Missouri Loves Company

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tulsa, Times Two

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.