“My whole life, I was
told that we were one of the richest nations on earth, but now I see that we are one of the poorest. It’s like my whole life has been wasted.”
That comment marked one of the saddest and most poignant moments of my life. Here’s the story.
At one point in our life together, my wife, Coleen, and I were foster parents. Over the years we had 19 foster children of various sexes, races, and physical and emotional disabilities. One of those was Michael, who arrived in our home as a 17-year-old refugee from Albania, which was then the most closed and repressive
socialist country in the world.
Michael had escaped the regime by swimming across a portion of the Adriatic Sea and eventually landing in a UN refugee camp in what was then Yugoslavia. During the time that Michael was in our home, the regime fell in Albania and the country opened up. Michael was able to speak with his parents via a phone
in the village where his family lived.
One thing leads to another, and a couple of years later Coleen and I visited his parents in their village in the remote foothills in Albania. We eventually hosted John, Michael’s 80-ish father, for a couple of weeks in our
home.