Socking Despair

Artom huddled in bed in the evening, knitting socks while his roommates played, unshamed by the eleven-year-old’s industry. His handiwork provides a little comfort from the cold, but is impotent to combat the emotional frigidity that permeates everything. In his region, vodka is a staple and cheaper than milk. Accordingly, children become social orphans when their parents prioritize drink over the needs of their offspring, forfeiting their parental rights. Summers here are short, and vitamin D deficiency rife amongst the inhabitants, who seldom see the sun. The orphanage abuts a prison in this forsaken North Russia village populated by aggressive thieves not yet behind bars. Many orphans’ parents are imprisoned, but not for the political “crimes” that once doomed Soviet-era prisoners to live, work, and die here.

Years ago, there was no industry in the region, but in the 1930s, Josef Stalin brought jobs, of a sort, when he decided to connect five large lakes there by a canal stretching 141 miles from the White Sea to the Baltic. A megalomaniac’s monument, the canal offered the bonus of disposing of Russians whose existences Stalin found inconvenient. While some of the more than 100,000 sent to work on the canal were criminals, more were intellectuals, political prisoners, and victims of reprisals and informants. Ill-equipped with little more than pickaxes, shovels, and rudimentary wheelbarrows, prisoners downed trees, chipped through rock and frozen earth, and hauled it all away, completing the 30-mile artificial stretch of the canal in 20 months.

In the backwards organization of the gulag system, criminals ran the camps; others would have realized, and cared, that much of the workforce was comprised of the persecuted upright. Their families seldom knew where they’d been taken, and whether they’d lived or died. Enduring inhuman conditions, tens of thousands perished from overwork, starvation, disease, and freezing.

One of the ironies is how little the canal benefits shipping, given its insufficient depth for most ships, but how mightily it affects the orphanages of the region. Stalin’s heavy hand populated the area in the early years of the twentieth century but orphaned thousands in the process. Many of the region’s residents are descendants of those who somehow survived the gulag and Stalin’s canal project.

Faith, the translator for all our Lighthouse Project trips, grew up in the Soviet Union long after the canal’s completion, but the surrounding area was such a feared byword for the oppression of the state that her family countenanced no reference to it, so great was the fear of ending up there. When she visited the region in February, interviewed Artom, and saw him at work on his socks, she fought the sensation she was walking on skulls. Gloom smothered everything with a despair denuded of hope. At the orphanage, a strangely invitingly-named shell of a structure, Artom’s teacher welcomed her, exhibiting wooden objects carved and given her by prisoners with the decorum to feel remorse over orphaning their children via their prison sentences.

Meanwhile, palpable despondency reigns. Artom knits his socks, trusting he’ll better himself by the exercise. He likely hasn’t given it much thought, but his busyness with yarn and needle is faith’s defiant act. Even a waif, still hoping adoptive parents seek him out, can play his bit role to help himself, his friends, and his region shrouded in hopelessness.

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.

Lemonade

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

At the Lighthouse Project, a whole bushel of lemons dropped in our laps two weeks ago with the swine flu travel moratorium for Russian children. The somber news looked a recipe for disaster, but today we’re working on a big pitcher of lemonade, stirring, sweetening, sampling, and making something potable from our lemony windfall.

Going in reverse is usually seen as a step backward, but for kids who wait it’s a step forward. Our program has brought forty-four groups of Russian orphans to the United States in the past eleven years. Trip forty-five will not likely happen in 2009, though things look promising to resume in early 2010. Last week it appeared orphans would languish in loveless institutions longer because they couldn’t travel internationally until the ban is rescinded. Then our director had an epiphany: if Lighthouse can’t bring the kids to America, it can take the families to Russia in a mirror-image of past trips.

