Amazing Grace

Biserica in Piața Unirii, Cluj-Napoca

I've been home from Romania for ten days, and am only now able to tell you the impact that much-needed and truly beautiful vacation has had on me.

While in Cluj, at Hanul Dacilor for dinner with my former dean (now pro-rector of UBB) Mihaela Luțaș and our FSEGA colleagues Alexandra Muțiu (and her daughter Ingrid), Moni Zaharie (and her daughter Anamaria), Monica Silaghi, as well as our former student Raluca Tarcea, Mihaela told me that she was pleased to see that I had returned to Romania with my intellect intact, following my strokes.  What a relief her remark brought to me!

View from our hotel in Bicaz

While in Bucovina with Alexandra, her daughter Ingrid Love, and Ingrid's friend Georgiana, we visited Manastirea Putna, where we met monk Ambrosie, who had read my earlier Putna posts, and had invited me back. While there, we went into the biserica (church) and reviewed the magnificent iconography which had been painted only a few years ago by Master Mihai Moroșan.

With M. Ambrozie

Then, we all spent a wonderful night in Suceava with my dear friends Mihai and Waltraudi Moroșan.  On the drive back to Cluj, Alexandra expressed the thought that she felt her soul to have been healed.  I felt the same.

A 2017 view of Shirley's and my old building, in 2008-09

Back in Cluj, God sent me the realization that the most important decision of my life was to propose marriage to Shirley, back in 1973.  Our four wonderful offspring are one result... but also, how many husbands have the freedom to live such a life as I have been blessed to live?  Dear Shirley is my wife for life.  Praise be to God!