Ever since the fall of communism, the largest country on earth has been taking up less space in our collective consciousness. After nearly a century of watching over our shoulder at fellow superpower the USSR, other emerging giants seem to be capturing more of our nation’s attention these days. Even so, Time magazine reminds us, “Russia is central to our world.”

And its orphaned children are, for many Americans, also central to our hearts. Russia is among the top foreignnations (including Korea and China) from which children are most often adopted by U.S. citizens. Every year about 5,000 Russian children have been grafted into U.S. families. Still 700,000 remain in Russian orphanages. And when, at age 16 or 17, children are asked to leave the orphanage, an estimated 10 percent commit suicide; 30 percent commit crimes, and 40 percent are unemployed and homeless.

The Mission Society has been involved in ministry among Russian orphans since 1994. Missionaries Sue Fuller, Ari Arfaras, and Steve and Carol Johnson serve in Khabarovsk, in the Russian Far East, where Sue and Ari minister among the city’s 14 orphanages.

Mr. and Mrs. Peterson* serve in another Russian city, helping orphan teens transition from life in the orphanage to life to a society that doesn’t seem to want them. Here, Sue Fuller and Mr. and Mrs. Peterson tell of life behind the orphanage doors – and inside the orphan’s heart.

What are the common characteristics among the Russian orphans you know?
Sue: They are all just like little survivors. Some of them have more hurt and pain than others, but they all have this self-preservation instinct.

Mr. Peterson: Read Lord of the Flies, and you’ve just described an orphanage in Russia. There’s a visible structure (the teachers, etc.), but underneath that structure, the kids develop a separate society that’s ruled by terror (usually), fear, and abuse of each other.

When a young person’s identity is shaped by the orphanage environment, what happens when he or she is no longer in that system?
Mrs. Peterson: They’re very lost usually. In an orphanage, they grow up in a communal environment. For example, they might have 10, 15, 20, or 30 kids in one room, and they’ve lived like that their entire lives.

Mr. Peterson: They don’t have an individual identity.

Sue: Masha is one of our orphans who went on to graduate from university. We’ve seen her change, so now she has learned to enjoy spending time by herself. But there are other things – like responsibility for taking care of self, home, money – that have been slower to develop.

Mr. Peterson: That’s because in the orphanage, anything that you have can be broken, or used, or taken – and probably will be – by other kids or by the administration. As a result, the kids learn that if you have something, you should use it. If you have money, you should spend it. If you keep it, someone might take it from you. An orphan will think, “I have to get whatever I can out of this
situation.” If a pie is on a table, he will know that if you get more pie, he will get less pie. And if he waits, he will get no pie. So the orphan will have to learn to rob from others in order to get for himself. If he cares for others’ needs, he’s in serious danger of not getting anything for himself. And nobody else will look out for him. An orphan will live today for today. Never mind the future.

What news would make an orphan’s heart sing? In other words, what would be perceived as good news by him or her?
Sue: Good news would be that their parents will take them back (many orphans are abandoned by parents), or, if not their parents, that one of their family members – an older brother or sister – will take them back.

Mr. Peterson: We’ve heard many times that “my dream is to live in a family [meaning any family], because I’ve never experienced that.”

Mrs. Peterson: They seem to dream only to a point. Once the teenage years hit, the dream dies, and a kind of hardness sets in.

Sue: Even if they have opportunities for education, or if you are trying to work with them to find something that they’re interested in doing, they are just so apathetic. They’re indifferent about anything that would take just a little more effort on their part – like studying, or even going with you to look at different technical schools. You get so tired of pushing them, because you don’t want to push them into something that they don’t want to do. But the thing that requires the very least from them is usually what they’ll do on their own, because they feel so hopeless.

Mr. Peterson: The kids begin to believe that no matter what happens – even if they graduate from university – nothing really is waiting for them. They think, “I’m never truly going to transition
to society. I’m never going to be truly acceptable.” The orphan is jettisoned into society as an individual. But remember, they don’t see themselves as individuals. Orphans understand themselves as a member of a group. When they get into society, they have no group.

Mrs. Peterson: I guess our kids operate with kind of a gang mentality, but it’s a good thing. It’s good for them to stay connected. They have a leader [another orphan] who looks out for the needs of the group. And once the leader comes to Christ, it’s almost like the others say, “Yes, sir” [we’ll do that, too].

For example, there is a boy, Kolya, who is kind of a boss of the kids in the orphanage. He graduated from the orphanage four years ago, and all the kids still call him “Boss.” He recently accepted Christ, and he’s gone back into the orphanage, and all the kids showed up at Bible study because of him.

Mr. Peterson: Kolya commands so much respect that when he walked into the orphanage, everyone backed away; they stay well clear of him and his friends.

How do orphans like Kolya come to be regarded as leaders by the other orphans?
Mr. Peterson: When Kolya came to the orphanage in first grade, some fifth graders came up to him and decided to let him know who was boss. They punched him, and he went down, but he stood back up. They punched him again, and he went down and got right back up. Tears began to flow, but each time they knocked him down, he just stood back up. It got to the point after their punching him so much and him just standing back up that he scared them.

After that, his authority was established, and he started to gather his lieutenants from his first-grade class, which was divided into two groups. Over a period of years, his band of eight guys got total control of their group. Then they took over the other group in the grade. Then they began to terrorize the groups under them. Then they used the groups under them to terrorize the groups over them. And by the time he reached the end of seventh grade, his gang had total control of the orphanage, and the teachers were in terror.

So now, years later, Kolya walks in and just says, “I’m going to do a Bible study,” and the other kids all choose to come. He commands respect, not just because of his past inside the orphanage, but also because he’s made it on the outside. The first question all of the other kids asked him was, “How did you do it?” (The only stories about graduated orphans that usually get back to the orphanage are of death, or drug addiction, or prison.) Because he’s made it on the outside, Kolya is able to come back in and say, “Here’s the way; it’s Jesus,” and he has authority to do that.

Mrs. Peterson: We’ve seen a lot of kids come to Christ. And I’m seeing now that God is kind of targeting the leaders, like Kolya. One of the leaders among the girls committed her life to Jesus just last week.

What is your hope for your [orphanage] kids?
Sue: Our hope for the kids is God’s best for them – not for a family we think would be good, or adoption, or foster care, but God’s best for them, whatever that is. And our prayer is that we are able to discern what the Lord wants us to do and that we are who we need to be to help bring the kids to that place.

Mr. Peterson: This might sound wacky, but my hope, my desperate plea, is for revival, not just for the Church, but for all of Russia. My hope is for revival that rocks the culture, that transforms the culture, that comes from the heart of orphans who know they are sons and daughters of God, who have the power and the authority through that understanding to drive out the spirit of fatherlessness that has raped and pillaged Russia for centuries. The fatherless are not just the orphans. The fatherless are everywhere.

Mrs. Peterson:
Every person who has ever been born has been an orphan, because we’re cut off from the Father. And the whole ministry through Jesus is the ministry of adoption to the Father. Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The Way where? I never asked that before. Jesus is the way to the Father. But so many people only come as far as Jesus, but never get to the Father.

Sue: I always thought that it would be better to talk to kids about God the Father first, and then get to Jesus. But the orphans grasp the idea of Jesus much faster than they do of a heavenly Father.

Mrs. Peterson: That’s because Jesus represents a sibling or a peer, and an orphan understands having a peer. But when they learn about God the Father and learn to hear Him speaking to them, they are so happy.

Ruth A. Burgner is the editor of Unfinished.