No Chance at a Chance

Bouncing along the back roads of Russia, swerving at the penultimate nanosecond to pass cars we’re tailgating, I’m grateful for the plentiful potholes and our Volga’s poor shocks, as our driver must temper his speed somewhat in heed of them. The day before I’d left home, I’d acquiesced to Hope’s advice to buy insurance for the trip. In the back seat, watching wide-eyed as we surge past a motorized contraption defying categorization, I comfort myself with a promise from the insurance brochure that, should this jaunt end in my demise, repatriation of remains is a covered benefit. Immediately after one of our risky passes, an ambulance flies by. The way we’re driving, I worry we’ll see it again.

We’re ambitious today, visiting four orphanages, the furthest a death-defying three hours south of our home base. So many of our orphans hail from this backwoods institution, I’m anxious to see it. While no orphanage replicates a family, there is a quality continuum, and this one is at the bottom. The orphanage is in a sizable town also housing a large prison; some kids here are orphaned by a parent’s incarceration. Tiny wood dwellings trimmed in blue line the road; at one, an elderly babushka restrains a leashed cow in her postage stamp yard outside the orphanage grounds.

The Volga halts outside the orphanage. Grubby children spill out heavy doors to greet us, and shadow us in. A row of posters bearing Soviet-era safety admonitions hangs just inside, on walls thick with paint. Soiled linoleum, ’70s-style, covers creaky floors; workers in blue house dress uniforms and caps pretend to sweep but eye us warily, without welcome. After several kids’ adoptions, they worry our success will close the orphanage, at the cost of their jobs. Faith navigates the orphanages effortlessly, and we hurry to keep pace with her. I can’t get over how purposefully we race into each, meet the kids on our list, and run out. Here, children form a gauntlet along a corridor, watching us rush by. Many older boys in ill-fitting, shiny suits appear and vie for our attention as we head for the office. A teacher tells us she’s been waiting for us six hours on her day off. It’s a friendly rebuke, and she proudly breaks out an album of her daughter’s weekend wedding. In several photos, the bride is flanked by adoring parents, one of whom will introduce us to kids without any, once we’ve seen her own child. The normalcy of this Russian bride’s life, contrasted with the lives of these orphans, who know no normal, smacks me hard with its inequity.

Several kids from Elaine’s trip, and a few from mine, enter. Egor, nine, clutches a gift from his anxious family, but doesn’t open it until Faith urges him. He beams at the photo of himself and the family, taken in Missouri. Faith tells him they’re excited and coming soon. “They will be my family forever?” he chirps, incredulous. “Forever,” Faith assures, adding that another boy in the orphanage, Sergei, will be his brother ("He Just Won Our Hearts", 7/17/09).

Vasily, ten, is mistakenly summoned with three boys awaiting families. I’d loved him in Missouri, but no one chose him to be a son. When the three with families receive gifts, Vasily alone stands empty-handed, trying heroically to smile, as if it doesn’t matter. Faith produces a trinket, but it’s a sorry substitute for a care package from waiting parents (Solid Gold, 12/1/09).

We begin meeting prospective kids for future trips. The amount of need distresses, but that I’ll have a substantive say in who travels and has a chance at a future, and who stays behind and ends up dying on the streets, is beyond agonizing. Vanya, age unknown, stands in a group outside the door. “Please show us,” he entreats the teacher guarding the entry. He wants to be a welder, and aspires to visit America. He calls Denis, newly in the States, his best friend ("Tell her you want a family, too!", 2/18/10). Andrei, thirteen, is next. He likes to read, but not too much, he says, ironically hastening to add his favorite poet is Pushkin. He dreams of travel. Sergei, ten, likes to read, especially the aptly-titled Reading. Asked if he cooks, we’re told he makes soup from a powder. Andrei, nine, claims he knows English, and scrawls a “w” on paper as proof. He doesn’t yet have a dream. Dima, 15, has wiled away eight years of his childhood in the orphanage, and no longer remembers his parents’ faces. He yearns to ask them why they hid away so long and never visited him. He graduated his class with honor last year, but turning sixteen in less than six months, will graduate from the orphanage without a family. He dreams of seeing his best friend Sergei again. Now in America from one of my trips, and home less than a year at the time of this visit, Sergei is the first child adopted from this orphanage (It's a Boy!, 12/8/08).