While exact details are still being hammered out, travelers would choose a child, fly to Russia with other Lighthouse families this fall, meet the child in Moscow over a long weekend, sightsee, and decide whether to pursue their host child’s adoption. Single boys, girls, and sibling groups, likely ages 6-15, would be available. The Lighthouse Project will arrange transportation, lodging, some meals, and activities for parents and children; sightseeing might include Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral, the Kremlin, Lenin’s Tomb, and other culturally-appropriate activities. Dates for the trip will be October 29 - November 4. While exact cost is being determined, it would be comparable to the cost of adoptive families hosting in America and more cost-efficient than making a “first trip” to visit a child in a standard, two-trip procedure. Paperwork will be basic and include an application and a local police background check. Families planning to adopt will complete the requisite paperwork in the US, returning to Russia to finish their adoption in one trip 6-9 months later. Seven families are required for trip viability; several have already expressed interest.

Happily, kids will continue to have chances at a family while the swine flu scare rages, so I’m finding I can love this “Lighthouse in Reverse” just as I love the Lighthouse Project. I expect to travel to Russia myself on this inaugural trip, along with Missouri Lighthouse coordinator Elaine. Join us, and we’ll pour you a glass of our Lighthouse lemonade.

***

If you would like more details and a flyer on our Reverse Lighthouse Project trip, please call me, Becky, at (616) 245-3216 or click on “View my complete profile” on the right to e-mail me.

Dr. Adoption

Growing up in the late seventies and early eighties, I spent Monday nights of my formative years with TV’s Little House on the Prairie. As I stared in traumatized disbelief, Caroline Ingalls labored to give birth, birthing my desire to adopt in the process. Dreaming in my youth of becoming the next James Herriot, I attended veterinary school, graduating with a DVM degree. Imagine my dismay to realize, months before commencement, that I’d missed my calling. Regardless, I practiced veterinary medicine seven years, enjoying most of them. Eventually I left the profession to raise our daughter, a curly-haired, extroverted tike adopted from Guatemala; four years later our Chinese daughter arrived. We had no business being at an adoption fair only six weeks after returning from China, but it didn’t stop us. Browsing booths in the exhibit hall, my encounter with Valerie of the Russian Orphan Lighthouse Project was as inadvertent as it was fortuitous. There, at that inauspicious table, I stumbled across both my life’s mission and the circuitous path leading our family to a new son and daughter.

In the six years since that November meeting, we’ve added the two older Russian kids to our family. What I saw in Russia and learned in the process was Exhibit A of the gravity of the orphan’s plight. Armed with a righteous sense of urgency, I’ve coordinated nine Lighthouse Project trips to Michigan and Oklahoma, bringing seventy-three different Russian orphans aged 5-15, some of them more than once. As coordinator, I seek families willing to host an orphan for ten days, run a Russian-language Vacation Bible School, and give the bushes a thorough, thorough beating in search of forever families. Such a succinct description of my duties belies the thousands of hours I’ve invested in them, and the phones I’ve worn out in the process. The task is formidable, since most potential adoptive families desire babies. When I succeed, the fulfillment is more than adequate to the effort, since finding families for kids literally saves their lives. Motivating my Russian work is knowledge that no safety net surrounds the kids who age out; in America, orphans without families have opportunities available to them Russian orphans could only dream of.

On the coattails of the Lighthouse Project I’ve met people whose beings brim with the same compassion for orphans; some of these kindred spirits are as dear as sisters to me. Fifty-nine children, including sibling groups as large as three, kids as young as six and as old as seventeen, and children with sundry special needs have forever families. Current events in Russia notwithstanding, I hardly feel finished. God willing, there are many more children, and a few dear friends, to come.

My training for this quasi-volunteer position has been as rigorous, expensive, and all-consuming as veterinary school, provided by three girls and a boy who work to keep Mom on her toes and seventy-three kids whose would-be futures have provoked me to repeated and frenetic action. A full-time position as a veterinarian would be less time-consuming and more prestigious, but since finding my calling I’ve never looked back.

Missouri Loves Company

Last week, shrugging off advice we rent, we’d driven our one vehicle, an older, high mileage Silhouette threatening to strand us, to Tulsa. Excessively emboldened by our trouble-free trip, we left for Tulsa this time serene in the confidence of last week’s precedent.

