The Boy from Baby House 10 and one in Groupa House 3

The Boy From Baby House 10

From the Nightmare of a Russian Orpahanage to a New Life in America

by Alan Philps and John Lahutsky

St. Martins Press, New York 2009

There is an amazing story of a young man, John Lahutsy who was in Baby House 10 in Russia, who was adopted by Paula Lahutsky, a school psychologist from Pleasant Valley School District, my home school district!!!! What an amazing coincidence! Paula had evaluated all three of my children at different times in their school career and I remember when she was adopting John from Russia with cerebral palsy!! John was in a Baby House with the most involved children, and had he not spoken up for himself and someone went to 'bat for him' , he would still be there lying in a crib in unthinkable conditions!!! This is a must read book for anyone who is thinking of adopting or knows anyone who is adopting!!! His amazing story will encourage you to fight for these children!!!
His story has been repeated in Vorzel (and I imagine in other orphanages as well) ! I found blond hair, blue eyed Ruslan(pictures above) also with cerebral palsy in the back of Groupa House 3! Ruslan was soon to be trasferred to the internat and NO adoption agency knew of him! Recently Ruslan had surgery, just like John did, and spent weeks in a hospital recuperating alone! Had it not been for his facilitator and Sasha Skyrpak, a missionary from Almaz Church, he would not even have had pain medication and decent food to eat! Imagine a child going through surgery alone!!! But Ruslan won't be alone for long!! He now has a family in Virginia in the process of adopting him!!! Please pray it goes through soon so Ruslan can get the medical attention and therapy he so badly needs here in America with his FOREVER FAMILY!! The picture above is the one I snapped of Ruslan shortly before I was called to the adminstration building for questioning about what I was doing! See John's site for pictures of him as well as his efforts to help the orphans!!

For more information about this amazing young man who is such an inspiration and to order his book go to JohnLahutsky.com

SPONSOR A BONNET

You can SPONSOR A BONNET for an orphan in Vorzel for $10.00. Your name will be written on the inside as donated by YOU! Half of the money will be used to pay for the fees for a translator while over there and the other half will go directly for materials for the children! Please pay through your PayPal account on the Chipin Widget! Thank you so much!

Early Intervention Specialist/Consultant

Hi Thanks for visiting my blog!

I'm Sandie Flannery ...and it seems like my entire life I have been involved somehow with Special Needs children. Back in grammer school, I was the 'future teacher of tomorrow' volunteering at lunch time to help with the special education kindergarteners. In high school, I started a Saturday morning Special Recreation Program. I got a Bachelors degree in Special Education from the University of Florida ("Go Gators!") back in 1972. Wow! I'm dating myself! And a Master's Degree in Early Childhood Special Education in 1984! I've been working in Early Intervention for over 30 years now!!!
After giving birth to two healthy sons, Kristopher, age 26, and Lee, age 23 God blessed me with my daughter Jillian Joan, age 18 who has Agenesis of the Corpus Collasum, a midline birth defect and is severely developmentally delayed. It was hard for me to understand WHY God had given me such an involved child especially after having had two stillborn daughters and I worked as an Early Intervention Teacher/Consultant! After I realized that He had been preparing me all along with the skills and support I needed to raise my Special daughter, I stopped questioning and accepted! But I still always thought that there was another reason that my life was the way it was and that God had given me Jillian. I knew He had plans for me!
Those plans were laid out clearly for me this summer when I found myself in an orphanage in Vorzel, Ukraine.
I had gone over there to help a dear friend, Jo Ann Torres and her husband Ruben bring back their three precious little girls with Down Syndrome, whom they adopted......