A Mustard Seed for Tonya

Karina at home, now 18

A true-blue friend of our program asked recently about Tonya, a girl her daughter Karina recalled from her orphanage days.  In the years since Karina had been home, she’d thought about Tonya many times, dreamed about her even, left behind at an orphanage Karina knew too well.  Karina thought Tonya had been on a previous Lighthouse Project trip to America, though I doubted that, since I could recall no child by the name she offered.

Two days shy of her 15^th birthday, official word arrived that Tonya was still orphaned, and waiting.  While I held out little hope of an eleventh-hour match, I wouldn’t say no to our friend.  As Karina and her mom started praying and sharing, imploring fellow church members to cry to the Lord for Tonya, I began to wonder if a family might yet find her.

Having heard the girl’s name only as a nickname for Tatyana, I was surprised to discover when her documents arrived that Tonya’s real name was Antonina.  Nothing at all in her background inspired confidence, but as I shared her story with our friend, she remained unfazed.  Karina was “storming the gates of Heaven,” she assured, as if finding a family was as easy as praying with sufficient faith.
 

Tonya, 15

A week later I revisited Tonya’s documents, staring at her name and pondering its rarity.  After years of work with Russian kids, my only previous encounter with the name Antonina was when an eight-year-old traveled to Michigan in 2006, back when our program still brought children to America.  Mulling this, I calculated: A girl eight then could be a teenager 15 in late 2012.  Finally a question gripped me.  Could Karina’s friend have languished since the 2006 trip? Tonya’s current photo, grainy and stern, provided few clues, as despite having coordinated that long-ago program, I’d hardly even seen the young Antonina.

Ages ago, our director Hope had asked me to coordinate that Michigan trip.  Desperately committed as I was to the Lighthouse Project, the idea was ridiculous, as we expected any day the call for court in Russia to adopt our own kids.  Hope never takes no easily, though, and she badgered me until I acquiesced just to silence her.  I did my duty, finding host families for the kids, but as I’d feared, the children arrived and departed the U.S. during the 26 days we stayed in Russia.  I might never have seen the Lighthouse children at all but for our last morning in Moscow, while at the airport waiting to fly home we saw the kids returning from America.  Waving to them through the glass, in that scant moment I glimpsed Antonina.
 

Antonina, 8

During our just-home blur of adjustment, I heard little about the trip which had transpired in my absence, except that Antonina was among those who’d found no family. Never having met her, forgetting her was painless enough; while she crossed my mind occasionally, she never prompted action.  Finally, I moved on.
 

And on. And on, until six years passed.

Tweet below to help Tonya find her family!
 

Karina, too, had been home awhile before she felt God’s gentle nudge to tell her mom about the girl she’d met when they were both young enough to be in the baby house together. Karina, three years older, left the baby house first, but their paths kept merging as they were shuffled around to various orphanages.  When Karina returned from her own Lighthouse Project trip in 2008 with a Bible, she pored over its pages, reading its words of life aloud to Tonya, who sometimes asked questions. But once Karina was adopted, thoughts of Tonya ceased for two full years.

Now on the phone Karina was stressing to me the urgency, sensing Tonya’s danger. “The orphanage is not a safe place,” she insisted, adding Tonya has no family with whom to build a relationship, and does not know the Lord. She opined with great certitude that Tonya’s new parents would “love her very much,” as that had been her experience with her own adoptive family.

Love's new photo of Tonya,
 taken in mid-September

Moved by Karina’s entreaties, a couple decided to join our upcoming November trip to meet Tonya. But the next morning bore crushing news that after umpteen years in an orphanage, Tonya had been snatched for foster care the previous day.  Sixteenth birthdays mark the beginning of a downward spiral for most kids in foster care: government checks stop arriving for foster families, the families stop “caring,” and children become ineligible for international adoption. When I called my friend, devastated, she shrugged the news off, since she’d warned Karina numerous times to expect trials throughout the process. Calling this only the first of several obstacles the Lord would eventually remove, she urged me to persevere and expect Tonya’s release from foster care before the trip.

The next few weeks were punctuated with the downs and ups our friend predicted. Tonya’s hosts changed their minds and decided not to travel in November.  Then our Russian coordinator Love visited the region, finding the girl in the orphanage, not foster care.  Better photos secured, Love returned bubbling with the news that Karina’s Tonya was our Antonina from Michigan 2006. Having suffered in a wretched orphanage, courting a sordid future had not our program's dearest friend intervened, Tonya retained hope of a family.  

