The "A" word

This weekend we attended a five hour training session to help prepare us for our quickly approaching month as host parents to Nastya. We received a lot of great information, asked a lot of questions and enjoyed hearing stories from a few families who had previously hosted. It's hard to believe that the rubber hits the road in just two weeks!

One of the most important things we discussed was use of the "A" word...Adoption. Although many of the kids who are hosted this winter will go on to be adopted here in the United states, I want to emphasize that New Horizons is not an adoption agency. It is an orphan hosting program and any mention of the "A" word can jeopardize the program. Additionally, use of the "A" word can cause extreme confusion and heartbreak for Nastya if she hears it and misunderstands the context.

I bet your thinking that there isn't much chance that this topic would come up in your day to day conversation, but there have been several cases in past hosting seasons where this has happened:

* In the process of discussing a pet’s “adoption”…a hosted child heard the word, didn’t realize it was in relation to a pet, and instead thought it was him! It wasn't.
* When attending a church service, the pastor was so excited to welcome the hosted children present, he asked for church members to pray that each child would get adopted.
* When a mom was driving down the road, with music playing, she thought her hosted child couldn’t understand, so she called someone and discussed adoption of the child. The child heard and soon spread the “news” to others at group events that they were all being adopted!
* In discussing the joy of personally being an “adopted” child, a parent was trying to share a personal experience, but the hosted child misunderstood and thought it was about him/her.

It will be easy for all of us to assume that because Nastya does not speak much English, that we can speak freely and she will not understand what is being said. However, she may actually understand more than we realize and be able to pick up on various parts of our conversations...enough to be confused by words she recognizes even if they are out of context. Please partner with us in not discussing the "A" word or anything relating to it in her presence.

While I'm on the subject, some of you might be wondering if we have thought about the possibility of adopting Nastya. The short answer is that not all kids who come here for hosting are available for adoption. We have reason to believe that Nastya falls into this category and so we have not gone into this hosting program with any expectation of adoption. Instead we share her understanding that she is coming to America for a four week vacation (and we plan to make it her best vacation ever!) She knows that at the end of the four weeks she will go back home and it is our hope that we will bond with her in a way that will facilitate us all staying in touch.

We appreciate the tremendous support we have received from all of you: incredible words of encouragement, beyond generous financial help, clothing and material donations, and even offers of various personal services. Your outpouring of love and your ongoing prayers have been overwhelming! Thanks for adding one more thing, avoidance of this potentially damaging word, to the list of ways you can support us.