Nataly's Story

I want to share their story in their own words, in their own writing even. However, when I copied them the writing is small - but if you click on it you can then read it bigger :)

I also plan to share my version of their story . Nataly came home in Oct. 2004. She was in the same city as Luke. He was in the special needs orphanage a walk from hers. She was 11 yrs old and both of her parents were dead...mom at the young age of 29 from drinking so much alcohol. Her dad like she shared I guess. We don't have much about him. We were told she had a very abusive mom . She was yelled at alot, lived in a poor, dirty old apt....We did visit it once during our trip. It was from the old Soviet era...there was one communal bathroom for the whole floor. I had to use it and it was dirty and smelled ( reeked of urine and vomit). The halls were dark and dim with little heat or cooling. The kitchen was also shared by other tenants. It was a bit cleaner but not much. I was told by an uncle and our translator that Naty spent many a nite on the elevator to escape the abuse. She has a scar on her leg from being burned and we are certain there was other types as well. When her mom died she was placed in the orphanage....A family who came one summer and adopted 2 sisters who Naty was close to ended up living very close to us. They lived within 20 minutes of us....Now if you realize that we traveled at first to adopt our Luke ( money was raised for his heart surgery and we had heard of him before ) so when we went to the NAC we chose Nataly out of many other children we could have :) The first picture is our earliest one of her taken by this family. We have met each other rather by "chance" and now the girls have been reunited and see each other when they want to. Also in the 32 yrs that the director had been there there had only been about 6 adoptions including Naty and those girls and what are the chances that we would end up so close. Actually this family wanted to return for her but never could but prayed for her to find her family :) :) God is so amazing.

Nataly was a very shy and troubled child when she came. She often wet her bed , was unable to share or communicate easily and reacted to affection given to her...but I am happy to share that she is not like this anymore. She gave me permission to share all of this so don't worry I have not outed her deepest troubling issues ...We eventually got her on some medicine to help her control her bladder issues ( nothing physical all emotional) and she was able to attend Camp Joyel with no problems and she gave her life to Jesus during this time. I remember her coming home from camp and she walked over to me placed her suitcase down and was crying happy tears when she shared , " Mom I have something to tell you. I gave my life to Jesus while at camp. " I could tell it was genuine and I too cried tears of joy with her. Then later that day she walked around out back with her sister, Lily and brought her to the Lord...oh my God is so good. He has met each one of my children in their times of need and it has been so awesome to watch them respond to Him in thier lives.

Nataly is our first adopted child to pass her GED. She is an excellent student and gets all A's. She has always been a student who loved learning. When I would offer 2 English books for her to choose she wanted to do both and did. She will attend a local college in the Fall and we will see what else the Lord has planned for this now not so quiet young lady of God...who wants desperately to follow Him . She is an excellent teacher to the younger ones and she loves to cook. She checks alot of the kids writing and loves to write herself. You can follow her blog here http://sisterofmany.blogspot.com/