A Positive Project Hope - Reader Contribution

Our International Adoption Odyssey: A Project of Hope
The Adoption of an Older Child

On March 27, 2002, my wife Kathy and I returned from Russia with our son, Dinar. We had just finished a remarkable journey that had taken us from being the host family for our "son-to-be" through International Family Services (IFS) and Project Hope in June 2001 to where we stood today as Dinar's new parents.

It all started out innocently enough.

We actually found out about Project Hope by accident. A good friend of ours happened to mention that she and her husband were planning to host two children, a brother and sister, from Russia and that there was still one little boy in need of a host family. After contacting the local IFS office, Kathy and I jumped in with 10 days to go before the arrival of the children, whereas the other families had had a few months to prepare themselves. Just trying to expedite the required background checks for my wife and I was an interesting experience.

Seventeen little children arrived at the local IFS office in the tiny hamlet of Manor, Pennsylvania at 4 AM on a warm June morning. Some sleepy, some crying and all over-tired from what must have seemed a lifetime of travel. These children had gone from Ivanovo to Moscow to Dulles, but no connecting flights were available to Pittsburgh, so IFS rented vans to carry everyone to Western PA. A phone tree kept the information flowing to the equally sleepless host families. When we got the final call, they were a bit less than an hour from the IFS office and it was time to drive over there and join the nervous group of host families.

And then it finally happened! The vans pulled up and the families crowded around the windows of the small second floor IFS office for that first peek at the youngsters. It was actually difficult to see anything. A local TV station, WQED, was set up to film the activity as a part of their series for "On Q" magazine and the glare from the video light cast a reflection on the windows. Up the narrow stairway they all came and into the office. 17 young faces and the three Russian Caregiver Ladies in an "across the office" standoff with the host families.

The IFS Office Manager started calling out names, and she and her assistant started the process of introducing individual host families with their child. A Boy Scout had prepared backpacks filled with small toys and other goodies for all the children as his Eagle Scout project. Soon all the adults and children were sitting on the floor going through the packs and getting to know each other. Notwithstanding the language difficulty there were plenty of accented "pleases and thank-yous".

And so began our journey.

Add Your Comments!

We want to know what you think. Your comments are important to us and the other readers. You are what makes this site special.