Her Story May Help Save Another Sabina Won’t Be Coming To U.S. But A Child Needing Surgery Will

In the end, the smallest orphan carried the greatest weight.

Sabina, the Romanian child whose story helped raise more than $50,000 and 6 tons of medicine and clothing for impoverished orphans, now will save one more life.

But not her own.

Spokane volunteers Anni Ryan Meyer and Celeste Shaw prayed a medical exam last week would prove Sabina had health problems that required her to come to the United States.

“Why would you ever pray a child has a heart defect? To help her escape,” said Shaw, a 33-year-old cardiac nurse.

Shaw could find no problem, so the undernourished Sabina will remain in the kindergarten orphanage at Suta Dragodana outside Targoviste.

But paperwork prepared for Sabina led the way for another boy to travel here for life-saving heart surgery. The 6-year-old child, Lazar, lives with his parents in a remote village and will die within the year if not treated.

Inquiries made for Sabina helped Shaw and Ryan Meyer in five short days get permission to bring the “blue boy” to Spokane in November. Dr. Jack Leonard and Spokane’s Healing the Children have agreed to perform the surgery.

“We so badly wanted to bring Sabina back, but when God closes a door, he opens a window,” Shaw said.

Earlier this fall, Ryan Meyer, 42, led a Spokane team of Northwest Medical Teams International volunteers to repair an orphanage northwest of Bucharest. Concern for Sabina and dozens of other children living in squalor prompted her to return Oct. 24.

The filthy orphanage floors Spokane volunteers encountered have been cleaned, Ryan Meyer said. The smell of urine was one-third as strong. And Sabina, with Americans checking her progress, was bundled in so many sweaters she looked like the Goodyear Blimp baby, and wore shoes of her own.

“She could giggle,” Ryan Meyer said. “She could laugh a real laugh.”

Shaw, the mother of two and Ryan Meyer, the mother of three, carried Spokane’s generosity with them. A special Spokesman-Review report on the August team and their encounter with Sabina unleashed a gush of giving.

“We were the two who got on the plane, but hundreds of people were with us,” said Shaw, a longtime medical missionary.

One Spokane nurse’s aide, a single mother, donated plasma in order to buy baby formula for the orphans. Another woman, unable to have children herself, bought 25 new snowsuits for the children.

Ryan Meyer and Shaw delivered the snowsuits to Suta Dragodana, along with 23 boxes of clothing, medicine and lice shampoo. The formula waits for shipment along with nine pallets of donated material.

Northwest Medical Teams International of Portland and members of the Spokane chapter of the nonprofit agency hope to use a State Department program to airlift the donations to Bucharest. Despite appealing to everyone from Rep. George Nethercutt to Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the shipment will not leave for Romania for several weeks because it is not considered emergency aid.

The delay at times made Ryan Meyer’s return to Romania as frustrating as it was triumphant, but flashes of hope lit the way.

One orphanage, visited this summer, had no way to heat its food, lacked bowls for dinner and eyeglasses for the children. The boys took turns wearing a single pair of women’s white high heels because they had no other shoes.

The director, whose decency impressed the Spokane volunteers, shyly asked a returning Ryan Meyer for two pairs of eyeglasses. A small boy at his elbow, his right eye socket sagging and scarred, asked her “Are you the American who is going to give me an eye?”

Ryan Meyer silently handed the director and his staff $1,000 and promised to locate school supplies, bandages and antibiotics.

The man’s hand was shaking so badly he could barely say goodbye.

Ryan Meyer is planning long-term ways to help Northwest Medical’s Romanian staff pay for such orphanage necessities as milk. Spokane, meanwhile, is doing its part: Fifth- and sixth-graders at Audubon Elementary are cleaning their bedrooms and walking dogs to raise pennies. A massage therapist has donated sessions to the Spokane volunteers to Romania.

On the plane home Thursday, an exhausted Ryan Meyer sat beside a stranger, who listened quietly about Romania. An older woman, she lives in a trailer house south of Las Vegas. But she pressed something into Ryan Meyer’s hand on behalf of her 13 grandchildren - a crisp and folded $100 bill.

In the dimly lit halls of Suta Dragodana, Shaw found several children whose only problem is poor eyesight. Nina, 5, was beaten and thrown from a cart, her eyes so damaged she can now see only shadows. Shaw is paying for an optometrist to visit the orphanage so she can send, from Spokane, corrective eyeglasses.

“Sabina created a miracle,” Shaw said. “She captured the energy of so many volunteers and the community. She represents all of the children in Romania.”

“There are a hundred Sabinas there,” Ryan Meyer agreed. “They just have different names and faces.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: THERE’S STILL TIME Spokane volunteers are still accepting donations for Romanian orphans. For information, the Spokane chapter of Northwest Medical Teams International can be contacted at any U.S. Bank branch; the Ryan House Studio of Stained Glass, 101 E. Baldwin, or by calling 327-4591. The Portland headquarters of Northwest Medical Teams International can be reached at P.O. Box 10, Portland, 97207-0010 or by calling (503) 624-1000.