How ETC formed

 When established:

Charitable Status:

Why ETC established:

Reason for Embrace? 

What ETC is doing:

Embrace has 6 categories of service (as in our brochure.):  Relief, Aid, Missions, Bridges, Education and Comfort.  Of these six, the direct service to the children is provided under Relief and Aid.  Relief is short-term support and Aid is on-going support.

Real Stories:

"I held a tiny child who was deaf from an ear infection.  For lack of a few dollars of antibiotics, this child was now deaf.” JB

“I traveled 9 hours to one of the poorest orphanages in the region.  The children were dirty, wearing rags for clothes.  They have lice so bad, many have scratched out hunks of hair, leaving sores on their scalps.” JB

May 19, 2004 ”In Alexandrov [orphanage w/60 kids ages birth to 4yrs], they ran out of babyfood some weeks ago. They began boiling buckwheat down to a thick paste to feed the children.  This of course, made them very sick with diarrhea, then dehydration.  The medicine we brought them from Embrace was to treat this in infants, so they were extremely grateful to receive it.”  JB

Real Stories:

“Many babies in the hospitals are having seizures…no calories in their little brains.  They have nothing to feed them but water.  I sent 12 boxes of baby food.” JB

“We have been able to take boxes of oranges, bananas, and apples [into Layhey orphanage].  Most have never eaten a banana. We had a special class to show them how.”   JB

“As we stood and watched the boxes of food being carried in, the chief nurse looked at me with eyes full of tears and said, this is life for the children of our town.”  JB

“Children were eating crayons over the winter they were so hungry.”  JB

Real Stories:

“[Murom Orphanage has 120 kids birth to 4yrs.] They had one 6-month-old boy there that had come in [from living with his family].  He looked like a preemie he was so tiny.”  “ The director showed me specific children who had come in just emaciated and sick.”   JB

“As we travel through these small villages, I think how scared I’d be  to  park my car in some of these houses.  Shanties of plank boards the size of a shed, some with no running water. The apartment buildings look like prisons with poor lighting and concrete walls.  There is no trash collection—ever!   Stray animals are everywhere.  Toilet paper does not exist and there is a basic hole in the ground as a toilet.  Some families don’t have that and use buckets.  Now I try to imagine raising my son here…I can’t.  I can not wait to bring our new daughter from this place.”  SM

“There were many tears as we shared the food with them. A grandmother struggling to keep her 4-month-old granddaughter from the orphanage system after her own daughter died in childbirth.  Another grandmother caring for an 8 year old girl and a 6 mo old baby--all in the care of this old woman.  I gave her some extra boxes of cereal, 50 rubles and a bag of apples.  She was crying so hard when she left.”  There are no food pantries or soup kitchens in these communities.

Real Stories:

“I received a call yesterday from the distraught Murom orphanage director.[Nadia’s orphanage]  He was making a cry for help. They have one rust covered tub and a single hose for 64 children. They have two squatter toilets over in the corner for all the children…including the older girls.  He has a hard situation with the officials in the local offices.  They gave him some rubles—small amount—and told him to go find sponsors to help.  He went all over Murom asking for help.  One man gave him a bag of concrete. That is the example of the help he has received.”  JB 

What ETC has done:

Impact on Local Community:

In 2002, over 4,939 children were adopted into the United States from Russia.  All of these children will have spent time in a very impoverished setting and most likely an orphanage. 

To be orphaned in Russia, means you have been abandoned somewhere, possibly tossed in a snow bank, or given up to the state because your parents could not feed you. 

The problem is children living in orphanages have little food, little clothing, and little human interaction--their chances in an orphanage are actually worse than in a poor home environment. 

So little personal and nurturing attention effects their physical and psychosocial development to the extent that “an orphan with psychosocial growth retardation falls behind 1 month of growth for every 3 to 4 months of orphanage life.” (Dr. Dana Johnson, The International Adoption Clinic at the University of Minnesota).   

So little food, malnutrition, is associated with the death of over 6 million children under age 5 in the world every year.  Malnutrition can cause impoverished brain growth and development, high maternal health risks, compromised immunization and greater risk of chronic disease.   

Russian orphans experiencing malnutrition early in life--who are lucky enough to be adopted--can still show links to this deprivation as deficits in their intellectual development, which persist in spite of schooling, and can permanently impair their learning ability. 

The impact is now, on my daughter.   She struggles most days to remember we will never abandon her, or as she calls it “forget about me.”  She is haunted by a dark cloud from her life in Russia and as a result, there are many issues we as a family must come to terms with in raising Nadia.   Attachment Disorders, Post Traumatic Stress, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, learning delays…the list goes on.  Finding the help for these kids is difficult and getting through therapy is traumatic.