Tatiana’s story
Tatiana’s childhood years in Transnistria, Moldova, were filled with suffering. She grew up as an orphan, living in a residential school, and has had epilepsy since childhood. When she aged out of the institution, she graduated into an adult world for which she was dangerously unprepared. Like too many vulnerable women, she fell pregnant to a young man who swiftly abandoned her, and she gave birth to her first son, Vlad.

In the years that followed, Tatiana battled life as a single mother in desperate poverty. She had another baby son, this time to a violent man who beat Tatiana so badly that she suffered a stroke and spent a month in hospital. Young Vlad, at just 12 years old, found himself the man of the house. While his mother was hospitalised, he took his little brother to kindergarten each day, and shopped for groceries, all while managing to make it to his own classes at school.

Despite his courageous efforts, it was a desperate situation for the small family. When Tatiana recovered from her injuries, she looked at her home, in very bad repair and unsafe for children, and she knew she needed help. At that point, our friends in Moldova began providing the help Tatiana and her children needed, by supplying the goods to renovate their home to a livable standard, as well as helping them with emotional and other kinds of support.

Reversing the risk
Tatiana’s story is repeated over and over again among the many vulnerable people in this troubled region. In fact, truth told, they are far from the worst. In fact, the worst stories are those that we will never hear. They come from teenagers who graduate from orphanages and institutions with nowhere to live, no support network, job or any sort of training, and make easy prey for human traffickers or crime rings, absorbed into a dark world from which they may never emerge.

Heart4Orphans (H4O) began walking alongside highly vulnerable children even while still in institutions, helping find foster families, and supporting those foster families. They run programmes teaching life skills, job skills and counselling for trauma or neglect. Crossroads has shipped goods to them many, many times, goods that support their job training and employment programmes, like sewing classes or thrift stores, which give jobs to vulnerable youth.

In the past, Crossroads specially commissioned Christmas cards, to be made by young women employed with Heart4 Orphans. We were grateful for the chance to share the hope that their stories represent with our thousands of Christmas card recipients around the world, and indeed investing in literal terms in their lives through the production of the cards.