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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Faithful

Part One

As a straight-A, top-of-his-class student, Ian Zook could follow any dream, but sought instead to serve. His interest in missions stoked by trips he traveled on in high school, he struggled to discern where the Lord wanted him. After deliberating between missions and ministry and spending a year at Bible school, he shocked his parents when he enlisted in the United States Marines. Settling on that path toward a career in law enforcement, Ian followed his father, a Florida state trooper.

Mark and Karen, Ian’s parents, were supportive of the decision. Because of his college background, he enlisted as a Private First Class, his clean-cut appearance earning assignment in the Security Forces. After boot camp, he guarded a nuclear submarine base in Georgia, allowing him many weekends home in Florida. As infantrymen, Marines are obligated to fight in the event of war. With a conflict raging in Iraq, Ian planned to spend the last seven months of his enlistment there. When Karen confided misgivings over Ian’s impending deployment, he reassured her, “Mom, I know where I’m going!”

Ian arrived in Iraq in September 2004. Assigned to a safe zone, he volunteered for a more dangerous area where action abounded. One time, Ian, now Corporal Zook, was part of a Humvee convoy. He followed a driver who came under fire and fell from his vehicle. Ian leaped from his own Humvee, scooped up his fallen comrade, and raced through a hostile area in pursuit of treatment. The young man died while being evacuated, a moment of tragic epiphany for Ian.

Another day, Ian was a Humvee passenger. When the driver was reluctant to drive, Ian volunteered. Their vehicle hit a buried anti-tank bomb, whereby Ian’s passenger and erstwhile driver lost both legs. During the rescue, Ian was shrapnel wounded. For extraordinary bravery and resultant wounds, Corporal Zook was awarded a Purple Heart.

Ian wrote home, telling his parents in a twelve-page letter about his experience on the battlefield. While distraught over the carnage surrounding him, he’d seen God’s hand of protection repeatedly, and found sustenance in His protection. His parents had never read such a difficult letter; Corporal Ian Zook, 24, had died for his country three weeks before its arrival.

October 12, 2004, Ian’s Humvee hit three bombs buried together in Iraq; when they detonated, he sustained injuries leading to his death, for which he was awarded a second Purple Heart. When his platoon returned from Iraq in 2005, the Zooks were invited to Twentynine Palms, California, where the men were stationed. Ian’s sergeant, the man who gave them the details of his last moments, met them there. In a meeting both excruciating and cathartic, Mark and Karen learned this sergeant was a committed Christian. Desperate to know if anyone had held Ian’s hand as the Lord called him, they marveled at God’s provision of a believer to comfort their son in his final moments when the sergeant answered, “I did.” About 40 other platoon members shared memories and anecdotes; the resounding refrain was Ian was a Marine and friend of unusual valor. In his too-short life, Ian touched others around the world.

In death, he was about to touch more in a country he’d never even visited.

Mark and Karen had been foster parents shortly after their marriage, and had flirted with the idea of adopting since. They revisited the idea after their Twentynine Palms trip, unable to shake the sense that a child somewhere awaited them. With their perspective on pain and loss, they felt specially equipped to parent a suffering child. After considering manifold options, Mark and Karen settled on an eleven-year-old Russian girl named Anya. Paperwork complete, they met her in Russia, expecting to consider a second child there if feasible. Information on a potential son was presented to them, and they wrestled in prayer that night over their decision. In the morning, they met the boy, eleven-year-old Alex. Encouraged by their meeting, they signed papers agreeing to adopt both children. At the park that afternoon with Anya and Alex, Alex asked about the memorial bracelets both Mark and Karen wore. Zooks thoughtfully told him they were a remembrance of their son, with his name and birth date. Karen added, “Ian’s birthday was the day after yours.” Alex corrected, “No, that’s my birthday, too!” Buoyed in their belief that Alex was meant to be theirs, in September 2006 Zooks returned to Russia to bring home Anya and Alex. Anya soon expressed preference for her new middle name, Faith.

In their time home, both children have immensely blessed their family. Faith and Alex know the tragedy that encouraged their adoption and express love for Ian as if they’d known him. Both keep photos of him in their rooms, because they want them. Ian is buried close to home, and his grave never lacks fresh flowers, lovingly tended by Alex. On a visit to Arlington National Cemetery, a committal service for another serviceman was underway, and Alex instinctively removed his hat, covering his heart. Mark and Karen find inspiring the appreciation both kids have for their new homeland, the country their Ian loved enough to die for.

Someday, on golden streets, the Zook family will be united for the first time as Faith and Alex embrace the brother whose sacrifice in Iraq shared with them his family in America, the brother they know only from their parents’ cherished recollections. Mark and Karen now better grasp the Bible verse Ian claimed for himself early in high school, Philippians 1:21: “But for me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” In giving up his life, Ian saved Faith and Alex’s lives.

The cost of their adoption was high, but Ian Zook could afford it. He knew where he was going.