Our last subject is Slava. Faith’s first question is his age. “Sixteen,” he says, as my heart sinks. “There’s nothing we can do,” Faith moans, but asks a few more questions, out of courtesy. His dream is to visit home to see what happened to his family. I wonder if he notices how much shorter his interview is than all the others, or if he  realizes donning the suit was in vain. As Faith dismisses him, she tells the doorkeeper sixteen-year-olds cannot enter America on an orphan’s immigrant visa. “I know,” the teacher explains, “but when he begged me, ‘Please show me to them!’ I couldn’t tell him no.” It’s enough to rend the chilliest heart.

We’re still in demand, but hours away from our hotel, with two orphanages yet to visit. As we scurry out, kids trail, requesting pictures with us outside. Faith opens the trunk and they circle, curious what treasures it hides. While Elaine and I wait in the Volga, kids knock on our windows and wave. When Faith climbs in and we drive out, a few kids chase us. I can’t tell if they’re playing, desperate, or both.

Speeding toward our next stop, I am deeply disturbed. The orphanage’s condition is abysmal, but the urgency the children show transcends mere lack of comfort. They’re hopeless, and know it better than the orphans we’ve seen until now. Adoption is a new phenomenon here, and already the kids are clawing to see us, putting on their best clothes, queuing, pleading if they have to, for their chance at a chance.

Most gut-wrenching is Slava, whose unhappy fate Faith described with truth cruel in its brevity: “There’s nothing we can do.” Kids age out of orphanages daily, and it bothers me. A lot. But a desperate face now exemplifies this factoid, a face I’ve just seen for the first time, when it’s already too late even to try. There is no help for Slava, or Dima either. I’m heartsick, and expect Slava to haunt any sleep I eke out in upcoming days.

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"Tell her you want a family, too!"

In the eleven trips I’ve coordinated, I’ve repeatedly observed quiet, compliant children are in grave danger of being overlooked, while obnoxious kids glide into families.   In all my trips, Denis is unique: his shyness landed him his family.  His hosts Aaron and Robyn heard about the Tulsa Russian Orphan Lighthouse Project through another hosting friend, and signed on shortly before the trip. Like 80% of hosts, they expected to serve only as a bridge between an orphan and an adoptive family, until Denis’s painful reserve stabbed Robyn in the heart. One morning, eyes brimming with tears, she confided she had a quiet child already who, dropped into a similar situation, would never shine and find a family on such a trip. That epiphany, time, and prayer proved the prompts her family needed to pursue adoption of Denis.

Joining Denis on that trip was his best friend, Dmitry. During Dmitry’s visit, he craved hugs, loved laughing, amazed his hosts Lee and Stacey with his artistic prowess, and declared his wish for a car and garage some day. Though initially afraid of the family dachshund, her name was the first he learned, and soon cries of “Louuu-see!” were followed with laughter as she sprang into his lap. Lee and Stacey raved about his attitude, organization, kindness, and enthusiasm for their activities. At the community program the Lighthouse kids present on our American trips, Lee hoped to give a testimonial on his behalf, and seemed genuinely disappointed when I declined. Dmitry, in no demand at age thirteen, returned to Russia with the prayers of his hosts, but without an adoptive family.

In December, after Aaron and Robyn appeared in a Russian court to finalize Denis’s adoption, they left him in the region, as required, and returned to Moscow. Denis, briefly back at the orphanage after spending time with his new family, called our Russian coordinator Love while waiting. Too retiring to ever have pled his own case, but acting with the urgency of one fearing to leave his best friend hopeless, Denis offered Dmitry the phone. As Love spoke with Dmitry, she heard Denis imploring in the background, "Go ahead! Tell her! Tell her you want a family, too!"

In our autumn visit, we saw desperation at Denis and Dmitry’s orphanage we witnessed nowhere else. Kids there made efforts, heartbreaking in their failure, to dress up for us; one boy, already too old for international adoption, sported a shiny polyester suit as he pled with his teacher, “Will you show me to them?” Departing without meeting everybody, kids followed us out the door, some even chasing our car as we drove off.

Waiting in this forlorn place his few last days before his family’s second coming, Denis, erstwhile orphan but now a son, disdained to save only himself. Summoning strength he’d not shown in his own search, now he’d do what he could to pass his blessings on.

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Marching On

Questions about which kids found families are hallmarks of the end of a Lighthouse Project trip. While patience is a virtue I still need to cultivate, I’ve found trips like these might take a few months to completely sort themselves out. That said, some families were definitive enough that I am quite confident these children have found their forever families in Tulsa: Alexei, Denis, Ekaterina, Vladislav, Larisa, Eduard, and Sergei. Anton M. and Ivan have families seriously considering them, fomenting realistic hope within that I might move their names one sentence forward, soon. Three other children have families giving them some level of consideration, and two returned to Russia without any prospects of a family.

