Still Golden

Vasily, without a gift, at his orphanage in
October 2009, the last time I'd seen him

An insistent rain pelts us, and windy blasts imperil my umbrella. Irina, our translator, offered to meet Vasily in the parking lot herself, but years of prayers for him torpedoed my patience, and I adamantly refused to wait for him another second. Russian sidewalks are seldom level, and much of the way I slosh through puddles too big to dodge.

The last time we met was three years ago, as Vasily stood forlornly in his orphanage’s office empty-handed, shrinking as the other boys, all with waiting families, clutched care packages (Solid Gold, 12/1/09). Though I liked him well then, he’s nearly fourteen now, and been languishing longer than any other orphan on our roster. Even securing a host has been impossible, once prospective families hear of his orphanage’s dismal reputation and my not having seen him in ages (Russian Orphanage Life, Scene Two, 3/22/12). Vasily’s only hope is to travel on our trip so I can update my opinion.  Either I’ll drop my caveat, or him.

At the car, a gust grabs my umbrella and whips its metal into the finish of the vehicle. The driver is annoyed, but my chagrin vanishes as the passenger door opens. Vasily is in the back seat, flashing a broad smile of remembrance at me. To the marrow of my bones I sense he knows I am still trying to help him.

Vasily gets a gift after
our group discussion.

Vasily joins us mid-trip; despite a four-hour drive one-way to get here, his orphanage only allows him a few hours with us. Arriving just in time for our group discussion, he tells us he likes his orphanage, especially his friends. It’s poignantly ironic when he dreams of being a “rescue ranger [saving] all the people who need it,” since he himself still awaits rescue. After the session, when I announce swimming time, he laments dejectedly he has no suit.  He brightens and thanks me profusely when he sees I brought him one.

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In the pool, he interacts well with John, a host dad swimming with the kids. While we watch them, a social worker the orphanage sent along says he has difficulty learning, and just finished sixth grade. His biological mother drinks, taking so little interest in him that one year ago, when last she saw him, Vasily didn’t recognize her.  Understandably, he prizes promise-keepers, but gets angry when people lie. Opining she cannot find anything negative to say against him, the social worker labels him shy, a good boy who is “very often hungry.” With grand approval she adds he doesn’t smoke, noting most kids at her orphanage do. She says he once visited America with the Lighthouse Project, and longs to return if he can find a good family (Rolla, 7/11/09).

Vasily was so thankful I'd brought
him a swimsuit.

After swimming, it is already time for him to leave. Though it’s too early for dinner, the cafeteria serves him alone before his long ride.  He’s had nothing since this morning, and the driver won’t stop on the way back. As he inhales his meal, he tells me about a lady he stays with during vacations. She’s widowed and lonely, so wants a child at her house. He exudes his feeling of vicarious ownership as he effuses, “In the house is a shower,” as though it’s a rare amenity. He grins when I commend his effort in his interview.

Before he departs, I decide Vasily would enjoy seeing kids from his orphanage who have new lives in America. After the slide show of beaming ex-orphans, I thank the chaperone for sending these children, and helping to make their families complete. Expecting a reciprocated pleasantry, I am blindsided when she says only, “Awful things are shown on the TV.” Caught off guard, it takes me a moment to respond. Finally I reply that the bad stories she’s heard, while reprehensible, represent a minute fraction of adoptive families, and that Americans are rightly indignant when hearing of such abuse. I tell her I treasure my Russian children, as do our families theirs, and that devotion and sacrifice for children is the overwhelming norm for adoptive parents.

Vasily, nearly 14 now, in July 2012;
still golden after all these years

I walk with Vasily out to the parking lot. I say goodbye to him in Russian, then Irina translates the rest of my well-wishes. He smiles, then hugs me tightly before he climbs into the car. I wave until he is out of sight, then walk back in wonder, incredulous that three extra years in his orphanage have not dimmed his openness and sweet demeanor. He was solid gold the first time I met him.

And he’s still golden now.

*****

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Interested families may visit Vasily as part of our November 9-16, 2012, Lighthouse Project trip to Russia. You'll travel with our fun group of friendly Americans, and let your compassion make a difference for the orphans you'll meet. Interested? It's not too late! Call Becky at (616) 245-3216 to join us! Don't miss your chance to change the world for a Russian orphan in need.

