Four days ago, Nadia Humnytska, 8, was sleeping in a neat but sparsely supplied Ukrainian orphanage in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains.
Her meals, say those who have visited homes for orphans in the area, were often buckwheat, sausage and cherry or plum juice. Her bedroom, a dormitory for about a dozen girls.
But Nadia`s life has just changed drastically. Under a program directed by a Lutheran missionary organization, 124 Ukrainian orphans ages 5 to 15 this week began a four-month visit with Chicago, southern Wisconsin and Detroit-area families to escape hardships brought on by winter and the collapse of the Soviet regime.
”Certainly, the conditions there are a lot different from the conditions here,” said Rev. Matthew Luttman, an associate director of Thoughts of Faith, a Lutheran missionary group based in Stoughton, Wis., who visited western Ukraine this month. ”There just isn`t much there.”
On Wednesday, Nadia played with her 7-year-old brother, Yaroslov, in a spacious living room adorned with Ukrainian art in Chicago`s Sauganash community. The frail older sibling said she felt especially comfortable in the home because the family is Ukrainian-American and speaks her language.
”Everything is nice,” said Nadia, when asked about her impressions of Chicago and her temporary home.
The comfortable brick house could become more than temporary for Nadia and her brother. Like many of the families who have taken in the children, Orysia Demianczuk, the children`s hostess, is consulting with attorneys about permanent adoption.
The Humnytska children and the other orphans made their trek to Chicago on Tuesday in a 19-hour trip, including a five-hour delay. Adult passengers on the plane say the children laughed, chatted, slept and persistently beckoned flight attendants with their call buttons. At least one had a bout of nausea. Several others were overcome with tears of fear.
”They were very lively,” Marek Kawczynski, a manager with LOT Polish Airlines, said, shaking his head with exasperation moments after getting off the plane with the children.
After customs checks, baggage claims and numerous headcounts at O`Hare International Airport on Tuesday night, the children were whisked to a ceremony at the Ukrainian Cultural Center at Chicago and Oakley Avenues. A crowd of about 700 people greeted the children with speeches and applause before each child was tagged with a number and paired with a host family.
Member of Thoughts of Faith began working about 12 years ago in Ternopil, an agricultural center of 125,000 in western Ukraine. When the Soviet Union collapsed, members said, homes for orphans, the elderly and the homeless were the first to suffer from shortages of food and medical supplies.
Directors of the missionary group conceived the plan to raise money for the orphans` visit in November. The organization contacted the volunteers through Ukrainian and Lutheran churches.
Over the last two months, the volunteer families have attended regular sessions on caring for the children. Some have participated in special language classes. Organizers say they also hope to ease the adjustment of the children by having Ukrainian speakers visit the homes.
In addition to improving the lives of the orphans, organizers say they hope the project will tighten the links between Ukrainians and Americans, especially those of Ukrainian descent.
Many of the hosts are of Ukrainian ancestry, and 68 of the 100 families have fluent Ukrainian speakers in their homes.
About half the children will live in the Chicago area, many in the Ukrainian Village community loosely bordered by California Avenue, Division Street, Damen Avenue and Ohio Street. According to the Ukrainian Cultural Center, Chicago has the second-largest Ukrainian community in the United States. Philadelphia has the largest.
”For so long there was so little contact between the two countries,”
said Demianczuk, a homemaker. ”Now the doors are open. That`s what makes this so nice.”
Wally Goncharoff, a Ukrainian-American host of two orphan girls, said he and his wife already have begun learning new Ukrainian words in conversations with their young charges.
”Our Ukrainian is frozen in time from 50 years ago,” said Goncharoff, graduate admissions director of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. ”I`m learning from them.”
Goncharoff and his wife, like many of the other families, are planning trips to the zoo, park and sports events for the children.