The January kids were still en route to Russia when I began anticipating my next trip, yet I confess more shock than elation at being asked last week to do a March program in Grand Rapids so close on the heels of Tulsa. Since I live there I could not argue that Grand Rapids was inconvenient, but the drain of my incessant efforts to stoke interest in January kids who might die if I failed has not, even now, subsided. Leaving on a Lighthouse sabbatical tempted, a larger tease than I would have expected. It would not have been for long; even in my three short visits to Russian orphanages I sensed an emotional permafrost that mocks the Siberian tundra. Nonetheless, it took a final appeal to the immediacy of that need by my friend Hope, the Lighthouse Project director, to extract a yes to coordinating a trip sooner than I would have chosen.

My favorite child from Tulsa was a freckled, blonde-haired nine-year-old who enchanted me, proclaiming his love of homework and English classes, and topping it off with a Russian-accented English rendition of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” While I work until the wee hours of the morning on behalf of every child entrusted to me, I especially liked Vladimir. Occasionally there are kids so winning I cannot understand why no one picks them; I have settled on the explanation that it is God’s will and timing, and that their family must either be somewhere else or they don’t yet know there is a Russian child searching for them. For one of these reasons, Vladimir did not meet his family in Tulsa. A few years ago, the Russian government started compensating families for providing foster care to orphans. Foster care has become more popular in poorer regions than the rest of Russia as government payouts for care have increased. While I would not paint all Russian foster families with a broad brush, does it take a cynic to wonder if there’s a connection, and why only families in poor regions want to foster? And is it a coincidence that once kids reach the age of sixteen, when government payouts cease, many foster families suddenly lose interest in the kids and turn them out to the streets? The Lighthouse kids’ region is quite impoverished and Vladimir’s orphanage, my own kids’ orphanage “alma mater,” is a hotbed for foster care. A child of his age would most certainly be picked by a foster family before I could do the next available trip in June. By consenting to do a March trip, perhaps I can save the boy who stole my heart with his song from a lifetime without a family who loves him.

Also scheduled to travel is fifteen-year-old Katya. Only nine months from her sixteenth birthday, Katya will be unable to enter the United States on an orphan’s immigrant visa once she reaches that milestone. At the stroke of sixteen, hope of adoption is fruitless, leaving little to anticipate beyond an unspeakable future of degradation and a brutishly shortened life expectancy. A trip delayed until June would be three months closer to a sixteenth birthday promising to be anything but sweet. Maybe by taking action just a few months earlier we can rob the Russian streets of a charming girl who still has the audacity to dream of life as a chef rather than life as a prostitute.

The clock doesn’t stop for Vladimir or Katya. I must be as relentless.

Still Waiting

I have a heavy heart today for four children, since I have no leads and no ideas. There are other children I am not confident have adoptive families, though I have significant leads. These kids still wait:

Nikolai, age 13

Nikolai is in 7th grade. He likes physical education and likes drawing. He would like to be a builder some day. He has a best friend whom he appreciates for his reliability and trustworthiness. Nikolai's one wish is to go to America to see what it's like here.

Anton, age 13

Anton is doing well in sixth grade; math and Russian are his favorite subjects. His favorite color is black; his favorite season is summer. He is able to crochet anything. Anton speaks a little English. He would like to be a truck driver and have a family. He believes in God, and told his interviewer that God tells us to forgive and be kind. Because of this, Anton tries to be kind. Anton amazed his host family his first day here with the swan he carved from an apple.

Dmitri, age 13

Dmitry is in 6th grade. He especially enjoys art classes and drawing. He likes the color black. Winter is his favorite season because the new year comes and children get presents. He likes to eat potatoes and would like to have a cat. He likes his best friend, Denis because Denis is a good student. Dmitry would like to be a worker when he grows up. He has worked hard in America to keep his things organized and neat. His host family loves his great attitude and how he is always ready to go. His host family gave Dmitry a one dollar bill which he treasures, taking it with him everywhere he goes. They ached at last Tuesday’s evening program to leap up and tell the audience what a great kid he is. He was so proud to see his photo in the evening program brochure.

