I first discovered Cefa, Romania on a visit to a small church in the village back in the 1990s. We were invited by their pastor. It was the hottest day of July – the year that Chicago had a heat wave that killed hundreds. At that time, the Baptista Romilor met in a small house – actually a shack – near the main road. Crowded into a room about 12 feet square, were about 30 people. There was only one window. A cow appeared there at one point during the service.

The heat was oppressive, but the spirit of those assembled to worship was celebratory – except for six Chicagoans who were a bit uncomfortable with the sardine-like surroundings. (You know, we Americans love our space. When we enter a waiting room occupied by one other person, we take the chair farthest away. The Eastern Europeans take the one adjacent to the person already there.)

So there we were, cramped in upon each other, hot as the hereafter, and singing “This is the day that the Lord hath made.” I remember a dirt floor, but that may be faulty. It would stand to reason based upon what I know of the Gypsy village today, but I am not sure. I do know that there was very little air circulating and I was seated very close to my neighbor.

We sang to the accompaniment of a cheap guitar and intense clapping. There was also a tambourine which was a prized possession of a dark-eyed Roma woman. Inverted, it became the offering plate for the day. (You could see the Americans, still unfamiliar with the Romanian currency, mentally struggling to know how much to place in the jingling plate. What I thought was $20, turned out to be less than $1.)

The time of prayer was moving. I have often said, after first hearing their prayers, that no group prays with the zeal of the Romilor. It is chant-like in delivery and punctuated repeatedly with “Ameen”(Amen) from those who are listening. Many times, the females who pray aloud, will accompany their litany with tears of joy or sadness. It is rare to hear a male voice. The Roma men are conspicuously quiet or simply not present at worship.

The sermon was delivered in the Romany tongue, so I could only imagine the theme. However, from time to time I did hear “Chicago” and figured we were either being extolled or exposed. (I have always felt that the Pastor would have preferred me to be more fundamental in my approach to my faith.) Either way, ignorance is bliss.

After the service ended, we greeted each other standing in the blazing July sun. The children chased the ducks that wandered by the crowd.

We crowded into the mini-bus and drove to an empty house about a half-mile away. The pastor had an idea for a new church building.

This building now houses THE HOMEWORK PROJECT. A wing has been added for bathrooms, a kindergarten, kitchen, and classrooms. Nearby is a shower facility so that the villagers can come to bathe. There is a playground for the kids. There is even a site to build a community center.

The original building from that hot July Sunday still stands near the main roadway. When I pass it, I am reminded of how things began and rejoice in the progress.

The Traveler

On my first visit to Romania, not long after the fall of Communism, I have a distinct memory of shadows and darkness. These lasting images were probably a result of too many films about life behind the “iron curtain” and too much John le Carré. The Eastern Bloc represented the great unknown. It was my frontier.

At that time, crossing into Romania by car was challenging. My group was bringing in a large amount of medical supplies to be donated to an orphanage. We had been warned that there could be questions and there could be consequences.

The line of automobiles and trucks was backed up for miles. It was not the Hungarians, but the Romanians causing the delay. Cars were overheating, sitting in the July heat. Often they had to be manually pushed out of the line. Especially the Dacias – the Romanian-built economy car.

As we passed easily through the Hungarian border check, we began the grueling wait to have the same success with the Romanians. The movement of the vehicles in front of us was snail paced. Trunks were opened, people inside vehicles were individually questioned, and some were asked to vacate the vehicle.

How would they react to our medical supplies?

We were next in line when the vehicle in front of us caused some suspicion and was pulled aside for greater scrutiny. A harried guard waved us through without anything but a cursory check of passports.

We were in Romania.

By this time, night had fallen and I began to see the shadows. Even the city park we passed looked ominous. Streetlights, when working, did little to dispel the bleakness of the night. At each intersection, haggard children – their faces aged from a life on the street - darted out of the shadows and approached the car for a handout.

At this time, the newspapers were full of stories about the number of abandoned children in Romania. It was estimated that upwards of a half-million had been deserted by their parents. In his effort to populate the country, Ceausescu had forbidden the use of contraception, and now families could not afford to feed the young. They would take them to the hospital, give a false name and address, and then never return to claim them.

It was a response of this crisis that prompted our visit.

Our aim was to volunteer for a private orphanage founded by the Queen of Sweden. We were there to provide labor in the building of a dairy to provide a food source for the children, and in time, training in a vocation for when they were old enough to leave the facility.

But this was the night before the daylight; the time of shadows.

The sun would reveal a different country – one capable, in time, of great beauty. There were soaring mountains in the distance. Village churches with onion spires were everywhere. I would discover the fields of sunflowers. I would encounter the haystacks that reminded me of those painted by Monet and Gypsy wagons with the young colt walking alongside the toiling mother.

But even in the daylight, you quickly saw a country struggling under the shadows of a terrible economy and years of abuse. Quickly erected apartment buildings already in decay. Steam pipes which ran above ground for miles from the generating plant, often broken. Even the guard towers that dotted the horizons of the now-abandoned collective farms, managed to cast shadows – maybe just in my mind – but still shadows.

The Traveler