Day 4 of 14: Part I - Survival

Today was hard and beautiful at the same time. It was the first real day like I felt like I just wanted to go home. We have a long way to go before that can happen...sigh......I miss my family. I miss Ari so much, I could not even Skype with him today without starting to cry.

God's gracing me with this face everyday though and thats helping.







Wanna know what happened today with this cutie? Wanna see some incredible new pictures of Ian and his new life? Well, there's someone I need you to meet first, and spend some time with. I want you to know about this person, so much so, that I am going to make my next post, which has the most amazing news about Ian yet, and tons of pictures, dependent on you reading this post and commenting on it. Read to the end and you'll help to get Ian's day today posted tomorrow!

This person I want you to know, her name is Elena, although that is not her real name. Her real name in Russian sounds like Elena, so she uses that. She is our facilitator here in St. Petersburg. She is the sole force here for Hand in Hand Adoptions and she is - God sent.







Elena is in the middle of myself and Nina Clark, who just arrived home with their new daughter Elizabeth. Elena facilitated that adoption too.

Elena and I have some things in common that I talked about the first time we met her here in April. The most kismet of them being that when I was here in 1988 on the Black Sea in Odessa, at a young Communist campsite for a peace demonstration, she was literally a few miles down the road at another campsite along the Black Sea, translating for a group of American's. She met her husband at that camp during that time.







Me in Russia in 1988 at 18 years old.

Personality wise, she's even more OCD than me about paperwork, she's like a highly skilled doctor with all of this adoption stuff. She has to be, her job here, if done wrong, could result in her total loss of livelihood and even land her in jail.

Why does she do this? A recent happening with one of her families will show why. A family from Indiana adopted an older child with no special needs. About a year after that child was home and learned to speak enough English to tell her parents something important, she did. She told them she remembered her mother hiding a baby. Long story short, the family inquired and asked for Elena to conduct an investigation. Contrary to the laws here, the baby that the mother had been hiding was not attached to her sisters records. There was a baby, and once found, the family told Elena that MUST begin the process for them to adopt her, REGARDLESS of her condition. Well, her condition was terrible. She was near death and Elena had to fight to get the adoption through. Years later, the family send Elena a video of this hidden treasure they found because her sister learned to speak, it was of this girl giving a full research report, in English, to her regular school class. Elena took this video to the orphanage where they almost didn't let the "profoundly dumb, disabled, nearly blind and mute" little child leave from. Mouths hit the floor. Most of all, minds were CHANGED.

Elena's work carries on through the years and changes things here. She is facilitating adoptions in places that have NEVER had an adoption, or not one in 35 years. What kind of impact do YOU have on your job? I can say mine is nowhere near where hers is, and it IS forcing me think about what I spend most of my time on in my life.

On Monday, Elena and I were sharing family news while we waited in line to apply for Ian's passport. This process usually takes 3-4 hours or more. God showed us favor that morning however, and we were in and out in less than 2. Please pray for continued smooth governmental processes. Ian's passport will be ready for pick up Friday, which requires another session of line "taking" (which means standing in line). People pay other people here to stand in lines for them. That ought to tell you something about the way life is here.

Last year before we made our first trip to Russia to meet Ian, we were told that our adoption facilitator here had something terrible happen in her family. Her parents in law, her husbands mother and father who are in their 70's, were hit while crossing the streets here in St. Petersburg. They were badly, terribly injured. Her mother in law has recovered well, but her father in law not so much. In fact, his condition is not well and this is how he will have to live out the remainder of his golden years with an injured, broken, and painful body. Watching her talk about him made me want to cry, I could see her eyes watering up.







Elena's parents in law are in bad shape. Life for the elderly here is in worse shape. The type of social security they have here is a joke. Elena's mother, who was a career teacher and still teaches two days a week at St. Petersburg State University (yea, she's a college professor) - gets $120.00 PER MONTH to live on. That is what the Russian government thinks she can live on. If your mother was 71 and getting only $120 a month plus a small part time salary, do you think you have to help her out financially? Yeah, the answer is YES.

Next time you think you have it rough, consider this: Elena's father in law, the one who was ruthlessly run over in the streets by a car had to be taken to a State run (public) hospital when the accident happened. He was in intensive care for a MONTH. Intensive care in a state run Russian hospital looks like this: 12 beds in ONE ROOM, the smells, noises, and disposition of 12 people who are hurt enough to be nearly dead, 12 peoples families moaning and stressed out, hundreds of antiquated machines emitting noises and malfunctioning...etc...who could get better under those conditions? Not her father in law. In order to help save his life, they had to pay money to get him into a better room with just 2 seriously injured people, where he could gain some peace to recover.







It was a lot of money. Dear God. Elena also supplements greatly her mother, who wants to live on her own until it is absolutely no longer possible. She's 71 but spirited, she walks EVERYDAY, even in the bitter cold of winter in one of the coldest places on earth.

Today, while Elena's parents in law live at their own apartment again, things are not good. Elena is caring for three families and her husbands salary is not even sufficient to care for her and their only son whose in college. Her husband is a degreed Engineer. When the Soviet Union fell, life here became desperate for most people. Professional people who were making decent wages, lost just about everything.

