By Denton Josey, Page Editor
Moldova went through a lot of change to become its own country.
It took Ana a lot of change before she would become whom she wanted to be, too.
A quick glance at a world map and Moldova is easy to miss. About the size of Maryland, Moldova is small compared with its neighbors, Romania and the Ukraine. Here Moldova finds itself pulled between influences from the East and the West, between a history without its own identity and a vision of a promising future thanks to a relatively newfound independence.
Scan the crowd at New Hope, the church she attends in Abilene, and Ana Pruteanu might be easy to miss. At 5 feet tall, Pruteanu is shorter than most of her peers at church. Here Pruteanu finds herself pulled between what she knew growing up in the city of Ungenhi and what she is learning in America. Here Pruteanu faces the realities of being on her own for the first time.
At 19, Pruteanu is actually older than her country. Moldova found freedom from the USSR in 1991 by supporting Boris Yeltsin, who led a successful coup and became the first president of Russia. Soon after, the United Nations recognized Moldova as an official nation.
Coming to America
Abilene is 6,000 miles from her hometown in Ungenhi, but Pruteanu is no stranger to Texas. On a whim, she took a test her sophomore year of high school that granted her a scholarship to study in America. Ana took the test so she could get out of classes that day. The tests examined her general knowledge, proficiency of English and ability to write essays. The test also included interviews testing her capability to adjust to different cultures. After she made the first round of cuts, Pruteanu remembered to tell her mother.
“By the way, Mom, I might be going to America.”
In August of 2004, Pruteanu joined an elite group of only 40 students from her country who won scholarships to study in America. They were sent all over America; Pruteanu ended up in Grandview.
Before coming she said, “I thought of Texas as a plain place, like a desert with cactuses and cowboys. I was thinking I was going to live on a ranch with cows and stuff. I’m not really a big fan of cows.”
Now she knows there’s more to Texas than the ranches.
“People are more casual here,” Pruteanu said. She likes that because “I’m a free spirit and I like to do what I want. People aren’t going to judge you.”
She already spoke the language, as well as Russian and Romanian, but Pruteanu wanted to learn about the culture. Coming from the poorest nation in Europe, Pruteanu was eager to see the rest of America’s story.
“You watch it in movies and everyone has money, cool cars and listens to hip hop,” Pruteanu said. “I just wanted to see what the real America is like.”
Though differences in the standard of living in her hometown and that of Dallas were apparent, Pruteanu wasn’t too shocked.
“I’m very flexible and adjustable. People get used to good things really quick.”
She does notice some things that aren’t as common at home. Here “people have two cars for one family, drive everywhere, eat out all the time.”
She sees the wealth around her, but it’s not a part of her life. Part of that is because of the family she lived with; they were more about substance and what God saw as important. Pruteanu lived with Tracy Buckelew and her family from August of 2004 until June of 2005. Buckelew said Pruteanu fit in well with the family and became like another daughter to her, another sister for the Buckelew girls.
“They give each other a hard time like sisters, but I don’t know that they ever fought. I was just like a mom to her,” Buckelew said.
Buckelew said she remembers the first time Pruteanu tried to drive.
“She was driving on the left side of the yellow stripe,” Buckelew said. “And she liked to go fast, on the wrong side of the road.”
Of all the customs Pruteanu had to get used to, Buckelew said hugging was new.
“She didn’t like to hug when she came, that was foreign to her. I think that was part of falling in love with our church, finding out that Christians don’t even know you and they love you,” Buckelew said.
Knowing God, Enjoying God
One of the Christians who showed Pruteanu love is her youth minister from the Maypearl church of Christ, Rodney Watson. As Watson taught the youth about God, Pruteanu listened attentively and began to learn things she never knew before.
“You could always tell she was listening, she was absorbing, she was hungry for more,” Watson said. “I think her church there in Moldova was more of a social thing.”
Indeed, the Eastern Orthodox Church she was raised in was very different from Maypearl. In Moldova, Pruteanu got up early so she could make it by 8 a.m. The expected dress for women was a skirt and head covering of some sort. She had to stand or sit on the floor for hours every time she went, and many times she didn’t understand what was being said.
Pruteanu said, “When I came here I went to a church of Christ and I was like, ‘Wow! It’s so liberal!'”
The culture she lived in was religious and claims there is a God, so she prayed from time to time but never saw answers. When life isn’t all good, she said, it is hard to want to look for God.
“For years I wondered what God was doing with my life if he was there.”
In Ungenhi, Pruteanu said worship service usually meant listening to a choir sing, praying, tithing and listening to scripture often read in Slavic, a language only the older adults understood.
