Romania: In the Fall, After the Fall (of Communism)

The first time I laid eyes on Romania in person was 1992, in the autumn. Fall colors, blended in with grand old buildings, and busy shoppers in vegetable piazzas and obsolete state-run shops. There was a faint smell of burning leaves. Circling the classical city-centers, were nondescript communist-era apartment monstrosities called “blocs.” Encircling them wafted faint smells of uncollected garbage.

Nevertheless it was a surreal, magical feeling to take it all in. I had long dreamed of being there...for real. We had been thinking, researching, making contacts, and finally putting together the itinerary that would land us there. Literally! We had arrived.

The purpose of our visit was to “get the lay of the land” as it pertained to possibly moving there as medical missionaries and humanitarian workers with our young family. Shelley and I felt like we were in a dream, not because things were perfect, they certainly weren’t, but because what we had only seen on television screens, newspapers, and in books were vividly displayed all around us.

We took in every scene and tried to envision us with our four small daughters, living, not just visiting, there. Many of the prospects were, quite frankly, sobering. Considering the ravaged medical system with its AIDS-tainted blood supply and the practice of re-using hypodermic needles, now a thing of the past, was something we tried not to think about.

Only three years before our visit, a tyrannical dictator, Nicolae Ceauşescu, and his monstrous wife, Elena, had been deposed during a popular uprising and summarily tried and executed by a “kangaroo court” of military officers. Their 40-year reign of terror had been repressive and brutal. It was a time when a dissident journalist might be placed in a room and, unbeknownst to them, exposed to dangerous radiation levels. Priests and pastors might disappear.

Christians were discriminated against, mocked, denied jobs or college entrance, beaten, and sometimes killed. Churches not sanctioned by the regime had to meet in hiding. To help with a shortage of toilet paper, Bibles were shredded, not very efficiently, into the paper pulp. Sometimes you could still read verses here and there in the rolls. Unyielding intellectuals were frequently “invited” to leave the country, families left behind.

ABC News did a shocking undercover exposé of hidden State orphanages for “Irrecoupables” (disabled) where conditions were filthy and treatment often inhumane. While Ceauşescu called it “Epochul de Aur” (The Golden Age), it was a dark epoch for most.

The State had been everything; the individual was effectively annihilated. Except those in the communist party, who were sycophants, slavishly bowing to the dictators. It was a little bit like C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, frozen by a wicked ruler where it was “always winter, but never Christmas.” But having been liberated by the Lion Aslan, Narnia slowly thawed and the oppressed citizens were tentatively and cautiously coming out from hiding. Ironically, the Ceauşescus were executed on Christmas Day...and the thaw began.

That was Romania in 1992. Behind the European postcard facade there was a lingering hidden fear and a mentality of oppression. The economy, the infrastructure and populace were in tatters. Romania had become, not only dysfunctional, but in many respects, non-functional. 40 years of brain-numbing authoritarianism had wiped out most individualism or initiative in the people. Those qualities made them a threat to “the State”, and to the evil Ceauşescus.

People had stood in long lines for one bottle of milk or a single loaf of bread. The notorious dictators had nine palaces (with gold-plated bathroom fixtures) and were building a monstrous new palace for themselves, the largest building in Europe, and second in size to the U.S. Pentagon.

Seeing all those vestiges of the communist era, and the horrible after-effects, was a little intimidating, but, thankfully didn’t deter us from committing the next three years to life in Romania, helping to re-build a facet of the healthcare system from 1993 to 1996.

It was a hard, but precious time. We were enriched so much by the warm-hearted people and the fervent churches, and stunned by the beauty, albeit shabby and crumbling here and there. I left a big part of my heart there. I love to return for visits again and again!