What an incredible young lady! God bless her and all the others who labor so hard to help these people. And what a tribute to you!

Yes, it is a hard life there. Inconveniences, hardships, very low pay, brutal weather. I suppose that's why so many kids are left at the orphanages.....there's no way to take care of them and the parents are doing what they can to make sure they're fed and clothed.
When Victoria first went to the baby house, she said they were reusing disposable diapers (as plastic pants) over cloth diapers made from old clothes. They dry the disposables out. She looked for cloth diapers with no luck. We and several of our friends bought about 12 doz cloth diapers and all the plastic pants we could find (that's something else I can no longer find at Walmart) and pacifiers and diaper pins. She said you'd have thought she was giving them a million dollars when she delivered them to the home.
There are 48,000 institutionalized kids in Kazakhstan because they have no foster care system.

Her father and I can't take credit because we were against the move at first. Now we're both happy because she is happy, but when she first suggested giving up a career with Marriott and moving (at that time she had asked for South America), you can't help but think...WHY? She already did all kinds of volunteer/charity work in the US.
She has fallen in love with the people there, esp. the kids. I'll post more pictures. She feels right at home no matter where she is living.

Thank you for sharing your daughter's story. How hard for you to let her go. But the blessings are so great. so many children she can nurture and love. I'm so proud of you all for making a difference. :D :-D

You must be so very proud.

Some pics with Victoria at the Baby House.

your daughter look so young! you must fear for her, but also must be so proud for her compassion and caring

You have raised a beautiful, strong and loving woman...well done! Thanks for posting the pics and the stories behind them. We hear much on the news about worldwide events, but stories such as your daughter's and those children, never make the headlines. I wonder how many more places like this exist in the world....how many more small people are forgotten and neglected. Food for thought indeed. Blessings to her and all the children.

Don't know why it takes so long when I try to send 3 pictures at once. 2 go right through. So I'll try a couple at a time. I have a few thousand...don't worry, I won't post them all. The kids take everybody's camera and make pictures til the memory card gets full or the battery dies. I'm glad becaue Victoria would never make that many pictures, esp. at the birthday parties she hosts at the orphanage for older kids. She's busy and they just snap away.

I don't worry about her. If I did, I'd be worried all the time. I think she's perfectly safe. She has always traveled by herself...she actually lived in Scotland one summer during college...went by herself, didn't know a soul and got a job in a deli and rented a flat for the summer and traveled all over Northern Europe alone on weekends.
I'll have to share part of an email from her in a later post about her stay in Europe a couple of weeks ago. She was at a leadership conference in Brussels for 4 days, but the other 10 days she was traveling alone in Prague and Austria.