***

See CBS' January 5, 2007 The Early Show feature on the Zook family

"The Ultimate Sacrifice" here

It's a Circus

In Russia: Day 9

Monday morning, we take the trolleybus. Their wires are ubiquitous overhead in Moscow, but I’ve never ridden one before. Faith is looking out windows, identifying landmarks, and offering her own brand of insight. Off the trolley, we stroll a birch tree-lined boulevard. Young Nikolai spots a squirrel with such enthusiasm we haven’t the heart to mention how common they are in the States. On Sparrow Hill, Moscow’s highest point, we overlook the city’s sprawl. The Kremlin’s golden domes are easily visible, and on this unusually clear day, good eyes can just pick out a dome or two of St. Basil’s Cathedral.

Trinity Church is close. This Russian Orthodox church was shuttered during Communist times, as were all churches the government knew existed. Used for storage until Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika, today the church again fulfills its sacred purpose. In Moscow, we’ve found enough English speakers that travel has been a snap. But at Trinity Church, the door bears signs in only Russian and German. Faith says this church is strict on appropriate attire; men are forbidden to enter with hats, or women to enter without. Women tourists are excused with winter hats and hoods, but a devout Russian Orthodox woman would never enter sans scarf covering her head. Dark inside, candles flicker, illuminating the gold leaf on the omnipresent icons of saints and apostles. Aromas of wax and incense join forces as smoke wafts in the domes, made visible by light of the small windows high in the church. Russian Orthodoxy is ritual- and tradition-bound, based on sensory appeal to create a religious experience for the worshipper. Our kids, exuberant outside, are reverent and quiet inside. Yulya studies the icons, then confides in her diary. She’s faithfully taking notes everywhere describing her week; I’ve seen her writing at the hotel, on the trolleybus and metro, and now in church. I yearn to read her words, as I admire her pursuit of the more cerebral. Leaving the church, the kids face the sanctuary and cross themselves three times, in Orthodox fashion.

Gazing over Moscow on Sparrow Hill, Russia’s most prestigious institution of higher learning towers behind us. Moscow State University, whose graduates are welcome anywhere, is housed in one of Stalin’s seven neoclassical skyscrapers, built in the 40s and 50s. Considered eyesores by some, the gargantuan “seven sisters” are scattered in Moscow, housing hotels, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, apartments, the university, and other entities. Until 1990, the university was Europe’s tallest building. The building’s shell is replete with communist symbolism and propaganda; statues glorifying the deeds of farmers and workers, hammers and sickles, and a twelve-ton red star adorn it. It was formerly very difficult to get into the university, Faith says. Admission was granted only by passing demanding entrance examinations, or string-pulling with officials in high places. In Communist times, students attended tuition-free. Faith laments that today, the education is pricey, and entrance reserved more for the moneyed than the qualified. As the kids pose in front their country’s Harvard, Faith says about 10% of today’s students are orphans with sufficient promise that the country cannot afford to let them slip into the abyss awaiting most aged-out orphans. Seeing ten-year-old Nikolai, Dima, and Yulya here, I try to imagine them toting backpacks on campus, striving to better themselves if this trip doesn’t end as I hope for them. Perhaps it’s unrealistic, but I derive solace knowing there is a glimmer of hope, however small, for a few of the 700,000 + orphans of Russia.

We’re on to the circus. While in Russia with our own kids, we were goaded to attend, though our efforts at economy precluded it. I make up for it today by accompanying ten giddy orphans who dance up the steps toward the round pavilion housing the spectacle. We’re running late, and the coat ladies here are no faster than elsewhere. In her most brazen act yet, Faith vaults the counter and collects our coats, hanging 19 up in the time the coat ladies do one or two. I am taken aback by her chutzpah, but she is fast, and we sit down in our nosebleed seats with a minute to spare. The circus begins with a triumphant fanfare and laser show, and continues with clowns, acrobats, and a smattering of animals. The costumes and props are extravagant, though even from a distance, the scandalous skimpiness of some of the women’s costumes appalls me. Underdressed and suggestively posed, one rides out on a camel to Faith’s chiding, “This is Playboy!” Despite the first-rate quality of the acts, I am embarrassed at having scheduled this, and groveling thankful my husband and son aren’t along. At the intermission, Faith leads us to vacant seats ringside, and we down a brown bag lunch. When the circus resumes, we see everything better.

Toward the performance’s end, after an especially revealing act, Larry, our most reserved traveler, sits blushing, thankful a cloak of darkness covers him. In a flabbergasting display of multi-lingual clairvoyance, a bumbling and miscreantic clown bursts from the ring, dashes up a few rows with spotlight shadowing, and grabs our Larry! As she drags him from his seat, I am incredulous he goes with her. Our group roars, releasing an incongruous amalgam of emotion: mortification, concern, and hilarity. In the center of the ring, she hangs a cloth over poor, chagrined Larry, with only a cutout for his head. In the blinding spotlight, he is unaware he wears a drawing of a muscle-bound man, complete with strategically-placed fig leaf. Another clown-accomplice draws a life-sized caricature, shakes Larry’s hand, never realizes he’s an English-speaking monoglot, and directs him still blushing, drawing in hand, to his seat. Our group applauds Larry, his good sportsmanship, and his expeditious return. When the circus is over, Larry is a Lighthouse Project celebrity, posing for pictures with his drawing, accepting congratulations, and vowing never again to gloat that the spotlight isn’t on him.