Karina, exulting in her new life, heart brimming with compassion, wrestles mightily in prayer for Tonya’s welfare and soul.  “God wants her here for a reason,” she told me earnestly. “Other people are praying about her. I think it will go well.” Thus believing, Karina shamed me with her grand vision of Tonya yet reveling in the love of new parents.
 

Tonya, Antonina that is, has been alone forever. Time dwindles dangerously, but an erstwhile orphan clinging to faith the size of a mustard seed prays in steadfast expectation that this mountain will move a smidgeon.
 

Move just enough to let her oldest friend be as blessed as she has been.
 

He [Jesus] said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20, English Standard Version)

Click here to Tweet, and help Tonya find her family while she still has time!

*****

You can visit Tonya in Russia November 9-16, 2012, with our welcoming group of American travelers. She would love a chance at a family! Is God calling you? Call Becky! You can reach her at (616) 245-3216. Time is of the essence.

 

Mouths of Babes

Victoria’s smile revealed she was missing her two front teeth, and she spoke with a lisp as she answered her questioner without a hint of shyness. For a young seven-year-old, she was unusually open, sang without cajoling, and was a most engaging interview subject. The first grader likes her teacher and loves school. Russian schools value memorization of poetry, and most interviews of young children feature at least one recitation; praised by the interviewer after her first poem, Victoria clapped for herself, and launched headlong into a second. Asked about a new friend, Victoria puzzled a moment, and then confessed she didn’t remember her name. Ironically, she wore a shirt emblazoned with a drawing of an elephant and the cryptic English words, “Don’t want to forget me am an elephant.” As the interview was ending, she neatened her pigtails in preparation for photos the interviewer would take.

After Victoria’s turn, her sister Alexandra, nine, arrived back at the orphanage from school, where she’s in second grade. Asked what subjects she liked, she rattled off painting, reading, math, and Russian language without an instant’s hesitation. At her orphanage’s library, she checks out books of fairy tales. She likes watching Chip and Dale cartoons and playing. Several of the orphanages where we work have animals; Alexandra enjoys feeding the dogs and kittens at hers. She easily remembered her best friend, sister Victoria. During free time at school or the orphanage, they visit together. Alexandra added it’s her pleasure to help Victoria when she needs it. As her interviewer translated this, Alexandra smiled sweetly.

The girls arrived at the orphanage a few months ago, after their biological mother’s rights were terminated. At the court hearing which effected this deprival, their mother did not show up to contest allegations of neglect, nor did she trouble herself to inform the court that she would be absent.

As is too frequently the situation with the kids we serve, the one who should have cared most for the girls did not care enough to fight to keep them. So in an orphanage without their mother, little Alexandra does what she can to help her littler sister, only too pleased she has the chance.

*****

Alexandra and Victoria are able to travel on our November 9-15 Lighthouse Project trip to Moscow, provided they have a host family within the next few days.   For more information on the trip, these girls, or other children, please call Becky at (616) 245-3216 this week.

Tweet

They Have to Love Children

A wet snow descended at the close of our three days visiting orphanages. During the drive, Faith briefed me on a sibling trio she’d promised to help find a family for ages ago. We were coming to visit them, to do a picture retake of another sibling group, and to collect three kids for our first reverse Lighthouse Project trip to Moscow. School was history for the week, and as Faith opened the orphanage door, music pounding in celebration slapped us in the face. Kids spilled out into the hallway from several rooms to see us; several I recognized from old interviews I’d watched.

There was more protocol to suffer here than at some places we visited, as the staff graciously insisted on feeding us first. We had sated our appetites on the way, though a bulging stomach was least of my objections when tepid chicken soup awash in fat was set before me. I scarcely had time to resign myself to the greasy atrocity when an ante-upping plate appeared: a pickle and tomato, both steaming, paired with chilled mashed potatoes and still-scaled herring. It felt immoral to discard meat, lest an animal perish in vain, but the fish’s odor, aesthetics, and temperature worked wonders for my powers of rationalization. When our server briefly excused herself, Faith, eyeing the fish banished to the side of my plate, swapped her scales for my herring, salving my conscience in one deft exchange.

