環(huán)球英語 — 676：Rescued into a Family
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Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Robin Basselin.
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And I'm Ryan Geertsma. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
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Catalin first met Oltita at a dance club. She was beautiful and many other men wanted to dance with her. Catalin jokes that he had to lie to get her to dance with him. Whatever he did, it worked! Catalin and Oltita later married. But Oltita made him more than just a happy man with a beautiful wife. Oltita and Catalin became partners in service. Together they have helped hundreds of Romanian children without families - including two children they made part of their own family. Today's Spotlight is on the story of Catalin and Oltita Baciu.
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You may remember another Spotlight program about Catalin Baciu and his work with Global Teen Challenge. The Bacius live in Romania. In 1989, Romanian dictator Nicholae Ceaucescu lost power. When this happened, the world learned about a terrible problem that Ceaucescu had been hiding. Romania had over 100,000 children without families living in government childcare homes. As these orphans grew, many of them left the government homes to live on the streets in very difficult conditions.
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After a visit to the city of Bucharest, Catalin and Oltita Baciu felt that God wanted them to work with the city's street children. The Bacius started both a girl's home and a young men's home. Over the years, they served hundreds of orphans and street children through these homes. However, the Bacius began to understand that they were supposed to give much more. The Baciu's felt that God wanted them to give the deepest part of their lives to orphans.
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Their story starts at the City of Hope children's shelter in Bucharest. Oltita worked at the shelter. One day she saw a 2 year old boy come in with an older child. The boy had long, un-kept hair and he was very dirty. His stomach was round and hard because he was almost starving. Oltita said that something about him was wild, like an animal. His name was John.
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Oltita discovered that John's mother sold sex for money. She only lived part of the time with him. The rest of the time, he lived on the streets with other people - as part of a criminal gang. John's mother could not take care of John. The gang did not care for him either. Instead of taking care of John, they hurt him very badly.
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The Bacius had a new baby daughter. But Oltita could not stop thinking about John. Oltita told Bill Prevette, a researcher from Oxford University,
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"We believed that God wanted us to try and help him."
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At first, Oltita and Catalin thought they would just take John into their home and try to clean him up. They wanted to teach him some basic things about living. But soon they understood that they needed to give much more of their lives. John needed serious help. The Baciu's did not know how hard it was going to be to take care of John. His behaviour was very bad, and he was very hard to control. Oltita told Bill Prevette,
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"You cannot imagine what this child was like. He had no sense of what was right and wrong. He would do things that I could not believe a young child could imagine, let alone do."
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At one point, John even tried to attack Oltita with a knife. But she kept showing love to him.
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Caring for John was a big sacrifice for the Bacius. Oltita even had to ask her mother to help take care of their baby daughter. She explained,
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"Those first few months were almost impossible for me. I wanted to give up many times."
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But Oltita and Catalin had help. Oltita told Bill Prevette,
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"People prayed for us and offered to help. Our faith in God helped us through this; our church is like family."
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After John had been with the Bacius for a few months, Oltita knew that she could not leave him at a shelter. So, they decided to adopt John as one of their own children. Oltita says that the first two years were the most difficult years of her life. But now, John is their very own child.
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Today, John is 16 years old. Oltita describes him as a caring, responsible boy who does very well in school. He gets along very well with his sisters and younger brother. On Thursday nights he helps Catalin at a special church service for drug addicts and young adults living on streets.
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About five years later, the Baciu's adopted another child - a girl named Lavinia. Like John, Lavinia also lived on the streets. When she was eleven years old, a group of other girls pushed her into a fire. Half of her body was badly burned. By the time she got to the hospital, she had already had a heart attack. The doctors did not think she could live, but she did. However, they still did not think she would ever be able to walk again.
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Lavinia stayed in the hospital for seven months. At the time, the Bacius were managing a girls' home in Bucharest. Doctors asked the Bacius if they could help Lavinia. Oltita and Catalin did not think that they could. They thought Lavinia needed too much special care, physically and emotionally. So the doctors decided to put her in a government orphanage. The Bacuis knew that living in an orphanage would be very difficult. Catalin writes,
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"We knew what that meant for Lavinia. We started praying hard for a solution. We realized that we were the solution."
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The Bacius decided to invite Lavinia to live at the girls' home. But things were still not good for Lavinia. She was alive, but she never smiled. On the streets she had seen too many terrible things - things no child should see. Catalin writes,
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"She saw her own sisters being sold for sex to people she did not know. She saw all kinds of pain. She suffered way too much for an eleven year old."
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At the girls' home they kept working with Lavinia. Catalin writes,
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"Two years after much love, patience, care, and the sacrifices of many people, Lavinia was able to walk again. She laughed more than the other girls, and she became one of the happiest girls at the home."
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Soon after that, the Baciu's decided to invite Lavinia to live with them. They already had John, and two other children of their own. And they wanted Lavinia to be part of their family. Catalin tells Spotlight,
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"We deeply love our children. We have the same family values and treatment for all of them. They see that, and it brings stability. They get along very well."
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Now Lavinia is married and lives a full life. She and John both came from lives filled with suffering. But Catalin and Oltita did not give up when things were difficult. Instead, they followed God's calling to rescue the children that others had forgotten. And now, two grown children live lives filled with hope and love.
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The writer of this program was Jennifer Hawkins. The producer was Ryan Geertsma. The voices you heard were from the United States and the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted and voiced by Spotlight. You can find this program and others on our website at This program is called "Rescued into a Family." We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye!
