How did I get here?
I’ve been asking myself that question a lot recently…usually when I am
shuffling stacks of papers and responding to an inbox full of emails about
hosting, home studies and fundraising ideas.
This time last year, I could not have imagined that we
would be undertaking the adoption of three children from Eastern Europe. We were in one of those sweet spots of life
when the seas are fairly calm and the skies are mostly sunny. I have lived long enough to know that those
times are brief, so I was breathing deep and enjoying the peace. I expected that change was on the horizon,
but I could never have predicted that it would look like this.
In the spring of 2017, when our friends shared that they
were planning to host a sibling group from Eastern Europe, I knew their hearts
were in the right place, but I honestly had a lot of questions about the
concept of “orphan hosting.” Our family
has done foster care, both long term and short term, so the idea of having kids
from hard places in our home wasn’t an issue for me. What concerned me was the impact that
bringing orphans into American families for a summer and then sending them back
would have on them. I am by no means an
expert on cross-cultural experiences, but through my daughters’ international
mission work, I have learned that many things we do as Americans with the best
of intentions can have negative and even tragic unintended consequences when we
don’t understand the culture we are trying to help. I worried that these children would be given
false hope of finding a family and would return to their home country more
broken and hurt than before. So while
adoption and orphan care were issues that I cared deeply about, orphan hosting was not something that I
would have ever sought to be involved in.
Perhaps one of these days I will learn that when I think
I have things all figured out, God will lovingly, but not necessarily gently,
put me in my place and remind me that I’m not in charge.
Fast forward to the spring of 2018, and our same friends
are advocating to find a host family for this sibling group for the coming
summer. Dan and I have a lot of
conversations that go like this:
Dan: Did you see where Glenna posted about those kids
needing a host family for the summer?
Me: I saw it, but
didn’t really read it.
Dan: I keep
thinking about them.
Me: um…that’s nice.
This is very backwards from the norm in our
marriage. Usually I’m the one pleading
with Dan that we are supposed to do something *unconventional* that God has
laid on my heart and he is looking at me like I’m crazy.
Finally, after several weeks of this exchange, Dan
persuaded me to visit the website of the hosting organization and all of the
assumptions I had about orphan hosting were proved wrong.
I was in trouble and I knew it.
The statistics for kids who age out of their orphanages
in Ukr*ine are heartbreaking. Within two years of leaving the orphanage:
Only 27% will
find work
15% will commit
suicide
40% will be
homeless
30% will become
addicted to drugs
60% of the
girls will become prostitutes
70% of the boys
will turn to crime and eventually will be incarcerated
The last two statistics drop to 20% when a
child has been hosted.
The experience of living
with a family and the bonds that form, even in a few weeks are enough to change
lives. Having people who love you, check
in with you, and pray for you, even from an ocean away can give a child enough encouragement,
confidence and hope to believe in and work for a good future for
themselves.
That alone was enough to move me from ”no” to “perhaps.” But there was something else that had been quietly
nagging at my mind and heart, and now it was wailing like a siren.
I remembered these children.
The two summers ago when they were in our area
briefly, I had the occasion to meet them twice. The first time was at our
friends’ home, when I took a bag of Constance’s clothes over for N. Most of the clothes Glenna had ready for the
kids were too big, and we had more than enough girls clothes to share. The following day I saw them at the pool, which
is odd because I NEVER take my kids to the pool. That’s what older siblings are for. But there
I was, sitting in the snack bar ignoring my book and watching these lovely
children interact with each other. Both
of these encounters were fleeting, yet they affected me profoundly. I was surprised by how often they would come
to mind, and I am still able to recall many details about those moments. I remembered their faces. I remembered N’s
big grin and bright blue eyes and how she had her arms wrapped around Glenna
the entire time I was standing in their driveway with the bag of clothes. I remembered the older two boys, handsome but
unsmiling. And I remembered the youngest boy, tiny and shy, with an impish
little grin.
When I was so skeptical about hosting, I felt sorry for
these children, but I never imagined that there would be anything I could do for
them beyond sharing my daughter’s clothes.
But now I was wondering if God really intended us to do more? I started praying. I reached out to the host families from the
previous summer to learn as much as I could about their experiences with these
kids. I sent email after email to the
very patient volunteer coordinator at New Horizons with questions about
hosting. My “perhaps” became a “yes” and
we applied to host for the summer. I was
nervous and I knew it would be hard, but you can do anything for six weeks,
right?
2 comments:
The beginning of your story is beautiful; but I'm already anxious to follow your journey.... I'm thinking it's going to be 'life-changing'. We have been praying when we thought about it; but we will try to be much more intentional.
Time change has me up an hour early, so I’m doing things like reading friends’ blogs. I’m not sorry I did. God is amazing—and terrifying and unsafe and GOOD, abundantly good. Thanks for listening to his call.
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