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.
The ministry that Anghe went to after leaving the orphanage was a Swedish ministry. There she met many people from Sweden and even learned to communicate on a conversation level in Swedish. Two of the volunteers she got close to ended up getting married and Anghe was at the wedding. The couple then moved back to Sweden and had a little boy and two years later a little girl. Shortly after the little girl was born the couple found out the woman had cancer. The children are now 4 years and 2 years old.
One of the big things we try to teach the girls is that they need to give to others, not just be on the receiving end all the time. We want them to learn that life is not just about them. Because of all the help this young couple had given to Anghe, she wanted to give back to them and go take care of the children while their mother was sick. Knowing how much she loved this couple and also how gifted she is with children, we told her she could quit her job and go help them as long as she wanted. Our ministry would cover her living expenses during this time as she was not able to work.
While living at our ministry Anghe did not like to cook. She always wanted someone else to cook. Maybe once a month she would break down and cook something. Now, while caring for the children, she has taken on the responsibility of cooking not only for the children but for the entire family. Every once in a while she will call and ask for a recipe she can fix. She has really stepped out of her comfort zone and taken on a lot of responsibility.
What a joy for us to see how far she has come. This is one of the times where you can see the potential in someone else that they cannot see in themselves. Anghe has become the young lady we knew she could be, she only needed confidence in herself.
