Summer Hosting Experience III

More words to describe hosting? Heartwarming and bittersweet. I'm having trouble knowing where to begin.

What did we expect from hosting? Why did we do it in the first place? I think David and I would each answer these questions differently, to be honest. I can speak only for myself. I suppose I started out thinking that it would be a good way to have a trial-run with a child without the headache and heartache that can be foster care. I REALLY didn't want to do that. I knew we did not want to adopt again the same way we had adopted Tyler. (We had only a few hours with him before adopting him.) We had to see whether another child could work in our home before committing to adoption. So what's left? A hosting program! Most hosting programs only last a couple of weeks. This one gives enough time to truly see how things might work out. At the end of the program, if we were not going to try and adopt, we were supposed to evaluate whether we felt like the child could "fit" into a family, and include a brief description of the child for another family to either host or adopt Kolya. I could not even imagine trying to do that. Well, actually, I did imagine it; I just didn't like the idea of setting him up with some other family. Jealousy? You bet!

Kolya didn't learn as much English as a lot of the kids on the hosting trip learned, because he depended on the fact that I could communicate with him. In the last 2 weeks here, I tried to speak mostly English with him, but it sure was easy to slip right back into speaking Russian! He learned some, and I know he understood more than he let on, because they do have some English classes at school. It is much like our junior high Spanish class, however. He came here knowing how to say "good morning" "good afternoon" and "good evening" and "speak English." I do think, however, that it put his mind at ease that we could communicate; and I am thankful that I could do that for him.

I cannot imagine how difficult it would be to leave my home for 6 weeks to go to another country, stay with complete strangers who don't even speak the same language, and who eat strange food. And, even though a chaperone came with me to that country, she was staying about 1000 miles away from me! Not only that, but I cannot imagine having done that when I was 10 years old! (By the way, I LOVE teaching the kids "hot dog" when we've already covered the word "dog!" ha! He was mystified, then horrified, just like Tyler was! lol!)

Church was a new and different experience for Kolya. He was completely uninterested, always asking, "When is it over?" How do you explain the love of Christ to someone with very little exposure to the concept? Well, first, we gave him a couple of children's Bibles to read, one in Russian, and one in his second language. He said thanks, then didn't look at them again until we were already three weeks into hosting. One day, I picked up the Bible story book again and handed it to him. I pointed out to him that it was in his second language, and he asked, "It's mine?" I told him yes, and he took it immediately over to the sofa and started reading! About a week and a half later, I was tucking him into bed that night, and he pointed to the picture of the moon on the wall of Tyler's room. He explained to me that God made it and all the planets, and he proceeded to tell me about Adam and Eve and how they ate the fruit and were thrown out of the garden, about Moses and the Red Sea, about Daniel in the lions' den, and about Jonah, including how he went on to Ninevah to preach after his experience inside the fish. He was really impressed with how Jonah spent three days and three nights there. I was shocked! This child had read every Old Testament story in that book in a week and a half! Not just read them -- UNDERSTOOD them! I should not have been shocked, of course. God can use the Holy Spirit in many ways, including letting a child understand His word. In the hotel room when we returned to Atlanta, he finished reading his little Bible. What wonderful things our God can do. My God is so big! And he is good. All the time.

The other thing we did to try and explain the love of Christ: we tried to show it to him.

Kolya is a precious boy. He's brave and strong. He's unselfish and loving. He's all boy. He's curious and playful. He wants "stuff." He has a great sense of humor. He's athletic and physically strong. He thinks it's icky when boys and girls kiss. He's affectionate. He remembers having a family. He wants to have another family.

At night, Kolya was most loving. He would ask me every night if I would come up to his bed and stay with him like I had the night before. He wanted to cuddle and held onto my arm in the bed until he fell asleep. A couple of times when we were cuddled up watching a movie on television, he pointed to himself and to me and said, "I'm yours, da? I'm yours, da?" He told me many times that he wanted to stay with me and that he wanted to live with me. We were not allowed to let on to the kids that we might seek adoption, for the sake of those who could not or would not follow through. (Understandably, the orphanages do not want a bunch of kids to be heartbroken.) He lowered his expectations a bit, and started asking if he could come back on the winter hosting trip, and next summer, and next winter, and the next summer, etc. He would tell me he loved me -- in English and in Russian -- and he gave great hugs.

The most difficult was, of course, taking him back to the airport. (I know he's in a pretty good orphanage. He's well taken care of, well fed, well-nourished, and what-all, but it's still an orphanage.) He worked me pretty hard there. He kept telling me he wanted to stay with me, he wanted to live with me. He asked if I would just switch passports with him - ha! Finally, he said in his best English, "My name is David Beard. I do not speak Russian. I speak only English. I am an American." All I could do was hug him and choke back tears. I didn't boo-hoo like some were doing (mostly the ones with crying girls), but it's hard when you have that lump in your throat. We were supposed to help the kids to accept leaving by not being too emotional. He continued to try and get me to commit to bringing him back for the winter hosting. I told him I would try.

All the kids returned safely to their countries. Including Kolya.