Now the green blade rises

As I write this, I'm sitting at the table in my kitchen and looking outside to see what's shaping up to be a beautiful spring day. Spring is all about new life, new growth, new blades of green grass peeking up through the ground after the dormancy of a long winter. It reminds us of the kids.

This September will be our third trip to see our friends at Sovietsk. When we first visited it was for only a very brief time, just a couple of hours. We felt this was the right place for us to begin building relationships as sponsorship coordinators. But there was, as you will find at most every orphanage, a sense of heaviness and sadness there. The children didn't talk, and I don't remember a single smile. The director, Galina was very kind at our first meeting and she does a very good job with the children, but one got the sense that she would be glad for the help. Not because of us, of course, but because a burden shared is a burden divided.

On our second trip, over a year after sponsorship began, we could already feel a difference. We were glad to see Galina and she was glad to see us. And some of the kids remembered us, especially Sarah's friend and pen pal, Katya. She latched onto Sarah during the first visit. Then, she didn't smile at all and showed little emotion except when we left and she cried. The second time, she was shy at first, but soon latched onto Sarah again. She was much more gregarious this time and seemed to like having fun. She was described by Galina as "complicated," and understandably so. When you're rejected by those who are supposed to love you, things are bound to get complicated. But even though her life is tumultuous, she actually smiled and laughed genuinely during our time together. She's like a little blade of grass that's trying to grow after a long, dark winter. Our job is to make sure that she and the other kids there continue to grow and blossom.

At Easter, we sang of the green blade rising as Love lives again. We cannot wait to see what it's like at Sovietsk the third time around.