Saying “Goodbye” to Dormitory 35

I know it’s been a few days since I last wrote, and this event took place on Monday night, but it is hard for me to talk about (or write about) these experiences – I’m just too emotional right now. Part of it is that I’m physically and mentally tired (okay, I admit it, I’m exhausted!), and part of it is that, as we all know, it is hard to say “Goodbye.” It’s hard when you’ve only been on the mission field for one week, or two; but it’s especially difficult when you’ve been here for six weeks – I can’t imagine how those who have been here for a whole 9-month school term will do it! You spend so much time with the same people that they become like family; you travel to the same ministry sites each week and those kids become like family; your family just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and it gets harder and harder to tell them goodbye that last time.

Dormitory 35 is one of the most awful sites I have ever seen in St. Petersburg, and I’ve seen some pretty bad ones. These kids are not even on the “ladder” of anyone’s thoughts – forget the bottom rung, they’re not even standing close to the ladder itself! They have nothing. There are three young people to each room that has three single beds, two or three straight-back chairs, and one desk. Many of the kids are disabled, either physically or mentally, and no one cares whether they wake up in the morning, or whether they return home at night. More than half of them will simply, as Lucya says, “Be disappearing.” They just vanish, and no one looks for them. They just hold the bed open for a few months and then give it to someone else.

All Russian citizens have a room allocated to them – many are from family inheritances; i.e. the family has a set of rooms and one is designated for the child when he/she graduates from school. All of these kids at Dorm 35 have those rooms allocated to them, and people who like to take advantage of uneducated people drive up in their shiny black cars, hold out a bag of money and a piece of paper, and tell the kids, “Hey, just sign this paper and sell me your room; then you can have this bag of money!” Of course, the kids don’t count the money, they don’t seek legal counsel (they don’t even know what that is!), and suddenly they have lost their inheritance, and when they graduate from the dorm they have no place to go.
Little Losha (pictured here in his "new" clothes that were donated by a local church) is one of those people. He came to the family home over a year ago, but was so addicted to his cigarettes (and lying), and so enjoyed his independence, that Marina Topol, the director of Road of Life, had to send him back to the dorm. She and others had thought that once Losha got back to the dorm he would want to return to the security of the family home, but it didn’t work out that way. You see, orphans don’t look at the world like those of us who had the security of a family and home do. They see you, you take them in, they begin to trust you and love you and depend on you, and then when something goes wrong and you punish them, they see it as another abandonment, someone else throwing them away.

Losha will graduate this spring from the dorm and he has no place to go but to a social hotel. This is like a hostel and is where ex-convicts go to live when they get out of prison, where prostitutes live and do business, and where drugs are the norm. On Monday night, Lucya asked Losha would he please return to the family home and he said, “No. I want to live at the social hotel. It will be an adventure.” I think he’s scared – I know I would be – but he’s afraid to again put his trust in us. He sees his being returned to the dorm as our failure, and maybe it is.
Losha, Olga (pictured above with Lucya), and Natasha (pictured below) walked us to the metro from the dorm, because they wanted to be with me as long as they could since it was my last night with them. Losha had sat beside me all evening, tickling me, trying to make me laugh; hugging me at unexpected moments; just making a general nuisance of himself (and I loved every minute of it!). As I stood in the metro saying goodbye to these three precious young people, I grabbed Losha, hugged him, and then placed my hands on each of his cheeks and said, “I love you! We all love you! I will miss you. Do you understand that?” He said, “Yes.” I then told him, “Quit smoking those awful cigarettes because they are killing you in here (I pointed to his chest).” He smiled and nodded; and then I told him, “And beautiful Christian girls don’t like to kiss handsome men with bad cigarette breath!” He again smiled, nodded, and hugged me one last time.

My main rule is that I don’t cry in front of the kids. I want them to remember all of our time together as happy times. That’s why I carry tissues in my pocket the last week; why I cry on the escalator going down to the metro train; why I cry myself to sleep each night. It’s an emotional time, and it’s going to get harder each day. Tonight (Thursday night), I have to say goodbye to the kids at Dormitory 70 – another tough one! Then Friday night I have to be happy as we celebrate my 54th birthday and then cry myself into exhaustion on the plane Saturday as I return home.

Saying “Goodbye” here on earth is hard – isn’t it wonderful that we will never have to say “Goodbye” in heaven! Once we get “home” we’ll be there forever and ever, never having to shed a tear, or wave goodbye, or hug a child for perhaps the last time. Thank You, Father God for the blessings of this trip, and I will always be thankful for the precious lives your have let me be a part of.

From Russia with Love,
Nancy