Ash Wednesday

In our culture, today marks the beginning of Lent, the time for purging all that stands between us and what is good and for restoring all that is life-giving.

As we walk through the Lenten season, the children of Sovietsk will be close to our hearts. Together, we are walking among the rocks, seeking the joy of rebirth, of reconciliation, of new life, of new beginnings.

Ash Wednesday by T.S. Eliot is my deep-down favorite poem; you will have to indulge me as I share throughout the season. For now, the closing prayer:

Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

Always with the letters . . .

We can't find a way to effectively express just how important receiving a letter is to the kids living in the orphanages. You have to see it with your own eyes. I know we make this point a lot, but we do so because it matters. We wouldn't belabor the point if it wasn't really important. The letters give the kids a connection to someone else, someone who shows that he or she cares enough to take the time to write a letter. If we could pinpoint one thing that these kids need (not that there's ever just one thing, but hypothetically...) it would be a secure and healthy attachment to other people. While having an American pen pal won't solve this issue, it can be one experience that helps them learn how to have a relationship with someone else. After all, no one is an island. We all need other people to help us know who we are and how we should live our lives.

That said, we know from experience that it can be difficult to keep up with writing letters consistently. It becomes especially difficult when your letters are not reciprocated with letters from the child. It can be hard to know what questions to ask. And you can only tell them so many times about where you live and what you do for a living and what your pets are named. We keep challenging ourselves to be creative, just sharing in a paragraph or two what we did on a particular day or writing about an interesting trip we took.

Now that we have a trip to Sovietsk planned for this fall, we would love to tell them that we're coming and ask them what they would like to do for fun while we're there. That's not allowed, though, because if the trip didn't work out for any reason the kids could be very disappointed--something they certainly don't need more of in their lives. But we can talk about the last time we were there and all of the fun memories we made. We can tell them that we miss them and that we think about them often. I think I'll write Sergey a note.

(For letter writing tips, look along the right side of this blog.)

Meet doma

After months of planning and preparing, the website for doma launched this week!

doma is a new organization founded my my sister-in-law Julie. Through years of visiting orphanages and studying children, she dreamed about finding ways to intervene earlier in young, vulnerable lives. If we can be sure the youngest children have the right developmental building blocks, their futures are infinitely brighter. If we can support orphaned children who become parents at a young age, they are more likely to be successful parents and less likely to abandon their own children. If we can find a way for these children to experience the blessing of home, they will be able to build a safe and healthy home for themselves and their families.

So, slowly but surely, doma is building programs around the world. They are traveling to Uganda next month to provide medical services, visit a school for orphaned children (which they are already supporting), and assess the need and potential for a prenatal care center. They are working toward young mother support centers in Russia, and they are bringing developmentally appropriate toys and supplies to babyhouses in Ukraine. In the dreams of the future, doma is looking at expanding programs in India, in other African countries, and even in the United States.

Ben and I have been working on all kinds of projects for doma--cultural trainings, programming, brainstorming, research, writing, travel support, basically anything we can. The more of us who bond together to bring peace, joy, and stability to those who need it most, the closer the world becomes to what it was intended to be.

It's Official--We're going to Russia!

We've booked our plane tickets for a trip this September to see the kids at Sovietsk. We're really looking forward to this trip that will have us spending about a week getting to know the kids and the orphanage staff.

This trip will be different from the one we took in August 2008. Most or all of the kids will be there this time since school will be in session. In August, many of the kids were away at summer camp, so we weren't able to meet all of them. Also, we will have more people traveling with us this time, some for their first time to Russia.

We still have about five spots open, so please let us know if you would like to come with us. We would love to have anyone come along who is willing and able. Leave a comment on this blog post if you have any interest and we will get back to you soon.

If you can't travel with us but would still like to be involved, there are a lot of ways that you can participate in our trip without leaving home, so just let us know.

There are no generals in banya!

Banya is the most thoroughly Russian experience we've ever had.

The orphanage does not have showers like we are used to. There are a few bathtubs, maybe with a short hose that sprays cold water, but that's about it. Instead, the kids use the banya.

Banya is like a sauna, but not. At Sovietsk it has 3 rooms: a steam room, a middle dressing room, and a COLD room with an exit to the outside (the room that looks like an addition). After a long, sweaty day mushroom hunting, Galina offered banya to us and we gladly accepted.

Here is how it works. All the women go in banya together, ready to bathe. (The men went later.) For Russians, this is an expression of friendship and service, so I quickly swallowed my American modesty and joined Galina and Lena. Galina, ever the consummate hostess, had prepared an assortment of juices, teas, and wine, as well as some fruit. She made a special scrub of coffee grounds and honey, and she had prepared both birch and juniper branches.

We spent 3 hours in banya--first, in the steam room to sweat, then in the cold room to enjoy a beverage and talk. You bathe in the heat, then you rest in the cold, all in stages. In Russian tradition, Galina shared her special scrub, scrubbed me with the juniper branches, then beat me with the birch. (Lightly, of course!)

In banya, Galina shared her heart for the children. She shared some special struggles that some of our children face--struggles that, while not surprising, are heartbreaking. I learned the history of Sovietsk, of special people in Sovietsk's community, of goals she has for improving the orphanage.

Toward the end of our banya time, Galina said "You see, we didn't even need sheets!" It is perfectly acceptable for a shy American to wear a sheet or even a bathing suit in banya. Instead, I took the opportunity to meet Galina where she is, to show my commitment to these children and to their culture. Galina accepted this as a sign of enduring friendship, for which I was glad.

But here was my favorite part: because I was new to banya, and because it is HOT in there, Galina brought a special hat for me to wear to keep my head from overheating. It had a picture of an older gentleman, wearing only military decorations and a fig leaf. It says "There are no Generals in banya!" In banya, we have nothing to distinguish us from the next person--no costumes, no status, no special honors. Banya is an equalizer--we are all the same.

This is how I feel about our children. We are the same, it just so happens they were born half a world away into an unwelcoming situation. But it might as well have been me, or Ben, or anyone I love. These children have been added to our charge of care, as we care for family or love our neighbor. They are no different from us, and we love them just the same.

Volodya and Galina, our Russian Counterparts

When we visited Russia this past August we took the kids, along with the orphanage staff, to a village called Dolbylova for a day of picnicking and hiking. The day culminated in a wonderful meal by our generous hosts, the unofficial mayor and first lady of the village, Volodya and Galina. These friendly people are connected to the orphanage at Sovietsk because they look after some of the kids during the summer--a sort of foster parent relationship. During some private, men only conversations (his rules, not mine) Volodya and I shared with each other our hearts for orphaned and abandoned children. We realized that we both wanted these kids to be taken care of. I told him how glad Sarah and I were to have someone in Russia who cares about these kids as much as we do. It's very heartening to know that while we cannot be there with the kids nearly as much as we would like, there are people there who volunteer their time and their resources to help make life better for these precious kids.