If you missed part one of this series of posts, please take a moment to go back and read Advocating: You Can Do It Too (pt 1). McKennaugh is sharing with us her story of advocating for three children in Ukraine. We left off with Katia’s story making it into the Above Rubies E-zine.

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I got a flood of emails from people that wanted to help. Many acted like they wanted to adopt her. My hopes would rise. Then I would copy her typed-up medical record and paste it into an email along with my thoughts and observations about this little girl. Usually potential families stopped here. Taking care of a child who couldn’t even bend at the waist or knees? A child who was fed through a tube and couldn’t open her own clenched hand? They turned away and I can’t say I blamed them. But my heart ached for Katia and I thought, “Somewhere, somewhere there must be a family for you!”

The first e-zine article generated donations for the yet-to-be-found family, but no family itself. (I now would not recommend for people to take donations before a child has a family. I could have had a very stressful situation on my hands if Katia never received adoptive parents!! I think that pledges are a much better idea to accept! Then you are not responsible for people’s money.)

I watched the stats on my site slide downward and knew that the e-zine had not reached Katia’s family…this time. I continued blogging and begging for a family for her. I made a short video for her. (Note: Katia is called Levina in this clip & the link at the end of it is no longer associated with me—I stopped running the website and the domain was purchased by someone else.)

I was a determined kid. Once again, I sent a request to Above Rubies. I asked them to place something else about Katia in their next e-zine. This time it was a poem.

To make a long story short, Katia’s adoptive parents saw that poem. They contacted me. I copied the medical record. I sent it to them. They read it.

They didn’t say no.

They came. To Ukraine. To Katia. By this time, I was 15. She was 7. She didn’t know I changed her life. She didn’t know she had changed mine. How? She showed me that anybody—even backwoods girls who hardly knew a soul—could make a difference.

If they only tried.

I wasn’t done trying. Yuri and Viktor, two other disabled children I had met in Ukraine, needed homes, too.

Somewhere along the way here, I had become a columnist for Homeschooling Teen e-zine. I published an article there about Yuri and Viktor. I was contacted by a lady who said they would adopt Yuri. I was thrilled. The next few events made me slightly wary that something wasn’t quite right, though. We kept in regular contact for a while, then I didn’t hear from them for a couple months. I sent them an email asking how everything was going. They said they had run into problems with US income requirements and would not be able to adopt Yuri.

A sent another article into Homeschooling Teen. Yuri and Viktor remained without a family. For a time, I lost my perseverance. Yuri and Viktor waited in their cribs. Waited for me to speak up for them.

And I didn’t.

Then, out of the blue, I got an email from a man who was surfing the web and had found my Homeschooling Teen article, though it had now been months since it was published. He couldn’t adopt Viktor, but he wanted to help him in any way he could. Could he send aid to the children? No, I responded, aid wouldn’t get to them. But I asked him if he would spread the word—Viktor needed an adoptive family. He jolted Viktor and Yuri back to the front of my mind and I thought, “These boys are depending on me!”

Stay tuned for the final installment of this article. Do you think you could do what McKennaugh did? Would you find the possibility exciting or scary? Or both?

In the six months that TIO has been up and running, several people have stood out as youth who are really enthusiastic about TIOs vision. One of those people is McKennaugh Kelley. I contacted her to ask her to guest post after reading a guest post she did on The Rebelution. She wrote Loving Katia part one and part two. The story of how a teenager could find a family for an orphan captivated me, so when she contacted me about advocating for Miroslav, I asked her to do a how-to on advocating for orphans. The article turned out quite long, so it’s going to be a series. I hope you are inspired.

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Take a 14-year-old girl who is homeschooled in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. She spends her free time climbing trees, swimming, hiking, and writing. She enjoys heralding in spring mornings before the birds, embarking on all things strange and adventurous, and will do almost anything to make someone laugh. Add her to a Ukrainian orphanage five thousand miles away, tear her heart out, give it to three little special needs kids, and send her back home. She doesn’t know anyone interesting in adopting disabled children a world away, but she doesn’t care. Putting clumsy fingers to a keyboard, she decides that she will do everything she can to bring to these children the love she knows they wait for.

It wasn’t the perfect recipe for success.

But you know what?

It worked.

Hi, I’m the strange 14-year-old slightly grown up. I’m turning 18. I spent three months in Ukraine with my family, seven weeks of which was spent at an orphanage. Three hours a day, every day. I had fallen into a place that I wouldn’t have believed existed a short year and a half before. I had cold water tossed onto my happy childhood. I was suddenly awake, older. These kids had had that awakening the day they were born. They received no happy childhood.

I was determined that I would bring one to them. It might be a little late, but they would have another chance. Leah of TIO asked me to share with you how I found families for three children, Yuri, Viktor, and Katia (aka Levina). So the following is the story of my struggle for them and some tips and encouragement to you…because you can bring love to a child, too. These are not instructions or guidelines, they are simply what I did and I hope that you can grab a few of my ideas, shape them for your situation, and take them a step further. I have summed this up so that I may have a chance of you reading it to the finish. If I were to tell you each detail, each failure and success, I would be typing for a month. So here is the small (but still long…) version, of a hard, good, terrible, wonderful story…

Fingers, staggering about the computer keys. The keys ought to have been crooked—I had typed this little girl’s plight so many times! Writing up her medical record alone took more time than I would care to admit, as I fumbled through spelling terms that I didn’t know the meanings of. If the list of diagnoses failed to make people understand Katia’s condition, the words “fifteen pounds and six years old” put it in a pretty shocking perspective. After that, I didn’t have to try quite as hard to explain what Katia’s life had been like. I started out advocating for her by blogging on my previously existing website. I got some people to pass my posts around, and tell her plight to people I wouldn’t have otherwise reached. I didn’t have a huge following, so the responses were few. I did have one very special friend who was a huge help and gave me so much encouragement. She loved Katia deeply, though she had only met her through my photos. This woman and I exchanged emails frequently, updating each other on any news about Katia. She basically turned her blog into a home for Katia’s story and photos. She spoke at conventions and handed out fliers about this little girl. On the days that I felt I would never find Katia a family, she was there backing me up, telling me that we could do it. She prayed for, loved and genuinely cared for this child halfway around the world. It is so helpful to have a friend to fall back on. A friend who will help you fight for a cause that you both know is worthy.

I called up the editor of a magazine that I read and loved, Above Rubies. It’s full of stories centered around family, adoption, birthing, mommyhood, and natural living. It goes out to thousands and thousands of people. Getting an article in their actual magazine would be difficult, but getting something in their e-zine was slightly more possible. I talked with the editor who told me that there are so many thousands of children like Katia who need help—she was simply another case.

I responded that there, indeed, are thousands of children who live in terrible situations. ButI had met Katia, I had seen her struggling for each breath, and I knew there was only one of her. And we had to let her know she was loved.

Katia got her story in the e-zine.

Have questions or comments for McKennaugh (or me)? Leave a comment. And stay tuned for part two!