Smile, Nikolai!

Some Lighthouse kids are self-promoters, finding their families by force of personality. Some are clingy, finding their families when the parents realize they’re needed. Other kids come compliant, good, and quiet; were they not in your photos, you’d forget they were there. Nikolai, newly fourteen, reserved and unassuming, is such a boy. In Tulsa in January, other boys his age were boisterous, more bother, and adopted; Nikolai’s cooperation was less requited. Now in Grand Rapids, agreeable again, his future is jeopardized by factors outside his control: age, gender, and personality. He needs and wants a family, oblivious that on a Lighthouse trip, it’s possible to be so good and so little trouble that you’re overlooked.

Nikolai dreamed of visiting America, though rumors circulate incessantly around his orphanage that Americans adopt Russian children to harvest their body parts. Asked about his best friend, Nikolai described a boy he appreciated for his reliability and trustworthiness. But as of December, Nikolai’s friend was gone to Michigan, the first child adopted from their orphanage, ever. Without parents, friends in the orphanage become family, and Nikolai’s mournful eyes stared out the window as his best friend left with his new mom and dad, lacking any expectation they’d meet again. Traveling with Lighthouse in January, Nikolai arrived in Tulsa and phoned his friend daily, finding him not an organ donor, but a loved and cherished son. Ultimately Tulsa offered no family for Nikolai, but he enjoyed his first trip enough to return to America when opportunity knocked again two months later.

Quietly compliant here also, on day two of the trip I might panic prematurely that all is lost. But I’m not, yet anyway, because Nikolai has a reliable and trustworthy mentor, his best friend Sergei, providentially living with his new family immediately across the street from Nikolai’s Grand Rapids host family. When Nikolai arrived late Friday night, Sergei and his dad went to the host family’s home and stayed over an hour. Relishing his role as a voice of experience, Sergei showed Nikolai around, explained rules, and offered pointers that he, as my favorite Lighthouse child ever, was uniquely qualified to give. (It's a Boy!, 12/9/08) and (Welcome Home! Welcome Home!, 12/21/08)

Back at home after showing his best friend the ropes, Sergei’s parents went through their bedtime rituals with him. As a fifteen-year-old American boy, Sergei could feel too old to be tucked in by his mom and dad. But as a child only a few months removed from the loveless existence of orphanage life, Sergei harbors no such pretensions, soaking up this birthright of childhood. As his parents said their good nights, Sergei shared how he’d advised Nikolai to smile a lot, let his personality shine through, and show he was having fun so someone would want him to join their family. His mom encouragingly enthused, “You’re such a good friend!”

“He’s a good friend, too,” Sergei said. “That’s why I want to help him have a family.”

Alone

A few weeks back Faith, our Lighthouse Project translator, was in Russia visiting orphanages we work with. Looking for new kids and checking on children awaiting their family’s arrival, one of her stops included the institution my kids were in. Faith met with the children on her schedule and was going out the door when the orphanage director told her about Valentina. Most children who travel with Lighthouse are “social” orphans: kids who found themselves in an orphanage when their biological parents’ rights were terminated due to alcohol abuse and child neglect. As a true orphan with deceased biological parents, Valentina was a bit unusual. She arrived at the orphanage with four younger siblings, but when they were taken by Russian foster families, Valentina was left feeling she had no one in the world. As word spread that Faith was at the orphanage seeking kids for trips to America, Valentina urged her orphanage director, a rotund, Russian-blonde I met twice and liked well, to let her see Faith, pleading that she needed to seek a family in America as her parents were dead and her siblings were gone. Acquiescing, the orphanage director spoke to Faith, who agreed the eighth grader should be interviewed, though there wasn’t time to do so at the orphanage.

Valentina’s orphanage is a winding-roaded two hours away from the regional capital, where both Faith the director were imminently bound. Given an opportunity to be considered for a precious trip to America, Valentina seized the chance, though it meant she would endure a joyride to the capital to spend time with Faith. Like many Russian orphans who seldom leave the orphanage, she gets carsick. An ever-changing Russian landscape formed the backdrop of her interview, which proved she gutted out the white-knuckle ordeal heroically. Valentina displayed a reluctant charm, punctuated by laudable episodes spent willing her stomach to compose itself. When Faith worried she might not be able to persevere, the director offered a commendation of Valentina’s ability with younger children, who idolize her as a role model.

Most kids do not travel on Lighthouse trips so soon after they’re discovered, but Valentina’s story and age mandated special consideration. Turning fifteen during the Michigan trip, she’ll need to be adopted before her sixteenth birthday to enter the US on an orphan’s immigrant visa. Absent an adoptive family’s expeditious intervention, Valentina will return home and hopeless to no one in Russia. While her age makes it urgent she finds a family, and soon, it hampers my search for said hosting family. Even those who profess to be host-only, void of adoption intentions, ask no further questions once I mention her age.

I continue promoting her, fretting at my failure to find a family. Valentina says there is no one for her in Russia. Two weeks before her scheduled arrival, there is no one for her in America either.