“Here they explain it; there they just read it,” she said.
As she explains it, the Eastern Orthodox Church is similar to Catholicism. Lighting candles is a staple of service and in place of the Catholic statues, icons or paintings adorn the ornate church buildings. One belief the Eastern Orthodox Church holds is the church building as a refuge for people to take solace. Displays of icons reflect the belief that images symbolize more than the identity of the person depicted.
Buckelew said Pruteanu’s church at home seemed more concerned with being respectful to God and following the traditions; at Maypearl, Pruteanu received a lot of attention and was able to make friends.
Here in America, Pruteanu said, “You have a church family, they care about you and you care about them.” Watson said
Pruteanu was an integral part of the youth group at Maypearl, but he felt that at home Pruteanu never connected very well with church.
“People just fell in love with Ana,” he said. “Ana is one of those people that just makes people feel good; she just has that knack.”
“She craved our church,” Buckelew said. “It was something she never experienced before.”
Something she had never witnessed before was the singing at Maypearl.
“It’s more fun here because you can actually clap,” Pruteanu said. “Worshipping God should be something you enjoy, not something you have to do.”
At Maypearl, Pruteanu helped teach 2-3 year olds in Bible class. One Sunday morning she had to teach the class alone and much to her surprise, the story was about David and Bathsheba.
“I was like, ‘I’m never going to teach kids again!’ Yeah, the next week I taught again.”
Teaching the kids helped Pruteanu learn more about God herself. She began to notice the things they taught in church actually happening in her life.
“It helps to have Christians around you, they encourage you,” she said. “If you were by yourself you’d probably give up.”
Ana spoke about God from the first day she arrived, Buckelew said.
“There was a real powerful message one Sunday and she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said she wanted to be baptized,” Buckelew said. Pruteanu was a bit surprised by the process though, Buckelew said. “She didn’t know it was total submersion.”
Pruteanu decided to be baptized on Easter Sunday, Watson said. “It was a privilege to watch her grow and to baptize her and watch her faith grow afterwards,” Watson said.
He said she didn’t talk during class very much, but wasn’t afraid to ask questions afterwards when something was weighing on her.
“I know one of the things she is hungry for is being able to learn more.”
Pruteanu said her favorite aspect of God’s love is “the way He forgives us and the way that everything is possible with him,” she said. “Each of us has a purpose for him, we don’t have to conform.”
Her newfound ability to not conform was tested as she returned to Moldova.
Going Home
After 11 months in America, Pruteanu went back to Moldova for her senior year of high school. Things had changed, she said. Before Pruteanu left for America, she felt trapped in a role socially that she couldn’t get out of. Her friends, she said, wouldn’t have believed her if she said she wanted to change and that who she acted like wasn’t really who she was.
In Moldova she played sports, spent time with friends and danced. She had plenty of friends to spend time with and she felt like her life was fulfilling at times, but after living in America and finding out more about God, she began to change.
“People didn’t expect you to change that much in a year and then you come back with all the views of the world, new ideas and a different way of doing things,” Pruteanu said.
When she went home people seemed uncomfortable with the new views she had. Relationships change when you are gone for a long time, she said, and you feel like you don’t fit in anymore, you don’t relate anymore with them. The main reason she didn’t relate anymore was because she changed while she was in Texas her junior year. In Moldova she lived a “normal life”, she said, but was around things she knew weren’t really helping her in life.
“I’ve been to clubs and seen things- seen fights and shootings- at an age when I shouldn’t have.”
Coming to Texas presented her with the opportunity to try out a new lifestyle; she knew one way of living in Moldova and she wanted to try something new in America. Over time, her life has started to reflect different choices.
Her mindset became: “That was my life before here, now I can try another path,” she said.
Half a year went by before she decided to take on the new lifestyle she was learning about. Being isolated from her old life is what caused the change, she said. However, when she returned to Moldova she went from having “a bunch of wild friends to having almost no friends.”
After her senior year, Pruteanu had to decide whether she would stay in Moldova for college or return to America. Before returning to Moldova, she went to ACU for a college visit and chose it over Oklahoma Christian University, the other school she visited, because ACU had an international business program. Before she returned to Moldova, a family at Maypearl told Pruteanu they would sponsor her should she decide to go to school at ACU. After being in Moldova for a while, she thought about coming back to Texas, but didn’t know if the offer still stood.
“We were in touch with her while she was back in Moldova,” the benefactor said.
She had a hard time believing that offer was actually real.
“I e-mailed her right away and said the offer was real.”
“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Pruteanu said. “I wouldn’t have had the money to do this in my lifetime. I was like, ‘why not?'”
