We do know, from her birth certificate, that Galyna Oleksiyivna Skora was born July 19, 2002 and abandoned at the hospital by her birth mother. From court documentation, we also know that her biological mother was a minor (we heard 17) at the time. According to verbal testimony, she is the daughter of a well-off family in the region, and did not want her family, especially her grandfather, to know about Galyna. Galyna was unplanned, unwanted and abandoned because her birth mother did not want to upset her family. A request was made to the court that everything be kept from Galyna's mother's family. Other than their names, we do not know any more than this about Galyna's birth parents.
Our church has been sending mission teams to Donetsk, Ukraine, for a number of years. We primarily go to serve at Donetsk Christian University (DCU) in teaching English, and at The Good Shepherd Shelter. In the summer of 2006, one of the children at the Good Shepherd shelter was a little girl named Galyna Skora. She had been brought to the shelter after being taken away from her guardian. That same summer, the team from Grace Church made the usual visits to the Shelter.
Galyna was placed with a guardian after her abandonment. The undocumented story is that Galyna was, at approximately three years of age, left for reasons of punishment, in a shed with a number of animals. She was too young to defend herself and she sustained bites from rats and possibly other animals. These bites left scars over much of her body, and required grafts on her head which now leave over half of her head uncovered by hair. She is missing a fingernail on one finger, which also has a mis-aligned knuckle so the finger tip is at an angle to the rest of her finger. Galyna spent, we were told, a year in the hospital receiving medical care for her injuries. Medical care in Ukraine is not up to the standards of that here in the States, and when we look at her we see little to indicate the cosmetic reconstruction attempted, if any, was done with the care that would have been provided here. We try to be fair to the physicians who treated her, but Galyna is a deeply scarred little girl.
While the team from Grace Church was at the shelter, they met Galya. She was smiling, happy and friendly. Among the many children, she especially touched their hearts. As children coming to the shelter have their heads shaved (to keep lice, etc...out of the shelter) she had even less hair than she does now. But she had her smile. Team member Tina Coleman, especially, fell in love with Galya on the spot.
Gib and Tina Coleman are friends from church. Their children, all grown, have families of their own. Tina would have adopted Galyna herself had she been able to. Tina brought the story back hoping that one of her children would want to adopt Galyna, but barring that, that a family from the church would be so touched as to pursue adoption of this little sweetheart. Fully loaded with pictures and Galya's story as Tina knew it to that time, she brought Galyna up to a number of people at the church asking them to pray that Galyna would find the family she needed.
There is a reason that when you search on "Ukraine" in Google that the sponsored links are for Ukrainian brides and the like. Ukrainian women tend toward the beautiful. Appearance is prized. In last summer's English Intensive, members of our team heard from a young woman who said they eat little to stay thin to "look good for their husbands." Dress is much less conservative than in the States. Clothing, while expensive, is carefully maintained and chosen to highlight sex appeal. In such a culture Galyna had no future. We heard from many there that she faced a future on the edges of society, a bad place to be and rife with poverty and abuse.
Shannon and I heard Galyna's story at different times, but both from Tina. We started thinking about it without first talking to each other. When I came to the conclusion that we should look into the possibility, I asked Shannon what she was thinking. Her response was that she was thinking as I was. So we started taking the steps of looking into what it would take to adopt a foreign orphan - and oh did we start to pray.
I first went to Ukraine in the summer of 2007. I had no plans to visit Galyna, who'd been moved to the public orphanage by then. Children could not be adopted from the Shelter, so her move to the orphanage was necessary if not necessarily to a better place. (This isn't saying anything about the orphanage, which we think has done well by Galyna; rather, it is a testimony to the love and grace exhibited at the Shelter.) Our team would be working with the kids at Good Shepherd. Of course, Tina wasn't going to let the opportunity pass, so she set up a side visit. I first met her that summer on one morning in the orphanage director's office. We went with Olga Z. to translate (yes, Olga appears in many places in the DCU/Galyna story!) and found out that the next week was her birthday. So of course we returned with a birthday gift the next week. We took pictures and video, did a craft together and talked. The picture she drew for me that day still hangs on our refrigerator, next to the pictures and story Tina first brought back in 2006.
