A family’s hope and faith

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, April 8th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: International adoption. It can be a lengthy process in the best of times. Add a war to the mix, and things get really complicated.

REICHARD: WORLD Senior Writer Kim Henderson met a family working to adopt a set of siblings from one of the hottest war zones in the world: Ukraine.

SOUND: [Piano scales]

KIM HENDERSON, SENIOR WRITER: The Cirlot Home is full of life. Kids practicing piano. A cockatiel squawking . . .

SOUND: [Sound of bird, goat bleating, dishes taken out of dishwasher, overlapping voices]

. . . even baby goats bleating in the yard.

But Bryan and Anna Cirlot, along with their three biological children, want their place to be even livelier.

ANNA: This is the picture when they interviewed to come to America for hosting. And this is a picture that I actually saw.

Three years ago they came into contact with some orphans from Ukraine . . a set of four siblings in the U.S. through a hosting program. The Cirlots soon got on board with adopting all four of them. But then Anna noticed the family photo taken in an orphanage included six children.

ANNA: So I was like, “Wait, are there six or there four?” And nobody knew the answer at first . . .

The children cleared things up with the help of a translator.

ANNA: We found out, no, it was not six. They were saying seven.

Seven siblings in need of a forever family. But now they were back in Ukraine, more than 5,000 miles away.

Bryan Cirlot is a pastor. He says the idea of adopting seven kids all at once was daunting at first. But he believes God had a special reason for blessing his family with a 14-acre farm.

BRYAN: We've certainly used it to host church events and just to practice hospitality as much as we could. But I think this is just the culmination of that, that we would be hospitable to a whole family of children that could come and be part of our family . . .

In February 2022, the Cirlots hired a lawyer and started the adoption process. Then Russia invaded Ukraine. The Cirlots joined a list of 200 other American families in Ukrainian adoption limbo.

The Cirlots’ biological daughter, Abby, was 14.

ABBY: I remember that pretty vividly, because it also coincided with the birth of a bunch of lambs. I remember mom saying we need to name one of the lambs “hope” in Ukrainian.

The Cirlots found out the Ukrainian children evacuated to refugee orphanages in Poland and Italy. They were desperate to help them. They contacted the U.S. government. The Ukrainian government.

They even visited the children.

ANNA: We had a contract with an agency that was recognized in America, and because we had that, it gave us opportunities to go into these refugee orphanages that we wouldn't normally have.

They brought medicine and food for the orphanage. They brought each of their adoptees stuffed animals and clothes. Pajamas, too . . .

ANNA: Because orphans don't have pajamas. That's a huge deal to them.

It was a time of deepening connections with their yet-to-be -legally -adopted children. The Cirlots already thought of them as their children.

Anna was distraught by the overwhelming needs she saw in the orphanages. She calls the Ukrainian orphan crisis “catastrophic.”

ANNA: There are so many children without homes, with no hope of ever being adopted. They're vulnerable. There are predators out there that are waiting for them online.

The Cirlots were particularly concerned for the oldest child, who goes by the name Daisy now. Her situation was dangerous. They hired a Christian attorney in Ukraine to expedite her adoption through a refugee program. She arrived in the U.S. in November, 2022.

SOUND: [Daisy singing, Brian playing guitar, laughter]

These days, Daisy is thriving.

The Cirlot family with their family including Daisy (right) in the U.S. Photo courtesy of Anna Cirlot

Meanwhile, it’s been a rollercoaster ride for the Cirlots. Three years of lobbying officials, visiting the children, telling their story.

They’re able to communicate with their Ukrainian children because they left cell phones with them.

ANNA: We have interruptions all day long, because our time zone is different than theirs.

Anna gives an example of what it’s like to parent one of the girls halfway across the globe.

ANNA: She had changed her profile picture to this character that was very inappropriate. And so I reached out to her, and I was like, “Hey, sweetheart, this is not a good picture to post. This isn't appropriate. We need to change it.”

Anna says the girl, her daughter, was angry at first. But in the end, she understood Anna was demonstrating love for her.

And it’s not just the Cirlots’ adoptees that call. Other children in the orphanage do as well.

ANNA: They just are so desperate for human connection that just to see a mother pick up the phone and answer it and look at them before they giggle and hang up is enough. So the Ukrainian orphan crisis is absolutely devastating, and I don't think people realize how bad it is.

AUDIO: Hey, Pax man, I think you have bread ready. [beeping machine] Is it ready?

Life goes on for the Cirlots. This afternoon, their 12-year-old is baking, and slicing, bread.

SOUND: [Sound of electric bread slicer]

He serves it around an 11-foot table Bryan built out of pine.

BRYAN: It's white washed on the surface, just butt-jointed the boards together, glued it, and assembled it in place . . .

Bryan built it at the beginning of their adoption journey. It’s been a long wait to see it filled.

ANNA: We've actually talked about disassembling the table at times, because it's so painful to see the empty chairs every single day over years. I decided it was an act of faith to keep it up, and that it was just showing our hearts' intention before the Lord. And we were just going to trust Him to fill the seats again.

They’re praying for an end to the war, and an end to Ukraine’s suspension of international adoption.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in Gautier, Mississippi.

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