Eastern Europe, traces of communism, of restricted freedom.
Its crisp air, mountains, and gothic architecture: refined class we don’t have here in the United States.
This past Summer I visited friends at Impact Church in Oradea, Romania.
It’s difficult for me to find words that will communicates the sound of Oradea.
Stillness.
It’s the tangible slowness of sipping tea at home on a foggy morning.

Impact Church seeks to revitalize their city by renovating a community hospital, room by room.
The care and update to the rooms not only reminds the patients that they are cared for but it has reenergized and reinspired the medical staff.
From stagnant to vibrant.

 

Cory & Diana are a husband and wife team who are investing in the overlooked: girls who have aged out of the Romanian orphan system but who easily can return to a cycle of poverty because of a lack of education & resources.
I was treated to a home-cooked meal prepared by these gem of women.
Organic rabbit stew, veggies, and bread all grown from the backyard.
Weeks later I still dream of this warm meal.
Cory & Diana take in these young women into their home where they help them earn their high school diplomas and teach them life skills such as how to pay bills, retain employment, and even how to run a business.

 

 

And then there are those who have been historically the victims of prejudice, the gypsies.
Impact Church invests in an after-school program that is a safe space for gypsy children to learn music and access technology.
And a space for storytellers like me to come in and to be hugged and loved by these kids with an incredible light in their eyes.
A vibrancy that communicates cross-culturally in an unmistakable way.

My camera and I were in softened day after day to the good that we saw in Romania.
I left a little piece of me in Oradea.