Faith reenacts her cloakroom attendant imitation, then we head into the chill. Back on the trolleybus, we travel one-half mile before it breaks down. We switch to another trolley, ribbing, smiling, and reminiscing over the most fantastic events of our day. Maybe trolleys don’t break down daily, and maybe clowns don’t accost every American circus-goer, but as we settle into our return home to the hotel, we laugh that we have now had every experience Moscow offers.

This is our best day, and I, for one, am glad to share it.

***

See photos and video here.

Golden Arches, Golden Domes

In Russia: Day 6

Bleary-eyed and dragging, my host families from Michigan, Oklahoma, Indiana, and Illinois file into the hotel at about 1:00 p.m. on Friday. Even after the flight and the 7-8 hour time change, they’re anxious to meet the kids, who've been waiting almost six hours. The meeting lacks the customary fanfare of a US trip because all of us, kids and families, have traveled overnight, but it’s just as well we skip the drama since half the kids lack official hosts. Shortly afterward, we tackle the day’s sightseeing. Without the introduction of who goes with whom, it’s interesting to see how families and kids pair up on our walk, and how kids flit from family to family, in an apparent attempt to cover their bases. It’s a foreign dynamic compared to previous trips. Since I don't have other potential adoptive families to draw from this time, I worry at first when the “wrong” child is with the “wrong” parent, but eventually decide it doesn’t matter if everyone notices all the kids. An added benefit: it is less obvious which kids don’t have families this way. While I’m far from happy about the host to orphan ratio, watching how everyone is soon comfortable with everyone else, I realize this idea was a sheep in wolf’s clothing.

Scarcely out of our hotel, we turn left on the busiest street in Moscow, just in time to see the street closed off and a motorcade of black Mercedes limousines sandwiched by a phalanx of motorcycles speeding down the road. Faith says it’s the president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, and commands us to wave. We do, but his tinted windows keep us from knowing if he reciprocates. He’s returning home to the Kremlin, just down the road from where we’re staying. Faith claims the kids are celebrities now that they’ve seen a car holding such an important person, but they don’t believe her.

We’re hungry. Plans to visit Moscow’s only authentic pizza restaurant fizzle, but we spot a restaurant marked with golden arches on our way. The kids vote to eat there, but when we enter, the place is so busy there’s nowhere to sit. We end up at MuMu instead, an atmospheric joint specializing in Russian food like pelmini and borscht. It’s delicious, but the kids would prefer something a little more American.

We wander Arbat Street, Moscow’s pedestrian promenade, lined with little shops selling matryoshka dolls, trinkets, and Russian kitsch. We pass a shriveled old woman wearing a sandwich board incongruously advertising tattoos. In our sleep-deprived delirium, nobody buys anything, and nobody gets a tattoo.

At the end of the road, we see the golden domes of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The largest church building in Russian Orthodoxy, the original cathedral on the site was built to commemorate Napoleon’s departure from Russia, and consecrated in 1883. In 1931, Stalin issued an edict, leading to the church's destruction. Plans called for an audaciously monstrous “Palace of the Soviets” to be built there. Blueprints crowned the structure with a garish statue of Lenin over 300 feet tall, but instability in the ground due to the nearby Moscow River rendered the plan untenable, and the project was abandoned. In its place, the world’s largest open-air swimming pool was built. Faith and Dima fondly reminisced swimming there, playing hide and seek in the steam of the pool on savagely frigid days. They had mixed emotions when, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the pool was demolished and the church faithfully reconstructed according to original specifications.

Darkness falls early in Russia, and after the cathedral, we call it a day, boarding a bus back to the hotel. Faith tells the driver the children are orphans, so he lets them ride without a ticket. As we thaw at home, parents work together in the kitchen, creating a scene of domestic bliss while the kids play behind us. Ramen noodles and pickles are dinner. It isn’t fancy fare, but it beats beets and white meatloaf. As I retreat to my room to write, the same sensation I always have when kids arrive floods my psyche. I know I’ve done all I can for this moment, it’s here, and it’s time to see what God has in store for the kids and their futures. I’m praying that it’s something special.

My head hits the pillow at 3 a.m. I sleep quickly, but not before mulling a smidgen about how privileged I am to play a role, and how honored to be entrusted with a first stab at this unfolding, grand adventure.

See video here.

So Spoiled

In Russia: Day 3

In the region, we meet a lady who came once as a chaperone on my trip, and she greets me with “Becky!” and outstretched arms. In her office, she pours me tea. I’ve never drunk tea before, and doubt I’ll like it, but I say yes to be polite. It figures I end up with the largest cup, but I smile anyway, hoping my mannerly sacrifice might lead another child to a family. The first snow I’ve seen all year dusts the ground as I drain the last drop of tea from my cup, fearing it might earn me a second.

We need wheels, and Faith tries, unsuccessfully, to hail a cab. It feels like hitchhiking to me, but finally a parked car we’d been standing in front of for ten minutes takes the bait and offers a ride. Along the way, the driver and his wife Yelena share an unprompted synopsis of their lives. When they hear we’re visiting an orphanage in a certain town, Yelena asks if we know such-and-such, who once lived at said orphanage. I say yes, she went home to Michigan recently, and Yelena registers surprise, exclaiming she’d been this child’s teacher. Yelena's daughter Kristina lives in New Jersey. Kristina is shocked by the daily shipments one store has of fresh produce; odder still, things are thrown away if they don’t sell the first day. Yelena sounds scandalized as she leans forward and whispers, "I heard people in America take mortgages." Faith counters that mortgages in Russia currently carry about 17% interest. Yelena edifies, “We like to pay for what we get,” and helpfully adds, “We never borrow any money because it’s not good.” When her husband drops her off, Yelena refuses our request for a photo.

