Silver moonlight pours in through a window and floods the wooden panels of my bedroom floor. As I lay tossing and turning in my bed, unable to sleep, with questions swirling in my head like the twisting body of a tornado, the one question echoes, am I valuable, am I worth being alive? I pull a soft blanket around my shoulders and readjust my pillow desperately trying to pursue fleeting sleep. Like most stories, mine begins far from my birth, and as I lie wrestling my mind drifts back to the life that helped set my story in motion.
The year is 1944, with feet pounding over hard snow, heart racing in her chest, and fear coursing through her body, Alexandra Goode made her way to the gates of Dachau, a German concentration camp, followed by ten other 14-year-old girls. Approaching the gate, her heart stopped as a German guard stood stout, accompanied by a snarling German shepherd trained to sniff, chase, and devour prisoners. She froze in her tracks; surely her escape attempt would end here.
Although Alexandra was not Jewish, she had been sent here along with other orphans who had been gathered in an orphanage after the German bombing that killed their families. The orphans, along with thousands of other victims of the Holocaust, had been corralled like cattle and sent to this hell. Forced labor, starvation, and being raped by guards were commonplace in Dachau. The Germans also performed horrendous experiments on these prisoners in whom they saw no humanity. And so, Alexandra vowed to escape or die trying.
Miraculously, the dog made no movement and the guard continued his steady gaze forward. After slipping through the gates, the young girls made their way to the train outside the concentration camp. After the group boarded an empty train car, the German soldiers on the train began to evacuate. Terrified, the girls joined them and jumped off the train. Moments later it exploded! They then accompanied a group of allied soldiers and were escorted to Lubeck, which was taken by the British.
The next years of her young life were focused on survival, moving to displaced person camps and homeless shelters in a desperate attempt to outrun the violence of war. Alexandra loved children; she found a glimpse of sunshine in dark times in helping to take care of them. After several years of living this grueling life, providence presented an opportunity. While in a displaced persons camp, she discovered her god-brother, who she had assumed to be dead. After her application to leave was rejected, she escaped to an American sector displaced persons camp in Mönchehof, Germany, by way of hiding in a mailbag.
She then immigrated to America arriving on Ellis Island in September of 1948. After some time of working in a factory and recovering from many illnesses, she married her husband George, a fighter pilot for the American army, settled down and started a family. Many years later, she felt a calling to return to Russia. Confused and skeptical, she chose to follow the will of God. This call made no sense to Alexandra, as she had not returned to mother Russia since she left as a refugee. However, when she arrived, the language lost by time returned to her. After going into Russian orphanages, she knew she had to do something to help these children. She was determined to be a voice for the voiceless.
In 1999 along with her husband, Alexandra founded International Guardian Angel Adoption Agency.
From 1990 to 2010, adoption was allowed in Russia. During this short time, she was used by God to rescue 230 children from the orphanages, placing them in Christian families. This “angel” was used to rescue children–the smallest, voiceless, and forgotten outcasts of society. She gave everything to orphans who had nothing, and who could give nothing to her in return. Knowing this, she chose to sacrifice immensely and hand these children the world. Her sacrifices not only affected the children she saved, but the lives of everyone around them.
Alexandra’s story parallels with another, similar story–the story of a victim becoming a warrior. The day is March 29th, in a hospital in Penza, Russia. A young single mom is suffering desperately from tuberculosis. Although this disease is treatable in the USA, it was not the case in Russia at the time. Her labor had been induced and she struggled to deliver the life within her to the harsh poverty-stricken world around her. The baby was born three months premature and weighing only three pounds. She named the child and left the hospital. With no NICU in Russia, the baby was expected to die. Defying all expectations and lying alone, this tiny orphaned baby girl survived. Standard Russia protocol was followed, keeping orphan babies in the hospital for three months, separated in a room away from other children. After the three months ended, the child was moved to a local orphanage, a baby house. This young life had a rough beginning of and, she barely escaped from the common “solution” of abortion. However, her battle was far from over.
Once in the orphanage, she had to continue to fight for life. Deprived of attention and love this young baby craved stimulation, she would often lay in a crib and look at her hands, the only thing available to fascinate her vivid imagination. Although toys were available in the orphanage, they were kept on display to give the orphanage a good image or stored away for a rainy day, not to be played with. Although the workers intended no harm, they were understaffed and overworked. This, along with the fact that Russian culture puts a high value on children getting lots of sleep, led to the improper use of sedative drugs. Children, especially those who were nosier were regularly given these drugs. This stunts growth, sensory, and brain development.
