Medrea recalls her first translating experience as a bit scary. It took place in a village church, where a doctor from Alabama was discussing heart trouble with an elderly man. “Even though I knew English really well, I had a hard time understanding him because I had never heard that accent before,” she says.

Kuehne requested the teenager’s help on many subsequent trips to Romania, and became friendly with her extended family. While there, the professor offered several young people his assistance if they wanted to attend college in the United States. Studying in America is a dream for many young Romanians, but because of the country’s long history of domination and deprivation, it is a dream few pursue. Romania was once Eastern Europe’s most notorious dictatorship, and the country is still recuperating economically and psychologically from its effects.

“Romanians have a deeply held belief that dreams will die, rather than the American belief that hard work and perseverance can make any dream come true,” Kuehne says. “It is a country of broken dreams that does not lend itself to optimism. So far, Cristina is the only one to have the courage to take me up on the offer and pursue a new path, leaving everything she knew behind.”

Medrea applied for a passport and visa (not easily granted in Romania), applied to Saint Anselm College, and traveled to Budapest, Hungary, to take English tests, all expenses her family could not easily manage. She was awarded a generous scholarship, but it did not cover travel, school fees, clothes and personal expenses. She pays for these through jobs at the college and babysitting, and manages to send some money to her family. During her freshman year, she lived with a family since only her tuition was covered.

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