31MarApr04ThereIsNoPlanB

“THERE IS NO PLAN B”

BRINGING CHRIST’S LOVE TO RUSSIAN ORPHANS

BY KRISTYN KOMARNICKI

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small, CHC has grown from 10 to 77 Russian staff members and from nine to 17 programs in just the last four years.

They partner with government officials and existing ministries in those countries as well as with churches and corporations in the United States to offer the orphans both God’s love and practical help, providing a future of hope where there once was little or no future at all—as CHC’s motto puts it: “Confidence to fly and a safe place to land.”

While other foreign agencies focus exclusively on adoption or humanitarian aid, CHC chooses to take a more comprehensive approach to helping orphans. “That makes it hard when we’re trying to raise funds to support our programs,” says Tom Davis, CHC’s director on the U.S. side. “It can confuse people when we tell them all the different things we do to address the changing needs of the kids, but when you’re involved in the life of any child there is no one single issue that needs attention. It’s much more complicated when you’re working with an orphan because their issues are multifaceted and also very intense.” Once CHC has gained access to an orphanage, they provide love and support from the preschool years all the way through young adulthood, ultimately helping kids mature into responsible Christian parents themselves who will be able to offer their own children a radically different childhood from the one they themselves experienced.

Your parents don’t want you or can’t raise you or perhaps are deceased.You live with 30 or 75 or 200 other children in one of the almost 2,000 state-run orphanages in Russia, and your days are ordered by meals, classes, and the institutional routines adhered to by everyone around you.

Traumatized by abuse and abandonment, you are developmentally delayed, or simply terrified or confused or shy, or for some combination of reasons generally unable to respond to the questions posed by adults in white coats who will determine your future with a flick of a pen. Because of this, there is a good chance that you have been labeled “oligophrenic” —literally “small-brained”—a tag that will follow you for the rest of your life, preventing you from being considered employable for anything beyond the most rudimentary labor.

You are offered a reduced-curriculum education and will graduate from the orphanage at 16 and go on to a technical school where you’ll receive minimal training in construction work, cooking, or sewing.

By 18 or 19, you’ll find yourself on the streets, without a job, family, connections, or support of any kind. After struggling for a time with homelessness and hopelessness, you will at this point—unless you are statistically exceptional—consider one of three options: commit a crime that will send you to jail, earn a living through prostitution, or end your life.

Such is the journey of the typical orphan in Russia, a country that is home to approximately 842,000 institutionalized orphans, with another 100,000 more living on the streets, according to recent reports from the government.

Struggling to recover from 70 years of Soviet rule and to rebuild an economy in which, according to the Red Cross, 40 million of its 147 million citizens are living below the U.N. poverty benchmark of US$1 per day, Russia is one of the few countries that boast a higher death rate than birth rate. Children are not a priority here, and orphans—the least valued both in economic and human terms—are at the very bottom of the food chain.

It is into this atmosphere that Children’s HopeChest comes bearing gifts with which the orphans—and in many cases their caregivers and administrators—are completely unfamiliar: intangible gifts such as faith and friendship and concrete gifts such as life skills and ongoing support.

Celebrating their 10th anniversary this year, Children’s HopeChest (CHC) today works with over 10,000 orphans in 72 orphanages in Russia, Romania, and, most recently, the Ukraine.

While the U.S. staff remains

Incarnating Christ’s love “God speaks repeatedly throughout the Bible about his heart for orphans,” says Matthew Monberg, CHC’s director of development. “In 1 Peter 5:8 it says, ‘Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.’The devil prowls and seeks and eventually finds the perfect victim: orphans, a population without loving parents, without advocacy, without spiritual protection or so many of the other things that we take for granted in our lives.

What better way for Satan to strike at the heart of God than to devour and destroy these children? So this begs a response from us:What will we do? There is no Plan B for bringing God’s love to orphans—it’s us.”

Last November I had the opportunity to witness firsthand

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some of what the enemy has devoured among the vulnerable population of Russian orphans and also some of what God has reclaimed and redeemed through the work of Christ’s Body on both sides of the globe. Along with a handful of both American and national CHC staff members as well as several other journalists, I accompanied pastors from Capo Beach Calvary Church of Capistrano Beach, Ca., as they returned to visit the two orphanages their congregation “adopted” in 2002.