Lima, age 11

Lima enjoys math in her third grade class. Her favorite season is summer because her orphanage sends kids to camp where they can swim. She likes fairy tales; her favorite is a story about three pigs. Lima is friendly and talkative, and she likes the color yellow; the orphanage social worker calls her the "sunshine girl"! Lima likes to help and receive attention. She would like to be a doctor some day because she wants to help people feel well. Her biological sister has been adopted by an American family; Lima dreams of seeing her again if she gets a chance to return to America. She was able to speak to her sister on the phone Wednesday and she couldn't stop smiling or saying, "I love you!" afterward. Lima’s sister has been asking everyone her family meets in Michigan if they would adopt her sister, since she knows what a blessing it is to have a family. She wants her biological sister to have this same blessing.

If you know of anyone who might be interested in any of these children, please contact me at (616) 245-3216; the children return home to Russia early Sunday, January 18. We are getting down to the wire, but it is not yet too late!

Remembering the Kids Who Wait

This is a difficult entry to write, as the end of our Tulsa November Lighthouse Project has come sooner for seven of the children scheduled to arrive this evening. One orphanage on the trip, represented by seven children, is under a medical quarantine due to an outbreak of dysentery. The head of the Ministry of Health of the specific region of Russia is not allowing any of the children from that orphanage scheduled to travel to come; thus, there will be only six children on the trip. The children affected are Anton, Alexei P., Lima, Denis, Ekaterina, Nikolai, and Dima P. It would be hard to overstate how sad this makes me, as the children are terribly disappointed. Additionally, the families have thrown themselves into preparing for this trip so enthusiastically that it was devastating to have to deliver this news to them. These families are still true host families, as they’ve been hosting these children in their hearts. Please keep these disappointed and sick children, as well as their Tulsa families, in your prayers.

As these children have passports, plane tickets, and visas good for six months, my plan is to return to Tulsa in January for another trip, hopefully with additional children. These seven should be able to visit Tulsa at that time. Each host family who planned to host one of these kids will, of course, have first priority to host the same child in January, assuming the child is in condition to make the trip. Exact dates will be announced, though it appears the trip will be the early part of the month.

I am experiencing much emotional dissonance: on the one hand, great sadness for the children and families who will not meet each other in November, and hope for the children God has allowed to actually come. I am cognizant that the six remaining children deserve to have a wonderful trip where they find their families, but behind my necessary enthusiasm for the trip as it now is, I remember with great emptiness and sorrow the seven children I thought would be here. I will smile and work vigorously for the trip, but please know I have not forgotten the kids who wait. That said, I am obligated to switch gears and work toward finding families for the kids we’ll meet tonight.

But I have not forgotten…

Tulsa, Here We Come!

The Russian Orphan Lighthouse Project is delighted to announce our Tulsa, Oklahoma, trip kids will be arriving at the end of next week! Several Russian orphans will be staying with Tulsa-area families for ten days before they return to their orphanages, hopefully having met a family who wants to adopt them.

Nikolai (left) wants to go to America. He likes drawing, physical education, and dreams of being a builder when he grows up. Denis (right), a shy boy with a sweet smile, promised his interviewer to look at her, and kept his end of the bargain. He enjoys physical education and making crafts, even making shoes at his orphanage. Both boys, aged 13, still need host families or they will be unable to travel.

In their mid- to late teens children in Russian orphanages age out of the system, frequently turning to lives of crime or prostitution to support themselves. Most adoptive families desire children as young as possible. Children ages two or three are already considered “older” by adoption standards and, therefore, hard to place. Children the age of Denis or Nikolai have little hope that a family will ever travel to Russia to find and adopt them. Recognizing this, the Lighthouse Project brings Russian orphans ages 7-15 to the United States for ten-day hosting trips, partnering this time with Grace Baptist Church of Owasso. While here, children stay with host families, participate in a Russian-language Vacation Bible School, receive a Russian Bible, and enjoy family activities and attention not available in an orphanage. When families spend time with a child, they are much more open to considering adoption of that child. The program has been successful in its mission: since 1998, the forty Lighthouse Project trips to several states have helped more than 300 Russian orphans find families. The vast majority of these children would not have been adopted had they remained in their orphanages waiting for a family to come looking for them.

There are eleven other children on the trip, each with their own compelling story. In the coming days, you’ll hear about each of the kids coming and have a chance to follow them on the journey we are praying leads them to a forever family. The children will present a program for the community during the stay, and they would love to meet you there! For more information on the Tulsa trip, Russian adoption, or to host Denis or Nikolai, please call Tulsa Lighthouse Project Coordinator Becky De Nooy at (616) 245-3216 or visit http://www.lhproject.com/ .

Get ready, Tulsa! Here we come!