As we dash between orphanages, we eat on the run. Faith offers me a yellow Antonovka apple, native to Russia. She tells me they are tough as stones and don’t rot. She hands me half, and it’s delicious, the tartest apple I’ve tasted. My window doesn’t roll down so I hold the core. Faith offers to take it, so I reluctantly fork it over. She eyes it with disdain. “This is meat!” she chides, adding, “You’re so spoiled!” Offered a second half, I leave practically nothing this time, assuming she’ll be impressed. Reality bites when she hands me a third half, this time with the core already removed. I reminisce that the day we arrived home with our Russian children, my new son ate an entire apple. Queried as to where the apple was, my little one presented a stem. He’d eaten the apple, core, seeds, and all, as he’d been taught in the orphanage. I told him this wasn’t necessary in America; if he wanted more, he should take another one instead.

At our second orphanage stop, we meet one of my favorite chaperones from past trips. Svetlana hugs me tightly and invites us to dinner in the cafeteria. We decline, but it’s clear she wants to feed us. We finally agree, and dine on bread, cheese, tomatoes, hot chocolate milk, and plain penne pasta topped with chicken meatloaf. Disliking ground meat, I shudder at the white loaf, but my distaste turns to horror sighting the heaping mound of pickled beets topped with sour cream. Svetlana sits down with us, and explains each item. She is so kind I haven’t the heart to reject the beets, a vegetable I’ve loathed since childhood. I strategize, tackling my meatloaf first, buying time to make peace with consuming beets. When the beets’ turn comes, I eat them with purpose, opting not to linger and prolong the agony. I somehow finish, and Svetlana walks out with me arm in arm. While my stomach churns, I treasure the kindness she shows both the orphans and us.

The next day, I drink tea again at another orphanage. It’s not growing on me, but the fruit flavor in this variety marginally increases palatability. I drink it all, but a teacher, unmoved by my etiquette, gives us the coolest reception we get all trip. She’s upset since one of her orphans is not able to travel to Moscow with the Lighthouse Project this weekend. I promoted him as my favorite child but still didn’t find a host family. She is slighted by his omission from our list, and feels entitled to let us know. I leave that place with a little shiver.

Our warmest welcome comes from Boris, chaperone of my March Grand Rapids trip. Boris speaks excellent English and epitomizes warmth and sincerity. He wants us to see his children, so he leads us to a classroom where Andrei, from Elaine's July Missouri trip, sits. He announces to everyone Andrei has visitors from America, and the boy leaps to his feet, stands by his desk, and beams with pride when he sees it’s us, for him. His smile makes our trip to this orphanage to see only him worthwhile.

Boris invites us to dinner and is so insistent we would be heartless to refuse. He brings us to a storage room off the cafeteria where 40 thin mattresses are stacked beside a table. When we see the place settings and food waiting, we know it was right to stay. We eat pickled cabbage with canned peas, beef and buckwheat, bread, oranges, and bananas. Over dinner, he asks about Losha, just adopted in July. He’s hungry for news, and I promise to get an update from the family. I am touched by his concern for his 127 kids. He seems sad that the kids eat in five shifts for lack of seating.

He's delighted we’re here, and he throws open his cabinet, revealing a bottle of cognac he’s purchased for the occasion. As my teetotaling throat tightens in revulsion, my glass is filled. He makes a toast to his guests from America, and I have no choice but to take a sip. It takes my breath away, and I am nauseated instantaneously. Boris doesn’t notice. Within a few minutes, he refills Faith’s glass and reaches for mine. I croak out a still-incapacitated, “N—" but it’s too little, too late; now my glass holds more than when I started. When Boris makes another toast to our visit, I grimly realize my only out is to down the beverage in as few sips as possible. My first big gulp smacks me like a two by four, and I know there’s no way I can finish this potion. Thankfully, Boris leaves the room for a minute, and Faith lets me pour what’s left into her glass. Elaine doesn’t need an invitation and she follows my lead. When Boris returns, he’s pleased we liked our drinks well enough to finish them. We rise before he can give us a refill.

As we go, Boris apologizes in English for the fare, “I know you would have better in America, but this is the best we have. It is the same thing we feed ourselves.” I wince as he downplays his most memorable and genuine hospitality. His kindness to us and his care for his kids shames my condescending assessment of the meals we’ve been served with such warmth. He walks us to our car and gives me a gentlemanly European peck on the cheek.

Maybe Faith is right: I am blessed everywhere beyond words, too spoiled even to know it.

Peppered With Love

Nicole called me first September 11, 2008; it’s in my notes but the date was easy to remember anyway. She was young enough that I wasn’t sure how serious she was, but she told me she’d always been interested in adoption. I could relate to that, though, and we had an encouraging conversation.