While we can all debate the pros and cons of Communism, there is no debate needed to see that major political changes here have impacted the average Russian in ways we cannot even begin to understand. At the very least, the old Soviet system provided decent medical care and enough food for people, and especially older people. They had enough to live and medical care and schools were better than they are now. Capitalism and Democracy have brought freedoms in the marketplace, and in cultural life, but the division now that exists between the quality of care and services in the government versus private sector is profound. Most people cannot begin to afford private medical care in hospitals and schools. This is the case of our facilitator.

I have known Elena since April 2011. I have met her son Max and her husband. They are good, good people. Elena works miracles here for families, she works sometimes 80 hours a week to get all of the necessary paperwork and processes in order for families to be successful in their adoptions. It is not just a job you do because you need a job. Her small apartment is filled with adoption documents. Her husband doesn't even like to be in the living room because of all of the papers. Yeah she gets paid, but trust me when I say that the hourly rate is not one we in the US would every do with three families to try and support. She has no time for herself. None.

She is the consummate professional and she arranges things that others cannot arrange. She does this because she is a gracious person and she is cordial to officials who do not understand the reasons behind why us Americans want their ""damaged" children. She has a lot of explaining to do everyday to people who don't understand what she or we are doing. She takes a risk having this job in this country.

Elena does not know this yet, but we are about to give her a gift to help her family. I can't say anything about it tonight because the information is kind of sensitive until we get back to the United States but just trust me that because of all that people have done for us to get Ian home, we are going to pay a small part of that forward to this woman for her work to make all of this possible. If we don't give till it hurts, then we are not ever going to move past the boundaries God wants us to break through in giving.







If you read this poster, you'll realize that you are RICH in SO MANY WAYS. That position demands respect given to those who cannot answer YES to any of the questions.

Elena gives and gives for families, and we just don't get it about the impact her job has on her life. It strains her relationships at home, working at all hours, working till she drops, not having three consecutive days to even get her teeth worked on, spending any money they have to keep their parents going and her son in school.

Please add Elena and her family to your prayers tonight. Without her, Ian would not be coming home, and he might even have already been moved to a place where we could not have rescued him from. She got some strings pulled for us this past year and while she won't admit to it, I know that she worked herself hard for Ian.







During our multiple wait times over two days which we encountered doing adoption stufff, I asked more about the situation of Elenas parents in law. What I found out made me cry right there on the spot in a Russian state office in front of her.

My heart is SO broken for her and their family over this accident. Elena did not sleep well last night because her fax machine was ringing all night long and in their home they have 3 phones that all ring when one rings, and so her husband was, in her words, furious at her. Our office in the US was faxing during the day there, which is night time here. She looked SO tired and sad, I knew she was putting on a face for me and I asked her more about what was happening with her.

When her 71 year old parents in law were crossing the street on a walk signal, they had the green. A car, driven by a younger man ran a red light and slammed into them both. Her father in law was hit hard on the right side his body, he was taken away by ambulance, they were not sure if he would survive. Elena's husband is their only child. 2 years ago, this man had a stroke. They told the family he would never walk or talk again, but because they love him so, and because at 69 he was still so vibrant, they worked hard and spent their savings money to get him rehabilitation. Just 2 months before the accident, he had recovered FULLY from that stroke! He was walking well, talking fine,, and had regained all of the movement and functions in the RIGHT side of his body, which was the side that was totally paralyzed from the stroke.







Did you catch that? His RIGHT side. The car hit him on his RIGHT side.

Dear God.

My next question was if he was now terribly depressed. My fears were confirmed, he is very, very depressed.

The young man that hit hese two wonderful people, Elena's parents-in-law, admitted his guilt on the spot. He was taken to jail, his act was criminal. He was going to jail for FIVE YEARS.

Until..

Elena's parents in law and she and husband learned that this man has two young children, Ian's age. His unemployed wife stays at home with the kids. When he was arrested, his job promptly fired him for having been arrested and now having criminal charges against him. You know what I am about to say right? Elena's family signed the papers to rescind the charges against him and they saved him from jail. They couldn't do it to that man's young children.

GOOD PEOPLE, STRUGGLING.

The relationships Elena forges with all manner of officials, the police, and orphanage directors are ABSOLUTELY KEY and CRITICAL to all of us adopting families here in this region. We cannot bring our kids home without it. She is strict to be sure, but she is also an individual with her own life and family and worries and history and future. I've had my moments here, struggling with those things that seem so absurd, and I've even had my moments with Elena over the past year, the important thing is that as Christian adult people, we carry the torches of hope. Being the hands and feet does not only mean you help others when you planned on it, it means when you walk up on a situation that cries out for help, you step forward with passion, to do what you can. God does not show you good people struggling so you can say, wow, that's too bad, and then be glad it didn't happen to you.

We love Elena, and have a deep respect for her, and we hope she will feel that love when we say goodbye to her on Saturday as we board the train to Moscow. I hope she cries when she opens her gift, I love to make people cry from joy. So many people did the same for us to make being here possible. I'm eating Tuna and crackers to help give her a good gift, and my little Starkist lunch kits that I brought and my .98 cent cups of Manchurin Ramen Noodles never tasted so GOOD!

Sneak peek to tomorrow's post: Ian and I ate tuna for dinner and he.....

Just leave a message of HOPE for Elena and her family. The more I get, the sooner Ian's next post goes up and trust me, it's another inspiring tear jerker.

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Location:13-я линия,St Petersburg,Russia