As reported in The Fincastle Herald - Wednesday, Oct 21, 1998
The smiling little girl in tap shoes looks like all the other eight-year olds in Steeplechase. Long-legged, with her blond hair sweeping across her face, she snuggles close to her mother and hides a slight pout because she hasn't gotten her way -- yet. She will, though, and in just a few short months she's come to understand how much the American woman adores her.
Lilya comes from across the ocean. In May, she was formally adopted by Bob and Barbara Nay. The young Russian girl is now busily learning her place in the Botetourt County schools and trying to under stand English in all of its oddities.
The Nays had all but given up on adopting a child when they learned of Lilya, Barbara Nay said. Like most adoptive parents, they had been seeking an infant, "small and cuddly," but after 22 years of marriage, an older child seemed like a viable alternative. When Lilya' s face greeted them from a news letter provided by the adoption agency, their hearts gave way and they inquired about her. That was in January.
Five months later they were on a plane to Russia. They weren't sure what to expect. "The little bit that we received prior to going over there was that she was healthy and we knew that she'd been in the orphanage for four years of her life. And that she was viewed as a favorite of both the children and the adults. She really got along well with them, and we could see why very shortly, she is very outgoing."
The first days we met with Lilya at the Orphanage
The trip was awesome, Nay said. They met initially with a translator and a trip coordinator, who helped them during their week-long stay. And while the countryside was beautiful, it was the little girl in a chair in an orphanage who gave them pause. They met Lilya in an office at the orphanage in Borovichi. "I couldn't remember a word of Russian," Barbara Nay continued. Finally she leaned over and whispered hello to the little girl. Bob then gallantly kissed her hand, and Lilya jumped up and embraced them.
Lilya's first present from her new parents was a Barbie doll, which never made it back to America because the little girl gave it to one of her friends in the orphanage. A "music player" with happy children's tunes fared better. "She just loved listening to it, it was just magical to her. It was the first thing she'd ever seen like that," Nay said.
On their second day together, Lilya gave Barbara an intangible present. 'One of the women took us out into the orphanage. We had passed a younger group of children, and all of a sudden I heard this "Mama, Mama" and she came running and literally just jumped in my arms. That was pretty wonderful."
The remainder of the trip was one of mutual discoveries as the parents and child learned about each other. A trip on a train was the first time the three were alone as a family. "We were both a little unsure of how she'd do, but she was incredibly trusting and a happy little girl," Nay said. "That night on the train, I woke up and she was laying in the bunk across from me. She was wide awake, so I crawled into bed with her and we just sat and looked out the window, and she was just content as she could be."
In Moscow, Lilya visited McDonald's for the first time in her life, and the new family took in some sites. Soon it was time to go home. The only time Lilya cried, Nay said, was during a layover in Zurich. "She didn't understand why we weren't going anywhere."
Their arrival in northern Virginia was heralded by Nay's family, who greeted the new family member with much enthusiasm, Nay said. By then, a week into their new life together, Nay had discovered that her new daughter liked to joke and laugh. "I thought that was extremely significant just in terms of her confidence and to go through some thing that big. She has a wonderful sense of humor. She loves teasing, and she especially loves teasing [Bob]."
They returned to Botetourt to find that the neighborhood children had decorated and were as excited as Lilya. "She's come into the neighborhood and plays with the neighbors. I think the second or third week that we were back, she came over from playing with the little girl next door and she said "Eat Anna" and she pointed. "She wanted to eat with them. I said, 'Did they ask you to eat? She said yes, and I called and they had.
"That again struck me that in a manner of weeks she had such a confidence that this was her home and we'd be here, and she could go next door, and the confidence she had in herself to sit down dinner table with two adults and a little girl. They really have a different language but the communication just wasn't a problem," Nay said.
Nay is glad now that the Frank Foundation, the adoption agency they went through, decided to start focusing on the adoption of older children about the time her interest in adopting renewed. "Once kids hit school age it's very unlikely that they will be adopted," Nay said. Most people think they want to be there for those formative years. Our perception of adoption in the states is that the kids have been scarred."
However, in Russia it's a little different. Children receive a different type of care there. "The children in Russia are absolutely adored. They may not have the funds to care for them like they'd like to, but they really believe that their future is in their children. If children are neglected, let alone abused, [Russian government] feels very strongly that the parents should not continue to care for those children."
Being older has certainly been no trouble for Lilya. She seems to be fitting in at school and working hard at her lessons. She attends Cloverdale Elementary, where she is in the second grade. She has a special language arts class, but otherwise keeps up with her classmates. "The teachers have been pleasantly surprised, I think, because she's so agreeable and adaptable. She's done very well. She's struggling some with reading but I think the difficulty there is that she was just beginning to read in Russia," Nay said.
"Now that they've started doing some phonics she's doing a lot better. It's not an automatic, but as her vocabulary is growing she's doing extremely well. Early on she was putting together sentences. She explains things to us, she tells us stories."
Frank Foundation Child Assistance International, Inc., can be reached on the internet at http:// www.frankfoundationcai.com. Or write them at: 1030 Fifteenth Street, NW, Suite 1020, Washington, DC 20005.