The Real Thing

I am a junkie, though my addiction is socially acceptable. I can drink like a fish, but never compromise lucidity or morality, and I never need a designated driver.

My greatest weakness is 12 fluid ounces, canned in crimson, heavenly just north of icy, and, with “Dynamic Ribbon Device,” has the best logo appellation of any product I know.

I love Coca-Cola. Rather, I LOVE Coca-Cola.

Very little soda was imbibed during my childhood, but the few one-liter glass bottles we did drink are recalled with genuine fondness. Away at college, external restraint was nonexistent; indeed, I owe my degree largely to Coke’s caffeine, which rendered me quasi-alert through scores of veterinary school all-nighters. After graduation my habit lived on; any thoughts of consequences of such liberal consumption were fleeting.

In 1999, I met my dear friend Donna. I encouraged her, successfully, to adopt Russian twins; she encouraged me, unsuccessfully, to adopt healthier beverage choices. Occasionally, she would e-mail me links to articles extolling the benefits of a Coke-free life. I appreciated her concern, but continued heeding signs proclaiming, “Enjoy Coca-Cola.” Once, she sent a study claiming researchers had found that women who drank even one soda a day were 83% more likely to develop type-2 diabetes than those who drank soda less than once per month. With my aunt a diabetic and a resultant kidney transplant recipient, Donna stoked my fears, though the effect had a fruit fly’s longevity.

My mom harped, too, and offered me a reward to go a month without Coke, betting I’d break my addiction. I selected February, and after collecting my prize, chilled a Coke in celebration.

Coke was my first thought in any crisis. In Moscow last August, suffering the extreme heat wave and acrid smoke, I woke up several mornings feeling smothered by the mask I’d slept in. In a desperate message to Hope, the Lighthouse Project director, I fretted about the smell, my smoke-induced panic attacks, and how Coke proved more helpful than the masks. Hope had before joined the cacophony of voices cautioning temperance, but now she instructed me to buy a case and to down a can whenever I was ready to “freak out.” I followed her orders religiously, and muddled through the week with Coke in hand, an omnipresent pick-me-up.

In GUM Mall in November, the kids, soon to go home to the orphanages, licked ice cream cones. As David videotaped, an especially divine sip of Coke reminded me of my favorite Coke commercial, which incited my singing it (video below). During my rendition, a Gucci clerk listened at the entrance to his store. Afterward, he approached me, and with outstretched hand introduced himself, over-flattering me with thanks for the “music.” Professing his love for America, he was surprised I enjoyed Moscow sufficiently to visit eight times. He wondered what drew me here, though since Russians are divided on the propriety of international adoption, I remained noncommittal. Returning to his door, he invited me to sing at GUM again soon.

Back in the States, assorted stressors kept me quaffing Coke. When December mornings started with Coke as breakfast, and my immediate instinct upon receipt of troubling news was to head for the refrigerator, I realized I could change volitionally, or have health foist it on me. Past experience proved if I stopped drinking Coke during the middle of the year, I would, on a whim, give up with a hollow promise to restart tomorrow; hence, my success was twinned with beginning January 1. My sister, anxious to provide incentive, pledged money for each consecutive Coke-less day in 2011, with the money to finance an adoption fund to assist the Lighthouse child of my choice. This was dirty pool, as it demanded my success, no matter how difficult.

I've seen these children, whom I could help, staring at us by the orphanage door as we left with our children, off to our own lives. Zulya and Lora still linger, as their family sells cats and oranges in an effort to get them home. Discovered too late, 15-year-old Svetlana signed documents allowing her brothers to be adopted while she remained behind, on the promise the family would return for her, once they could find the money. Others, like cheery Vasily or HIV-positive Artem, don’t even have families wanting them yet. Failure for the sake of an addiction would be unconscionable; children not yet picked from our trips need my strident efforts. Even my own little brood joined in, each making a pledge for every day of “sobriety,” hoping to encourage me and the orphans.

December 31 was a five-Coke day. As I opened the can I knew would be my last, I consciously savored the crack of the tab, the refreshing mist-in-the-face it generated, and the first sip’s assault of carbonation. Coke connoisseurs understand not all vintages taste equally good; this wasn’t a top-flight serving, but finishing at 11:58 p.m., my nostalgia was disproportionate to the quality. Tuning in to the Times Square ball drop with less enthusiasm than most years, I felt immediate panic when “2011” lit up.

