When we were children, we often played "Who's afraid of the bogeyman?" Today, "the bogeyman" would be cast as the illegal immigrant, the foreigner, the gypsy—often the Romanian.
So I want to tell you a story I witnessed, one that filled my heart with joy and moved me deeply.
Some time ago, a friend handed me a sealed envelope during Sunday Mass. "For Huberta—Fede e Luce" was written on it. She had chosen to give money to Fede e Luce in memory of her mother, who had recently passed away. I thanked her.
Around the same time, a family was struggling badly. Their son's condition had worsened—he already had serious problems. The boy cycled between days of total lethargy, sleeping around the clock, and entire nights without sleep, keeping his parents awake with him. There followed exhausting hospital visits, admissions, and everything that comes with them. All the while, they had to care for their three other children: getting them to preschool, school, catechism classes, preparing meals, cleaning the house.
Fede e Luce could help. The community has a gift for gathering people around those in crisis—parents, friends, young people. Phone calls came. Babysitting. Home visits. Some friends even took night shifts. But they needed more. That's when I remembered the money my friend had given me. I found a woman who might clean their house for a time. I mentioned the situation to Lia, a Romanian woman who helps me at home. She agreed at once—even knowing the work would last only as long as the donation held, and risking the loss of a steadier, safer job elsewhere.
Lia was deeply moved by this family and tried to be as useful as she could. She had lost her husband recently to illness and to the failures of Romanian healthcare. She had left her own son alone in Romania so she could earn money and save what she could. She decided to help however she was able. First, she brought in her friends Elena and Tiziana to fill in when she couldn't be there. None of them ever arrived empty-handed. "Sweets for the children, ma'am." "Some fruit will do you good."
But Lia and her friends decided to do more. They waited for a Sunday when the house would be completely free—it turned out to be a day the Fede e Luce community gathered—and the four of them launched what could only be called a Romanian "invasion." They put the whole house in order. Top to bottom, like a spring cleaning. They gave a full day of their labor as a gift, asking nothing in return.
The father told us later that these women had been "simply magical" to them.
Huberta Pott, 2008