Alona

This is Alona.  She is our Ukrainian daughter's very best friend.  She is 15 years old until the end of June.  In four and a half months, she needs to find a forever family or be forever alone.  Unfortunately she is in an orphanage in Crimea and for some reason that area has been withdrawn from hosting programs.  I am trying to find out the why's and who it affects.  But for now we know it affect's this orphanage, where we spent so much time in November and December.  There are such precious children there for whom we wanted to facilitate a hosting program for in the Raleigh area this summer.  Without hosting programs, these children have little chance of being found.  Only families already in the adoption process in Ukraine have a very small chance of being shown their pictures during the referral interview upon arriving in Kiev.  They are typically only shown pictures of a few children that fit their specific description.  Without hosting programs, we would not have found Liza.  We had no plans to adopt in Ukraine before July 22nd of last year.  As of today, we've been home with our new 16 year old daughter for 5 and a 1/2 weeks.  So we know miracles can and do happen every day.

Please pray for God to open the hearts of a family for Alona.

They may be teenagers, but they are just babies at heart who want the childhood they never had.

Trying to be happy for Liza as she flipped through pictures of her new home, knowing she'd be left behind.

Alona's new Lilla Rose hair clip the way Liza styled her hair

 

Alona's bed is the one nearest the white curtains.  They are toddler sized beds with about a foot of walking space between them, with as many as possible crammed in the space. 

So for now, we wanted to put Alona's story out there to help find her a forever family.  Alona is a tender and quiet girl, but friendly and well spoken.  She smiles a lot.  She is popular among the other kids and has lots of friends, including our Liza, who adores her.

The More You Know...

I am sitting at the computer in our breakfast room at 11 o'clock on the morning, in near silence.  Homeschooling five children makes this almost an impossibility.  I tore a hamstring the night before last getting ready to test for my blue belt in Taekwondo.  (Yes, this is a 38 year old wife and mother of 5 writing.  I am, with the rest of my family, pursuing a martial art for the first time at  my age).  I've been slightly incapacitated ever since so Tom took Liza and one of our twins with him to work today.  My load is notably lighter.

I am extremely grateful to have these few hours.  Yes, it's true.  I adore my children, and I adore Liza, but I needed a break.  We are together 24/7 because she is not yet comfortable enough to make friends or venture out.  She says she needs "six months, yes I think so, six months" to learn English better first :)  Now that we have been home for 5 weeks and 2 days, I want to write about what it's like to adopt a teenager once you get them home.  Every story is unique and every child is different, but age does play a role in what you can expect in adoption.  I can't attest to any other age, any other family or child, or to anything other than our story.  I am no expert.  I am an eyewitness to but one account.

It happens to be my favorite account.

Liza helped me paint these lyrics from Matt Redman's song at Clay Fusion

First, I want to say that I believe it is NEVER too late to find a family.  Some may not find family until they get married and create a family.  To some people that family is made up of a group of friends with similar backgrounds who choose to be responsible for each other.  But there are cases in which I believe it would be too late for some troubled children to be living full time with a family who has other children; or impressionable, younger children. That was not the case for us with Liza, but it was the case for Liza's older sister.  She had experienced too much to be able to live in a household with our nine year old son.  If that sounds heartless, I apologize.  It is as hard to say as it was to realize the truth of it as we looked at that beautiful seventeen year old girl.  She needs a family with no other children or a halfway house with strict rules and no innocents nearby.

 Liza has experienced a lot, too.  We were too late to preserve all the innocence childhood should offer... maybe only by a year or two...but too late nonetheless.  Sixteen years is a long time.  And without parents, sixteen years is not nearly long enough. There are things she eludes to but won't elaborate on.  She refers to "bad things...really bad things" and "sins" that keep her from asking God for anything, though she says she talks to him a lot.  She recently bought a journal in which she and I can write her story together.  My job being to translate it into English.  She hasn't gotten far.  She has to be alone to write, sometimes for an hour or more and comes back with very little.  She said when she is ready to tell me the "bad things", she will, but that I shouldn't ask her.  So I don't.

There are so many things a family teaches, that one who has grown up in a family might take for granted.  Most of them may never be spoken but are taught through experience.

