An Issue of Motivation

Anya was checked into the hospital a few weeks ago on Monday to have her cast removed and start physical therapy.  The first time we saw her after that was Friday. We had tried to see her on Wednesday but it was a holiday and the visiting hours were earlier, so an angry nurse chased us out the door. Who knew?
As soon as we saw her, I wanted to know how much progress she had made in working the stiffness out of her leg. So, I asked her to show me how far she could bend her knee.
She wouldn’t show me. 
It’s not like I asked once and let it go.  I was a broken record,  I demonstrated with my own knee.  I elaborated.  I started the whole process over again. We were there for and hour and a half;  I bet I asked 30 times minimum. 
She just shrugged and said, “Potom.”  Which means, later.
We did convince her to hop off the bed and we helped her walk into the hall where we played Uno, but the whole night she didn’t try to bend her knee. 
Sunday morning, Ira, Roma and Nadia, some of the kids from Safe Haven, went up to visit her and later told us the same story. 
Her therapists said she needed to be doing little exercises all day and the doctor said that the more she exercised  the better the results will be in the long run.  She needed to be exercising all the time … but she wouldn’t.
She didn’t feel like it. 
I know, I can’t really compare myself to Anya.  I didn’t live 14 years with a  pronounced limp. And I’ve never worn a cast that covered about 40% of my body for about a month, but I did have cast on my arm for most of a month and that whole time I didn’t use my arm for fear of ripping all kinds of muscles and never being able to play guitar or type or throw a frisbee. So, while I don’t know exactly what Anya is going through right now, I do have a decent idea.  When I started PT for my arm, I would slowly bend and straighten my arm all day long.  About a month after my arm was out of my cast I did my first pull-up, and I’ve been doing them since.  I worked hard to get my body back into shape, and it paid off. 
So, it was naturally frustrating to watch Anya as she … did nothing. 

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This isn’t the only area where we have seen that Anya has a deeply ingrained lack of motivation. 

She lived in Smile House with six Americans for over a month.  It was the perfect opportunity for her to learn English.  So every time I talked with her, I would try very hard to always speak in English and then repeat myself in Russian, so that she could start to learn some English.

Almost every time I saw her I would ask, “How are you?”  Then, I would repeat it slowly and clearly.  

She would then give me a confused look, and I would translate it into Russian. “Kak dela?”

She answers in Russian “normalna”. 

I would say, “In English, pa Angleesky”

She answers, “Ah  … mmm … normal?”

And then I would say, “I am normal, or I am fine.”  and then had to repeat myself three or four times before she would repeat after me.

The last time I saw her we had this same conversation.  She never even learned that basic part of a conversation.  The only real English she worked on was her numbers, but she only worked on that when I pushed her and still can’t count beyond 10 without numerous prompts. 

The crazy thing is, she’s been taught English in school for a few years.  But all of the kids at the orphanage only know a few little phrases like, “Hello, my name is ____.  Who is this?” 

Her lack of motivation touches everything.  When she was in a cast, I built her a bed on wheels so we could get her out of her room and let her do more things.  In the three weeks she was here, she never once asked us if we would put her on the bed.   She never once asked if she could get out of her little bed in the corner.  We always had to take the initiative. 

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Part of me gets frustrated with her.  She really needs to try harder … at everything.  But in so many ways she is just a product of her upbringing.  First off she and her siblings are growing up in the orphanage even though they have parents.  While she was in the hospital, time after time Anya’s mom would say that she was coming to visit, but time after time it just didn’t happen.  I know that type of thing would wear on me.  We all usually grow up to be like our parents, for better or worse. 

And the other day after graduation, Doug took a whole van load of kids home from the orphanage that just happened to live in the same neighborhood as Anya’s mom.  It’s a part of the poor village culture here.  Doug says that a lot of the parents think that the responsible thing to do is try and get their kids into the orphanage so that they have plenty of food to eat, go to school, have clothes.   It’s a twisted form of logic, but a lot of families buy into it, and then they don’t have to be as responsible. 

And as far as education goes, we knew that Anya was going to miss a month of school at minimum, so the week after she was checked into the hospital, Doug asked her teachers if they could send her books and put together some lesson plans so she could try and keep up a little with her schoolwork.  The staff replied that he shouldn’t worry, they would just catch her up when she returned. 

We couldn’t see how that would work at all.

But not long ago, I glanced through the first few pages of the graduating classes English book.  It was crazy, if they understood even a quarter of what was in that book then I should be able to sit down and have a good conversation in English with anyone in that class. 

Guess how many conversations in English I’ve had with kids at Komrivka?  Zero.

A few weeks back, I did talk with two of the graduating boys and tried to teach them some English.  It was like starting from the beginning. 

In the school, they push through the language books, they cover the material, whether or not anyone in the class understands what they have covered.  They do that in all the subjects.  That’s why some of the kids in early grades can’t tell me what 8+7 is. 

And to be honest, why should the kids try?  They are just going to be poor, never find good work, and their own kids will probably grow up in the orphanage.  That’s how so many people see it.  This cycle has been happening for years and years. That’s life.

In the eight or nine years Doug has been working with the orphanage, one girl has gone on to graduate from university.  One.

These kids can rise above their surroundings, but it takes a defiant determination.  Most people don’t have that. 

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And that is the biggest challenge we have with our transition homes, with our ministry to these kids from the orphanage.  We have to challenge them to be motivated.  We have to encourage them to succeed.  We have to push them to rise above their upbringing and become all that God created them to be. 

That is a huge task.  We need God to bless us with a defiant determination.