“The first time I came to Russia, I was expecting the children to be hardened con artists and troublemakers,” admits Chuck Smith, Jr., Capo Beach Calvary’s senior pastor, “but I was open-minded about the idea of partnering with Children’s HopeChest to do some good for a few orphans.

I certainly did not believe I would ever make more than one trip to Russia.”

Contrary to his expectations, Smith discovered children hungry for affection, individual attention, and acceptance.

He and Craig Whittaker, the church’s executive pastor, were so moved by the children they met that they decided then and there to adopt at least one of the institutions they had visited.

“We felt really strongly that our church would love to take this on,” recalls Whittaker, “but we had no idea how much they would love it. Our first weekend home we announced the idea and said we were looking to get 55 sponsors for the smaller orphanage, but over three times that many people signed up!”The enthusiastic response allowed them to pledge their support to a second, much larger orphanage as well.

Through CHC’s Orphanage Adoption Program, churches are invited to commit to a three- to five-year partnership, agreeing to correspond with and pray for the children and to provide financial support of $30 per child per month.The funds help pay for some of the children’s basic needs, such as winter clothes and shoes, as well as the salaries of local university students hired by CHC as “disciplers.” Disciplers visit an orphanage at least once a week to befriend the children, lead Bible studies, teach life skills, and serve as translators during sponsors’ visits. CHC’s program ensures that each and every child in the orphanage is matched to a sponsoring family who encourages their child with letters and photos

throughout the year. Sponsoring churches are also required to make at least one visit a year, providing anything from an unhurried visit by a small team of church members to an educational opportunity (such as an art class) or the material and human resources to put on a summer camp.

“We try to encourage our partners not to pay too much attention initially to the physical needs of the orphanage,” explains Davis.“Fixing the toilets might be part of what they’ll want to do eventually but we encourage them to move quickly into providing programs that will help the children learn a skill—such as English or computer literacy—that they’ll need to support themselves once they get out of the orphanage.”

Although the children’s long-term needs are given first priority, sponsoring churches have managed to address many of the immediate physical needs as well—needs that are alltoo evident when visiting sponsors experience firsthand the realities of life in a poor orphanage. Soligalich, an oligophrenic orphanage and boarding school located in an impoverished town in Kostroma region, almost 400 miles northeast of Moscow, has been sponsored by New Life Church of Chesapeake,Va., since 2001. Upon our arrival at Soligalich, the orphanage staff proudly provide a tour of the recently refurbished areas. Drab dormitories have been repainted in cheerful sorbet shades, new beds and coverlets brighten every room, and the children now enjoy two well-lit, whitetiled bathrooms complete with new sinks, toilets, and bathtubs. At Sudai, one of Capo Beach Calvary’s orphanages, a new steam bath house, washing machine, and passenger van have been provided by the church.

When asked how their congregation has benefited from their involvement with the orphans, Smith responds,“The main benefit is the orphans themselves. Developing a relationship with one of them is enriching in so many ways.You get to care for a child as though caring for Christ, to understand their real need, to know you are making a difference, to see behind the mystique which had hidden Russia during the Soviet era and discover humans like ourselves.”

The pastors made three return trips in 2003.The goal of the first of these was to work with the orphanage directors in preparing for summer camps, to explore ways the church could assist the orphanages financially, and to meet with Orthodox priests in the surrounding villages. “It was important to us to be on good terms with the local priests,” explains Smith.“We wanted to encourage them to think of the orphans as their parishioners

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and to make sure that Sunday school classes were available to them.” A few months later the pastors returned with a group of 50 church members to put on a one-week summer camp at each of their sponsored orphanages.

“When churches come and see the needs, something happens to them,” says Davis,“and they want to help in all kinds of ways.They realize that in giving to the orphans they themselves are the ones who are being immeasurably blessed.”

But more important still than life skills and facility upgrades are the love, friendships, and continuity that sponsors offer.

Says Davis,“The most real you can make the gospel to both the kids and the staff is to come back. If you were to walk into an orphanage and say ‘Jesus loves you’ and never come back, what are you really saying to the kids? You’ll be just one more person in a long line of people in their lives who have let them down, rejected them, told them one thing and done another.

“But part of the good news of the gospel is that Jesus comes not only to save your soul but to redeem you out of your circumstances, too. Helping people in the midst of their trying circumstances—on an ongoing basis—is arguably the most important part of the gospel, translating it into something that makes sense to these kids in their everyday lives.

