More People

Greetings,

Cheryl and I will be flying back to the States on Sunday, December 22.  We will leave Romania on December 19 and spend a few days in Budapest prior to our departure.  A few highlights in Budapest will be Thursday evening at the Hungarian State Opera House seeing The Nutcracker and Friday evening with our London friends Lubos and Daniela Brvenik.  The Brvenik's son Thomas enrolled at Hope College in the fall of 2012 and they stayed with us for three weeks while getting him settled.  We first met Lubos and Daniela while attending All Soul's Church in London during one of our London May term excursions.  Daniela's family is from Slovakia, so they will make a detour to Budapest on their way to celebrate Christmas with her family.

Silvia and John (Ioan)

Anticipating our evening with Lubos and Daniela highlight perhaps the greatest blessing we have received during our time in Romania, and in our previous travels.  You just simply never know who you will meet prior to leaving, so it is hard to imagine who will come into your lives.  I am lucky because Cheryl has a real gift for initiating conversations with new people and then she brings me into the conversations.  This allows me to get to know many more people than I would if I was on my own.  I guess this is one way in which two are better than one.  We wanted to introduce you to a few of the Romanian people who have adopted us into their community.

John and Silvia Fotea were the first couple we met.  They took us to dinner on our first evening in Oradea.  Cheryl had a whopping headache and could not stay awake and I was also dog tired after twenty hours of travel.  In spite of our rather feeble attempt at conversation, John and Silvia welcomed us with great energy, spoke wonderful English, and let us know that many were looking forward to our year at Emanuel.  Both John and Silvia are colleagues of mine at Emanuel.  John has the unpleasant task of trying to get me to do the things that the Dean has requested for me to do.  He is also the one I go to when I have questions about how things are done.  He may be the most excited for my departure as I am not sure if I have made his life better or more complicated.

Audriana and Ina

Cheryl's birthday cake

We have since spent many evenings with the Foteas.  They have had us over several times for dinner and games.  They introduced us to a Romanian game that is very close to Dutch Blitz.  We also had them over to our "place" and cooked tacos and one evening we treated for a special night out at KFC.  On most occasions we are treated to the company of Silvia's sister Ina, and at times Ina's roommate Audriana.  They add much joy and laughter.  Ina has been a great help to Cheryl when she needs a driver and advisor for some of her more complicated purchases.  Two weeks ago, all of them, including Silvia and Ina's brother Emi, surprised us with a dinner and cake on Cheryl's 29th birthday.

Carmen (right) with her sister and niece

Carmen Fagadar is also a colleague at Emanuel.  One of her duties is the development and promotion of Emanuel.  She is the "face" behind the University's facebook page.  We met Carmen during our first faculty meeting and she volunteered to be our interpreter.  We sure hope she was accurate as it was the only faculty meeting that we had for the semester.  Some of my colleagues at Hope might consider moving to Romania based on that bit of information.  Carmen's family has students over every Sunday evening for some home cooking and a loving environment.  Since we do most of our Face Time with family during Sunday evening, Carmen had Cheryl and I over during the day.  Romanians show their hospitality and love by the amount of food they prepare and serve.  Well, needless to say, we ate a lot of food.  It was wonderful.  And, when we were finished, we were sent home with enough food for an additional meal.

The Veduva family - Evi, Lois, Sebastian

My formal boss (I actually have several informal ones) at the University is Sebastian Veduva.  Sebastian was my first contact at Emanuel as we had several email and Skype conversations prior to my arrival.  He juggles a lot of responsibilities and probably accomplishes more in one day than I do in one week.  He has a real heart and passion for Emanuel as Sebastian has the talent and personality to do almost anything.  He has dual citizenship in Romania and America and his wife Lois is in the process of gaining her citizenship.  I so look forward to our return in the spring as I hope to spend some regular time with Sebastian trying to work through some implementation plans to move the management program into the future.  As a side note, you often make an impact in areas you never thought you would (note the sweater vest).

We spent an evening at the Veduva house sharing a meal and having a wonderful discussion that spanned many different topics.  I realize how much I miss these conversations as they occur on a regular basis with my colleagues and students at Hope.  One of the great downsides to the financial situation at Emanuel is that professors need to have at least two jobs in order to support themselves and their families.  This requires them to be away from campus most of the week, and when they are on campus, they are either teaching or behind closed doors trying to do research/writing.  I can see how the lack of collegiality impacts the quality of the program, the vitality of the teaching, and the student/faculty interactions.

Daria and Raelene

I will turn over the next paragraph to Cheryl and let her introduce two of her colleagues/friends.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, I get to spend 3 hours at Hospice Emanuel.   They have a staff of 5 nurses, 1 social worker, 1 psychologist, 1 doctor, 1 pharmacy tech/insurance expert, 1 in development, 1 receptionist/accountant and a director.  That makes 12 staff, and they do amazing things with little resources.  Raelene comes with me frequently.  She helps Hospice Emanuel with fundraising, child life projects and whatever needs to be done.  Raelene is an American that is married to a Romanian pastor/professor here at the University.  She has four delightful children that we have a lot of fun with.  Daria is the psychologist at Hospice.  She is my go to person to let me know what needs to be done that day.  I am not working as a nurse (do not have a license or work visa) but I enjoy being in the midst of the medical staff.    Usually I begin my time making medication packages, taking a 500 pill bottle and packaging it into envelopes of 30 or whatever number is needed for the medication.  I also divide up donated adult diapers ( :) new)  into sizes and bag them up. Trying out homemade Romanian dishes from the nurses and the patients is another task I do. :)  However  I can help, that is what I do.  I take a Taxi each way (about $3.50 one way)  I have had some very interesting Taxi rides, and drivers.  Hospice Emanuel has an inpatient/day center in the construction phase.  What a blessing that will be when it is done because much time is spent fundraising.

We hope this gives you a sense of the people who have surrounded us in the past three months.  At some future post we will tell you a little about Ciprian and Ramona, Corneliu and Ramona, Emanuel and Nadia, Monika, Ileana, Travis and Becky (and their two children who think of us as Papi and Nani), and perhaps a few we have yet to meet.  We hope to see many of you in person while we are back in Holland so our next post can be face-face.

Pace,

Cheryl & Tom