The van approached the level four orphanage at Ladizhin on the Bog River two hundred miles west of Kiev. Marina’s heart beat very fast. All the dread, all the nightmares, all the fears of her life centered upon this one spot in Ukraine, on these buildings, and on these faces. She was arriving today with a mission team to bring blessing to the place that had so embittered her heart. To the others on the team, this was another orphanage -- a pitiable place with its shabby buildings, parched landscape, and putrid odors -- but still just another orphanage. To Marina it was her former home.

Three years ago Marina was an inmate at Ladizhin, a level four orphanage for mentally retarded and physically disabled children. Marina lived on a ragged, soiled cot where she ate her liquid meals, slept in a room with seven mentally retarded and physically disabled girls, and kept her treasures – some crayons and bits of paper. Marina was ten and had never been to school. She crawled on a filthy, sticky floor because she was crippled like all the others. But Marina was exceptional among the other inmates at Ladizhin. She recited poems, sang songs, and achieved the status of a junior staff member because she helped take care of the other children. Marina was “misplaced – a tragedy that tore at the heart of Carey Adams, Ukraine Children’s Project president when she visited Ladihzin in 1999 and first met Marina. A bright girl of high intelligence, warehoused in Ukraine’s broken-down system, there was no future for Marina until Carey’s divine appointment.

Now Marina has a new life with her adopted family in America. Marina thrives in a Christian school and speaks nearly perfect English, but the nightmares persist – rats, violence, hunger, pain, cold, and cruelty. Returning to Ladyhzin required all the courage and determination Marina had learned over the many months of surgery and physical therapy in her journey towards ambulating.

The van stopped and the team unloaded. Marina asked for her walker and made twenty painful shuffles forward on her new brace to greet the gathered workers and children. Their greeting was jubilant with flowers and gifts, but Marina was forcing back tears and wanted to be anywhere else in the world. As the ministry began, she entered in and spent special time with her friends. But as the van finally pulled away Marina knew for the first time with certainty that she was forever free from Ladyhzin.

Now, after a month has passed, the healing power of the return to Ladyhzin is visible. Not only is Marina free from the fears of returning to Ladyhzin, she is free from the bitter memories. Going back to Ladyhzin from the context of a new life, gave her a new perspective. Now there is compassion in place of the bitterness, because she is able to see the conditions and needs from the outside. As she spoke on the phone with her grandfather on returning home, Marina was heard saying, “I want to help them so much. I want to do something to make things better for them.”