So we did. And that night, I met my daughter.

Nastia is a 15-year-old orphan from Ukraine. She has dark hair and dark eyes that I can tell are always analyzing every situation. She loves art and photography. She loves sports. She cannot speak English yet, but she does speak Ukrainian, Russian, Italian and a little Spanish.

She fights for the underdog. Literally. Her cousin, who was adopted by a couple in our area two years ago, told us that some boys killed a dog in the street once. Nastia found out about it and beat up the boys. God, I love that girl.

We did not plan to adopt an older child. But she is whom we connected with, whom we fell in love with. Nastia is one of 147 million orphans around the world. Now, she will be one less.

In the Ukraine, when children in the orphanage reach 18, they “graduate,” hopefully to a job. But the statistics, especially for girls, are sad. Sixty percent end up prostitutes or in the sex trade, and 10 percent commit suicide.

The first night we met Nastia, short for Anastasia, we knew there was something special about her. My husband David and I talked about her the whole way home that night.

The second night we were there, we found out she had a cousin, also named Nastia, who had been adopted two years ago, with another teenager named Nadia, and lived 20 minutes away from us. We were able to talk to her cousin’s parents, and got the lowdown on the process. That was only the beginning. When we left, our Nastia hopped up to hug us goodbye. Knowing I wouldn’t see her for a few days, I cried all the way home.

That’s when I really knew. And that’s when we made the call. We wanted to make her our daughter.

Over the three weeks we spent with kids at the Bridges of Faith camp known as Bridgestone, we went on outings with them, ate dinner with them, even served as house parents for a night. We got to know, not only Nastia, but all of the children.

There are things these kids have been through that would break most American children. Stories of abuse and abandonment, life in a somewhat godless society, life where they have to fend for themselves – stories that I cannot repeat here.