Formalities mercifully over, a parade of children entered. Those awaiting their families’ arrival appeared with confident smiles, lavishing hugs of recognition upon us. Others, not yet slated for a trip, made more circumspect entrances. One girl, leaving with us this afternoon, was Larisa, ten. The elfin brunette piqued my interest during an earlier interview, allowing of school only that she liked it “better than being in the hospital” while paradoxically aspiring to a nursing career. She defied anyone to dislike her, and finding a host for her on our trip was a cinch.

Now in Russia, waiting to meet her in person, we learned she had a sibling, of whom we’d been unaware.

Larisa bounced carefree into the room, leaving sister Maria, 13, her pensive shadow. As we spoke with her, Maria warmed up, but remained decorous. Interview basics were addressed: favorite subjects, music and physical education; preferred seasons, summer and winter; hobbies, crocheting and reading; and career hope, medicine. Her dream was a good family, thoughtfully defined as one where parents love children. She “certainly” believed in God, and affirmed God loves her, editorializing, “He loves everyone.” Larisa’s characterization of Maria as strict elicited a chuckle from Maria, and a swift addendum from Larisa that it helped her. My friend Elaine asked how long they’d been here. “One year,” Maria answered, alluding to how momentous their arrival was by giving its exact date.

After our meeting, Larisa left to collect her things for Moscow. While I liked Maria’s dignified charm, I knew her existence would shock the host, who was leaving the States in a few hours, oblivious that a second child would also need to be adopted. With Maria unable to travel with us, it would reduce the girls’ chance of being adopted this trip. Watching Larisa through the window as she returned with her bag, it was devastating to know we’d unintentionally failed to give either girl her best opportunity.

Several interviews later, we departed the orphanage, three kids in tow. With five of us wedged in the backseat, we sought respite from our boredom by playing tic-tac-toe in the window’s fog. As he glared at us in his rearview mirror, I suspected our entertainment choice displeased our chauffeur. But as his reckless driving risked seven lives, our window game seemed minimal recompense. One last orphanage stop killed time and dished up a few more interviews. As she waited for us to finish, Larisa mixed effortlessly with the kids she met there. When we left, four children richer, an orphanage van whisked us to the train station in a joyously forgettable ride.

We reached our Moscow hotel before the families. When they arrived from the airport in early afternoon, I spoke with Larisa’s host. While her magnanimous understanding of our discovery of Maria was a boon to my stress level, she doubted any second child, particularly one she couldn’t meet, would fit her family.

As our visit unfolded, Larisa smiled generously. She knew some English, with a hearty appetite for more. She shepherded the trip’s two youngest children, and accepted guidance from an older child who criticized minor shortcomings in her behavior. Asking a host parent if she was adopting two other children on the trip, the affirmative answer brought Larisa genuine happiness. Still, she retained her own painfully obvious desire to be adopted, as she shooed away kids who wanted to hold her host mom’s hand. The day we departed Moscow, another child gave Larisa’s host a heart-shaped "I love you" pin, complete with blinking red lights. Larisa’s efforts to convey that the garish pin was from her, too, were heart-rending in their desperation.

When we left Moscow, every family had chosen a child for adoption; Larisa, twinkle in her eye, was not among those picked. Twice since, she and Maria have been selected by families, only to have both families back out before even meeting the girls. The last few weeks, whenever Lighthouse Project director Hope and I discuss kids for future trips, she tells me Larisa and Maria still very much want a family.

I appreciate the reminder, but don’t need it. I remember the request.

They have to love children.

Tweet

Her Lora

Lora, 11, and Zulya, 15, snuggled in close to Catherine as she read to a swarm of younger children before leaving the orphanage for the evening with her new son Anton, 14. “Are there any friends you know of who would adopt us so we could live close to you?” Zulya implored. The question took the new adoptive mom aback; the girl craved affection, but she’d only met Catherine 45 minutes earlier. In the five subsequent days the family visited, both girls trailed them, barraging with requests to play with their group. Zulya, especially, is unhappy at the orphanage; Catherine witnessed kids tormenting her about her full name, Zhuleikha, because it isn’t Russian.