The first days were filled with headaches, as several stressful moments shoved me perilously close to snagging one of the two Cokes I spirited away in my refrigerator for comfort, but I never succumbed. Finally last night, I was strong enough to tap my foot along with a Coca-Cola commercial parroting my GUM tune. For the first time, I was not craving Coke as I watched.

I could still enjoy Coca-Cola, I’ll admit, but I feel a burgeoning sense of power. I could take one from my refrigerator. Now, I don’t have to. This time, it’s the real thing.

*****

I have 28 days Coke-free days down, with 337 to go in 2011, and after that, hopefully, a lifetime of extreme moderation. If you would like to help me kick my habit, and help a deserving Lighthouse child in the process, please contact me at becky@lhproject.com to make your per diem pledge. Flat donations can also be made; checks should be written to “Beyond the Cross Adoption Fund” and mailed to First Assembly of God, 1608 N. Oak Street, Rolla, MO 65401. Please write “Coca-Cola” in the memo line.  All donations are tax deductible, and will be used to support the adoption of Russian children.

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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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Solid Gold

Vasily, Daniil, Vladimir, and Sergei stood in the orphanage office. As alumni of Elaine’s July Missouri trip, all were summoned when Elaine, Faith, and I arrived in late October, bearing gifts for the boys with families. As each boy accepted his present, he received an all-important promise that someone in America remembered him, and was working toward his return to their family. The gifts handed out, Vasily stood there empty-handed. He didn’t have a family, and was mistakenly called. Faith mined in her bag and found a trinket, a sorry afterthought without a family's well-wish. As the other kids beamed, I could not begrudge them their elation, but there was something amiss as Vasily politely smiled alongside, small, alone, with nothing and no one.

It wasn’t meant to be this way. Vasily had a family a few weeks after the Missouri trip, but a child they had been waiting for subsequently became available, and he was selected, rather than Vasily. While it was a reflection on the Russian system rather than on either Vasily or the erstwhile family, reality is no one waits for him, or readies for his return.

I loved Vasily when I met him in July; in this space months ago, I proclaimed him my favorite child on the trip (Rolla, 7/11/09). With his never-say-die spirit, he won my heart the moment we met. Newly arrived in Missouri, I was waiting at the hotel when he and his host mom drove up. I greeted him in Russian, and instead of assuming a condescending air toward my Spartan command of his language, he grinned, assured me he was well, and offered the firmest handshake a ten-year-old could muster.

All the other kids, save one, found families.

After he’d returned to Russia, Elaine and I brainstormed, but were hard-pressed to recall specific anecdotes about him. There was nothing flashy or obnoxious in him, leaving us void of a storyline. But we mutually retained memories of his omnipresent smile, cooperative spirit, unfailing positivity, willing participation, and verve for everything he tried. “How can you argue with solid gold?” Elaine reckoned, when we realized we remembered character traits, not stories.

While our first adoption from Vasily’s orphanage occurred only a year ago, several are now complete, and more pending, from this hamlet far in the region’s southern reaches. Staff there is anxious; too many adoptions on our part spells unemployment on theirs. It happened before in this region; my kids’ old orphanage closed this June. The exodus of children for America rendered the orphanage and its personnel obsolete. That’s success for the Lighthouse Project, though workers who eke out their meager existences on the backs of orphans take a less congratulatory view. Ten days ago, Hope, the Lighthouse Project director, informed me no kids from Vasily’s orphanage would be on our January trip, the result of unrest and ill-ease begotten by our recent spate of adoptions there. I e-mailed Elaine the news, noting only how devastated I was for this boy.

Days later, Hope told me our gem of a Russian coordinator, Love, had appealed the decision, asking if Vasily could travel, one more time. After he’d believed he had a family, it was unfathomable he not get a second chance at a future. Love’s sweetness is irresistible, and her request was honored.

So the final obstacle between Vasily and Moscow is finding his host family.

And how can you argue with solid gold?

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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.

Rolla

It’s near the end of another Lighthouse Project trip; we’re in Rolla, Missouri, this time, a town I’ve passed through driving I-44 toward Tulsa, Oklahoma, to plan and coordinate my trips there. It’s small town America, memorable only since I love Rolo candy, so if you’d told me my last time through that next time I’d stay a week to help a new coordinator run her first trip, I’d have found the claim dubious, at best.