Along with improper sedative drug use, a room full of babies is quiet because when no one comes, they learn to stop crying. Trauma and a void of stimulation become commonplace in orphanages. This becomes a way of life and a reality for many orphans. Defying expectations and fighting hard, the little girl lived.
That baby was me. This was my first battle, but it would not be my last.
God does miracles. This little tiny baby was touched by the hands of an angel–the hands of a woman who had survived hell in order to bring heaven to earth in the lives of the neglected and forgotten. My angel, Alexandra, found my forever family.
Through hard work, incredible dedication, and unwavering faith, my family brought me home. My parents had a difficult adoption process, filled with countless miracles and blessings. My little brain and body still suffered the effects of abandonment in the orphanage. Although the situation was bleak and I seemed to be suffering alone, the hands of Jesus were holding me as I lay silent in that crib. My heavenly father gave me a fiery passion and an incredible will to live. He also gave me unexpected joy at six months old. This unlikely gift was seen when I smiled at my mom the first time I got to be held by her. Without receiving much attention from adults or stimulation for my surroundings, this was a very welcomed surprise. Dedication and love from my parents and extended family allowed me to get back on track developmentally. Through hard work and tender care, my parents worked with me through challenges caused by the drugs I was given.
So here I lie with body trembling, breath shallow and rapid, and hot tears streaming down my face I attempted to drown out the voices raging in my head, like demons swirling in every direction, confronting me everywhere I turned. Worthless, abandoned, unwanted, forgotten, unworthy. I blink in futile yet desperate attempting to regain my focus, but my attempts are overturned by the raging lies within. You are better off alone, you were left to die, you are not worthy of love, you are unwanted, you are nothing. You deserve to die, you should be dead. I try to shake the thoughts I recognize to be lies, but they continue to win over me. Failed attempts to escape this dirty, damp, and cold ancient prison cell of lies have formed me into a weak and weary captive. I am captive to thoughts, beaten by lies, abandoned by hope. Lies grow louder drowning out my thoughts and hope, drowning out everything, drowning me. Reaching my breaking point, I cannot handle any more. I do not know the answer, I cannot yet grasp the key that unlocks my freedom, a key just out of reach from my trembling fingertips. I know that staying in this place in my mind I will never survive. I vow, l must somehow find my way out.
A lion of courage begins to quietly roar within my weak and fragile shell, but I can barely hear it for it is still being drowned by the screaming lies.
I am there again, lying in my bed, unable to sleep, with questions haunting, crashing hard, loud, and relentlessly like a wave on the shore of my deepest emotions. What gives me value, I wonder as I arise from my bed pressing my bare toes on the cold floor beside my bed. I make my way to the large weather worn window marveling at the glorious full moon casting shadows on the branches of the trees blown by the wind. Why do people have value I ask myself. As I watch the branches dancing in the night I wish to be as carefree as they are. My mind wanders back to the conversation I had with my mom “You barely survived, there was no NICU in Russia, your life is a miracle” her words were warm, comforting, and sorrowful. But the hurt pierces my heart like a cold knife to the heat. I knew that they left me to die, but why was that so wrong? Raw emotions oozes out my heart wounded by deep hurt as I search for an answer that is life or death.
Why do we, as people have value, and what gives it to us?
It can’t be how we, we all vary in appearance and size. Could it be what we do? This seems like a feasible explanation. Our society places a high value on work and accomplishments, and rightly so. But yet we value children as much as we value high achieving adults so it’s not what we accomplish that gives is value. Does independence equal value? But it could not be how independent we are because everyone has a different level of independence. Babies are not at all independent, and age or ability has nothing to do with value. If we are not valuable for what we do, where we are, or the things we depend on, do we draw intrinsic human value only from the fact that we are people?
Over the centuries the value of humans has been twisted, distorted, and completely removed.
In Nazi Germany, the government was deemed capable of determining humanity. Jews along with other groups, and those who opposed the regime, were brutally murdered, tortured and humiliated by a regime that claimed to have the power to bestow humanity. Even in America, we claimed to have this power, a land founded on the principles of bravery and freedom. Slavery cause the black man to be oppressed in America. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Injustice was again addressed by a group of brave and daring people, exactly one hundred years ago in the women’s suffrage movement. They were mocked, beaten and alone, challenged, and laughed at. These people were given no credibility, no credentials, and no respect. They faced unspeakable odds, they were outnumbered, out advocated, and educated. These women were determined, they had an unquenchable passion. The leaders of the early feminist movement were unstoppable and a were force to be recondite with. Seeing injustice and demanding, equal rights, aiming for hope, unity and equality. After a difficult fight they eventually accomplished their goals, obtaining equality for all, born and unborn.