Gentle Zulya longs for a family, but circumstances make it most unlikely she’ll get one. Orphans are generally prohibited from entering the US at sixteen, unless adopted concurrently with a younger sibling. Zulya and Lora, though having spent much of their lives in the same household, are niece and aunt. Arriving at the orphanage together three months ago, the girls were reticent to reveal what drove them there, deeming it too sad a story to share. Whatever their history, difficult as it must have been, they have each other, for now. And while their biological relationship is not sufficiently close to qualify Zulya to immigrate to the States with Lora after her birthday, they’re close enough to want to stay together. Pressed to name her best friend, Zulya smiled toward her younger aunt, saying, “My Lora,” adding, “We really are sisters. We wish we could always be together!”

At this, the interviewer invited Lora to join Zulya; the older girl pulled up a chair for the younger without a hint of begrudging the shared spotlight. Both girls enjoy crafting, and Zulya beamed as she helped Lora display a flower she’d created from rolled paper. Another student produced a swan he’d made, which Zulya showed on camera, thoughtfully turning it side to side so it could be better appreciated, though it was the work of another.

Lora is a reader, preferring scary stories and those with mother characters. She reminisced of summers past, helping her mother, Zulya’s grandmother, garden, and gather strawberries, mushrooms, and nuts. Since arriving in the orphanage, Zulya attends a new school; she likes her instructors, whom she says explain concepts well. Her English study is difficult, though she believes if she tries hard, everything “will be alright.”

But effort may not make all things right. There is little Zulya can do to secure her future with Lora, except to profess her desire to remain together, and with pleading words shadow families who come to claim other kids. To stay “sisters”, the girls must be adopted by early September, or Lora can decline her chance at a family later, if she’s willing, to remain with Zulya in Russia. By then, the gentle girl with the Turkish name will likely be working the streets to support herself, and maybe her Lora, not because she wants to, but because she arrived at the orphanage too late in childhood for anyone to help.

Zulya desperately wants a family to share with the one person who understands what she’s been through. Perhaps no family will choose them, act with the requisite speed, and tolerate the uncertainty of Russian adoption. But I’ve seen too deeply into their souls to look away, so I must assess the merit of the mission not by its likelihood of success, but by its rightness.

***

To be adopted together, Zulya and Lora must have certain documents filed by the first week of September.  This would require a home study-ready family to step forward almost immediately, and the adoptive families would need to act very expeditiously in all remaining paperwork.  Having USCIS approval already would be a major plus.  There are many uncertainties in this adoption, which will be discussed with potential adoptive families.  If you are interested in adopting Zulya and Lora together, please contact Becky at (616) 245-3216 until 11:00 p.m. EST any day.

Tweet

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.

Tweet

"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.

Tweet

Mission: Never Accomplished

Yakov, a shriveled goatherd wrapped in an ancient camouflage coat, tended his meager flock along the road to our first orphanage, and seemed more surprised than flattered at our stop. Our driver, having given too little thought to risking our lives behind the wheel, was sufficiently obliging for several photo stops; besides the goats, we posed with the sign at the outskirts of town, and shot the hamlet church and its ten napiform domes. Thousands of miles from home, but within minutes of our target, I was stalling with the dread of a mourner en route to a funeral visitation, pregnant with purpose, but reluctant to consummate. Conversation sputtered minutes from the orphanage, in a dichotomous aura of anticipation and foreboding. While I’d been to an orphanage before, it was to pick up my own kids, not to see the need.

Outside the institution, gas pipes a foot in diameter skimmed the ground, then rose up, forming an unsightly bridge over the dirt road just beyond. Sheep freely wandered as geese rested warily in the street beside their pond, framed at its far end by a motley village. The orphanage, white and red brick, was the most auspicious building in sight, seducing me with sufficient curb appeal to briefly sweat the ethics of past depictions of orphanages as bastions of hopelessness.

Faith sprinted in, with a swelling group of kids shadowing her, and I had to hustle to avoid being lost in labyrinthine stairwells and halls. Young and old welcomed us unprompted with formal hellos as they saw us. Several paired children, each lugging a handled cardboard box holding a meat carcass, greeted us with a pleasant self-confidence that said they had no inkling how squeamish their burdens made us. I wondered if this friendliness was standard for all visitors, or if it was reserved for those from America, who might get them out.

