After spending 3� years with this family, during which time they tried to adopt her, for various reasons they decided against adopting Tanya and were prepared to return her to the orphanage where they had found her. Those of us who knew and cared about Tanya panicked and feverishly determined to find some way of avoiding this trauma and second �abandonment.� Being a pragmatic individual, having no other family obligations, and having an extra room in my apartment, it seemed that the best solution was for Tanya to come stay with me. I also felt a strong responsibility, as a Christian and an American, to salvage what my colleagues had begun.
Natasha and I had been friends since 1997, when we met during my short-term tour with the Co-Mission program. After she heard about Tanya�s plight, Natasha offered to help. Thus she applied to become Tanya�s legal guardian and was surprisingly accepted. Natasha is a widow with two grown sons living in a very small two room flat. The bathtub and shower are in kitchen, it�s so small. She�s also officially on invalid status, because of a back injury, which could disqualify her in itself since she doesn�t have a �real� job. Despite these obstacles, the guardianship was granted quickly. Together Natasha and I visited the local administrator overseeing children�s welfare and laid the whole sordid story on her desk. We asked that the ministry of education grant us permission to allow Tanya to live with me while under Natasha�s guardianship. Again, much to our delighted surprise, they readily agreed. The official came to my flat to do a home study and, being satisfied, left us to our new life together�a story deserving its own space and time� later.