“When you look at Jesus’ unbelievable ministry of touch —how he welcomed children and touched lepers—you see that it’s not about writing a check once a month or serving the homeless a Thanksgiving meal once a year. Serving the needy should be a regular, vital part of all our lives. In Acts 6 you see that it’s the disciples themselves who are feeding the widows and orphans.They’re not saying,‘I’m too important to do this, I should be out doing real ministry.’ No, they’re right there in the thick of things, because that’s where, according to James, ‘pure and undefiled religion’ is to be found.

“The first time we came to do a summer camp in Kostroma, the people were very standoffish. But we just kept pouring love on those kids and by the end of our time there the orphanage staff were saying, ‘We were skeptical at first.

We didn’t know what you wanted from us or our children.

But when we saw how you loved our kids, we knew your Jesus is real.’What more do you want? Touch is what has validated the gospel in every region we enter.”

to the organization to request training, programming advice, or orphanage sponsorship. But CHC staff need to know that an orphanage director understands the way they work before agreeing to build a relationship with any one institution.

Davis explains,“A few years ago the head of the education department in Kostroma wanted us to find a sponsoring church for an orphanage that was struggling. We helped out with some initial aid, providing coal and the food they needed, but soon discovered we couldn’t trust the orphanage director.

This man wanted the financial help we offered but proved to be irresponsible with the little we’d given him, so we refused to work with him. The department head already knew the guy was a crook, so our attitude was enough to tip the scales.

He promptly sacked the director and put a more sympathetic one in his place.”

CHC currently works in three regions of Russia and hopes to expand into others as relationships and resources allow.

“When we come into a region we agree to help as many orphanages as we can,” continues Davis.“But we don’t agree to anything until we have the resources to do it.We want to underpromise and overdeliver.”

According to Katya Celenina, CHC’s national director, the relationship that CHC enjoys with regional government officials is unprecedented in Russia. She explains,“Usually, if the relationship between a foreign faith-based organization and the government is friendly it is because the government accepts the organization’s programs in exchange for their foreign currency. The government says, ‘You put in a new plumbing system and a new roof, and then we will let you do your Bible classes.’That kind of ‘cooperation’ is very common.

But in our case, it’s different. We begin by assessing an orphanage’s needs: ‘We believe you have such and such a problem, and this is how we can help you with it.’Then it’s up to them to accept our help.”

During the summer months orphans are sent to state-run camps that offer minimal programming and supervision.

Valeriy Nochevniy, deputy chief of the department of education in Ivanovo region, explains why he has pursued CHC’s summer camp program instead of the state program. “We’d

Sharing the tools As news of the impact of CHC’s work has spread to surrounding regions, government officials are increasingly reaching out

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or phan g rad’s needs, one name per page. “This boy is looking for an apartment, this one needs help with repairs, this one needs clothes, etc.

They come to me for guidance or help with their homework.

I don’t want to boast but actually I know the children very well!” he concludes, his broad face beaming. Over 100 kids attend the center regularly.

Each year, 15,000 children graduate from Russian orphanages. Having been raised in an institutional setting, these children face enormous challenges upon leaving the orphanage.An eleventh-grade education is required to enter university, so most orphans, who are offered an education only through the ninth grade, are ineligible.At this point the majority of them move on to tech schools.There they receive a monthly stipend from the government of approximately US$7, of which 70 cents goes for a single shower. Out of that allowance they must also pay for weekend meals, clothing, and toiletries.

“Theoretically, the tech school teaches the kids a skill so they can eventually work at a trade and earn a living,” says Davis, “but it doesn’t usually work out that way. I’ve visited tech schools where they’re supposed to be learning construction but they don’t have any tools or supplies. Most of these schools are just holding tanks for the kids until they’re old enough to be released from state care.”

The director of the tech school we visit in Galich, in Kostroma region, paints a different picture. A remnant of Soviet-style administration, he displays illustrated charts that boast of the school’s success and assures us that “100 percent of the students end up in high-paying, skilled-labor jobs.” In a classroom conspicuously devoid of materials, I snap a photo of Kolya, an undernourished young man with lopped off bangs and the flattened facial features common to those born with fetal alcohol syndrome. He poses proudly but without smiling—“I’m sad because my mother is an alcoholic, and besides, I come from a region where people don’t smile easily”—and tells me he is confident he’ll find a job as an interior decorator because “so many rich people from Moscow are building dachas out in the countryside now.”