Within days, Nicole and husband Randy signed up to host a ten-year-old boy named Alexei. She was giddy as she outlined her plans for him for the week. It crushed them more than the other families when he was one of those kept behind in the orphanage due to last November’s quarantine. At the end, they hosted another child instead, but Alexei had already stolen their hearts. When he finally arrived in Tulsa for his trip in January, he was an obvious fit for their family. On the return flight to Russia, he flashed business cards with Randy and Nicole’s photos on them to the translator, insisting he wanted them to be his family.

Two weeks ago Alexei could put away his cards. Randy and Nicole arrived in Russia, went to his orphanage, and were welcomed like dignitaries. When he saw them, he bounded to them and leaped into Nicole’s arms, hitting his head hard on her lip. For the rest of the trip, she savored how happy her new son was to see them every time she noticed her sore mouth. Though they’d worked for this moment for months, Nicole was nonetheless taken aback by the intensity of her love for Alexei as he thanked them repeatedly for adopting him.

There were other kids at the orphanage and they swarmed the American visitors. One especially winsome boy proudly exclaimed all the kids had washed and put on their best clothes before they arrived. He asked them if they were Alexei’s mama and papa, but haunted Nicole when he added, “Do you like us?” I could envision the little chap and the look on his face as he queried; the boy was Denis (yellow circle on shirt), my favorite child from the March Grand Rapids trip. Several of the thronging orphans tried to curry favor with Randy and Nicole, making it clear they wanted to go along, “auditioning” for their own chance at a family. Kids never understand how much work has gone into the adoption before parents ever come through the orphanage door.

After court, they returned to Moscow, where Alexei purchased a gift for his new mom. They visited the traditional Moscow biggies, played football, and cuddled as Nicole counted his freckles, losing track at 122. Friday, Alexei arrived home in Tulsa, with a new, American name meaning, “saved by God.” Seldom are names so aptly chosen. Returning home to Grand Rapids late Thursday from my own vacation, I could not be in Tulsa in body, but was present in spirit.

So to Randy and Nicole: Congratulations! Your heart for orphans shines through as you’ve helped with the Lighthouse Project and now taken the ultimate step in orphan ministry. While your time in the orphanage was short, remember the kids who touched you in Russia. Even a minute with such neediness leaves you forever changed.

To Alexei: Welcome to your new family and country! We promise to keep working diligently to find families for the friends you left behind. You’ll be proud to see your parents are a part of that.

And to Denis: Yes, Alexei’s mama and papa did like you and your friends, more than you’ll know. They sent photos for me to pass on to your own mama and papa in Michigan. It won’t be long before your friends wash again, donning their best to meet the new parents coming to the orphanage, for you.

Orphan Trains

Lack of host families cut six kids from the October-November Moscow Lighthouse Project trip last week. The brutally painful deliberation caused equivocation much of the day, but in the end, Alena, Andrei, siblings Vitaly and Alexandra, Dmitry K., and Dmitry V. will travel in January to Moscow, or the US if the swine flu travel moratorium ends soon enough. The kids will wait longer, and if all goes well, avoid foster care until their turn at Lighthouse finally comes.

Recognizing we have no viable option other than to wave the white flag crushes me, especially with Alena, as I liked her so much. Under different circumstances, she might already be my daughter; we would do famously together, since we share a love of laughter, and both our hopes spring eternal. Unlikely as I now am to be her mom, I still yearned to see her and find her the lady who would.

Nine kids still scheduled to travel hail from a region twelve hours from Moscow by train. I’ve taken the train there twice for our own adoption; for a spoiled American, the trip is a grand adventure. Traveling overnight in a private compartment with two beds, the clackety-clack of the wheels and the rocking of the car induce sleep once you’re sufficiently tired to suppress your adrenalin. A doily substitutes as a tablecloth at the compartment’s table in miniature, where you take tea and meals. Warmth is guaranteed, summer or winter. Smoking is neither disallowed nor frowned upon.

As the Russian countryside whizzes by, your window frames a living museum into your child’s “normal.” Adoptive parents of older kids have missed so much of their son or daughter’s life. We naturally feel shortchanged fretting we have missed every first: steps, words, a lost tooth, a school day. While it’s tempting to pretend our children had no existence before us, it’s disingenuous and counterproductive. Seeing the country that molded them and made them the person we love is an antidote to our mental dishonesty, and a treasure to seize with abandon. Russia has rather blatant problems, but a country that allows its greatest asset, its children, to leave for the chance of better life elsewhere is most surely doing something right.

Train stations in Russia’s larger cities have huge platforms where trains queue. Disenfranchised orphans live under these platforms, kids who have either aged out of orphanages or run away from institutions or abusive families, trying to make their own way in squalid orphan “cities” beneath the feet of those who travel between the regions. Russian social workers claim large metropolises like Moscow and St. Petersburg have at least as many orphans on the street as in the orphanages, and train stations are the end of the line for many. Traveling here, an overactive imagination is not required to wonder how many kids eye you, kids for whom help arrived too late, if at all. Life in the train city is hellish, as kids spend their days stealing, strung out from sniffing glue, or trying to eke out a meager existence in any way imaginable.

I intend to go to my kids’ region this fall and visit a few of the orphanages where we routinely work. I’ll pass through the Moscow train station, the orphans there little knowing my journey purposes to keep others from joining them. Traversing my kids’ region, I’ll wonder which ramshackle house was theirs before we adopted them; wonder which places I see, they’ve seen. In adoption, questions always outnumber answers. But knowing the joy my kids have brought, and seeing what might have been for them and what already is for others, both questions and answers are rendered superfluous by the quest for families for the kids for whom our October trip comes a little too soon.

