LONGVIEW – Elena Martens was born in a small town south of Moscow, Russia. Little did she know life would lead her halfway around the world, where she now calls home.
 
Or does she?
 
Adopted by a family from Houston, along with her brother, Joshua, who was brought to Texas earlier from Romania by Craig and Lara Martens, Elena may call Texas home, but pressed into having to choose between wearing a jersey that represents the United States or Russia, she may have to defect, if you will.
 
"Ohh, that's a great question," she said. "I've honestly never thought about that. I want to say Russia because even though I've grown up in the United States my entire life, that's where I was born. That's my blood. The United States is all I know. Even though I don't know anything about Russia … I would have to say I would play for Russia. Even though the United States has brought so many opportunities that I know I wouldn't have gotten if I would have stayed in Russia, I just think that since that's my blood, and that's where I was born, even though it was for a short amount of time of me living there, I think it has been a really big part of who I am today. I would say it's pretty important to me."
 
Left in the hospital at birth, Martens grew up in an orphanage for seven months. At four months old, Craig and Lara Martens came to Russia to meet her. They stayed for a couple weeks before returning to Houston to process the official paperwork. She was officially adopted Sept. 11, 2002. Until this August when she officially became a member of the YellowJacket women's basketball team, she'd lived only in Houston since being brought to the United States.
 
Welcome to a new life at LeTourneau University.
 
"Elena is an amazing kid, and her story is very special," LETU coach Cassi Rozanski said. "She has discussed with us some about the conditions of the orphanage she was adopted from in Russia, and it's absolutely heartbreaking."
 
Let Martens explain.
 
"I know that the orphanage I was raised in for seven months was a very poor orphanage, and it was very poorly kept," she said. "My mom would always say that she would've never kept our dogs there. It was so bad. They would have to walk through ankle-deep water, sewer water to get to the babies. It was like baby on top of baby in this orphanage. All the cribs were right next to each other. They never took us out of our cribs. They just left us in there. When my parents came and got me, I wouldn't smile. People didn't hold us, so I wasn't a very social baby when they came. I didn't like being held. I hated everything about it. I hated going in strollers. And I had to go on a plane, obviously, to come home, and my mom said I cried the entire way home. Finally, when I got to Houston, I started realizing, 'This is how life is.' And I started smiling."
 
She's had a lot to smile about ever since. Given a better life by the Martens, Elena and her brother grew up with food on the table, parents who loved them, and opportunities were provided for them to choose the path in life they desired.
 
She doesn't know anything about her birth parents. Even her adopted parents don't. They believed they were young at the time of her birth, but even that's not for sure. The fact that it was a closed adoption makes discovering her birth parents even more difficult.
 
"My mom told me when they were over there, they were starting to close off adoptions from Russia to the United States," Martens said. "They wouldn't let paperwork get distributed to families."
 
The Martens have her Russian birth certificate, but that's about the extent of her embryonic days. Never knowing her birth parents never bothered Martens. She was curious about many things, but she never had breakdowns to the point where she felt like life just couldn't go on.

"Sometimes when I was growing up, I did have a lot of questions, but I didn't know how to ask them because I knew that they didn't know the answers either," Martens said, almost revisiting the idea of asking her parents again. "I know when it was my birthday, and I still think about it, 'I wonder why they gave me up? What was going on that was so bad that they didn't want to keep me? God put me in Houston for a reason, and my parents gave me up for adoption for a better life because they couldn't give me a better life. I'm thankful for that every day. I wouldn't be here if that didn't happen."
 
So now she's at LeTourneau, learning the ropes about being a YellowJacket. And while she's yet to step on the floor this season, and might not, she's growing in a flourishing women's basketball culture for a program on the rise.
 
"We are very excited God led Elena to us here at LETU," Rozanski said. "She's got a bright future on and off the court."
 
A nursing student who carried a 4.0 grade point average in high school, Martens has brains and basketball going for her. She has teammates who are good for her. She has a family she will be reunited with again at Christmas. And she has a YellowJacket community to settle in with in the meantime.
 
"My parents were always just the ones to push me to be the best basketball player I could be," Martens said. "They weren't very set on me going to college for basketball. They were set on me going to college for academics, and then it just kind of fell into play."
 
Following an injury as a freshman at Luthern High North, Martens was determined to play as a sophomore. She started that season and the next two afterwards. A Second Team All-District selection for three straight years, she was a member of the 2017 TAPPS 4A state championship team. Two years later, her team was the state runner-up. She earned academic all-state honors as a junior and senior. At Lutheran North, She played with Cydney Rivera, now a junior at Pepperdine. She had other teammates who moved on to play college basketball, so, yes, she was immersed with good talent around her. But she questioned whether basketball beyond high school was ever going to be in the cards.
 
"When I got to be a junior and senior, I didn't really think about going on to play basketball in college," Martens said. "I didn't think I was good enough to play college basketball. We were a really small school, so I didn't know if I could take it to the next level. Seeing all these clubs train at our high school … and seeing all these girls, some of the girls went to Baylor, all these big universities, and seeing them train, being able to do some of the same skills that they could do, I was like, 'Oh, if I just keep working at it, I'd be able to not go DI, and I know that, or DII, but maybe even just go DIII, and I'd be fine with that.' I was always an academics before athletics type of person. I would rather have straight As than have a starting spot on the team."
 
Welcome to LeTourneau.
 
"At first, it was kind of hard because I've never been this far from my parents," Martens said. "Definitely being on a team, and meeting everyone, it was kind of like I had my built-in family, walking in here. And then just getting close to everyone on the team has just been amazing."
 
Of course, bonding with teammates is one thing. Stepping on to the court and competing is something completely different. And while she doesn't know when her time will come, she confesses the butterflies have already started.
 
"I think I'm nervous and excited," Martens said. "I think I'm just nervous because it's a different pace than what I'm used to in high school ball. It's just completely different. I think it just shows how much I've been through, how I've gotten here, and sometimes I look back and say, 'How did I even get here?' How am I even on a college basketball team? Or even just at LeTourneau, like how did I even get here?"
 
How did she get here?
 
That's easy: Craig and Lara Martens, and a long plane ride.  
 
"I'm just grateful that they gave me and my brother that opportunity," Martens said.
 
Well Elena, as they say, opportunity knocks. You're a YellowJacket now.
 
Fear the Sting.