Like trust.

Dependence. 

Sacrifice.

Joy.

Togetherness.

Then there are the basics that we are told from birth, like: put the cap on the toothpaste, you can't have dessert 'til you eat your peas, wear a jacket when it's 25* outside...  Add to that the fact that there are things in American life that aren't apart of life in other cultures.  For instance, we live in our cars.  We go a lot of places.  Liza has a very difficult time running errands and going to and fro in town because she is always carsick.  Can you imagine only leaving the premises once a month or a couple times a year at most?

How have we spent our first month?  Teaching... and learning.  We've been asked a lot how "everything" is "going".  Some days it's Sunday drive, other days are a bumpy ride.   I admit to falling asleep at the wheel more than once, to having road rage, to cranking the music and dancing with our arms out the windows and to high speed chases.

I must have begun ten thousand sentences with these words, "in a family..."  In a family, when something is bothering us, we talk to each other about it.  In a family, we apologize when we've wronged someone.  In a family, we don't say "no" to our parents.  In a family, we don't lie to each other.  In a family, we share the workload.  In a family, there is trust.  In a family, you can feel safe.  In a family, we sometimes fight, but we always forgive...

One of our biggest lessons for her so far is that everything you do, affects the people around you.  We don't necessarily think about it, but we make little adjustments in our choices and behavior every day to accommodate our family members.  It might be not using all the hot water in a reeeally long shower when others are waiting in line; not glaring at the poor soul who has to wake you in the morning because you stayed up too late; or refusing food someone spent hours making with a wrinkled nose a disgusted sound effects...and then grabbing a bag of marshmallows.  :)  Our facilitator said to us once, "Orphans are self centered."  I thought it was a harsh and a little backwards.  After all, she lived with 300 other children and had to share everything, even clothes.  Two months later I can verify that statement.  She lived with others, but was not taught to care about their well being.  It's the little things we do for each other in family...

Another concept is something I have worked with our American children on all their lives. You are responsible for your countenance.  This one is complicated by both age and cultural differences.  The Russian culture simply does not smile a lot; and truth be told, 16 year old girls can be very moody.  Walking down a typical street in Ukraine will not make you the recipient of friendliness.  Thus, along with many myths, she is convinced that you should never smile unless you are genuinely happy; it is insincere.   It has been through several embarrassing moments that I've realized what a smiley culture we have in America.  She doesn't realize that without smiling, she is glaring and causes those around her to think she is angry at them.  I explained that it hurts feelings to be greeted wordlessly that way.  I asked that if she couldn't smile with happiness, could she please try to smile with love.   "I can" she acquiesced and she has done much better.  She is a quick learner and she is trying very hard most days.

"Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial" I Corinthians 10:23.  She doesn't understand why the availability of 24/7 WiFi should not mean 24/7 internet and television; why we won't allow her to watch certain movies when they're right there on Netflix; or why the presence of 24 hour a day hot water should not mean twice daily hour long showers; or why the ability to ingest sugar should not mean abstaining from real food in favor of spoonfuls of the stuff; or why homeschooling should not mean sleeping until noon and staying awake until 2am; or why owning an iPod should not mean plugging your ears when you wake up and not unplugging them until the buds accidentally fall our when you're sleeping; or why having the ability to Skype call cheaply should not mean calling Ukraine every day,  living in the past.  We are now, as we were when we had multiple toddlers, playing a prerecorded "No" message.  I feel like I have "Bad Guy" stamped on my forehead most days.  In many ways, the rules of the house feel like a prison to her.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. She is very willing to work doing her assigned chores around the house, but has no real concept of the work involved in most things in life.  They did very few chores at school.  They were rarely in the kitchen but for a cooking class or two in the course of her life.  She sees me paying bills with imaginary, apparently limitless money.  We realized last night we need to show her where the hot water comes from and why it runs out and how it costs money.  They were never privy to store prices, income and budgets.  She doesn't believe us when we say we have no more money for a phone or clothes, because we bought groceries the next day or paid for her doctor appointment.  She asked for a phone, an iPhone to be specific, and didn't believe Tom when he said they cost $500 and then $100 per month thereafter (after stating that she'd need a job first).  She's questioned our honesty multiple times when we've tried to explain realities for her.

