Our first afternoon at Stella's House with some of the young ladies who live there.
It is not often that Trustees get to spend a week with Monmouth College students and staff, let alone a week in an environment that is so incredibly different from all of our “normal” daily lives. But, that was exactly the case for me last week as I traveled with six MC students in Moldova. The students included four May graduates and two returning students.
It was a life changing experience for everyone on the trip, but for different reasons than any of us had anticipated beforehand. The MC group had set goals in advance focused on citizenship, service and learning, which were met and often exceeded in unexpected ways.
Last September I was in Moldova working with the Cameron’s who are striving to change the lives of orphans. Their work at Stella and Simon Houses focuses on saving the lives of teenage girls and boys who upon being forced out of orphanages in the year of the sixteenth birthday often end up victims of sex/slave trafficking. If you are interested in learning more about this you can visit www.stellasvoice.org
The impact of the trip was not only in the service work or the historical-cultural learning but in the relationships and bonding that occurred between the MC students and the young men and women from Stella/Simon’s Houses. The MC students saw firsthand the poverty stricken “homes” and conditions in which these kids grew up as well as the institutional state “care” orphanages where they all ended up living. They were shocked at what they saw and many of them thought they had stepped back in time….that was some of the learning part.
What impressed the MC group in a mighty way was seeing that these young people were not bitter, sullen or angry because of the love of God shown through the Camerons. These kids are truly part of the Cameron’s family. They are caring. loving and intelligent people with hope, love and concern for each other, and the world around them. They want to change the situation in Moldova for all orphans, not just themselves.
They have “SPERANZA!” This is the Moldovan word for HOPE. They shared this hope through their actions and love toward the Monmouth group and the MC students were moved to share it with them. Friendships were forged, there were talks about future possibilities for each other both in Moldova and the US. They shed tears and prayed together. It was incredible to watch this spiritual and emotional bonding take place. It was global citizenship being created at the best level.
Many tears were shed as we prepared to leave on our last morning there. Tears of “SPERANZA AND JOY”. One of the MC students put it best, “we came here because we thought they needed us….but we need them in America and at Monmouth.
Now that is learning on a global scale!
David Byrnes, 72
Chairman, Monmouth College Board of Trustees.
Here are a few statistics from our trip:
Mary Stahl
What a wonderful experience in Moldova! We were kept very busy and had limited access to the Internet so our blog posts have been sparse, but more will be added so stay tuned.
We made it back to the U.S. this evening and are staying in Boston for the night. This was not our original plan, but one thing we have learned is to be be flexible. We thought we would be landing in Chicago at just about this time (10:00 p.m. Sunday), but we had a couple travel difficulties today. The new plan is to board a plane a little after 7 tomorrow morning and to be in Chicago by noon tomorrow.
We are all safe, we are glad to be home in the U.S., we have many new friends in Moldova and this is just the beginning of the story…
The Monmouth College Globetrotters – Mary Stahl, Polly Timmerman, Whitney Bergren, Noelle Burks, John Cayton, Natalie Lister, Mary Schuch, Sarah Stinson
We had lunch and played basketball with the boys at Simon's House before visiting a nearby orphanage.
Noelle and Natalie with Danu at Cupcui Orphanage.
We helped Vadim celebrate his 12th birthday!
John and Mary helping organize items at Cupcui Orphanage.
Yesterday morning we had an opportunity to visit Simon’s House. This was the first house that the Camerons built and was originally Stella’s House. Now there are 13 boys living there. We had a delicious lunch with them of traditional Moldovan soup and salad. Then, we went outside and taught the boys to play Knock-out. They loved to play basketball and soccer. We played for quite a while until we had to leave to visit the Straseni orphanage where our good friends Dasa and Natalie lived before they came to Stella’s House. When we first got there we saw a bench outside the school building. This bench is very significant to the girls that have come from there. When Philip was there right after starting Stella’s House, there were 18 girls sitting on the bench. The director of the orphanage said that they all had to leave because they were too old to stay at Straseni any longer. Philip only had three beds left in the house and had to choose only three of those 18 girls. It was the hardest decision he ever had to make.
Dasa took us on a tour of the rest of the orphanage. We saw the school building and the dormitories. Dasa showed us the room that she used to live in and told us some stories of memories that she had in many of the rooms in the building. The whole experience was eye-opening as we saw the tiny rooms and the thin matresses that they slept on. We had hoped to spend some time playing with the children but most of them were gone because it was the end of school and they all are sent to live with either their own parents or other members of the community for the summer. There were five small children that will spend the summer at Cupcui. They were napping and they were absolutely adorable!
One thing that we did not see in the dormitories were bathrooms. The toilets and showers are in separate buildings that the children have to walk to. The bathrooms were awful. They smelled horrible and they didn’t actually have toilets. They were just holes in the ground in tile stalls. I couldn’t imagine having to use them. The showerhouse was even farther away. The whole experience was very humbling.
After Straseni (pronounced Strah-shane) we came back to Stella’s House for a Skype call and we got to meet the man behind all of this, Philip Cameron. He told us about how he started all this when his father twisted his arm to help the children in Moldova. We also talked to Mary Hutchinson, a writer for the Presbyterian Church Magazine. She interviewed all of us for an article she is writing about the Camerons.
After the interview, we ate at a very traditional Moldovan restaurant where we tasted all sorts of Moldovan food. I tried a little of everything. There were a few things that I was not a fan of, but for the most part, I loved all of it. We were all stuffed. Then we had a tour of the restaurant, which included several historical pictures and scenes. It was all very interesting.
After an evening of jokes and fun at Stella’s House, we got up this morning and visited the market, had lunch at McDonald’s, and went to the piazza. We had a lot of fun this morning, and now we are just hanging out for the afternoon. We’re looking foward to a church service tonight and a movie night with everyone here.
After hearing Castanzia’s (a current resident at Stella’s house and former orphan at Cupcui) testimony about her life and her time at the Cupcui Orphanage before Philip and Chrissie discovered it and completely renovated it, I really didn’t know what to expect. Well, they have done beautiful work! It’s truly amazing to see the transformation from the old orphanage that had black walls from mold, a leaky roof, and unbelievably unsafe living conditions to the bright, clean, furnished, and beautiful orphanage it is today. It’s also great that the Cupcui Orphanage houses single mothers and their infants so that they can stay together… what an amazing gift.
In the morning, we went to work! Some of us helped organize the storage room for all of the donations that the orphanage has received–which was an amazing sight in itself! Boxes are piled high to the celing full of everything the kids will need. Others started on a great project of putting a library in the orphanage. Books were sorted through and a good start was made on this very big project. Finally, another group of us sorted through the eight tubs full of toys that we brought the kids in order to sort out books and toys to leave at at Cupcui and other toys to take with us to the other orphanage that we are going to visit tomorrow.
After lunch, we got to help a boy named Vadim celebrate his birthday for the first time. The sad part… today is his twelfth birthday. To see how truly happy he was that there was a crowded room full of people there to celebrate and recognize HIM for being special–it was undescribable. We decorated the room with signs and balloons, had a couple of balloon fights, and were stuffed from all the amazing cake! Vadim’s face was priceless as he opened his gifts… it was amazing. I think it’s safe to assume that he had the best birthday ever! 
After we played with the kids with all of the new toys and balls we brought them from home, we went on a long walk through the Cupcui village. I couldn’t have even imagined before-hand what we saw. We saw some of the Moldvan people working with wagons pulled by horses and a majority of the homes were so run down it’s hard for us as Americans to imagine living in such poverty. But seeing this village really humbled all of us and made us think twice about how lucky we really are.
More to come…!
Sarah Stinson