When Elaine first wrote to me asking about running a trip to Rolla, it was on the heels of my January Tulsa trip. I’d just arrived home and was recovering from the almost unspeakably exhausting task of coordinating a trip, so I begged out of calling her right away. Not to worry, she said. She’d just gotten home five days earlier with her new twelve-year-old daughter from China and was recovering herself. I was on alert that Elaine was either very naïve about the rigors of running a trip, or else she was strangely ambitious, maybe had a Wonder Woman suit under her clothes.

Elaine was the first potential coordinator I didn’t manage to scare off with my description of the grueling task of coordinating. Through hours and hours and hours of conversations, we discussed how to present the project to callers, the merits of every potential host family, where children should go, everything I’d found that worked and didn’t, running Vacation Bible School, producing the evening program, how to promote the kids while they were in town, how to entertain the translator and chaperone, where to buy Russian Bibles, how to troubleshoot a palette of problems, and myriad other subjects too numerous to count. Elaine listened, understood, and followed through with aplomb. The truth is she doesn’t have a Wonder Woman suit; she’s got a whole closetful.

It wasn’t her fault I left one part off.

I didn’t tell her about the impotence she’d feel as the trip sputters toward its conclusion and there are kids left for whom a draining of her mental resources is insufficient to finding families. I neglected to tell her how she’d feel when she’d done everything, absolutely everything she could think of, and the world keeps turning and nobody notices that a few kids have been on a wild goose chase halfway around the globe. I didn’t say that if you’re conscientious, you’ll ask yourself a thousand times what you could have done but didn’t, what stone you left unturned, that sends a child back to the orphanage thinking there is no one, in Russia or America, who wants to be mom or dad. She didn’t hear that when you finally assuage your conscience realizing you did everything you reasonably could, and then some, resultant comfort is minced since it hardly matters to a still-motherless waif who depended on you without their even knowing it. And the most deflating epiphany might come at the end if families you thought were committed back out later, leaving you no time to further mine the nooks and crannies of resourcefulness.

The secret is out tonight. When Elaine left this evening, she told me to call her if I came up with any brilliant ideas, but her phone’s not ringing. There are three children for whom there is no one; worse, one child is on his second trip. It’s not for lack of spreading the word or praying; Elaine’s been on the radio, sent out a crazy number of press releases, sent 300 letters to churches, made roadside signs advertising the evening program, contacted homeschool groups, offered free housing to out-of-staters to entice them to host a child, and talked herself hoarse. Three kids wait, oblivious to, and unaided by, the efforts expended on their behalves.

Ten-year-old Vasily has the freckles I fall for. Most kids, the first time they meet you, ignore your attempt at basic Russian pleasantries. Not Vasily. My butchered “Preveyet, Vasily! Kak dela?” was met with a hearty “Haroshow!” and outstretched hand for shaking. Freckles? Check. Fun-loving? Check. Friendly? Another check. Vasily’s my favorite child on the trip, but I’m left lamenting that my enthusiasm was less than contagious.

Unobtrusive Vladimir, ten, is Vasily’s polar opposite. Vladimir bowed his head and cried during the question and answer segment of the evening program when he got a question about his visit to the local fire station. He didn’t have a parent to engulf him in a reassuring hug and help him through his shyness. When the trip is over, it appears he still won’t.

Most distressingly, Andrei, age 13, a two-trip alumni, must face his friends in the knowledge that visits to two states were not enough to find someone who wanted him. He still has his glasses from the first trip and wears them religiously, even though it’s not cool, so he’s earning better grades in school. The cynic within me tonight taunts me, saying scholastic improvement is irrelevant, since it looks as if no parent will ever see his report card.

It’s God’s program and the results are His. Elaine knows that. I know that. We’ll take comfort in that later when the kids are gone and there is truly nothing else we can do. But right here, right now, the kids still hope and they still have a chance. Watching the clock tick down toward Monday morning’s departure, we think we should do something. Just what is less clear. And when you’ve done everything you can think of and it’s still not enough, feeling impotent comes naturally.

So I’m sorry, Elaine, that I didn’t tell you the greater the effort, the greater the letdown when that effort is still insufficient. But I’m even sorrier for the kids who will go back, wondering what’s wrong with them, having met so many people, but not one parent.