming interviews I’ve ever seen, out of hundreds? Her effervescence, optimism, smile, and giggle oozed charm; if we could adopt now, I would not be writing about her.

Anton, 12, who feels like my nephew, since my sister-in-law hosted him? During a school visit, the gym teacher invited him to play volleyball. She thought he’d be too self-conscious, but he leaped up, took his spot without the gym clothes everyone else wore, and made a real contribution to the game.

Vitaly, 7, and Alexandra, 5, whose ages should have led to a host long ago? I know little about them; how do I advocate without anything to say? I cannot shake the feeling they’re goners.

So tomorrow will dawn, and I’ll answer Hope’s call with less enthusiasm than usual. I’ll do my part, cognizant no sense of accomplishment awaits. I’ll just hang up the phone, feeling guilty for having done my job.

I love the Lighthouse Project.

But not this.