At the English Intensive in 2007 was another American, a young lady named Shauna. Shauna was helping at the Intensive, and through casual conversation we found that her parents had recently completed an adoption. While staying at DCU. And using the services of Angelina as a facilitator. She gave us Angelina's phone number, and we were able to arrange a meeting where Angelina walked us through the process and documents we'd have to submit. I came to Ukraine with no plans to even meet Galya, and I both met her and learned a great deal about what we'd need to do to adopt her. See, this is why we pray! This past summer, I visited Galya in the orphanage again, this time with Angelina. She was much the same, a little taller and a little less shy, but still smiling.
According to Ukrainian law, a child must be adoptable within the country, to Ukrainians, for one year before being adoptable by foreigners. We thought the clock was ticking from the time she went to the orphanage. After a few months and a letter to the Ukrainian government, we found that our inquiry had revealed that Galya's mother had never formally been deprived of her parental rights. This was done in May, 2007, so Galyna was not adoptable to us until June 2008. Our initial hopes of adopting her in the spring of this year were put by the wayside. Numerous glitches (mostly by other parties, a few by us) in the paperwork led to a delay in getting the full dossier into the Ukrainian government until this fall. The day it was submitted, finally, we found we had three weeks to be in Ukraine for the initial hearing. A long time waiting for a very short time to get things done. God's timing is rarely clear, but as always it worked out for the best.
Last spring we heard from Angelina that an Italian charity had paid for additional surgeries for Galyna to restore some of her hair. She spent a month in the hospital after two surgeries. I notice no difference from when I saw her the year before the surgeries. Her surgeon said she'd need more to see results, maybe up to 6-7 surgeries in total. The next round was due to start this fall, about the time we brought her into the family. Perhaps the timing was to allow for the next surgeries to be done here? We also heard that two families were given the chance to adopt her this summer (while our paperwork was dragging) but both refused when they found out about her scarring. Much went on in the past two years, but all of it ended where we wanted: with Galyna in our family.
It is impossible not to be touched by Galya's story. One of the jurors in our adoption hearing showed a look of disgust and disbelief when told of Galyna's treatment that summed up my feelings perfectly. We don't understand how anyone could abandon a child, or how anyone could neglect or abuse a child. Galya's guardian, we were told, is criminally responsible for her actions in her treatment of Galyna but she is not in prison. It's not our place to judge another culture or system. Nor do we believe we'll know the "why" behind Galyna's treatment. But we know that for all the ill it brought her, it also brought her to us. While we do not know the "why" behind her coming into our family, we do believe that someday this is a "why" we will be able to answer.
Galya will need to have some additional surgeries to try and "fix" her scarring. I won't post pictures of her scars as we have no desire to (a) play the martyr/hero family, or (b) play off sympathy for Galyna. We adopted her because she needed a family and we want her in our family. We did not adopt her to play up her story or to make us look special; we aren't. We don't feel that way, and we know there are others who would have done the same thing. But we do love her, and to the extent medical treatment can help her live a better, fuller life, we'll do what we can to help. We are looking into what kind of surgery options are available, and how to best schedule and fund the needed treatment. We also know that she will need therapy of many sorts, as do many adopted children, to deal with the long-term, if not yet symptomatic, effects of abandonment, neglect and abuse. This blog and this adoption are not to garner sympathy, attention, publicity or money for any of those things. But many of you have asked for, and been interested in her story. This is all part and parcel of what brought this girl into our lives, so I share it for that reason. And feel free to pray for where God wants this to go next. Ask questions without guilt; we're okay with explaining the hold she has on us.
Grace Church started going to Ukraine in partnership with DCU. Without DCU, we would not have met Galya. Her story would never have made it back here; at the very least, it is likely we would not have heard of her. DCU, therefore, holds a dear place in our hearts, as does the Good Shepherd Shelter. Without DCU I would not have met Shauna, nor been introduced to Angelina. I'd not have met Galyna three times in two summers. Without Grace Church we'd not have met Tina and Gib, nor been to DCU. And without the many friends and family (i.e., YOU!) supporting us, none of this would have happened. I'm convinced everything happens for a reason. This episode confirms that again for me. Many bad things, many bureaucratic things, many coincidental things, many good things and many blessed things happened, in a certain way to lead to this moment. For that we give God the credit and the glory. Without Him, our family would still be four happy and content people who love each other very much. But it wouldn't be the same.
Thanks, and God bless!
Ron
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1 comment:
What a testimony to short term missions trips and how they can be so incredibly life changing, especially when we leave our hearts open to what God may have in store for us. Thank God that Grace Church supports DCU and The Good Shepherd Shelter. Thank God for your little girl. Thank God!
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