I don’t expect I’ll drive to Tulsa again without stopping to see my sweet friend, Missouri Lighthouse coordinator Elaine. On Friday, we’d made good enough time through the night to justify a lengthy visit. Elaine and her husband Kenny own a car dealership in St. Robert. Per our request, they’d been watching for a van in our price range to replace the Silhouette. Elaine was working, so we visited her at the lot. Walking into the showroom, we laughed that the trade-in value of our wheels was surely rising with its reliability on our frequent Tulsa runs. After a three hour stop, we waved goodbye and hurried on our way.

I-44 in central Missouri is a scenic route wending through tree-crowned hills and limestone outcroppings. It was a scorcher, and as the van labored up a hill near Conway, 45 miles west of St. Robert, it became clear we’d taken it one trip too far. Providentially, we were near a downhill exit so the van coasted off the interstate. In my humiliation pushing it to a gas station, I had visions of Julie arriving at the airport, new brood in tow, oblivious to the extent we’d gone through to greet them there. Adding to the comedic inconvenience, our cell phone chose this particular day not to work, so we were left to plead for techno-mercy from passersby. People always love my children, but this time we benefitted less from their charm than their urchin impersonations made doubly convincing by riding all night, then being stranded in the hot sun. Lent a phone, I called Elaine, scarcely recounting our woes before she became a take-charge Wonder Woman without my even asking. Bidding me not to worry, she promised to call in their driver, send a flatbed truck with a minivan we could take on to Tulsa, and take the disabled van back to the dealership. She also called my mother-in-law in Tulsa, telling her to go to the airport herself, since we’d likely be too late to make it.

Sitting at a gas station table in resignation, we consoled ourselves knowing Julie would realize it was the thought that counted. We cut a piteous enough pose that a station employee offered us a pizza she’d made in error. When the flatbed arrived, our things were ready and we leaped into the replacement van. With a little more than three hours and 220 miles to go to Tulsa, it seemed remotely possible that with smooth sailing, we might make it in time to the airport if we hurried.

Entering Oklahoma, we’d made great headway, so I made my welcome sign en route. Close to the airport, we found that, not only would we be punctual, but we would be early. When Julie, Dave, their two biological sons, and three new children entered the waiting area, our family was there waiting, looking like we’d spent the day by a busy road, but waiting nonetheless. How delightful to surprise my serially hosting friends, to finally meet Vladimir, and to hug, then hug again! I wanted Julie to know how special her adoption was to us, and I think she understood.

Elaine called later while we were at dinner and said we could take the van back to Michigan while we looked for something else. But after our 220-mile test drive and the impeccable service of Mid-Missouri Motors, we were interested in the van Elaine and Kenny had graciously lent us. Our van shopping had been conveniently completed alongside the Missouri interstate-- no going to look, no wondering about color, just grab it and go, no fuss at all.

On our way back home today, we went through a toll booth in Oklahoma. The same collector from last week saw our kids in the back and told Randy, “Be careful driving. I see you’ve got precious cargo there!” Even the toll people are friendly in Oklahoma; it’s one of the reasons, besides being Julie’s home, that I love coordinating Lighthouse trips there. Through Rolla, we stopped again to see Elaine, Kenny, and their kids at home; we showed off our new van, but they acted like they’d seen it before. Seeing them on weekends could be habit-forming.

Blessed emotionally last week’s trip, we were blessed physically this trip with providential care at every turn. We broke down close enough to Elaine at a time she could help us, we got an especially long test drive of a vehicle we needed anyway, and we avoided a trip to Missouri later to look at other vehicles, all in time to see dear friends come home. As if that weren’t enough, the deal was sweetened with free pizza.

Sometimes I wonder why people are so nice to us. The answer is God directs us every step of our way, putting us where we need to be, when we need to be there, and allowing us to meet those we need to meet. As we have blessed, we have been smothered in blessings. God has been good to us again and again. And now He wants to use us to bless others.

Tulsa, Times Two

Having spoken to hundreds of potential host families in thousands of conversations, I’ve developed a sixth sense as to what flies and what doesn’t. I’ve learned cold calls are an exercise in futility. No matter how highly recommended a family comes, if they lack the motivation to make a call, they’re unlikely to care enough to host a child. I never break this rule, but did once, for which I’m thankful.