Lemonade

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

At the Lighthouse Project, a whole bushel of lemons dropped in our laps two weeks ago with the swine flu travel moratorium for Russian children. The somber news looked a recipe for disaster, but today we’re working on a big pitcher of lemonade, stirring, sweetening, sampling, and making something potable from our lemony windfall.

Going in reverse is usually seen as a step backward, but for kids who wait it’s a step forward. Our program has brought forty-four groups of Russian orphans to the United States in the past eleven years. Trip forty-five will not likely happen in 2009, though things look promising to resume in early 2010. Last week it appeared orphans would languish in loveless institutions longer because they couldn’t travel internationally until the ban is rescinded. Then our director had an epiphany: if Lighthouse can’t bring the kids to America, it can take the families to Russia in a mirror-image of past trips.

While exact details are still being hammered out, travelers would choose a child, fly to Russia with other Lighthouse families this fall, meet the child in Moscow over a long weekend, sightsee, and decide whether to pursue their host child’s adoption. Single boys, girls, and sibling groups, likely ages 6-15, would be available. The Lighthouse Project will arrange transportation, lodging, some meals, and activities for parents and children; sightseeing might include Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral, the Kremlin, Lenin’s Tomb, and other culturally-appropriate activities. Dates for the trip will be October 29 - November 4. While exact cost is being determined, it would be comparable to the cost of adoptive families hosting in America and more cost-efficient than making a “first trip” to visit a child in a standard, two-trip procedure. Paperwork will be basic and include an application and a local police background check. Families planning to adopt will complete the requisite paperwork in the US, returning to Russia to finish their adoption in one trip 6-9 months later. Seven families are required for trip viability; several have already expressed interest.

Happily, kids will continue to have chances at a family while the swine flu scare rages, so I’m finding I can love this “Lighthouse in Reverse” just as I love the Lighthouse Project. I expect to travel to Russia myself on this inaugural trip, along with Missouri Lighthouse coordinator Elaine. Join us, and we’ll pour you a glass of our Lighthouse lemonade.

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If you would like more details and a flyer on our Reverse Lighthouse Project trip, please call me, Becky, at (616) 245-3216 or click on “View my complete profile” on the right to e-mail me.

Widows and Orphans

Having coordinated ten Lighthouse Project trips, I’ve heard every excuse in the book for not hosting. Some reasons are legitimate, some less so. A caller once claimed she couldn’t host because the trip was coming up too soon. Next time she had a few months’ notice, but she couldn’t plan that far ahead. I tire of the charade; sometimes I wish people would just say they’re not interested.

Copious notes taken during the course of myriad phone conversations show I can expect to speak with ten callers to come up with one host family. While I try not to judge callers’ decisions, it appears many people choose not to host when they reasonably could. Others can reasonably host, and do. But my favorite callers have good reasons not to host, and choose to anyway. They understand they can make a difference in the life of a child, and whatever legitimate excuse they might have voiced is silenced by this more substantial realization.

Justine called me for the first time one morning when I was in Missouri with the Lighthouse Project. Running late for Vacation Bible School, I begged out, asking if I could call her later in the day when I had time to do the conversation justice. She agreed, but I fretted all day that her first impression of my availability might discourage her from hosting. Back in my hotel room that evening, we spoke. As she shared her story, I was relieved to find it would take more than a conversation deferred to discourage her.

Justine had always wanted to adopt. She and her husband discussed it, opting to pursue it after they’d had biological children. Son Alden arrived. Two and a half years later she was eight months along in a pregnancy when her husband fell ill; one day later, he died of complications related to diabetes. Justine was left to deliver daughter Lilly alone.

She grieved, but found the hardest part was the demise of her dream of a large family. Over time, she began researching adoption online. Hong Kong stood out based on cost and openness to single mothers, but almost all available children had moderate to severe special needs. Justine decided to wait, believing Hong Kong was not in her future. She bought a house, her parents bought next door, and she began home schooling. Life was good again; she was content and hoping for no changes.

But two years ago, she began a word study of every use of “widow” in the Bible. As the months passed, she handwrote most Biblical references to the subject. God’s concern for widows clarified, she discovered that in almost every passage, orphans, too, received specific mention as recipients of God’s special compassion. Within a year, God rekindled her desire to adopt; Hong Kong was her clear directive. As she shared her plan with her children, family, and friends, she found unanimous support.

Beginning her home study, she hoped to adopt a child between the ages of Alden, now 9, and Lilly, now 6. Her agency balked at her plan to adopt out of birth order, preferring that she make her new child the youngest. Justine was open to physical needs like blindness or cerebral palsy; Down syndrome was on the list of special needs she did not expect to consider. But scanning a list of Hong Kong’s waiting children, an eight-year-old boy with Down syndrome tugged at her heart. Already traveling a circuitous path, both Justine and her agency altered course. The agency allowed her to sandwich a child between her two biological children, and Justine realized the little boy she’d seen with Down syndrome was her son. Wondering why such a precious soul waited alone over eight years, she concluded he was “just reserved for our family.”