Later,Yana Kotyashkina, CHC’s sponsorship coordinator, explains the realities facing these grads. “It’s not true what the director said,” she says, smiling sadly. “What really happens is that a certain factory might send the director a letter saying that 20 workers are needed. He might then send 20 students to present themselves for those jobs, but it doesn’t

heard a lot of good things from other regions about how CHC had helped them,” he tells me as we tour an orphanage he is hoping will soon be adopted by an American church.

“Our orphanage teachers can’t take the time needed to prepare such special camps as the CHC volunteers do. CHC camps have a full schedule, all of it carefully planned, and the kids are skillfully drawn into the fun so they never get bored.

It’s a totally different concept from that of the government camps where they might have one planned activity and then the kids have a lot of free time.At CHC camps the kids learn they can have fun without drugs and alcohol.Their attitude to life is changed after the camps.”

Ministry Centers Not only does CHC enjoy an influential relationship with local government bodies, but a number of former state employees are now to be found among CHC staff in Russia.

Mikhail Makhov is the former education department head who fired the unsympathetic orphanage director mentioned above. He has helped run CHC’s Ministry Center for orphan graduates in Kostroma since he left his government position in 2002.

Ministry Centers provide a safe place for orphan grads, all of whom struggle with the most rudimentary demands of survival whether they go on to tech schools or try to make it on their own at 16.At the Center in Kostroma, two floors of spacious rooms offer counseling offices, a dental clinic, recreational facilities (ping pong and pool tables), a computer lab, library, dining hall, television lounge, and seven beds in three sparse but clean rooms that serve as emergency shelter.The teens can also receive legal advice—homeless people are entitled to assistance from the government but the orphans often have no idea how to access it—and attend life-skills classes.

Comparing his 15-year government service with his current position at CHC, Makhov says, “My dream was always to get to know every kid in Kostroma region, to know how his or her life was going, but I never had enough time for that in my old job. Here I can really relate to the kids.”

He shows me a notebook in which he keeps track of each

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mean that even one of them will get a job there. Because they come from oligophrenic orphanages, it’s more likely that they will all be refused. Even if you are from an ordinary orphanage it’s very dubious whether you will get a job.

“CHC has programs to prepare kids with special needs for independent living,” continues Kotyashkina.“We provide three staff members to support them, along with a counselor and a medical worker, but even with this kind of support not all of them will find a job or be able to keep it beyond a few months’ time. Imagine growing up in an orphanage, where you only did what you were told, and suddenly you have to find a job, budget your money, and show up at work everyday—all on your own. It’s very difficult for our kids to get or to keep jobs.”

According to Kotyashkina, orphans are supposed to be assigned an apartment by the government upon their graduation from tech schools, but in reality the arrangements rarely work out.“Sometimes the apartment is already occupied, or its condition is uninhabitable, or it exists only on paper, having burned down years ago.”

The government also opens a bank account for each newly graduated orphan in which it deposits the equivalent of US$1,000.“Suddenly kids who have never owned a thing have at their disposal such a large lump sum,” says Kotyashkina.

“Most of them spend it rashly and within a short time are impoverished again. And sometimes their relatives—even parents—suddenly appear out of the woodwork as the kid turns 18 saying, ‘I love you. I’ve been waiting for you all these years...’ These kids are so impressionable and so hungry for family that they gladly spend the money on these people.”

“If it weren’t for CHC these kids would be on the streets and no one would know what they’re doing,” says Makhov, who has recently begun a data base with which to track orphan grads throughout his region. “I’m hoping the data will help open the eyes of our government to the real needs of our orphans,” including their spiritual needs, he adds.

Statistics show that without the kind of help CHC provides, 70 percent of the orphans will fall into crime or prostitution and 15 percent will commit suicide within two years of leaving the orphanage.

“Faith, hope, and love” Valya is an implausibly diminutive 20-year-old woman (pictured below, front and center) whose tiny frame hides a gargantuan faith in God.An orphan grad now in her last year of tech school, she tells me she hopes to work as a seamstress soon but that people won’t hire her.“They say I’m too small.They don’t believe I’m as old as I say I am.”

When I ask her what the Ministry Center means to her, she answers simply,“Everything.” I ask her to elaborate on that. “Hope, faith, and love,” she says.

Finding her answer slightly pat, I push a little further, asking where she would be now if it weren’t for the Center.

