Remembering Dasha

In the summer of 2003 I made my first trip over-seas, to Russia. It was a mission trip through my University and we spent 6 weeks outside of Moscow and in St. Petersburg working with an orphan ministry.  It was on that trip that I first stepped foot in an orphanage, first held an abandoned baby, first considered adoption and first was given a picture of God's heart for the fatherless.

7 years have passed, and yet there is one face that remains in my heart from that trip. It's a face that continues to look at me everyday, as I have her picture taped to the wall in my office.

It is the face of Dasha.

Dasha was probably about 10 months old when I met her in August of 2003. I only spent 2 weeks with this darling little baby, but her sweet smile took my heart from day one.  She would always be standing in the corner of her crib when we would enter the room (like she is pictured above) and her little face would light up when she saw us.  I would hold her for the afternoon and the second I would put her down she would start to cry.  I clearly remember that first day when we left the baby home and how I was overwhelmed with the emotions I was feeling at leaving little Dasha behind.  I cried a lot in that little room holding those babies.  I was thinking of all the ways I could sneak a child out of the baby home...and then out of the country!  Obviously this plan was never carried out. :)

7 years later I still look at that 10 month old picture of Dasha and I continue to pray for her.  It crosses my mind every once in awhile that she is no longer a baby and instead is now an 8 year-old little girl somewhere. I don't even know what she looks like.  My prayer continues to be that she is in a family and that she is being loved and that she is learning about Jesus.

I've often had this fantasy that maybe someday I would adopt an older child from Russia, and it would end up being Dasha, or that someday I'll be divinely connected with a family that already adopted her.

But until one of those two day-dreams comes true,  I'll keep praying for that sweet little baby I remember from the picture...her little brown eyes will forever be looking into mine, as they were this afternoon.