In November 2008, Justine heard about the Lighthouse Project trip through a friend’s blog. She hoped to host next time in Tulsa, but we were already in town for the January 2009 trip before she was aware of it. When she got word that we’d be returning to Tulsa a third time, her initial reaction was dismay since she obviously couldn’t host in the middle of her adoption. She might need for her own adoption the $1000 it cost to host a child. Worse, if she hosted, she’d fall in love, want to adopt, and be unable due to Hong Kong law prohibiting concurrent adoptions through other sources. God reminded her she had $1076 in a memorial fund in her husband’s name, and brought conviction that her reason not to host was flimsy. Would she let a child stay in a dismal orphanage with a hopeless future because she might be hurt if she opened her heart? She had the money, and she had the time. The only issue was fear of emotional injury. All the while, God was asking, “How selfish can you be?”

Not very, as it turns out. Justine did call as I flew out the Missouri door toward VBS, and she was still polite when I finally called her back over twelve hours later. When she told me about her special needs adoption, needing to fund her own process, single parenthood, and busyness home schooling, I knew her excuse for not hosting would be more watertight than most. Remarkably, after listening to all the obstacles and mentally rehearsing my speech for when she would end, “God bless you, but I can’t host,” those words never came. Instead, she matter-of-factly told me her husband’s memorial fund had waited for just such a time, she planned to host, and to send her the details. Justine had enough potential excuses to fuel several of my callers who decline to open their homes; she didn’t use even one, choosing to give a little of herself to give a second child a chance at a future. “I’m just going to follow God’s leading,” she declared.

As I struggle to find hosts for kids for whom precious little hope exists outside traveling on such a trip, Justine sends out e-mails to her friends, asking them to consider hosting a child alongside her. She lamented tonight that she hadn’t yet found anyone. Meanwhile, her “yes” is far more moral support for this discouraged coordinator than all the “God bless you”s with which I’ve ever been rejected while promoting the Lighthouse Project.

Oh, that enough families would follow God’s leading so that none of our sixteen Lighthouse Project kids have to stay behind in Russia, staring down hopelessness! God can bless, and I trust He will, but it happens through people who, like Justine, put others before themselves to be part of that blessing.

Oklahoma!

Hoping to travel to Oklahoma, and just needing host families:

Vitaly, 7, and Alexandra, 5, are siblings. No information is available on them currently; hopefully a faith-filled family will agree to host them.

Dmitry B., 11, and Alexander B., 6, are brothers. Fourth grade Dmitry enjoys art, drawing, math, and computer classes. His best friend lives near the orphanage; Dmitry said they share secrets and everything else. He hopes to be a chef, and can already make soup; pickle soup and garlic are his favorite foods. In his spare time he visits a teacher who works on crafts with him. He also enjoys soccer and reading fiction. His favorite seasons are summer because he can fish and go mushroom hunting, and winter because he can throw snowballs. Alexander is a kindergartner. He likes puzzles and playing soccer. Spring is his favorite season. He likes to eat beet soup and cabbage. He hopes to be a pilot, explaining he likes to fly.

Dmitry K., 13, enjoys math and wants to be an archeologist in Egypt. He likes the colors green and pink. He likes to make crafts and does not particularly like sports. He would like to have a cat. He likes honest and fair people and dislikes it when people fight. He would like to do better in school and help the poor. He has read the Bible and knows that Jesus came to earth.

Artom, 11, finished fourth grade. While other kids play, this kind and industrious boy knits socks in bed before going to sleep for the night.

Bubbly Alena, 10, considers herself optimistic, a trait very apparent in her interview; the longer her translator spoke in English, the more smiley Alena became. She gets all grades in school, playfully confessing she can be lazy and doesn’t always do her homework. She wants to do better in school, aspiring to attend college and teach kindergarten. She loves playing with children because the young kids she knows are sweet and kind. Alena likes to draw, dance, watch TV, and would like to make clothes when she’s older. Her favorite seasons are summer, when she can swim, and winter, when she can throw snowballs. Her wish is to have a family who owns horses; she has never even seen a horse in person before.

Dimpled Angelina, 13, has lived in her orphanage six years. While she likes living there, she wishes her biological mother would stop drinking so she could live with her again. Noting there is not too much good in her life, she misses home. Angelina was cautious about sharing her dream, but finally confided she’d like a family of her own.

Kristina, 14, is in seventh grade; she enjoys literature, physical education, and music classes most. She likes drawing and would study English but for lack of a teacher. While she formerly was able to play the piano, she no longer remembers. Her favorite days are her birthday and New Year’s Day. She hopes her future will include a good family, a computer, and a career as a veterinarian. She worries whether she will have sufficient money to feed her children once she has them. If she were president, she would ban alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs, and she would assist the poor.

Twelve-year-old Andrei liked fifth grade, and prefers math and physical education. He enjoys playing ping pong with his friends. As he loves soccer and likes teaching, he would like to be a soccer coach. His favorite colors are red and white, the same colors as the team he roots for. Andrei said he likes to eat everything, but doesn’t know how to cook. He believes in God and has attended church in the past. He wishes for peace for the whole world. After eight years in his orphanage, Andrei is ready to join a family with good people.