Each hero fighting for social justice is part of a tapestry woven through the generations of humanity. A strand woven together, pulling at our deepest desires, beckoning our hearts cry, and weaving its way through the generations creating passion. Connecting us through a search for justice and inspiration from heroes. These heroes differ in personality, actions, and time period but they all fought for the human rights of society’s weakest members. Heroes of the Holocaust like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Corrie ten Boom. Throughout the generations, William Wilberforce, Harriet Tubman, and Martin Luther King Jr. along with countess others, fought against slavery. In the women’s suffrage movement, brave women like Susan B. Anthony fought for women’s rights and for the rights of members of society who were not yet born.
It is these heroes, their stories, and the battles they fought that points me to the answer I have been so desperately trying to find, they stand in the generations pointing me in the right direction, I only have to look. The common thread running through their very different time periods and life work reveals the answer. I stand at my window that late winter night with moon beams casting light on my face, and I breathe, I rest, relief washed over me. I can finally gasp the key that I so struggled to reach, I have my answer.
We are valuable because of who we are, it’s our humanity that gives us value. It is proclaimed through deep philosophy or the soft whisper of a child’s voice. An answer that is extremely complicated and deep, and yet strangely simple.
It is our God-given intrinsic human value that bestows our humanity. No one, not even yourself can take our value, for value is only ours to possess not to give or to takeaway. Our shared humanity enables us to reach, to accomplish, and to change the world. It is from this place of knowing our God-given value that we are inspired to work hard, become heroes, and change the world. However accomplishing this, or failure to do so can never change our value.
I am a prisoner freed.
Many would call my life an accident from my conception, my survival, and my birth to a single mother who was poverty-stricken, and sick. I don’t believe in accidents. I may have been abandoned and forgotten, but I was never alone or forsaken. My life, like yours and everyone else’s, was planned. If not by the parents by whom you were conceived but by God, the author of creation. He sees, He knows fully, He grasps our pain and suffering completely, but He promises to hold our hand every step of the way. I have finally begun to break out of my cold, damp, and dark prison cell of thoughts that are holding me captive. Again, I will seek truth, the God I cannot see or feel now is still with me because He never left.
Difficulty may have been in my past, but I will not allow the lies that took root, like a massive unmovable and unshakable tree, it will not allow it to steal my future. I will remind myself who I am and whose I am. I am loved, valued, and worth fighting for. I may be weak, but my weakness will not keep me out of the light I long to see again, I will escape and run in my new found freedom. The sun will again shine on my face and I will have joy, I will again feel the sand between my toes and hear the ocean waves roar as I bask in peace again. I will feel the cool mountain wind kiss my face as I rest knowing I am loved. I may be down, but I am not out. It will be hard but no battle worth fighting is easy to win.
Allow yourself to be changed by this incredible truth, because once you realize your incredible value you will be empowered to fight the battle to protect the intrinsic human value of weakest and most vulnerable members of your society. Only after you understand who you are will you be able to become a voice for those who have none, an advocate for the abandoned and forgotten. You will help to start a revolution, one that changes a society quietly and transforms it from the inside. Keep fighting for right on every level, unseen and greatly noticed, with your family, in your community, and though laws in your country. Share the key you have found, and help others to unlock their identity and find their value. Heroes both well known and unsung are the ones who truly change the world. Break down the walls that are holding you back, escape the barricades that are keeping you captive, defeat the lies that are surrounding you, stop telling yourself that you can’t, that someone else will, or that you could never change the world. Do not put it off until tomorrow, but start small today. You are no longer a victim, your hurt is your fuel, your past a propeller. Learn see yourself for who you are not what you once were. We are valuable because of who we are and we don’t have to earn it, but we are called to use every opportunity that has been given to us.
Work hard, it won’t come easy but nothing that’s worth fighting for. Be united by human values, and driven on a quest for justice and truth. Will you take the baton handed to you from previous generations, heroes who fought to end the Nazi regime, slavery, and injustice. Will you allow yourself to be changed by the intrinsic value we have and share it with others? Change society from the inside, be a part of the quiet yet powerful revolution. Will you speak out and step out on behalf of those who are forgotten or rejected? Will you be a voice for those who have none, a voice for the unborn? Be united by justice, discuss ideas, debate beliefs, change thoughts, and search for truth. Your voice, your actions, and your life on both large and small scales can be a part of a revolution started from the inside that make injustice in our society unthinkable. You never had to earn your value, and no one not even you can take it away. You are called and equipped to use it, because you, like me, are no longer victim, you are now a hero, you hold the power to change the world. Use it.
-Annie
