Adoption Week e-Magazine Article

Improving the Quality of Orphan Lives

Wendy Hite

My name is Wendy Hite, and my husband and 2 daughters live in northern Indiana. Our adoption story began 2 years ago when my husband and I were having difficulty conceiving. We felt in our heart that God wanted us to have children, and Ukraine is the path He led us to find our daughters.

We adopted our first daughter, Aleeza, who is 8 years old, in December from a town in the southern part of Ukraine near the Black Sea. While we were there, we found out that Aleeza had an older sister named Olga who was 13 and deaf. Because she was deaf, she was in an orphanage for deaf children, which was 3 hours away from Aleeza’s orphanage. The girls had not lived together consistently for 4 years. For some reason, Olga was not available for adoption at the time we were there to adopt Aleeza, so we had to return this past June to adopt her.

During the first adoption, we had to travel to Olga’s orphanage to obtain permission from her to adopt her sister. When we arrived at her orphanage, she was sitting at a desk writing the letter granting us permission to adopt her sister. She had a beautiful smile that lit up the room. We found out that she was crying before we got there because she was afraid she’d never see her sister again. We asked her if she wanted to go to America and be adopted by us. She was stunned. There had never been an adoption from this orphanage before because the children are deaf. Also, at the age of 16, orphans in Ukraine are put out on the street because they simply do not have the resources to support them. We could not bear the thought of Aleeza’s sister being on the street in 3 years, sentenced to a lifetime of possible drug use, prostitution, alcoholism. That is what happens to the majority of the orphans who are not adopted.

We returned to adopt Olga in June of this year. Since December we had been writing to her and sending her books to learn English and American Sign Language. Sign language is not universal. Because Olga knows Russian and Russian Sign Language, she has 2 languages to learn! The strange part about this story is that my husband had been going to college to learn American Sign Language, and I am the local director of special education. It was as if God had been preparing us to have a daughter who was deaf. Never in my life did I dream I would have a deaf child!

When we arrived at her orphanage on June 8, we found out the children were at camp, if you want to call it that. We drove to camp and saw Olga playing with her friends. She had the biggest smile on her face and gave us huge hugs. We were able to spend the next 2 days with the children at the “camp”. The children at the camp did not have toys, balls, or games to play with. We brought them bananas and they did not know how to peel the banana. They were so excited with our video camera and digital camera! I imagine they hadn’t ever seen pictures of themselves. Their clothes were threadbare and their shoes were so worn that we bought all of them shoes before we left. Despite the children’s hearing impairments, they were all typical kids, playing, laughing, loving our attention. We fell in love with all of them, and it was hard to leave them.

Since returning with our daughter, our mission in life is now to improve the quality of the children’s lives at her orphanage, and to find homes for the children if possible. In Ukraine a little bit of money can go a long way. We donated money so they could purchase games, books, toys, art supplies, paper. For 70 children in the orphanage, which also serves as the regional school for the deaf, they only had 3 Russian sign language books. Being an educator, I was sick to my stomach to think that they can’t even afford books! It is simply sickening to me that in the 21st century there are children who do not have access to books. They do not have any computers either. We have found software that will help the children learn Russian Sign Language, but they need computers in order to learn it.

The director’s name at the orphanage is Tatiana Netkova. This woman has the biggest heart of anyone I have ever met. She has worked at the orphanage for 33 years. She gives every thing she has to help these children, even though she only receives $50 dollars a month to run the orphanage. When we said good-bye to her, I hugged her and said, “How do I thank you for taking care of my daughter for the last 10 years?” Needless to say, there were lots of tears.

Thank you for taking the time to read our story. We could talk for days about our experiences in Ukraine, and if you are interested in reading more, you can access our website at: www.olgahite-adoptionfund.com, or if you want to see pictures of the orphanage you can go to: www.life2orphans.org.

In the meantime, we are thrilled to have our family complete with our 2 daughters. They are typical sisters, playing with each other, fighting with each other, and teasing each other. It feels like we’ve had them forever. The adjustment is going much better than I ever expected. I think that is a sign that God truly meant us to be their parents. I count my blessings every day and feel so special to be chosen by God as the mother of these 2 beautiful, amazing, talented girls.

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