Lena Kosykh

My name is Lena Kosykh and I am the coordinator in Far East Russia. My background is in teaching and I am currently working as a private tutor and a teacher at a Christian School in Khabarovsk. Children are my passion and I love teaching and making a positive difference in their lives. I started getting involved with the orphans in 1998 when I started interpreting for families who came to Khabarovsk to adopt children. I started to hear the stories of how these infants and children became orphans and I was shocked to see the poverty of the Russian Orphanages. I was overwhelmed by the fact that most of these children had no future and no hope.

I started sharing these stories with some of my friends in America and I was surprised by their generosity and willingness to help. I met Jeanette (Director of OAI) through an adoption support group after she tried to adopt a child she sponsored in Khabarovsk. It was discovered that this child was un-adoptable due to the fact that her father was alive, but serving time in a Russian prison. He was unwilling to waive his parental rights. Jeanette asked me to watch over this child and to let her know of her needs. As I went to the orphanage I saw the need of the other children and decided I needed to help as many as I could.

Lena has been involved with OAI since it began over five years ago. Simply put... Lena is one of the most amazing and loving people that you could even meet. Lena has been involved in trying to make a better life for orphans for over ten years.

Lena was recently visited by a mission group who had this to say about her: "Lena is overflowing with love. She spends time to help find resources in order to help the children become better students. You can see when she arrives that the children respect her and have love for her. She has such a wonderful heart for the children. Both she and her husband give above and beyond to help change the lives of the orphans.

Lena is our main contact in this region and personally delivers the aid sent to orphanages in her area. It is very important to Lena that the children get a good education. She tutors students who need help and works with their teachers to make sure they have the proper resources".

Lena expects "her children" to work hard in school and is not afraid to have tough discussions with those who do not work hard. She doesn't just give the kids gifts...she make them work for it and rewards those who work hard. If required, Lena coordinates tutors and teachers for orphans to get extra help. Many times the orphanage directors are the teachers and are very busy running the orpahange. Even with the little money that she has, Lena still finds enough money to help when she can. She personally goes without a lot of things because as she always says, "How can I not help them?"

Orphans can't attend regular shcools due to their situation and are normally behind. Also, children at these schools make fun of them because they are orphans and not having the same clothes as non-orphan children.