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From our Future Intern - Liliana Stahlberg
Grace and peace to you from God and our Lord Jesus Christ! I am Liliana Stahlberg your new intern.
We have not met yet but you already know quite a lot about me from your pastor and from Bev Berry,
the chair of my internship committee.
When I first met with Bev Berry and found out that she was going to visit Romania, my country of
origin, we both thought that God works in mysterious ways. I understood she started a campaign to
collect different items and money to take to Liliana’s shelter in Bucharest.
So, I am going to use this opportunity to tell you a little more about myself and Liliana’s shelter which
is actually called St. Macrina ‘s Center for Street Children and Youth (please, check Centrul Sfanta
Macrina out at www.macrina.ro )
This whole project started in 1991 soon after the fall of dictatorship when many young children ran
away from state orphanages where they were abused. They filled the streets of large cities, especially
the capital Bucharest. At that time I was working for the Ecumenical Association of Churches in
Romania-AIDRom, an agency set up by the World Council of Churches in cooperation with historical
churches in Romania, the Romanian Orthodox Church, the German Lutheran Church and the Hungarian
Reformed Church. One of my dreams became to involve churches in helping these children
both on a short and a long-term basis. In the following years I was involved in developing and training
teams of street workers and designing a comprehensive program for the rehabilitation and social
reintegration of the street children who were coming to our door for food, shelter and health care.
In 1993 I spent four months in Denver, working as an intern with Urban Peak (a shelter for homeless
youth) and taking a class at DU in Financial Management of Non Profit Organizations. I got back
home and inspired by all the things I had learned at Urban Peak and the Denver University I started
a fundraising effort which led to AIDRom buying a house that would become a faith-based shelter for
the homeless kids roaming the streets of Bucharest. As I am telling this story I realize that it sounds
as if everything went smoothly and everybody helped. The truth is that there have been many obstacles
on the way, many people who opposed the project (because they thought if we could not help
all the street children then we should not help any), many sleepless nights and an ulcer caused by
stress.
But all is well that ends well. I was the director of this project until December 2000 when I came to the
USA . It had been my dream also to develop this program and leave it in the hands of the church. I
have chosen my follower, a young pastor with many gifts and a heart for children, Gabriel Cazacu,
who is the Executive Director to this day. He has continued to develop the institution and to add programs
for young men and women. You can find all this additional information on the website.
You can see I have a passion for the serving dimension of the Christian church. But I also have a
passion for family and children. My husband, Wolfgang is the pastor at Messiah Community Church in
Denver. I have three biological children (Nico, Sidonia, and Andrew) and two adopted ones (Alina and
Michael) Three of them live here in the USA and two are back in Romania where they work and study.
Bev is going to meet Sidonia who is a veterinarian in Bucharest.
I also have a little granddaughter, Rebecca who lives with her parents in Stapleton. She is the apple
of my eye and I can never spend enough time with her. You will get to meet her as well as her mom
and dad, Nico and John.
I have many other stories to tell you and I hope to hear many stories from you as we work together in
the coming year! God’s blessings on you and your ministry!
Liliana
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