Girls reborn as Americans

Orphans from Moldova celebrate Easter with their adoptive family

Seven months ago, the Elder girls, Victoria and Emily, didn't know a word of English. They had no idea what a family was. They had never attended a church. These days the girls speak English with only the slightest echo of an accent. They adore their parents and obey them as any 5- and 3-year-old would. As for church, when the Elders miss a Sunday, the girls ask, "Aren't we going to church today?"

As Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, the Elder girls are celebrating their first Easter -- a season of new traditions, a new culture, and a new life.

For the people who brought them to this season -- their adoptive parents, Ann and David Elder -- this Easter is also new. They see it with the freshness of the girls' eyes and feel the power of a world transformed.

This morning, instead of to their two-room orphanage, the girls will be going to St. Francis United Methodist Church, outfitted in new dresses -- Victoria, or "Torrey", in lime, Emily in lavender. Later on there will be eggs to find in the Elders' two-story Cary home and a chocolate cross for each of the girls to eat.

Just as they did at Christmas, the Elders will guide the girls through the holiday and explain each of the traditions.

Already, Torrey has caught on.

Recently, when Ann Elder told Torrey she could pray to Jesus whenever she wanted -- not only before meals and at bedtime -- Torrey replied, "Oh yes. I know."

When Ann Elder told her praying also involves listening, Torrey understood that, too.

"I listen to what he said," she told her mother.

"What did he say?" she asked.

"He said he loved me very much," Torrey replied.

Blessed but burdened

Four years ago, Ann and David Elder looked around and saw they had all they needed: a good job, a comfortable home, three loving children.

They felt blessed and at the same time burdened. After praying about it, they considered adopting a child. David, who is 44, and Ann, who is 42, weren't interested in a baby. They mainly wanted to help an orphan who had not had the good fortune they had.

"We'd been given so much," said David Elder, a marketer for GlaxoSmithKline. "We felt this was a way we could give back."

The adoption agency they picked suggested the former Soviet state of Moldova, the poorest of the Eastern European countries, a sliver of a country sandwiched between Romania and the Ukraine.

Carolina Adoption Services had already arranged a dozen Moldovan-North Carolina adoptions as part of a continuing partnership between the two states. They offered the Elders Victoria, a 5-year-old with ash blonde hair and big brown eyes. A few days later, the agency called back. There was a problem. The orphanage just realized Victoria had a younger sister. Would the Elders take her, too?

Ann already knew more than half the population of Moldova lived below the poverty level. She knew too, that at age 16, the orphanage lets the children go.

"The harsh reality," she said, "is that children aging out of the orphanage are susceptible to [human] trafficking."

In one conversation with David, the couple agreed to adopt both girls.

In August, Ann Elder flew to Moldova while David stayed home with their three biological children: Elyse, 16; Elly, 13; and Peyton, 9. On the playground outside the orphanage, Ann tried to communicate with Victoria and Emily in the few words she had learned in Moldovan, a form of Romanian with a bit of Russian mixed in. She shot pictures with a Polaroid camera and played with the girls on the slide. By the third day, Emily, who was reserved and shy, began to smile.