“Sleeping on the street, probably with a bottle tucked under my arm,” she says, matter-of-factly.

She tells me that her tech school provides no housing, and students are expected to fend for themselves.“I get the monthly orphan stipend from the government,” she explains,“but that’s just enough for food.” CHC pays for the room that she and another orphan grad rent from an elderly woman.Without that support the two girls would indeed be on the street. Chastened, I am reminded that, clearly, in matters of life and death, there is nothing pat about hope, faith, and love.

She comes to the Center as often as her schedule allows her, enjoying the safety, warmth, and fellowship she finds there. In life-skills classes she has learned many important things:“how to make friends, how to behave in society, how to love without falling in love.”

A realist, Valya (who graduated from an oligophrenic orphanage) recognizes that her future will be fraught with difficulties, but she hopes to work at the Center herself someday,“to help others as I’ve been helped.”

Family Centers Family Centers are another innovative CHC program in which six to eight boys or girls in their early teens are removed from the orphanage and placed in a home with a Christian couple.Together they live as a family until they move on to tech school or higher education.The couple teaches them family relationships, life skills, and Christian discipleship.

“The Family Center helps them to get a grasp on family

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Aiming High: An interview with CHC’s National Director, KATYA CELENINA PRISM: How do you measure the success of Children’s HopeChest?

KC: Of course we all hope and pray that the kids accept Christ. But the ultimate measure, we believe, is how successful these kids will be in creating their own Christian families. If the orphans are one day able to create and support a family, to respect themselves and their spouses, and to love their kids, it means they have survived all their traumas and acquired all the necessary skills to live a full life.And if they can run their households under the leadership of Christ then I believe we have accomplished what we’re aiming for.These are not easy things for anyone to accomplish, but when we speak of goals we should aim high!

But human beings learn by practice. How can we expect kids who are born into socially deprived, broken families and then raised in orphanages to know how to create a family? They have practiced living without families. They have never observed a healthy family—never experienced the care of a mother or father, obligations for younger siblings, or respect for their forefathers. How can we teach them and put a stop to the vicious cycle of orphans producing orphans?

CHC’s most rewarding programs are those that focus on the family. Family Centers give kids the chance to practice family life and transition into an independent life in the world. For those kids we can’t place in families, we follow them out of the orphanage and into the tech schools, maintaining long-term relationships with them, teaching and counseling them along the way.We hire Christian couples to work as mentors who visit and help the orphan grads on a regular basis with their many challenges.

PRISM: What are some of the obstacles the orphans face when trying to create their own families?

KC: We encourage our kids to choose boyfriends and girlfriends that come from strong extended families so they’ll have at least one set of parents/grandparents and their kids will have a sense of their past. In order to mature you need to do two things: understand where you’ve come from and focus on where you want to go. But orphans often can’t remember their past, which is either blocked out because of early childhood trauma or simply lost in the process of moving from one orphanage to another —without family photos or personal possessions, for example, they have nothing to help them remember who they are.

Also, they never get a chance to plan their future because the future never depends on them but on the decisions of others, often of government officials who don’t even know them or relatives who consider them a burden. So when they graduate from the orphanage they are people without a past or a future and they struggle with making decisions in the present because they simply never acquired those skills.

Another reason it is difficult for them to mature is that their social roles have been so limited in the orphanage. By the time a normal kid turns 16 he has already been a son, a grandson, a pupil, a friend, an assistant, a shopper, etc. But orphan grads have only ever been a student and a resident. So their social vocabulary is very limited.

PRISM: What can you tell us about the label “oligophrenic”?

KC: Children who have been neglected or abused for a long period of time sometimes cannot develop normally and so are suspected of being “oligophrenic,” which comes from the Greek for “small-brained.”They are assessed by a team of pediatricians, psychologists, and educators who decide whether or not they can study in a mainstream educational system. Often these children are not mentally deficient at all but suffering from post-traumatic stress, however: they are misdiagnosed and sent to oligophrenic institutions.

It is possible, if you have a fervent advocate, to have this label removed. The director at Lukhtonovo orphanage, an oligophrenic boarding school in Vladimir region that is sponsored by Concord Church of Beaver Falls, Pa., has a wonderful director who provides special educational programs aimed at helping kids overcome trauma and advance in their development.

Her kids also work with domestic animals and gardening, which are very effective in dealing with attachment disorders and stress.

