Ministry sheds light on Russian orphan life as a teen

Russia-Every year, 15,000-20,000 orphans "graduate" from Russian orphanages.These "emancipated" orphans,however, have few skills to cope with life outside an institution.Because these children have spent most of their lives in an institutional setting,they are unprepared and unable to meet the challenges and make the decisions necessary for successful lives.Buckner International's Debbie Wynne says the future is frightening for a Russian orphan who is aging out of the system. "So often you find statistics of children that leave the orphanage system at 16...living on the streets, going into prostitution or drugs." More than half fall into lives of crime or join the more than one million homeless teenagers living on the street.Ten percent commit suicide.Agencies like Buckner want to see the placement of older children and sibling groups.That's often difficult because of perceptions that older children might provide more challenging parenting situations.
However, Wynne says girls like Anastasia (aka "Nastia") still have a strong desire for family, but time is running out. "As she turns 15 next month, we only have a one-year window of
opportunity to find her a forever family. That might sound like a long time, but when we're trying to find the best family for an older child, that doesn't happen overnight."Complicating Anastasia’s adoption has been an almost two-year wait for accreditation of foreign adoption agencies by the Russian government. Because of the unknown timetable and the halt it has placed on adoptions by Buckner as it waits for accreditation, many families have postponed their orientations and preparation to become adoptive parents.Anastasia participated in the Buckner “Angels from Abroad” hosting program in Dallas in 2006. A Buckner Angels host family, David and Marla Jenkins, had adopted their daughter Stacy in 2005 from Orphanage No. 60 in St. Petersburg, where Anastasia lives.Marla Jenkins says Stacy described Anastasia as a "good girl, with a sweet, gentle spirit and very loving." Jenkins adds, "Our prayer is that Anastasia will find a wonderful Christian family very soon.”Buckner is a Christ-centered ministry that believes adoption is a profound way to change a child's life forever. Explains Wynne,"There's such a need where there's children,like 'Nastia, in orphanages that need help, and need to be sought out to know that they are not alone, that the Lord is there.I think one child can be touched by
somebody and feel like the Lord is there with them when they might not have a family and they might not have anyone else."
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Source MNN