Get Ready, Grand Rapids!

Arriving Friday, March 27, in Grand Rapids:

Cheery Lima, eleven, is called “the sunshine girl” at her orphanage. This upcoming Saturday afternoon she fulfills her dream of seeing her biological sister Lisa who was adopted in America five years ago. Lisa has been asking everyone she meets if they would adopt her sister. Because Lima loves to help people, she hopes to be a doctor.

Anton, eleven, loves dogs and cats. His teacher says he is one of the best students in his fifth grade class. His favorite subjects are math and physical education. He is very athletic and enjoys basketball, volleyball, and soccer. He wants a brother, sister, mom, and dad.

Denis E., nine, likes school and would like to be a teacher so he could teach kids to be good. He likes math because he can solve problems. He likes cows, chickens, and geese, and would like to have a dog to protect his home and a cat to protect his home from mice.

Denis L., thirteen, dreams of being a “train driver” some day. He likes winter and skiing, eats hamburgers and pie, and believes in God since some kind soul has taken him to church. He was on an August trip to Wisconsin. His orphanage director says he goes to her office every single day asking when he can go to America again to find his family.

Dmitry, nine, is in second grade, where he is earning good marks. He likes to draw, play soccer, and play with his many friends. He likes to eat meat and rolls. He would like a career as a builder. Dmitri would like to have a family.

Maya, twelve, is in fourth grade, where she enjoys math because she thinks it’s interesting to solve problems. She has a good sense of humor. She would like to be a cook when she is older. Her mother died, so Maya would like a new mother. The new mother should be kind, and Maya will be kind to her also. She dreams of having a family which also includes a kind father.

Quiet Nikolai, newly fourteen, was in Oklahoma in January, but didn’t find his family there. This trip, his host family lives across the street from his best friend from the orphanage, a boy who just arrived home in Michigan in December 2008. Nikolai would like to be a builder.

Ekaterina, fifteen, loves to cook and aspires to be a chef working in her own restaurant, specializing in typical cuisine from around the world. She is in critical need of a family; she will be unable to enter the United States on an orphan’s immigrant visa once she reaches her sixteenth birthday in early November.

Vladimir, nine, loves homework and calls English one of his favorite subjects. Vladimir won my heart when he sang his best-loved song, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in adorable Russian-accented English in a precious interview he gave.

Saturday Bits and Pieces

Bit observations, Day One:

Saturday found most of the Lighthouse Project kids at Oral Roberts University’s Mabee Center to cheer on the women’s basketball team, coached by birthday boy Vladimir’s host dad. The ORU Golden Eagles rolled out the red carpet for us, gifting us fifty-five comp tickets, welcoming the kids to center court during halftime for introductions, and inviting Vladimir and Eduard to the floor to participate in a time-out game of catching thrown rubber chickens in a bucket. While a victory would have been icing on the cake, we enjoyed the spectacle nonetheless. The game whetted the kids’ appetites for shooting hoops, which we sated in the practice gym while awaiting the arrival of the Tulsa World reporter covering our story. After interviews and a brief photo shoot the group dispersed and Vladimir was off to likely his first birthday party, thrown in honor of his ninth. Parties and chickens, both thrown for Vladimir in a single day…

I tried some Russian on Eduard at the game, but his English answers were proficient enough that I fought an urge to hide that my knowledge of his mother tongue was not. When volunteers were sought for the chicken game, he leaped from his seat with a gusto that ensured he’d be picked. Eduard caught eleven chickens in thirty seconds.

On the way to an outing Saturday happy Alexei of red helium balloon fame burst into tears. His host family, who’d endured two extra months of waiting to host him when his orphanage was stricken with the dysentery quarantine before the November trip, tried to console him but couldn’t understand the mercurial change. During their translator home visit, they found out the poor boy’s distress stemmed from his fear that he was being returned to the airport for not being good enough. His hosts’ “babushka” jumped to her feet and embraced him, and the family reassured him how they loved having him in their home. I wondered if it would comfort him to know how distraught they were when I had to tell them the day before the November trip departure he was unable to travel, and they’d have to wait until January.

When I called Ekaterina’s host mom in the morning for an update, she enthused, “She’s precious!” Ekaterina noticed carrots being peeled in the kitchen, reached for the knife, and polished off the job herself. After the game the translator and chaperone visited her hosts’ home; I went along as a hanger-on. Ekaterina told us her best friend at the orphanage is a “home girl”, so-called because her biological mother visits her occasionally. Ekaterina exuded a reflected glory in being in good with a home girl, as those with even minimal parental involvement are classified in the higher echelons of orphanage social strata. I found this revelation especially sobering, that a child could ache for a family so sorely that mere association with another child whose own mother visits a few times yearly would offer solace.

So ends Day One lacking enough fodder for a cohesive blog entry, but providing sufficient material to give incentive for one thousand more Lighthouse Project trips.