Days before the arrival of November’s Tulsa trip, I needed hosts and felt desperate. I heard about a family looking to adopt who might be interested in hosting, so with gritted teeth I acquiesced to a suggestion I call. When Julie picked up the phone, I apologetically introduced myself and braced to receive a bum’s rush that never came. Instead, with a smile in her voice, Julie proclaimed her gladness I’d phoned. Two hours of talking and laughing later, I had another host family. I didn’t know it yet, but I’d met a serial hoster.

Julie and her husband Dave hosted ten-year-old Dima; eight-year-old brother Vladimir was unable to travel. Midway through the trip, Julie tearfully confided her dread of Dima’s return to Russia. She loved him she said, but more important was how she said it: “I’m trying to memorize every freckle on his face!” The attention to minute detail in her love sold me, once and for all: Julie was a keeper.

January brought another Tulsa trip. Asking her to host would have been heartless, so busy was she with her own adoption by then. But nearing arrival and in another bind, I asked her anyway and was elated by her joyous agreement. Julie was a godsend: a snap of the fingers sent her scurrying to assist. She met me at the airport when I arrived in town, lent me her phone for the trip’s duration, and brought bags of food my second day when I admitted mid-afternoon that I’d been so busy with calls I hadn’t shopped, having eaten only a package of cinnamon Tic Tacs in Tulsa. When she knew of a need, Julie was quick with a hand and sympathetic ear.

I faced my March Grand Rapids trip with despondency, by now believing Lighthouse incomplete without Julie’s involvement. Besides being a dear friend, she endeared herself further as an aficionado of my blog. She called breathless one day about fifteen-year-old Ekaterina, whom I’d recently written about. (Marching On, 2/2/09) I was shocked, but after praying about it, Dave and Julie decided to host her in Michigan, earning the honorific of first family found by blog. I was there when Ekaterina called her “Mom.” Julie sniffled, “I’ve never been called Mom by a female voice before!” Because they were already in the process of adopting Dima and Vladimir, the couple was able to add Ekaterina to their adoption without much paperwork fanfare, important since she was on the cusp of her sixteenth year. (Choking Up, 4/3/09)

I’d intended all along to welcome them at the airport when they returned with their kids. But timing was inopportune, since Randy and I had driven to Tulsa the previous weekend to attend a welcome party for another adoptee. Additionally, I was due in Tulsa days later for the August Lighthouse Project trip. We reluctantly concluded I’d skip the airport homecoming, visiting instead during the August trip.

All day Thursday, it chafed knowing Julie was returning and I wouldn’t be there. When the Lighthouse Project director called me mid-afternoon to confirm the August trip had been cancelled due to the Russian swine flu resolution, I realized we could make Tulsa. By 5 p.m. we’d decided to go, though I wanted to be at the Grand Rapids airport that night to see fourteen-year-old Masha arrive. Her parents had worked valiantly for seventeen months to fundraise for her adoption; I’ve seen families with much more miniscule obstacles abandon adoption plans. All the while, Masha’s parents were team players, attending others’ airport homecomings and almost all the Russian adoption functions I was at while they awaited her. I owed them a welcome of their own upon their return.

After Masha’s homecoming we finished packing, setting out at 1:20 a.m. Friday. Julie would be in at 7:50 p.m., and with an 870-mile drive looming, we couldn’t procrastinate. Knowing my mom wouldn’t sleep because she’d be praying us to Tulsa, I felt guilty. At that same hour we left, Dave and Julie were in Moscow rushing toward the airport for their flight home, and dear Lori, who’d fundraised for her Inna’s adoption with a single-minded devotion, was beginning her session in the Russian court. So much was happening; I clearly had my own prayers to say on behalf of friends half a world away. With Randy driving all night beside me the second weekend in a row, my kids cooperating in seats behind me, my mom’s prayers covering us, and friends in Russia finishing adoptions, commitment to the Lighthouse Project and the kids we help hardly distinguishes me.