We’d come to see Alexandra, a retiring thirteen, who’d earlier said she wanted a mom and dad from the Lighthouse Project. I’d seen the results of a hundred orphanage interviews before, but mystique surrounded their creation. Since interviews are the deciding factor in a family’s child selection prior to a trip, I always imagined discussions of why we were here, what things we would ask, and what answers would be advantageous, before we rolled.

We invaded Alexandra’s room, a spartan space she shared with one mentally impaired girl, at naptime. Underdressed in pajamas, she self-consciously tugged at them in a futile attempt to cover her knees. Faith greeted her, wordlessly turned on her camera, and started questioning. This minute action evoked a barrage of dissonant emotions: relief at the uncoached purity of the interview mingled with horror at the lack of preparation in her appeal for a life, letdown at the loss of the interview’s mystery alongside hope in sharing nascent steps toward a future, empathy for her losing battle for modesty but delight at her desire, and prayer for her success with a yearn to flee because of her discomfort. Oddly, the interview dredged up a strong and haunting reminder of the first euthanasia I witnessed as a student, prior to being numbed as a veterinarian. I’d anticipated these seemingly disparate events with dread and awe, but found them disturbingly similar, each process lacking the drama to portend the weight of the result.

The interview lobbed a few softballs as I willed Alexandra to excel. We gleaned that she likes red, roses on bushes, cats and dogs, and pictures of foxes. She does not study English, since her school has no teacher. And that was all: these few, unpretentious words encapsulated a petition I worried couldn’t be enough to induce a family to take her. Faith earned a smile when she gave Alexandra a purse, then I awkwardly offered a handful of gum and a hug. Leaving, we popped in to see a boy awaiting his Wisconsin family.

Our whirlwind visit left Elaine and me plenty to ponder on the road to our next stop. In an orphanage with one hundred children, we’d entered two rooms, each housing two children, but focused all effort on one resident. How could the others know that we also cared about them, but that their circumstances would not permit adoption? Did they wonder what heroics garnered Alexandra and the Wisconsin boy American attention? Did Faith’s childish shadows pray she might notice them, and lament our determination to visit just two rooms, with hardly a glance their direction? Did Alexandra puzzle why strangers would bounce in, ask a few questions, and go?

How deflating to realize the humble chance we’d given Alexandra was the only glimmer of hope we’d left at her orphanage. Other souls, equally needy and with futures as bleak, were relegated to barely supporting role status, remembered only for the atmosphere of generalized desperation they helped create.  In one stop, one orphanage, ten minutes at most, my optimism abandoned me.  Our mission would never be fully accomplished.

Tweet

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!

Tweet

Driven

In Russia: Day 5

On Tuesday, we set out with Yelena’s husband. He leaves us at the second orphanage. After the visit, several Lighthouse alumni awaiting their families walk us down a wooded driveway to a nearly abandoned road, where Faith begins thumbing it. The first car down the road is a severe, two-door communist holdover; its driver stops for us. With three more bodies, we aren’t in a minute before the windows fog. I’ve never ridden in a Russian car with a sufficient defogger, so a towel is standard equipment. When we mention the fogged-over windows, our driver makes a futile attempt to reassure when he claims that in winter, he drives with only a small square of ice chipped off the windshield. The implication is if he can drive with that handicap, this one is child’s play, but the message I actually receive is that his judgment is irreparably seared. On a serpentine road slicked with driving rain, our driver takes an unseemly interest in his cell phone. The death wish Russian drivers exhibit in lane changes paralyzes me: charging up on the next car’s bumper and tailgating until oncoming traffic passes, they swerve out immediately into the opposing lane, pass, then veer back into the right lane. When you’re lucky, you’re not rounding a bend or on a hill, or both, as the stunt occurs. Time not spent praying is spent marveling there are not more crosses roadside. Faith sees I’m board-like, with bulging eyes. “Don’t look,” she counsels. Sitting in back, on a trip of unknown duration with a stranger driving who speaks no English, I’m struck by the parallel between my current predicament and the experience of the Lighthouse kids going home with their host families from distant airports after arrival. I conjure up new empathy for them, incredulous that their circumstances in Russia are so austere that such a risk becomes a good one.

