We are in the car on our way to see Terri's family in Mississippi. In the back of the car are our three kids and our dog (who is a little antsy on the interstate). The kids are watching Yogi Bear (or "that Boo Boo show") as Alex called it. He got to make first pick because today -- December 28 -- is Alex Day.
Every year we celebrate the day we first met each of our kids in their Russian orphanages -- Jacob on March 5, 2003, Stella on January 25, 2006 and Alex three years ago today on December 28, 2009.
Three years ago but the memories are fresh the way memories tend to be of such emotional and momentous occasions as first meeting your new child. It was cold (December in Russia). We had been surprised to be traveling over Christmas. The orphanage workers brought Alex in to a brightly colored rug room to meet us. He came straight from a little Christmas party for the babies. He was dressed in a little black suit. He had ruddy red cheeks (an excema we've come to understand he gets every year about this time) and was very unsure of us, and especially me. He cried, he sat still, he looked inquisitively as we spoke in a different language, cried ourselves, and took pictures. Being the third time I'd been through this I knew enough to let Terri take the lead and slowly ingratiate myself to Alex through a mixture of toys and his curiosity of me as a man (a sight rarely seen in the baby house orphanages). After some time he was tired from the party and from this new meeting and it was time form him to sleep. He left, we kissed him and told him we were so happy to have met him, and that first meeting was done.
Three years later here we sit. It took some work to get him home though that's another story altogether. Now he is happy. He just celebrated his 4th birthday in November. He was thrilled with what Santa brought for Christmas and he tells me what he wants to be when he grows up is a daddy.
I have so many dreams for him like I do for all three of my kids. There really isn't anything I wouldn't do for them. They are each a miracle to me. And in all honesty they and their lives, like the lives of so many other of the tens of thousands of Russian orphans adopted by American families over the last 10 plus years are amazing stories of God's providence.
I would be naive and arrogant to say none of the kids adopted by Americans wouldn't have succeeded if they had stayed in Russia. But it is the height of ludicrousness to argue that potential result to be anything other than the exception. Orphanage conditions are harsh, adoption is not looked upon favorably traditionally in Russia (though efforts are being made to change that), and the economic and political situation of the country makes adoption prohibitive for many. And so families like ours, blended families of Americans and Russians came to be and kids who would have had little chance got a chance to be blessed with parents and to bless us with children.
For the foreseeable future that ended today. Today, three years since we first me Alex on that cold day in Russia, President Putin signed into law a bill known as the Dima Yakoklev Act. Cynically named after a little boy who died a terrible death after being negligently left in a hot car in Virginia by his father, the act purports to punish American human rights violators in response to a US act recently signed by President Obama called the Magnitsky Act, a law sanctioning alleged Russian human rots violators responsible for the death of a Russian whistleblower. But the Russian law reaches farther -- it bans all Americans from adopting Russian children, including bringing home children they have met, loved, and even been approved as parents by the Russian judiciary. It is a disastrous result for these families and these children. Children once again caught in the crossfire of international saber rattling.
The roots of the ban are many: nationalism, ethnic pride, population decline, Cold War distrust of Americans, and reciprocity for America's passage of the Magnitsky Act. But make no mistake, those who suffer will be the children. By most accounts there are 650-750,000 children living in orphanages in Russia. Hundreds of thousands if not millions more live on the streets. Many of these orphans are not eligible for adoption because parental rights haven't been terminated. They've been placed with the state because their parents can't care for them. Those that are eligible for adoption must be made available first to Russian families by law. Most are passed over because of medical conditions. Those are the children who will find themselves lost and without the hope of a family.
My children would have been those children. When we met Alex three years ago today we met a little boy who had been born to a young mother who had run away from home with her boyfriend to Moscow. She had gotten pregnant and gave birth to a little boy passing onto him an extremely dangerous medical legacy from her poor choices. She couldn't care for him and he ended up in an orphanage in her home region. Her parents were old and. Relatives declined to take him in. Other Russian couples said no. And Alex lived in his orphanage. And then we got the call. I remember praying about it and reaching our conclusion that if not us, who. And so we went not sure what to expect based on his medical report but ready to give Alex the best we had to offer.
I looked once and saw a statistic that children born with Alex's most serious medical conditions have a very small chance at full recovery. Alex did. He is a miracle. And a challenge. And our son. And I love him with all my heart. A heart that breaks for the children now left in orphanages.
There is no easy or simple end to this post or my thoughts. For now, happy Alex Day. Please pray that the God who cares for the orphan will work in a mighty way in Russia.
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