Swine Before Pearls

Nine-year-old Anna’s dream of having a doll hit a roadblock Thursday. Her eleven-year-old sister, Anastasia, aspires to be a rescue team member someday, though now she could stand rescue herself. The sisters, having faced unusual difficulty in life measured even by the low bar of orphan expectations, were scheduled to travel on the August Tulsa Lighthouse Project trip. Tragically, the past tense “were” is operative here.

Two decades removed from the Cold War, the powers within Russia still seek to capitalize on any perceived flaws of the West, gleaning a grim self-satisfaction in construing facts to suggest things are worse elsewhere than at home. The current Western trouble du jour is the so-called “swine flu," claimed by the Russian media to have consigned Americans en masse to sick beds and hospitals. Never mind no one I’ve met knows anyone ill from the disease: to hear the Russian media tell it, the West is in its death throes, crippled by the flu’s virulence.

My good friend Hope, director of the Lighthouse Project, lived in Russia for eight years. She calls this most recent exaggeration of the woes we Americans navigate a different chapter of the same playbook used daily during her Russian sojourn. In a misguided attempt to redirect focus from the rather blatant problems within Mother Russia, a spotlight is beamed on other, more prosperous, parts of the world, magnifying their relatively inconsequential hobgoblins. The insinuation is existence elsewhere is even more precarious than within the motherland. That facts demonstrate otherwise is less material than is seemly.

This coping mechanism propagated by the tradeoff of reality for fantasy might be politely overlooked were the ramifications of such cultural pride less pernicious. On Thursday afternoon, I received most unwelcome news when Nadia told me my August trip was cancelled due to, of all things, swine flu. A resolution passed by the regional government forbids group travel by children to several countries, the United States included, until the pandemic subsides. It matters not that host families were eager to share ten days with the children, or that several of said families expressed intentions of adopting the child they planned to host. In its wisdom, the regional power hierarchy has protected the orphans, not by sending them to American families who might love them and want to adopt them, but by keeping them at “home” in their orphanages.

While exact numbers depend on the source consulted, most agree the statistics for Russian orphans who age out of the system without families are grim. Kids leave the orphanage by age 18; lacking productive alternatives, many girls turn to prostitution, many boys to crime. Life expectancy on the street is brutishly short and measured in months. Aged-out orphans are as likely to commit suicide as to become productive members of society: 10% of kids fall into each category. Meanwhile, I must dutifully derive comfort knowing these orphans are securely cloistered in their orphanages, safe from the pervasive ravages of swine flu, though at the expense of their one realistic chance of a family.

Alexander, 12, described by his orphanage director as needing a family “very much,” gushed, “The whole orphanage is my friend!” when asked about his friends. He’ll make do without American friends for now. Evgeniy, 12, speaks a little English and hoped to practice in America. His dream of making the world a brighter and happier place is on ice, and I’m less a cynic than a realist believing it will be longer, if ever, before the world is a brighter and happier place for this effusive boy. Sisters Elena, 14, and Lidia, 12, had a potential adoptive family in Missouri for July. When a passport issue kept them off the trip, Missouri coordinator Elaine and I solaced ourselves thinking they’d be on the August trip. Elena, a very good student, would like to be an attorney, but she doubts she'll be able to. If she stays in Russia, she’s probably right.

The Lighthouse Project exists because few families set out to adopt older children. For adoption purposes, kids even two years old are considered “older,” and therefore, harder to place. Most families will not go to Russia to seek out an older child, and a majority of the hosts I’ve found in my nine completed trips hosted without the intention of adopting. Typically, adoptions have occurred when people met children already here and then realized they wanted an older child. During this travel embargo, people could still travel to Russia to meet kids, and I’ll be encouraging them to do so. But for this to happen, I’d have to improve my record of finding families committed enough to meet kids overseas.

I skew optimistic and generally find silver lining in any situation, but my Pollyanna-ish outlook is strained by this state of affairs. Since acceptance is our only option, I suppose my spurned host families and I will have to find our peace knowing Anna, Anastasia, Alexander, Evgeniy, Elena, and Lidia won’t catch swine flu from you, or me, or any of the other Americans like us wallowing in swinish contagion.