Anghe's Story
Anghelina (Anghe – pronounced An-gay) was raised in an orphanage in Romania. Her orphanage at one time had as many as 1,000 children. Basically while she was there it was children raising children. The older children would make the rules and control the younger. In school, because they were orphans, they went to a “special” school where they really were not taught much. She completed high school and received her diploma but she can only read and do basic math. Now as she looks back she is very frustrated that she did not learn more and feels like the school cheated her.
Her greatest gift in life is that she loves children and is exceptionally gifted in working with them. One summer on vacation while she was playing in the swimming pool a group of Russian children came to the pool. They did not speak the same language but within minutes she had them all playing a game with rings that are tossed into the pool and they have to be retrieved. She played with the children for hours. Every day thereafter the Russian children would come to the pool and look for Anghe.
We went to work with the refugees in Serbia. We spoke with Anghe a lot about what to expect and what she would do. When we got to the refugee camp she noticed that there were lots of children who had nothing to do to keep them busy. She found some coloring books and crayons and got all the children to start coloring pictures. She then hung the pictures all around the tent. During the day when the weather was nice she became the Pied Piper and was running around with the children. We would see Anghe run through the tent and about 10 seconds later here came 20 children. She was able to brighten the lives of those refugee children, if even only for a short period of time during their long travail to their final destination.