To make memories for children from Orphanage. Discussion about Guest families

To make memories for children from Orphanage. Discussion about Guest families.

A guest family is a family that makes a relationship with a child from an institution, a child that is commonly called an orphanage child. In a sense they become persons of trust. It means that weekends, holidays, and school holidays children spend time with this family. There are not specific requirements or plan – you can spend the day at the Zoo, skate, walk on the beach and then take the child back to the Orphanage. If you feel that a relationship is beginning to form, and both you and the child begin feeling more secure, you can develop the relationship further. It means taking the child home on Saturdays, Sundays and school holidays.

 If you  go to the Orphan’s Court and get Guest Family status, you will get a Guest Family pass that will give you permission to go to Orphanage and to meet with the children. The child will be first asked if they want to visit a guest family, because there are many children who do not want that. There are many reasons for that, for example, serious emotional traumas the child has received in their biological family or the child has been placed in several foster homes, and this experience has not been successful. Children up to ten years of age really want a family!

            Of course, if a relationship will be established, saying good-bye will be very difficult, but being in a guest family is definitely a good thing for a child because it provides different experiences – they see normal family relationships that are quite different from what they have experienced in their biological or other families. This relationship will be very different from what they have in orphanage because there they don’t have a single person of trust. In orphanage they mainly live in their relationships with other children, and adults relate to other adults. The bridge between children and adults is very weak. The turnover in institutions is great – within a year or two around 60% staff changes, which is very traumatic for children.

            As you spend time with these children, you don’t have to do anything special. You and your family have your family traditions, your joys and sorrows, your interests, and you involve your guest child in that. There will be times when children will simply watch, and you will realize that the child has never seen the thing that you are doing. Then it is important to encourage the child, and to show that this is another thing you can do in your free time. Orphanage children seem very interesting to me! Sometimes a ten year old will ask a question that is more appropriate for a two year old. It shows the tragedy of these children’s lives.

            If we can afford to take our children and little relatives to Aqua Park once or twice a year, these children have been to public amusement places many times. If we take a child home, let’s think about things they have not seen yet. Maybe just the two of you need to spend time together because they spend so much time in a crowd, but every person needs some personal attention. Maybe go mushroom picking, berry picking. Initially the child will have an inner need to be in a crowd, but with time they will realize that it is sometimes good to be alone, to be with yourself and family who is next to you. Children like it. I know that many people want to help but they have inner fears or stereotypical thinking. If we simply take a child, bring them home and not live in a dream world what this child will be like or what they will do but instead we think that this child would feel good, everything should be ok.

What can we teach Orphanage children about God?

            It is very difficult for orphans to believe in God because their parents have abandoned them. They don’t think in categories that are in the Bible – that father and mother might leave you, but God will never leave you. You with your life, experience and attitude towards child can show God’s image to the child. The more you will emphasize what is good in these children, and will focus less on what is bad, it will be a way to draw near to them, and this road will definitely help them get closer to God. It will require a lot of understanding, patience, and we also have to be clear about motivation why we do this. If we want to help, the child will be in the center, not our ambitions. A child needs understanding. We always have to remember that these children do not belong to us – neither our own children nor children of other people. They have their own journey. We are just helpers, sojourners, but the child will be the one who will form their relationship with God.

            I personally have had very complicated relationship with God for this very reason, - experience in Orphanage, mom abandoning me, father was just a blank in birth certificate...How can you believe that there is Somebody in Heaven who cares? Only when you see people in church who do what they say, who have unconditional love that emphasizes a child’s value instead of their poor behavior, it really helps. It is a resource that a Christian person has.