Two days later, we’re at our second-to-last orphanage. We pick up Alexander, Elena, and Larisa for the trip to Moscow. They’re abuzz as they get in the car with their small cache of belongings; they’ve never before been on a train or to Moscow, they tell us. The car we’re in is a Volga; we rode in this same car, with this same driver, when we picked up our own kids from the orphanage three years ago. The recollection is sufficient to jar me as snowflakes begin their descent. With seven people now in the car, Elaine rides in front with a seatbelt and more space, though the tradeoff is a better view of the driving. Faith, the three kids, and I are crammed in the back. It’s boring at first, but the kids snap to attention as I write their names almost correctly in Cyrillic in the omnipresent fog on my window. Elena sits on my lap, and our window tic-tac-toe is a cat’s game. Midway through our trek, we pass a horrendous crash, surprisingly the first we’ve seen; there’s no way the driver could have survived. I doubt our driver takes the crash to heart, because within a mile he’s fumbling with his MP3 player in a protracted ordeal that makes me grab the front seat with one hand, and dig my nails into the door’s armrest with my other. I finally heed Faith's advice and close my eyes.

We stop at another orphanage, interviewing fourteen-year-old Nadia, who wears a “Jesus” necklace. She dreams of adoption and becoming a veterinarian, but her biological mother is imprisoned and must first relinquish her parental rights. Nadia wrote her yesterday, confessed she yearns for a chance at life, and begged to be released to go to America. She prays her mother will sign the document, but if she won’t, this demure girl is truly hopeless. Someone in our car is completely smitten with her, but without relinquishment papers, it hardly matters.

We pick up Dmitry, Alexander Z., Nicholas S., and Yulya at this orphanage. A van brings us all to the train station, along with the chaperone, a caretaker here. These four kids look so expectant as they board the van I suspect they don’t know there’s no host for any of them in Moscow.

At the train station, we de-van in a drizzle and meet the rest of our group: Nikolai V. and Anton, both from two previous trips, and Denis, in America last March. Denis is being adopted, but his family is here to meet another child, too. They want to see him, and Hope has been kind enough to let him join our group. Our band complete, we wait inside the station. I have been coveting a photo of the perfect babushka for my blog. I finally find her inside the station. She is heavyset, wears an ancient coat, wraps a scarf around her head, and clutches a plastic bag with one hand and a branch for a walking stick in the other. As I discuss with Elaine how to discretely snap a photo, my new camera falls hard on the terrazzo floor. I pick it up, but it’s clearly broken. Elaine lends me her camera; the memory card is full. While we fumble, the prototypical babushka slips into the darkness outside the station when her train arrives. I berate myself for missing the shot, but derive slight consolation in skirting the photographic propriety quagmire.

We cross the tracks to our platform as the light of our train approaches us too quickly for comfort. Traveling with ten kids is daunting, and is exacerbated when another train charges by on the neighboring track without stopping. It forms a deafening wind tunnel, and we race through the rain to board our car on time. Once situated, I talk Elaine’s ear off, trying to make sense of what we saw in the orphanages this trip. I have a mountain of compelling blog material, and I settle in to work when Elaine is too tired to listen further. Finding my computer’s battery is dead, I reluctantly succumb to my need for rest, and, for the first night since I left home, get more than three hours of sleep.

Morning dawns and I awaken to our train lurching into the Moscow station. We reunite with the kids and chaperone, who rode in three, four-bed compartments several cars behind us, and join the tapestry of passengers from trains arriving from far-flung reaches of Russia. Taxi drivers solicit us, but Dima, Faith’s brother, awaits us with his van. Fifteen of us scrunch in with our luggage; Dima wants to hire another cab, but Faith, the senior sibling and unfailingly frugal, overrules him and says we’ll all fit.

Combating rush hour traffic on the drive to the hotel we’ll stay at, Dima leaves us sitting in the common area since our rooms aren’t ready yet. The kids wile the time watching scandalously trashy music videos. Their chaperone seems not to notice, and I derive from this omission further motivation to get the kids out of their orphanages. Meanwhile, Dima hurries Elaine to the airport for her return flight home, and I am distraught to see her go. When Dima returns, he’ll have my host families in tow; I’m anxious to meet them. They’ve been warned this is an inaugural trip. All have agreed to be flexible, and I believe them, since they’ve already been very gracious. After forty-four trips to the United States for the Lighthouse Project, that trip is quite streamlined. But this version will be a learning experience, and statistics I take for granted at home are out the window now. Everything is new.

Everything, that is, except my prayer that in all my trips, each of the kids entrusted to me find their families.