When we started working in that orphanage in 1995, we were amazed at how open and well meaning the 20 children there were, and how quickly they learned English.Today, because of the efforts of that director, who goes every other year to have the children reassessed, about 15 of them have had the diagnosis reversed. A couple of them have graduated from community college and one—who is now in his third year of university—plans to be a principal in the kind of orphanage he grew up in.We try to share this director’s experience with others. Love and care have made the difference.

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life, to advance in their education, and eventually to find an apartment of their own,” explains Davis.“It provides a safety net for when they go out into the world. If we could afford to put every kid in a Family Center we would, but it’s hard to find sponsors who are willing to pay the US$120 a month that it costs to place each child with a family.”

A vibrant Christian with a passion for orphans, Yelena Kharitonova is a former Communist Party leader and orphanage director who, after piloting a host of CHC programs through her orphanage, finally joined CHC as national program director in 1999. According to Kharitonova, many of the kids who grow out of the Family Centers end up coming “home” to them for the holidays, finding there a stability and base that orphanages can never offer.

Started in conjunction with the State, the Family Center program is one of CHC’s most recent and successful ones.

One orphanage in Vladimir region has seen 49 of its children placed in foster care with loving Christian couples.

CHC also provides each Family Center with a counselor who makes regular visits to check on everyone’s emotional health and offer any support that might be needed. “We’ve seen lots of success,” enthuses Kharitonova,“with these kids getting accepted into community colleges and universities —that is very unusual for orphans.”

Valentina and Vyacheslav Suvorov are house parents at the Family Center in Galich. “We feel like a family and the children consider us their parents,” says Valentina.Along with the couple’s own 10-year-old son, the six foster sons houseclean, shop, and attend church with the Suvorovs, and in every way consider themselves a family bound by love and duty.“We just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary,” adds Valentina. “The boys know they’re safe and secure here.”

the kids as troublemakers. ‘What difference can I make?’ they say to themselves. ‘They’re the offspring of prostitutes and criminals—it’s their heritage.’ But we try to show the teachers that the children are made in the image of God and that they possess gifts and great potential.”

Kotyashkina, who at only 24 is a capable young woman charged with overseeing all church sponsorships, has observed firsthand the trickle-down effects of CHC’s ministry to orphans. “In one orphanage both the staff and the kids had been so neglected by the government for so long that when they saw how we showered love onto even the so-called oligophrenic kids, they began to treat the children better.

Eventually even the community seemed to catch on and began offering clothing to the orphanage.

“They responded to the gospel, too,” continues Kotyashkina. “Well over half of the orphanage staff now attend our Bible studies, and they encourage the kids to attend, too. It’s amazing, given that these people were all raised under Soviet rule and taught that God doesn’t exist.”

Amazing indeed. During our visit to the sponsored orphanages, I noticed several subtle but encouraging signs that seven decades of Communist rule cannot wipe out 10 centuries of vibrant church history. At Sudai, teachers read from the Gospel of Luke while the orphans reenacted the Christmas story for our visiting group.When I complimented a young girl on her beautiful red dress, she beamed at me, saying, “I love red because it’s the color of Jesus’ blood that he shed for me!” Every CHC staff member I met, from the college-aged disciplers to the most senior staff member, demonstrated a deep and steadfast reliance on their Savior, the kind of quietly mature faith that comes from following Christ in a culture where it is unpopular to do so.

Faith is fundamental to the kind of work CHC does. As Makhov puts it,“If I didn’t have faith, I wouldn’t be here.

There are no random people working in places like this.”

The challenges CHC staff face, especially those who work directly with the children, would be overwhelming without divine help.

According to a 1998 Human Rights Watch report, roughly 95 percent of the children in Russia’s state institutions are considered “social orphans,” a term broadly used to include abandoned or abused children with one or both living parents.

These include children of parents who have relinquished or been denied parental rights, which means that many of the children CHC deals with are deeply traumatized, yet many of the state orphanages cannot afford the services of psychologists and counselors.

Young as they are, CHC’s disciplers often find that the Continued on page 21.

Transforming the culture “It is one of our greatest ambitions to change the culture inside the orphanages,” says Celenina. “Of course, as a nonprofit Christian organization we have very little say as to what should or shouldn’t be done.We can only offer our help and show the results. Those staff members who really want to help the kids, to care for them not only in the present moment but to prepare them for life beyond orphanage, are eager to learn from us.”

