A Time to Celebrate!

By Petra Popa, Executive Director of Veritas Sighisoara

On Friday, September 14, sixty friends of Veritas (including past and present staff) gathered in a private garden in the citadel in Sighisoara, to surprise Dorothy Tarrant with a 25-year anniversary celebration. Dorothy came to Romania in 1993 to establish the Romanian Studies Program (RSP). The program began in Bucharest and in 1995 moved to Sighisoara.

The RSP (initially a program of Eastern Nazarene College) has provided more than 500 American students with the opportunity to spend a semester, summer or January term in Romania. They live with a Romanian family, study the language and culture, and serve disadvantaged people in the community. Professor Tarrant's strategy was to find local Romanian Christians willing to work alongside her students, caring for abandoned infants in the town hospital, providing a safe place to learn and play for children found begging on the streets, and visiting isolated elderly.

Groups of students came and went. Some of their Romanian translators went to university and earned degrees in social work, psychology, education, etc. Programs continued to develop and grow for children, teens and elderly and were soon being run by Romanians, with student assistance. Dorothy began to sense the need of a non-profit organization in order to be able to pay salaries and taxes, buy property, write grants and solicit funds.

In 2001 Veritas was legally registered as a Romanian NGO, with Dorothy as the Executive Director and President of a local Board of Directors. The name Veritas, a Latin word meaning truth, was chosen to identify the NGO as a group of people seeking to live as disciples of Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Dorothy wearing the
traditional Romanian
 blouse given to her
by Veritas staff

Dorothy says of the past 25 years: "When I agreed to accompany the first group of students to Romania in 1993, I had no idea that God's plan would be for me to live such a significant part of my life in Romania. It has been a privilege to see Veritas mature into the organization it is today, bringing help and hope to so many."

I, Petra, have been the Executive Director for the past eight years, and we now have 18 staff employed at Veritas. Two hundred forty clients attend our programs each week and 120 meals are served at noon Monday through Thursday and 50 on Friday.

What will the next 25 years look like? Times are changing, and the needs within the Sighisoara community are changing, too. Veritas staff are tackling these questions as they look to the future of Veritas.

Adapted from the Veritas e-Newsletter, October 2, 2018