Sisters Anastasia, 11, and Anna, 9, get along well together. Anastasia’s best class in fourth grade was Russian. She enjoys reading fairy tales. She’d like to be a rescue team member when she’s older; she wants to help people. Her favorite color is orange because it’s bright. She wishes for a dog, health, and the chance to travel. She believes in God and would like to be baptized. Anna finished first grade; she likes to play when school’s over. She enjoys playing the piano and says she’s a good singer. She wants to work in a shop when she’s older. She likes eating porridge, making snowmen, and skiing. Her one wish is to have a doll.

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.

Luba

Growing up, my mom told me stories of believers in the Soviet Union forbidden to own a Bible. Across the ocean in churchy Grand Rapids, I often wondered where Soviet Christians hid the books, but these stories fostered my concern for the persecuted church and the oppressed. Fast-forwarding thirty years, I battle for orphans and the fit’s a natural. The Lighthouse Project is scratching my itch to aid the hopeless.

An elemental aspect of Lighthouse Project trips I coordinate is the three-day Bible school the kids attend. Content is basic, but I’d be remiss addressing nothing more than the kids’ need for an earthly father. Since I speak no Russian, I have sought out a Russian believer to teach. On a 2007 trip that feels eons ago, a host family I’d known forever led me to Galina. Saintly Galina taught with such conviction that I invited her again next trip. The first day Galina’s cousin Luba came along to assist with the children; recognizing their features she told Galina the kids were from a specific region of Russia. Next day Galina needed a ride so I drove; not knowing what else to say I asked her what brought her to the United States. She told me her family, including Luba, had been granted religious asylum in the US before the collapse of the Soviet Union; Luba had been arrested for printing Bibles in the late 1970s. Though she lived in Estonia, authorities sent her 900 miles away for trial to a region of Russia where she had no connections. It was a hardship, but Galina followed to attend the trial. For her “crime,” Luba was sentenced to, and served, three years in that same region. She correctly recognized the kids because their tiny region was where she’d been tried. Incredulous to know someone jailed for her faith, I asked what town Luba had been imprisoned in. I shivered when Galina answered, “It was the tiny town of C____.” I knew that tiny town, visited it twice even, when we went to meet and, later, pick up our kids we adopted. How incredible that this forsaken hamlet, where the orphanage might be the largest employer, once detained both dear Luba and my precious children.

We gave out Russian Bibles at that Bible school as we always do, though the kids seemed as appreciative to be given anything as they were of the Bibles themselves. Safe in America and far from home, they leafed through the pages as Luba watched. I wondered if they could possibly appreciate what this same book had cost her thirty years earlier, or how she’d paid that price in their region, so far away from her own home.

Lighthouse Project, Take Two

I’ve coordinated seven Lighthouse Project trips to date. What keeps me coming back, again and again, to do the hundreds of hours of work it takes to make one trip happen? As an adoptive mother of two Russian children, I have been to the orphanage some of the children come from. I’ve seen orphans at the train stations who aged out of the system, never having found that forever family of their own. My friend’s son, adopted at age 10, tells of how whenever he saw a stranger drive up to his orphanage, he wondered if they were coming to be his mom or dad. I’ve seen the difference between kids arriving at the airport nervous and unsure for their Lighthouse trip, and the same kids a few months later, arriving home holding hands with their adoptive parents, confident in the knowledge that they are not orphans anymore. Seeing the joy these kids have received when they found love has blessed me immeasurably.

On my previous Lighthouse Project trips, about 70% of the children who traveled have found adoptive families. One of the most frequently asked questions in conversations with potential host families is what happens to children who are not adopted? With the Lighthouse Project, kids who don’t find the family God intended for them on a first trip are generally be able to come again on a second, or even third, trip. Several children on past trips I’ve coordinated have found their family on their second trip to America. Three children traveling to Tulsa are on their second trip; I am prayerful that their third trip here will be hand in hand with their new family.

Katya (top left) is a bubbly 14. She has lived in an orphanage since about three months of age. On her first trip to the States, she enjoyed horseback riding, visiting the zoo, and picking out her own flavor of ice cream at the ice cream shop. This sweet girl loves to read the Russian Bible she received in America, and she told the Lighthouse Project translator that she most likes to read about Adam and Eve. I am seeking a special family for Katya; she has mobility challenges most likely stemming from a mild case of cerebral palsy. Her future in Russia is even bleaker than for the typical orphan.

Anatoly (right) is seven; he is a smiley boy who likes to help and was very kind and generous to the children of his previous host family. He loves pie, going barefoot, and the color red.

Losha (bottom left) is 12. He had a fantastic trip in July to Michigan, and especially liked going to the amusement park there. He likes sports and would like to be a professional skier; his school group won every cross country skiing event they entered last year. Like many boys in Russian orphanages, Losha can knit and crochet. He also dreams of a family in America choosing him for their own.

None of these children have been forgotten just because they did not meet their family last trip. While my goal has always been 100% of the children being adopted, attaining that figure has been elusive to date. One of my favorite things about the Lighthouse Project is knowing that the kids who don’t find families can come again if they want to. Until I reach my goal of every child being adopted, I know we always have the hope of next time. That’s one of the great treasures bestowed by the Lighthouse Project: giving hope to those children who still wait at the windows, wondering if each car that pulls up might be the mom and dad they’ve dreamed of.