Next Step: Moldova

It all started simply enough, with the desire to spend a semester of her senior year of high school as an exchange student in Germany.

After all, she’d already spent a year in Duvall (a few miles northeast of Seattle) after her mother had remarried and moved the family west from Nebraska.

And the fact that her high school didn’t have an established exchange program?

No problem. Sara Tady would find her own program.

So off she went, with the basic German language skills she had learned earlier in high school, to the town of Moerfelden-Walldorf, near Frankfurt.

The first two weeks, the school let her use English. But from then on, it was all German. For Physics class. For Math, Religion, German, even Physical Education. All in German.

“You’re forced to learn quickly,” states Sara. “But what else do you do? I just did it.”

She just did it. And she loved it.

“In fact, I still talk to my host family in Germany,” Sara notes.

She returned to Washington and finished high school. It was time to choose a college, but Sara had no clear preference.

Then a friend from her church, Duvall Evangelical Methodist, recommended the college he was attending: Northwest University.

But even before her first semester at Northwest, Sara discovered that “youth can go on missions trips!” The program, Teen Mania Global Expeditions, offered the chance to go to Russia.

“I had never been there, and it’s close to Germany,” recalls Sara.

Reason enough.

She spent a month between high school and college working at a summer camp in St. Petersburg. She wanted to return, but wasn’t sure she would be able to.

“They kept asking, ‘Are you coming back?’“ Sara recalls.

“They said that most people never come back.”

Sara didn’t behave like most people. She returned to the camp the next summer, and the next.

Her third year in Russia, one of the orphan boys to whom she had ministered told her: “Three years ago, I didn’t believe in God. After meeting you, now I do. And my whole family goes with me to church.”

Intercultural Studies

With trips to Germany and Russia under her belt, as well as missions experience, it seems natural that Sara gravitated to the Intercultural Studies major in the College of Ministry, directed by Assistant Professor David Oleson. She felt a particular connection to the Missionary in Residence (MIR) program, which brought an actual missionary to the campus each year.

“I loved taking classes with the MIRs,” Sara remembers, “including Steve Pecota and Bill Shaw.”

Sara also took her fourth trip to Russia, this time with The Russia Project. Although she was “picking up” the Russian language through her interaction with children there, she realized she wanted to study Russian, and Russia, in a more structured way.

Northwest University’s membership in the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) would give her that opportunity. Through their “Best Semester” program, Sara would spend an entire semester in Russia.

“It’s an amazing program,” she states. “It’s very well done, very well organized, and it includes language, history, religion, literature, and culture.”

Sara studied with 20 students from other CCCU schools, mostly in Nizhni Novgorod, Russia’s fourth-largest city.

There were other trips, including ten days in Moscow.

“The high point of Moscow, which brings back great memories this time of year, was to see Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite, performed by the famous Bolshoi Ballet. It was incredible – the choir, the costumes, and the orchestra – and we saw it all from the 17th row!”

The Internship

Even with all of Sara’s trips to Russia, she still needed an internship to complete her degree in Intercultural Studies.

“My first plan, for a trip to Russia, fell through,” says Sara. “Professor Oleson e-mailed all the missionaries in Russian-speaking countries. A family in Moldova responded with an opportunity for me.”

Sara spent two months in the summer of 2005 with missionaries Andy and Nancy Raatz, working at a Center for the Rehabilitation of Adolescents.

“These were street kids who had been highly neglected,” Sara explains.

One day Sara met a volunteer from Germany, who was visiting Moldova to fix sewing machines in various orphanages and churches.

“He didn’t speak Moldovan or Russian, and he was totally lost,” she recalls. “When I spoke to him in German, his face just lit up.”

And Sara had a new job. She was able to translate for him, between Russian and German, in order to help him do his work.

“The Raatzes invited me to return to Moldova after graduation,” Sara notes, “but I didn’t see how that could happen.”

Sara had been researching missions organizations for several years, including a trip to the noted missions conference in Urbana in 2003.

“I talked to tons of missions organizations,” she recalls. “I was most impressed with Assemblies of God missions – they seemed to have the optimum balance between structure and freedom.”

Sara signed up as a Missionary Associate, and spent two weeks in orientation this past June.

“It really confirmed that this is the way for me to go,” she says.

As Sara finishes raising her support, she will leave for a two-year term in Moldova, working with at-risk young women. She will help them transition from orphanage living to life in the real world.

“At Northwest, I was involved in a campus ministry, Lighthouse, in which we went to Capital Hill and built relationships. For me, this has always been the key. You have to earn the right to speak into someone’s life,” Sara states.

“I enjoy building relationships, and I look forward to doing that with hurting women in Moldova.”