The Unexpected Course

When I was singing in my college choir, we started working on a double choir Bach motet.  The conductor divided up all of the singers into two choirs, and we relentlessly rehearsed the intricate music.  After a bit of time I started to feel confident in knowing the notes and words.  The music was getting more fun and less hard.  Then one day, the conductor was frustrated at the sound he was hearing, and decided that the alto part wasn’t balanced between the two choirs.  He stomped his foot and pointed at me and told me to switch to the other choir. Suddenly, I found myself singing a completely different complex part that I hadn’t practiced, something similar but absolutely not the same.  Plus, everyone in that part of the double choir had been singing their part for weeks at that point.  Eventually I caught up and learned that part too, but . . . yikes!    It was a difficult surprise. A change in course.

That’s kind of how this autumn season has been for me:  different from how I thought it would be.

Last Christmas we had the opportunity to host a little girl from an orphanage in Ukraine for three weeks.  She came to America with four other children/teenagers, and all of them stayed with families in or near my city.  My neighbor around the corner who goes to my church was actually the one who gave us the information about hosting, because they were in the process of adopting two teenage sisters from that same orphanage.

Our hosting experience was hard, chaotic, and extraordinarily beautiful all at the same time.  After she left to go back to Ukraine, our family decided to pursue adopting her.  We were able to Skype with her every couple of weeks and write lots and lots of letters while we completed a large stack of paperwork.  Finally, in the late summer I rejoiced because I had all the paperwork finished!  It was getting translated and was just days from being submitted to Ukraine, when we found out that in a crazy turn of events, that someone else had sort of swept in and started the in-country process of adopting her.  (You have to be on Ukrainian soil to actually officially start that process).

It was hard.  Very hard.  We were all ready for her, only weeks from being able to travel to get her.   We had been learning Russian.  We had been preparing our house, preparing our hearts, reading and reading about adopting older children.  To suddenly just have her not part of our lives was shocking, really.  Every day we had been talking about her, writing letters, making changes to prepare for her to join us. Suddenly, we couldn’t write letters, talk with her, or even tell her how happy we were that she found a family, and how we would miss her tremendously.

It is likely that the family who adopted her was a foreign-to-Ukraine family, but we have no idea where they were from.  We probably never will know exactly what happened, and that’s OK.  We are trusting that God knows what is best and is taking care of her.  Truly, we are happy that she has a family.  She wanted a family so very, very much.  She will always, always have a big place in our hearts.

Completing all that paperwork and reading and reading about adoption had consumed my life for several months.  I really, really hoped (and prayed) that all of that would not go to waste.  I had learned so much through our experience of hosting and reading.  Since we had all the paperwork completed for adopting from Ukraine, we weren’t sure how to proceed or not proceed.  Eventually, after a lot of discussion, we decided to explore the option of hosting again from Ukraine to see if we could use our paperwork to help someone else who needed a family.

The first time we hosted, the children were brought over through an adoption agency in our state.  Currently that agency does not have a hosting program, and for numerous other reasons, we decided to look into a group that specializes in hosting.  Project 143 (P143) brings children from several different countries to the United States for a short time in winter and in summer.  Some of the children need families, and some of them might not be available for adoption but live in an orphanage and benefit greatly from the temporary love and care of a family.  If a family does choose do adopt a child who needs a family, they are referred to an agency with a program for that country.

It’s a long story, but while we started looking at children on the listing from Ukraine, there were various reasons why none of those kids would be quite the right fit for our family situation.  One of the coordinators suggested that we check out the list from another Eastern European country, and after inquiring about a different child, we were pointed in the direction of a set of sisters, age 10 and 7, who might be a good fit.

So, the short of it:  we are hosting again this Christmas!  Two sisters, this time.  Having hosted before, we are convinced that we will be better at it this time simply because we know so much more about what to expect and can be more prepared.  Also, because these girls are from a different country, we are able to have more reliable information about them in advance, which is both very helpful, and a little scarier, maybe.  Overall, I think it helps us be more prepared.  P143 also has done a great job in preparing host families for the experience.

We are very excited to have these two girls join us in a few weeks.  While there are certain things I cannot write about here, I probably will be writing a bit more about the experience as it unfolds because reading other families’ experiences with hosting has been very beneficial to me over the past year.

Hosting changed me a lot.  There were incredibly hard parts about it, (and it certainly didn’t end in the way I had hoped) but through it I was able to deeply love someone who was desperate for affection, care and family, and I was able to show that love in very tangible, real ways.  The kidlets grew in amazing ways through the experience as well.  I truly believe the love we were able to give the child we hosted last year brought her incredible hope and was not wasted.

(Side note:  many of the other kids who came to our community for hosting last Christmas have now been adopted by families here, which is really special).