Stories

Everyone has a life story, but I get to hear and participate in the most recent chapter of some pretty special ones. Tonight James' story ended with him leaping up from a prone position on the floor in dramatized agony, to happily flinging his arms wide open and saying with a happy laugh, "And now, I'm HOME!"

This was after our dear friend, Michelle, had spoken at church tonight and shared about the children at orphanage #4 in Odessa. I wondered how our boys would feel about seeing their friends on the very moving video. It showed kids I met while there on two occasions. Peter was sniffling in the seat beside me, and James eyes were red. He told me afterwards, "I say, 'No James! No cry! Keep in your heart!"' I didn't do as well as he.

The evening brought a number of people to the back of the church wanting pictures of adoptable kids, who they could pray for and perhaps write to. There were cards with pictures of Tolik, the sweet 15 year old with a twinkle in his eye, who will turn 16 without a family, Andrei who will be 16 in June without one, and Artour who will be 16 in April also without a family. Only a miracle of God can get these boys a home after that.

If their grades are very good, I think they can stay on to eighteen, but otherwise they, like thousands and thousands in Russia and Ukraine are on their own. So many have no one, no relatives to take them in or help them get a job and stay away from the drugs and alcohol, that kills the majority within two years. The little girls are drawn into prostitution.

We can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that if a boy or girl can become a follower of Jesus Chrit and know the power of his Spirit in their lives and the truth of His Word, they are better off than if they received a family, but never received their sins forgiven and a place in God family.

I asked James and Peter what happens after the boys turn 16. James said, "They go maybe to man, and say, 'I work for you?' The man say, 'No work,' and the boy shiver and maybe soon die on sidewalk." I asked, "James, did you shiver on the sidewalk?" He replied that for a long time he went 'around and around'. Sometimes Mama had food for him and sometimes would tell him, "Go ask on street for food" for her to cook. Sometimes maybe he'd get a little chicken or apple. Sometimes he could earn a few kopeks selling a newspaper.

Sometimes she would insist that he stay out for the night. He would go to a friend and ask if he could sleep there, but if they had too many people or just didn't want him to sleep there, he would go to the next friend and sometimes sleep on the street. It must have toughened him up because now he only likes one blanket at night. The winter was the hardest because people didn't want to buy his papers and didn't like to stop for begger boys. But he learned how to pull his arms inside his sleeves and his legs inside his shirt. I asked about a warm jacket and he said, "No, a svetta." Hmm.. a sweater in Odessa winter?

One time in the summer he was thirsty and went into a church. Someone let him drink all the communion wine and 'a leetle bit bread'. But afterwards, they let him stuff big hunks of it into his pockets. He smiled at the thought.

"Mom," he said, "See on my back, this bump? It was very big, then smaller, and now leetle." "Yes, I replied, "I was going to ask you about that sometime. How did you get it?" Nearly every child at that orphanage has a scar somewhere on their little body or head. So James' "Fontanka story" began to unfold.

Fontanka is the home for bad boys. My heart goes out to those "bad boys" who my friend the 78 year young misionary visits on Sunday afternoon, and takes out for lunch and to the waterpark. I took a picture of 12 year old, Dima, at #4, who I heard was soon be sent to Fontanka. He was cute as a button and quite samll, but he apparently is trouble. So it is off to Fontanka for Dima.

Had I known about James being at Fontanka I would have been afraid to adopt him. As it is, he was in a number of scraps and that is how he was taken there. I don't yet know why he was moved to the regular orphanage.

Fontanka was not good to our James. He worked very hard there and when he was weary... "Mom, it was like Prince of Egypt, working hard." Of course he was identifying with the Hebrew slaves on the Friday night movie at our house last week. It makes me squirm when I think of all those jokes we've made about kids in reform school washing the floor with a toothbrush. I shall have to ask him if he did that too!

At one point he was not working hard enough, apparently, and a man threw a knife across the room and it stuck in his back where the scar is now. Another time he was whalloped with a metal bar across the back. When he tried to get up he was struck again. Bob says his X-rays look fine, and I say the child should get a hot water bottle at night when he can't sleep because his back hurts.

I say, we all can use a hot water bottle at night now and then.