The more you know, the more you realize just how much you don't know.  She believes herself to be street smart and savvy in a way that our privilege would never allow.  And I have heard many comments that suggest other people think she has been living as an adult, learned adult lessons and is probably pretty safe left to her own devices here in the safety of our home.  That couldn't be further from the truth.  And that's where the complexities come in.  Americans refer to complaints about our "plenty" as First World problems.  I gotta say, I'm pretty sick of that phrase and the guilt with which Americans operate these days.  Giving to the poor and caring for orphans and widows are Biblical mandates, but I don't know where it says we should act from guilt over being born in the U.S..  We return from mission trips talking about how much suffering to which our people are ignorant.  But there's another side to it.  There is another side to bringing someone from that suffering and the ignorance of that world, into ours.  We have a lot...including information.  They have little...including information.

Everybody needs somebody.  Yes, she's 16.  Yes, she's lived without parents.  Yes, she's been more or less on her own.  Yes, she's been punched in the face and given the same.  But it created all manner of misconceptions about life and reality.  For all that, these kids are possibly twice as deluded as spoiled American children.  It was a sheltered existence in a tiny corner of a tiny village in a remote part of the world.  They had t.v. babysitters in their rooms at the orphanage but never watched the news.  (You know what the teenage girls watch?  Bollywood romance.  That's where a lot of myths on relationships & what constitutes loyalty came from).  When she defended herself it was from children throwing tantrums, not big, strong, creepy men with malice of forethought.  These are the things our misunderstandings are made of.  She knows so little of the world, but she doesn't want to need anybody.  She believes hiding her emotions is a sign of strength.

When you have a baby, you know you will have to teach them EVERYTHING.  Absolutely everything under the sun.  To teach a young child the truths of the world, you need time and patience.  When you adopt a teenager, know that you will have to undo and RE-TEACH them everything.  Everything under the sun.  To teach a 16 year old, you first have to convince them that they do not, in fact, already know it all. :)  That's a tall order.  So we choose our lessons and our battles.  There is a lifetime of information to impart in a very short time. Sometimes it feels like talking to a five year old about why she should drink water or wear a jacket.  Sometimes we are dealing with the emotional fall out from issues that shouldn't relevant until her twenties.

Each day is filled to the brim and overflowing.  Sometimes we make a mess of it or get burned. Some times it's sweet and fulfilling.  And every day, there is hope.

Make This Place Your Home

Yesterday was Christmas in Ukraine. We went to see Parental Guidance last night as a special treat.  This was the theme song.

Hold on to me as we go

As we roll down this unfamiliar road

And although this wave is stringing us along

Just know you're not alone

Cause I'm going to make this place your home

Settle down, it'll all be clear

Don't pay no mind to the demons

That fill you with fear

The trouble it might drag you down

If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you're not alone

Cause I'm going to make this place your home

Liza called her brother to say Merry Christmas and invite him (again) to come visit.  He happened to be at her mother's house.  She talked with both of them happily with smiles and giggles in rapid fire Russian about her life here and what she has been studying.  And you know what?  She wasn't sad afterward.  She studied, she painted, she helped, she played.

She also called her best friend at the orphanage.  Alona told her that they didn't receive Christmas shoeboxes from America this year.  When they don't get those shoeboxes, you know what they get?  A few pieces of candy.  The next time your church hands out those boxes, makes sure you pick one up.  And if you already do each year, pick up twice as many as you normally would.

 The biggest news of the day:

She isn't afraid of the dogs anymore.

"Mommy, she likes me."

"I like her."

"She is my best friend."

She spent the *entire* afternoon yesterday voluntarily helping me rake gardens and playing with Phoenix.  Then she learned to shoot the airsoft pistols with Mercy- one of our 11 yr old twins whose hip Liza has been most recently attached to. :)

It was a good day.
ps Can you tell she got her hair done?

Hindsight Being 20/20 Part Two

We are home.

We survived.

We walked straight into loving arms.

Overwhelmed with emotion.

Safe and sound.

Exhausted.