What made coming back to America difficult was leaving her family. She was under the impression she would not see her family until she graduated, but she has since learned she will be able to go home and visit. The easiest part, she said, was “knowing I’m gonna be fine because it’s a Christian school.”
The idea of going to a Christian school is actually what helped Pruteanu decide to come.
“That’s why I came to ACU, because it is Christian. It is the only way I would grow spiritually.”
All over the map
Watching her ride her bike to school, it is difficult to tell Pruteanu is from a former communist country. Her fashionably short hair reveals more of the expressive faces she makes. A former member of drama clubs, Pruteanu said people don’t have to talk to her to know what she’s thinking.
“People don’t need to hear me speak, just read my face.”
Many people Pruteanu has met are curious about her Romanian accent and ask where she is from. When the answer comes, so do more questions. Where is Moldova? Is that a ‘real’ country?
“Most of the people ask you where you are from, where Moldova is,” Pruteanu said. “And some people actually ask if it is on the map.”
She respects American patriotism but is proud of her country.
“I understand people don’t know where my country is, it’s small,” she said.
However, sometimes she has to try not to lose patience with people who don’t seem to respect her country.
“When you are away from your country you become more patriotic just because it
is yours and there’s no one else to represent it,” Pruteanu said. “You are an ambassador for your country, kind of.”
Before coming to ACU, Pruteanu spent three weeks with the Buckelew family, whom she calls two to three times a week.
“I can see a huge difference in her since she’s returned,” Buckelew said. “To me, it was a huge humbling experience for her to go home and not have the same friends. She came back a quieter spirit.”
After her time with the Buckelews, Pruteanu headed to Abilene to settle in and begin her second round of education in Texas. Now she would find a new community to live in, a new family of friends.
Anneliese Middlebrook, sophomore nutrition major from Dallas, knows Pruteanu better than most people at ACU. The roommates get along very well, Middlebrook said, and spend plenty of time together, whether eating together or shopping together. On a weekly basis they go to a Bible study together. The Bible study consists of a group of about 13 people and for Pruteanu it is a non-negotiable part of her week. She has even scheduled classes around so her Thursday nights aren’t interfered with.
“She’s made it a priority,” Middlebrook said.
“She’s been every time,” Middlebrook said. “She enjoys it because she’s making friends with all the people here.”
A Model Future
As her college career takes off, Pruteanu has more focus this time around in America. Living and learning here isn’t a game like it seemed to her in high school, when she didn’t take it as seriously as other exchange students did.
“Now it is a choice that will influence my future. You don’t want to mess up your future.”
Though she is taking it more seriously, she still finds time to have fun. She is a member of the International Students’ Association and is in the Ethnos Culture Show as a dancer in the Vietnamese fan dance.
“Fan dance is very graceful and it is something you wouldn’t really learn otherwise just because we don’t have a dance class here at Abilene, but we probably should.”
Pruteanu said she was raised in a culture where she had to fight for herself. At ACU she is discovering that she doesn’t have to do that; she is finding community with people from all around the global village. Every Friday at 6 p.m. she joins around 50 people regularly at the home of Art Green, a member of the Hillcrest Church of Christ, for an international dinner. Students from many countries all around the world eat a variety of cultural foods and fellowship. Afterwards, a devotional begins that usually includes discussion with the students explaining customs from their home cultures.
“I like the people who go there,” she said. “With some of them, that is the only time of the week when I see them.”
And by ‘them’ she is referring to friends from Japan, Russia, Ukraine, China, parts of Europe and even Malaysia.
“One of my good friends is Joni; she’s from Malaysia,” Pruteanu said. “A person from Moldova and a person from Malaysia, it’s pretty cool.”
As the semester nears the end, Pruteanu reflects on how she has liked it at ACU; her list is not short.
“I love my roommate very much. We became very good friends. I’m thankful for all the friends I’ve made. I like my classes, I like my teachers. I like the dorm I’m in. I like ISA because you get to know all the international students and they are all really cool in their own way.”
She even likes the Bean.
She said she has learned a lot of new things in Bible class and Bible studies and Chapel, but it hasn’t all been “bubbly excitement.” She is certain she has grown, but there have still been hard times. Through the hard times, Pruteanu keeps praying. Freedom to be who she wants to be is important to Pruteanu. At ACU, she said, life is different.
“At home people have these assumptions of who I am and what I do because they knew me for years and years. Hanging out with new people, they are wanting to make friends, nobody will be like, ‘You didn’t used to be like that.'”
She doesn’t want to be judged, especially based on assumptions.
“I want people to know me for who I am.”