While the financial resources that CHC can offer make a difference, Celenina believes the educational and spiritual resources are what ultimately transform life in an orphanage.

“There is such a need for spiritual growth not only for kids but also for the teachers, who work with them daily and often lose hope and cannot see the kids as God desires them to be,” she explains.“It’s actually easier on the staff if they view

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a person begins to establish a new “normal” life. One crucial step in coming back from trauma is to choose life—in King’s words, to choose creativity over bitterness.

This choice is crucial because suffering is often disempowering.We have no choice but to experience death, sickness, disease, crime, or misfortune when they assault us. In the process of healing, however, we are given opportunities to make healthy, empowering choices. For example, we can choose how to experience certain aspects of a painful situation—escaping through denial or distraction or engaging deeply as students of whatever pain may teach.We can also choose what to do with our difficulties in the long run—burying them, trying to avoid future sufferings, or harnessing the energy of our personal struggle in order to effect positive change in the world.

King concluded that though many find the cross to be a

stumbling block or foolishness, he was “more convinced than ever before that it is the power of God unto social and individual salvation. “Even we who believe in the saving power of the cross sometimes consider suffering to be a stumbling block in our quest for the good life or to be foolish in its meaninglessness and bleakness. Jesus’ death on the cross was a necessary part of his resurrection and the world’s redemption.

Likewise our sufferings can become part of a larger story of blessing and redemption for our lives and for our world. ■

“There Is No Plan B” continued from page 17.

our departure, laughing as they finally broke apart and waving until we were out of sight.As we left these orphanages I felt heavy-hearted, but the regret was as much for myself as for the children: I realized I would miss these little people.

At the other orphanages, however, I experienced something completely different.The children hung back as we visited their rooms; they had difficulty answering my questions, looking each time to their caregivers as if frightened of saying the wrong thing.“Would you like to learn to speak English or work on a computer?” we asked a group of young teens. “That would be a waste of time,” a teacher answered for them immediately. “These children will never be more than manual laborers—why teach them skills they will never be able to use?”

Here, too, I felt heavy-hearted upon our departure, but this time my sadness was for the children only. I had made no meaningful contacts here that I would cherish for months to come. Not valued by the adults in their lives, the children did not value themselves enough to want to share themselves with us, nor had they been permitted to do so.

How radically different from those small but brave souls we met at the CHC-sponsored orphanages who had learned to open their hearts to others, to engage in trusting friendships, and to give of themselves. That, surely, is the greatest hope any of us can offer to an orphan: the chance to receive love, yes, but also the chance to give oneself to others and be accepted. ■

Jenell Williams Paris is an associate professor of anthropology at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minn. She is co-author of Urban Disciples: A Beginner’s Guide to Serving God in the City (Judson Press, 2000) and author of Birth Control for Christians: Making Wise Choices (Baker Book House, 2003).

immediate needs of a situation require them to offer counseling. Says Kotyashkina, “At Soligalich orphanage, where I started as a discipler, I was hearing eight kids out of 10 saying they hated themselves and didn’t want to live. I began to understand the level of abuse that they had experienced and realized something must be done. One day I handed the kids in my group a mirror and asked them to look at themselves and find one thing—their beautiful eyes or their lovely smile —and to thank God out loud for that one thing. I lacked training but I felt the Holy Spirit guiding me that day.” It proved to be a turning point for the group.

Kotyashkina tells of a girl who, when she first came to the orphanage, insisted on sleeping under the bed. “Her mother had always brought men home for sex,” she explains, “and made the child sleep under the bed. So she thought beds were only for sex and was terrified of sleeping in one.”

Prayerfully and lovingly, they succeeded in helping the girl overcome her fear and to embrace the care the orphanage and CHC staff offered her.

During my visit I was able to visit three orphanages in which CHC is actively involved as well as two that have yet to establish relationships with the organization.The children at the sponsored institutions met us with joyful enthusiasm and ready affection.They answered my questions eagerly and recited poetry or sang into my tape recorder, giggling with delighted disbelief as I replayed their voices for them.They followed us out to the bus as we prepared to leave, showering us with hugs, and at one orphanage even formed a human chain to block

To find out how your church can adopt an orphanage, or to learn about individual sponsorships for orphan grads, go to www.hopechest.org or call 800.648.9575.

PRISM 2004

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