We have news- we found out that we will be adopting from the Bryansk region. Here are a few things I read about the area from FRUA comments:

“It's a very quaint town and the orphanages are supposed to be very good. The town of Klintsy is extremely poor. Most adoptions in the Oblast (ie, "province") of Bryansk are due to poverty. They call the children the Bryansk Beauties. It is a 6-7 hr train ride from Moscow- SW, near Ukraine.”

I was a little concerned, though, when I typed in Bryansk in the search engine for the first time and the top link that came up was www.chernobyl.info . Yes, Bryansk was (is still) affected by the Chernobyl incident. According to this article the Bryansk region was the Russian region MOST affected by the radioactive fallout.

It is interesting that I found out that we will be adopting from that region on May 2, 2006 and April 26, 2006 marked the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. Also, I just finished my final school paper on April 28 on Environmental Problems, specifically mentioning health problems and referring to the Chernobyl disaster. At the same time I have been reading the book: Obsessive Genius, The Inner World of Marie Curie. (I had actually started the book a while ago, but was too busy to finish it before it was due back at the library, so I just recently rechecked it out a couple of weeks ago). And of course, Marie Curie discovered Radium. I highly recommend this book by the way. The question I have now is- is this a coincidence or is God trying to tell me something? Am I supposed to be learning something here? . Maybe God is just trying to tell me that this is where we are supposed to be. Everything that I have read about helping the kids in that area have been the same: The only proven way to save the children from the ravages of the Chernobyl radioactive contamination is to remove them from the area permanently. It sounds like the most common lingering affect is thyroid cancer.

I think it would do us all some good to remember and to realize that the affects still linger. See UNICEF’s recent photo essay here.

See article here

Labels: FRUA, Russian Adoption, waiting for referral