We arrived at Raleigh Durham Airport on December 25th at 8pm.   Liza had some more tears upon meeting our welcome home party & took a walk to baggage claim with my Mom to get her bearings.  We have been sleeping in our own beds for the last twelve nights.  These most recent days are a blur in our memories, though the overall package looks like you could tie it up with a neat bow and say, "See? All better now."  A few people have said that.  We are looking back through the fog of exhaustion, relief, grief, excitement, tension, celebration and a general sense of being lost in time and realize Liza will not be the only one who needs to heal.  Our other kids were positively heroic during this time.  They are big people in little bodies.  We are so proud of them yet we worry about them, too.  They have made many more sacrifices in their young lives than most adults ever do.

After keeping all of us on a cruel schedule to avoid having our days and nights mixed indefinitely, we are finally taking today to just sleep.  Liza has been in bed for nearly 12 hours now.  As we well know, listening to a foreign language 24/7 is exhausting.  Our first week home was shockingly turbulent.  So we started back to (home)schooling earlier than planned last Wednesday and it has made a world of difference.  All children need structure even when they fight against it.  The order and predictability has been like a big hug to our slightly traumatized psyches.

Rewind:
We last caught up with you after we arrived in Kyiv on Thursday, December 20th on the overnight train from Crimea.  We were welcomed by the Little Lambs ministry to orphans to stay in their offices for the duration of our time in Ukraine.  We felt oppression lifting but it was by no means the end of the story.  By the time we got off the train I had a terrible cold and a developing cough.  We were holding our breath waiting for the passport to arrive in Simferopol the next day, Friday 12/21.

 Stepping out in faith that our prayers would be answered, we bought tickets home on Saturday 12.22 for my parents and had Golden Rule Travel Agency working on moving the rest of our tickets to Christmas Day.  We wanted my parents to spend a normal Christmas with my sister, Christa, and her family in Raleigh.  They have done more for us than we could ever write down in a blog.  Saying goodbye, even for a few days, was going to be sad.  We had been split up on the way over and were going to be split up on the way back.  As we were walking home from lunch on Friday, we stopped for a snowball fight.  Twenty glorious, uninhibited minutes later, we got an email from the travel agency as we happened past WiFi.  It said they had managed to get us all seats on the the same flights home on Christmas Day!  We were all smiles and hugs and were ready to celebrate as the phone rang literally a minute later.  Tom's words to me as he closed the email and answered the call, "Good news and now for more good news!"  We had such hope in that moment.  Hope, which becomes a luxury on such occasions.

Olga was on the other end, "The passport did not arrive."  [record scratching; the music in our heads & the smiles in our hearts vanished].  As we had been loading our bags into the taxi in Simferopol, it had begun to snow.  As our train was pulling out of the station that snow turned to sleet.  Overnight most of Crimea was iced over and the mail was not being delivered.   We emailed the travel agency back (which was by now past business hours in the U.S. on the Friday before Christmas) and found out that it would cost us *again* to delay the tickets back to their original date of 12/28.  Now we could only afford to reassign Tom's and Liza's.  I was coming home on Christmas Day *without* my love and my daughter.  Two groups had turned into three.

Tom and I agonized over the following hours, unable to sleep and I unable to breath without a quickly diminishing medicine supply.  Flying for 24 hours on my own with four exhausted and emotional children and a crushed spirit on the worst Christmas of our lives was my all consuming thought. We were barely functioning at that point.  Not showering, barely eating, watching back to back movies on the laptop as Christmas ticked by.  The sweet man helping me at Golden Rule, Davy, managed to release Tom and Liza's seats without a charge.  (That part is a long story on it's own, but divinely inspired as well).  He also asked if I wanted to still "hold" their seats without repurchasing them.  I was sitting at the desk crying, Tom was on the bunk next to me staring at the wall, and I answered, "Yes.  Because I still believe in miracles."

My parents left the next morning at 3:30am after staying awake all night.  They both turned 66 years old in Ukraine and they traveled for 28 hours from Kyiv to Frankfurt to Toronto to Raleigh.   I didn't want to get out of bed that day.  They had taken such good care of us for 6 weeks and I did not know how I could do the rest without them.  I must sound like the biggest baby in the world.  Maybe I am spoiled. I have parents who literally cross oceans and continents to be with their daughter.  Though, maybe that's why I can cross oceans and language barriers for mine.