             It is difficult for a Christian person to accept that sometimes these children drink, smoke and have a tendency to try drugs, but you always have to realize  - if the child had their first cigarette when they were five or six, it is a sickness. It can be overcome if we show them a different way because for them it is a way to compensate their emotional needs. It does not mean that all of them will smoke, drink or do bad things. It will all depend on their experience. Whatever the child has experienced when they were two, three or four, eventually will come out when they are a teenager. With taking something away, we cannot solve this situation; instead it should be replaced with something good. To substitute these bad things with faith in God is the highest and noblest goal we can go towards, but we also need to think what can be used in between – sports, hobbies, and good new relationships. Something else has to replace emptiness.

            Lying and stealing are compensation for emotional hunger. Until the child will fill this emotional hunger, they will continue to lie and to steal. Psychologists also emphasize that these two vices are connected with emotional starvation. Lying can also mean that children of institutions do not believe people, they want to appear better. If they will feel good and loved in your family, lying can even get worse because they will want to leave a really good impression so that you would not reject them. Always try to understand why the child is lying.  When they will feel totally safe in your presence, they will speak the truth. And when they will have reached a certain level of security, they will start telling you bad things about themselves. Do not get horrified but say, “Finally he trusts me!” You will only be able to help the child when you will know what actually happened to them.

             For a Christian person prayer greatly helps. There will be times you will not know what to do. Pray together with your church. I have observed that Christians less often get involved with children from institutions because they have a more stereotypical thinking, and they are very afraid of the bad characteristics of the children. But you have to understand – children who do bad things are still fighting. Unfortunately, circumstances in their lives have forced them to fight using these means. Those who sit in a corner and don’t do anything are already broken. We can show a relationship model where there are mutually loving relationships, where people do not shout at each other, where conflicts are resolved peacefully, where prayer to God is an organic part of life. When children pray, we can hear what is truly important to them. Children tell us what they need. The question is – will we be able to hear and to see?

Children from Orphanage are culpable without guilt. There is a saying, “Not much is required for evil to win – only that good people remain passive.” It is easy to pretend that we do not see the world in order not to get dirty, but life should be lived in a way so that you can write a book about it later. I could write a novel about each one of my children. I could write entire series about our family. If you separate yourself from the world, what will you leave behind? A truly holy Christian person should do more than all the other people taken together. The Bible has the whole gamut of people – demon possessed, lepers, mentally ill, prostitutes. Christ walked among them and yet remained clean. Let us not be afraid to get dirty. These people wait for somebody to pay attention to them. Sometimes I have a question – what has to be done to a woman in order for her to abandon her child? She has gone through hell. Therefore I always teach foster families and guest families – do not speak bad about parents of these children! We are not the ones to judge, we do not know what these parents have gone through. If we can touch these parents through their children, it can bring healing. Sometimes people make difficult choices because of great despair and hopelessness. I have grown in that kind of environment and have seen how people become that way. I always want to believe that the good still remains, and through their children they have a way back.

            One of the most popular questions – is it bad for these children that we take them and bring them back? Sometimes we never come back, sometimes promise to return in one or two weeks. From a child’s perspective it is painful, but realization that somebody will come in one or two week, and they will be able to spend time with this person, brings hope, and they wait. I can give you an example from my foster daughter’s life who was ill with leukemia. Half of the year she spent at the hospital, and half of the year in infirmary at the Orphanage. She was in the hospital ward where children died often, especially orphanage children. Twice a week a Russian Orthodox woman started visiting her. Back then personnel did not go on walks with children. This woman came to visit, brought a pickle and rye bread, and then they went for a walk. My daughter remembers that she did not understand anything that the woman said, but they had a walk. Then the girl waited when the elderly lady will come back. She also brought my daughter to church. My daughter is now 25, and she still remembers it. If it was not for this Russian woman with her bread and pickles, she could not have any memories about this time period – total emptiness from two to seven years of age. And we are the ones who can fill this emptiness.

Interview with Arija Martukane, head of foster family association “Tereze”, mother of 10 children and foster children

Prepared by Vesma Sandberga

Latvian Christian Alliance for Orphans chairman of the board

Organizer of Orphan Sunday in Latvia