We experienced this for the first time many years ago when Benjamin went off to Bible collage, and then got married. We should be a little more relaxed now, Benjamin has done so well, and we are so proud of him and his family.. it all turned out OK... I remember when He came to me worried about tuition, I told him that the decision for his future should not be only based on money, and that he should worry about what he wanted to do, and that I would worry about the money... He received a full scholarship, so I kind of dodged the bullet there... next up was Altynai, no sooner had we decided to tell her the same thing, that we would be the ones to do the worrying, and a two year scholarship was provided for her.. Then the next up is Emma.. she is a little different... she paid her own way through the ESL training at a local university, and she packed up and moved to Kyrgyzstan... who are we to argue with that...
This summer, many of our kids have completed high school in Kyrgyzstan and are trying to decide what to do next. We took a big gulp, and have told many of them the same thing... You worry about where you want to go to school and I will worry about the money...
That was easy to say last spring, but now that it is time to start sending out the deposits, things are starting to mount...
It would be easy to just step back and say that the money was just not there, but these kids have one chance at breaking the cycle of poverty, and that is a good education... We have toughed them to have hopes and dreams... now it is time to bight the bullet....
Aiperi will be returning to her second year of sewing and administration school... 
Luba has a storey that continues to make me ill today... Yet she has been able to trade her sorrows for joy... I don't know where she will decide to go, but I do know that this is one girl that is not going to be "sold off" to some school where they will own her for ten years.... She will never be "sold" again !
Of course you know our Altynai and her family... this year, her scholarship has run out, and if the timing was not bad enough so has the scholarship for her siblings ...
Larisa and Tanya continue to go to school again this year to work on their social work degrees as well as linguistics...
Ahh and our Torat... "He is such a good boy"... wise beyond his years, and forced to grow up way to fast, Torat has struggled with weather to return to school or get a job. The school that he was interested in has closed, and it looks like the closest one is in Kiev... we are looking into that. Sergey and Anya will have a good talk with him and make sure that this is what he would like to do... if it is , we will be looking at the mountains to GET OUT OF THE WAY ...
Our dear sweet Jildez, she is such a beautiful tender young girl.. I am sure she is being pressured to take a path that is not the direction she wants to go... She has great musical talent, but being an orphan growing up in a very poor orphanage, she never had an opportunity to develop that talent... she dreams of attending music school... I want that dream to come true
Then there is Shakir.. He his a fun kid, he is always quick to help out, and has a real heart to share. His mother is the assistant director of one of the orphanages, and any extra that their family has is always put back into the orphanage to help make ends meet... he has had to sacrifice a lot for the sake of the orphans around him, I would hate to see him have to sacrifice his future too. We talked to him, and he would like to become a customs agent. This is a good job in Kyrgyzstan, but the collage course is an expensive one.. I think it is because you do come out with a job. It got a whole lot more expensive when I got notice yesterday that today was the last day to register, and that 1/2 the years tuition had to be in with his application. Not only that but they are a half day ahead of us so it actually was tomorrow ... gulp... thank goodness for Western Union ... Once the dust settles, I am sure that there are a few more kids that we will need to steer back onto the right track, and a few more who's funding has not come together for them, and that with stretch things a little further . All in all, my guess that this years scholarships total will come in around $3500. I guess we will know better as September approaches. really it is not a lot... if you say it fast...
I am always trying to teach these kids to put faith in their fathers provision... something that I have had to do a hole lot of recently, but have never been let down yet... I HOPE that this is a lesson that they will learn.
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