It was Saturday, 3 days before Christmas.  We were sleeping apart in twin bunk beds.  We hadn't the means to bake cookies or pies or turkeys.  My parents were gone.  We had no tree.  No gifts to wrap.  No friends to invite.  Little incentive to move around.  It was easier to pretend it wasn't Christmas at all than to try to manufacture enthusiasm.  But we finally managed to get everyone out of their pajamas and out to lunch.  We went for the 3rd or 4th time to a restaurant with an English menu.  It was lit up with Christmas; had a white tree with colored lights and the Maroon 5 Christmas album playing.  It made us feel even more homesick.  And then the phone rang.

The passport came.  Olga had it in her hand in Simferopol.  She was going to put it on the next train.  It would arrive Sunday morning 12.23.  We would be able to go to the embassy on Christmas Eve...and fly out on Christmas morning.

All of us.  Together.

We got back on e-mail (our only means of communicating with the travel agency on a different time zone).  We asked for Tom and Liza to be moved back to our flights.  They had only recently been mandatorily re-released.  Davy got them on all our flights but the last one.  We would be together all the way to Washington D.C. and then have to leave without them for home.  They would have to sit at Dulles for 7 hours arriving home after 11pm Christmas night.  I'm sorry for being a brat, but that just wasn't good enough.  We did not come this far to give up on the last mile.  "God, you're just going to have to get us those tickets.  I am not going home without them.  I am so done with this mess.  I am so tired of holding my breath.  No more cliffhangers."

In the mean time, we decided a Christmas gift was in order.  We paid for one night at the Hyatt Kyiv so we could sleep in a nice bed, take a real shower and swim.  So Saturday afternoon, our friend Losha, drove us across town to our hotel getaway.  We had 18 hours of R&R.  It was as amazing as the view from our window of St. Sophia's Cathedral.

As for my requests, God acquiesced with part of it.  We got in and out of the embassy like a breeze on Christmas Eve.  We were packed by dinner.  Left for Boryspil Airport at 3:30am.  Our youngest, 8 years old, could barely walk by himself.  But the girls were positively giddy.  Tom was cool hand Luke.  I was a bundle of raw nerves.

We were dropped off at the wrong terminal.   We found that out after standing in line for 15 minutes.  The right one was a mile away by bus.  With five children towing backpacks and suitcases on wheels, we ran (literally) back out into the snow and onto the slowest moving shuttle on planet Earth.  We got on the flight and proceeded to sit on the tarmac for 90 minutes due to a scratch on the fuselage and their need to "document" this event.  A scratch?  Are you people for real?  We were flying to Frankfurt and then on to D.C.  The problem with timing international flights is that often when you miss one, you are sometimes stuck for at least another day.  So knowing this, I am embarrassed to say, that I had my first panic attack in 10 years.  The second in my whole life.  My heart rate went through the roof.  I was sweating.  I was crying silently.  And I thought, "This is it.  I have finally snapped.  We are not leaving this country today.  I am not going to get my babies home today."

We did take off eventually.  We landed and took off again from Frankfurt with little trouble outside of empty bellies.  Lufthansa & United would still not give us seats for Liza & Tom on the last leg.  All seven of us were able to sit next to at least one family member on our 9 hour leg from 5:30 am to 2:30 pm EST .  None of us slept, but overall it was a good flight.  When we touched down on U.S. soil, I nearly wept.  I have never been so glad to be an American in all my life, though we forgot to speak English at customs.  We kept saying "Spasibo" and "Do Svidanya".

Liza and Tom were off the plane last.  The other 4 kids and I were waiting, facing them as they came.  I had the camera poised.  She knew that when she landed on U.S. soil she was officially American.  It turned out to be a difficult moment for her.  It was another step in the permanence of leaving her homeland and she was grieving it.  As I snapped the picture of her first steps in America, I realized she was crying.

