Monday, February 21, 2011

The Children of Vladivostok

I realize that I forgot to mention that the books/album we are taking over with us to Vlad arrived. Actually they arrived the same day we got the first pictures of the Little Guy emailed to us. We are really happy with how the books turned out. The concept was to show children from Vlad before they were adopted and a picture of the child currently. The pictures really do say a lot. The darkness, lack of emotions, and hollowness in their eyes in the before pictures stand out. In the current pictures you can see a sparkle and a depth behind the eyes. It really is amazing. There are 50 children represented in book. We will be writing personal messages in each one and delivering them to the baby home directors, the Minister of Education, and to our agency representatives. The children sitting in the orphanages now, need all of us to shed as much positive light on adoption as we possibly can. The negative press is only making the process harder and harder. I shudder to think of the changes that may be coming to the international adoptions in Russia. I had mentioned before, that I would love to share the album with all of you, but it just isn’t something I can do on a blog. For future adopting families in Vladivostok, we hope you will be able to flip through it during your stay at the Vlad Inn. I will share one photo however. The way the book is set up, there is a hard cover with a window in the middle of it for a picture. I had actually planned to just type in the title of the book in that section. Well, the program wouldn’t accept text. I had to insert a picture. I didn’t want to put any one specific child on the cover so I used the picture below. There is something about this picture that is very symbolic to me. This is Blake and his group mate Victoria looking out the fence in Artem during one of our visits. Blake and Victoria were adopted just one day apart in April 2009.

8 comments:

sonflowerjax said...

What a wonderful memoir and testimony to the many MANY wonderful families and adoption success stories! I agree- it always seems to be the negative that gets the public eye. :( I am already feeling burdened for the others left behind in the orphanage Landon was from...now, where will this lead! Yikes! :)

Jennifer said...

Beautiful Heather! I love this picture too!!!!

Ashley said...

I hope some day to see your book in the Vlad Inn. I can only imagine that it is beautiful and moving.

Doug and Shelly said...

Hi Heather, I've often wondered too about the "changes" that are fixing to occur with the signing of this new adoption agreement. I think things have sped up here in our region (like they are thinking they have only a short amount of time left and are trying to process as many as possible suddenly), and I have wondered if perhaps the judges and others in charge know that it may not be the best thing coming down the pipe. --just my opinion of course! Love the picture of Blake!

Sabrina and Giorgio said...

I'm so happy you're doing this. I can tell you first hand that it WILL make a difference. After just getting through a difficult court and playing with some of the children that are left behind, I'm even more convinced that what you are doing is not only heartfelt but critical.

Jody said...

I love that picture. I'm a tad partial to pictures of the backs of children....seems odd, I know.
How I would love to see that book. I highly doubt that we will ever make that journey back to the Vlad Innn....though after four trips there we feel like the staff is family!!
I can just hardly wait til you get that 'call'. Praying mightily....

cesca said...

I wish that I had known about this project, we adopted our sons 13 years ago from Primorsky-Krai. They were born in Spassk-Dalny. I am participating in the Children of Sakhalin book because we adopted our daughters from Alexandrovsk. If you plan to do another book or know of anyone who is doing another book, please contact me. Frances Faber thefabers@hotmail.com

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