--Neglect of regular contact with a caregiver. Each child wore a cloth diaper, bound so expertly and tight that it restricted movement. All of the children appeared to have a disability, though I was unable to determine what disability was greater than their inability to be happy.

Two children, from that room remain in the forefront of my mind. One of them is Bidi. Bidi looked like a normal one-year-old. Never mind that he was two. He could stand in his crib, climb out of his crib, though he didn’t yet walk, and he smiled. He was cute. The catch was that Bidi also regurgitated most food he ate and then played in it if you didn’t catch him in time. As you can guess, this posed some health concerns for everyone in the room. We opened the window and put out heads out for fresh air.

The other child, I believe her name was Elena (I confess it was hard to distinguish the males from the females at nearly any age, because no thought was given to this by the people who dressed them. Changing the diapers only helped momentarily.) Anyway, this child lay in her crib, not strong enough to get up on her own. I was particularly drawn to her because she was so quiet at first. She cried and shook violently when I held her or stroked her face. Miriam explained that it was this attention that she was not used to and, in effect, my touching her was, possibly, overstimulation.

Miriam seemed to take these things in stride, saying, in her quiet Dutch accent that it was very sad. But she had a way with all children that I found remarkable and a compassion that never faltered. Nick and I did not work at the spital much after those first 2 weeks. But it was the job that Miriam had left her family and friends to do and she was designed for it. That’s not to say she never tired. I think any man or woman would become weary in such a thankless position. After all, those children do not get better and go home to their families. They were home and Miriam and the other foreign volunteers are their family.

After our 2-week “break” in Sighisoara, Nick and I took the train back to Bucharest to meet Mike. Mike is a young Romanian guy who was very interested in helping Nick and I get our radio programme on the air.

After another week or so that felt like a month, and too many “meetings”, Mike got us an appointment with the Director of one of the major radio stations in the city, Radio Total. Sitting on the beggar’s side of this large desk, I will never forget this bored looking gentleman asking us in choppy English “What do you want to do?” With Mike as our translator we fumbled around with a description for a radio show that was by no means ready to be presented. The summarization is simply that we wanted to play music. We neglected to tell him that nearly all of the music was Christian. Looking back now, I know we were possibly wrong for leaving this out, as it later became an issue. He didn’t ask, we didn’t tell. His response? “OK. When?”

We were hoping for ten minutes; we were hoping for a chance to prove ourselves. What we got was a three hour programme on Friday nights from 1 am – 4 am. We were instructed to play music and speak English. No one cared what we said, but Mike, who became our engineer, warned us that if they found out our music was all Christian, we might lose our show. With a week, we chose a wide format, a name for the programme (The Edge, after the Dallas radio station) and we cut our first commercial.

Our first night on the air was as nerve racking, as it was exciting. Our playlist that night grew from cheesy Stephen Curtis Chapman to the hardcore sound of Blenderhead. Styles were tested, and built on or dropped according to listener response.

Listener response. That was about as easy to get as drinkable tap water. For the next few months it became the running joke- even on the air. Was anyone listening? We were told that they were too shy to speak English. They were too shy to call in. Just who “they” were was a mystery to me.

Picture this: Two hosts. One sarcastic, culture shocked American female; one jovial, ecstatic British male, and a Romanian “engineer” who had his own mike and an abundance of bad jokes. In the background were 2 other Romanian radio personnel watching French TV. (Translation: porn) I remember so many times during those shows, making myself laugh, thinking “Dear God, I’m a riot! I’m pulling out the lines of my broadcasting career and no one is listening! No one gets it.” Well, I probably wasn’t that funny, but it sure felt like it at 3 AM. And when I listen to those tapes now, I am surprised at the things I said under my breath, but loud enough to be caught by the mike. I’m still (somewhat) convinced that, had we been in America, Nick and I would have been immensely popular for a bit, though, admittedly, NOT in a Christian market. We were too tired. Too unsensored for that sort of thing.

OK, they were listening – let it be known that in 1995 Romanians liked dance, hip-hop, punk and metal. The most I had up my sleeve in my hour and a half were a few dc talk songs and some scary Eric Champion. My playlist was chipped away to a very limited collection of pop rock, rounding off with a rap song or two. Nick, on the other hand, had room to spice things up a bit.

One night we got a call from someone who asked us if we knew what we were doing – referring to our “Christian” music. The caller was pretty angry and after threatening us, with some type of punishment he ended up hanging up on us. Busted! Accused! Threatened, even. Now, I’m not the Bible toting, fire and brimstone type of girl. It was unreal to me that someone could say that playing contemporary Christian songs on the radio in the wee hours of the morning, could be a danger to anyone. (I know I’ll get some e-mails about that) I mean, I was normal. Down to earth. Maybe our missionary friends were trying to convert Romanians, but I wasn’t. I’m just a Christian who thought some of my friends made good music that deserved to be heard. We were met with this reaction more than a few times while living in Romania. Though it never stopped us from moving forward, it didn’t help me sleep at night.

Then again, sleeping at my new residence was never easy. After we landed The Edge, Nick and I finally moved into our separate living quarters, out of the Scott’s house. He moved to an apartment with a smelly foyer on one side of town. My new room was the converted attic of Viilor house. Translation: The Holy Prison of Wandling...