Tom filled out our customs form while we stood in line and the pen exploded in his hand.  He turned over our sealed immigration papers with a stained black hand and stood back watching while the officer pulled the wrong paperwork out of the envelope.  Yep.  You heard me.  We were stunned as we saw a photograph of a 5 year old girl with brown hair attached to the documents.  He was a very nice man who told us not to worry but that the U.S. Embassy in Kiev had switched our paperwork with another family's.  They had landed at O'Hare an hour before we landed in D.C. with Liza's immigration papers.  We might have looked a little unstable as we began to laugh.  No, I'm pretty sure we looked unglued.

We were mildly alarmed in truth, but after a 45 minute interview and an appointment to go to Charlotte International Airport in January, we were released and had 2 hours to kill before our next flight.  We again went to the desk to ask for seats for Tom and Liza.  One.  We could have one for Liza.  That sounds like a huge praise unless you're Tom.  I could not imagine getting off that last plane, now WITH her and a welcome home party, without the hero of the story.  How incredibly anticlimactic.

We waited.  We prayed.  I threatened God with never speaking to Him again.  (I know.  You don't have to say anything.  I know how that sounds).  The minutes dwindled away with the lining of our stomachs.  Tom was looking increasingly distressed at the thought of being abandoned on the side of the road at the tail end of an ultra-marathon.  Minutes to go.  He walks our son to the bathroom.  "Mountain, Thomas!"  I knocked over my drink and a child jumping out of my seat.  I ran, like a spaz, to the desk.  A United rep handed me a boarding pass with Tom's name on it.  I took it and ran away again, afraid they would change their minds.  And I held it up in triumph as Tom made his way back to me, 60 seconds before boarding.

You know that part where I told God no more cliffhangers?  One of a thousand morals to this story: don't tell God stuff.  It doesn't work.

We sat on the tarmac for an hour after our departure time.  They said they forgot to schedule a team to load the baggage.  Really?

We landed and were welcomed and overcome with gratitude & relief and surrounded with love & support.  My Mom had a turkey in our oven.  My dad has assembled Liza's first bike  (bought by another friend) and covered it up in the garage.  They had scoured the bathrooms and lit the tree, a tree which had been donated by Homewood Nursery upon hearing our story from a friend.  My sister & her husband set it up and her kids had wrapped all our gifts for our children.  Our friends added to our small, belated celebration with gifts of their own under our tree.   There was an enormous welcome home sign from our Open Door Taekwondo family hanging and Christmas music playing and candles burning and dogs barking and fresh eggs calling our names...We slept in our own beds for the first time in 46 days.

When we woke up the next morning, a storm had knocked out the power.

I tell you that to prove there is no movie ending here.  No matter how hard I try, I can't convince certain members of our audience of that fact.  This is just life.  There is no clear ending of one journey and beginning of another when you are living it and not just spectating.  It is so easy to put a soundtrack to someone else's life and circumstances.  Liza was not awe inspired by her first Christmas.  She hasn't ridden her new bike yet because she is afraid.  She uses her new iPod to tune out.  We had to keep the dogs away from her because she was terrified.  These kids do not walk into their new lives with a lack of burdens.  The first week was incredibly disappointing and difficult.  We hope that our story brings attention to older child adoption.  We want others to be inspired to adopt an older child.  Just not through illusions and romanticized notions.  Our life and our story is as full of hardship as it is slow motion beauty.  We see both.  But not once in our experience has the camera paused to let us add music and special effects.  It's hard.  It's so worth it.  It's exquisite.  And it's hard.

Some people are on their journeys longer than we were.  Most have done it without their children and their parents.  Others have struggled more with finances and health than we did.  I can't say why the spiritual battles and the cards were stacked against us.  I can't whether it was getting out of the starting gate as we did (with stolen passports) or the oppression & laws specific to the country & region, or the complication of separating siblings, or the unexpected involvement of the birth mother, or the shocking death of a friend, or God's big plans for Liza's future...that made it an uphill battle.  We can't promise, if you go down this road, that it will be simple.  We have just tried to tell the story as honestly as possible so that the lessons that were written between the lines by the Master Author Himself would be plain for all to see.  You never know what your story will be when you embark.

I am no longer certain that hindsight is 20/20 and I can't predict the future.  We are just one family, putting one foot in front of the other, doing hard things and waiting on God.  Put on your armor and go get one of these babies with your eyes wide open.