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In my hometown of Sighisoara, Romania, lives a woman named Magdalena. She, her husband, and their three children lived in a house with her husband's parents, as also did her husband's brother and his family. The three families, six adults and four children, made for a very cramped household.

This was during the Communist regime of the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu (who ruled Romania from 1965 to 1989). Life was hard. It was necessary to stand in long lines to buy food, and sometimes there was none to buy.

When Magdalena became pregnant with her fourth child, a fierce verbal battle erupted in the extended family. The grandparents and others wanted the child to be aborted because there was not enough money coming in to feed and clothe the children they already had. Magdalena's mother-in-law said, "She has no skills to enable her to earn income; all she can do is have babies." Magdalena desperately wanted to keep the child, but finally, with deep sorrow, she relented to keep peace in the family.

Abortion was illegal in Romania. But someone told the family of a woman who knew how to perform abortions, although she was not medically trained and would do it secretly. Magdalena reluctantly allowed a friend to take her to this woman to have the deed done. She knew she could go to prison for having an abortion. In letting the baby be killed, she might even die herself.

On the table, during the procedure, she lost a lot of blood and fainted. The unskilled abortionist became frightened and ran away for fear she would go to prison if caught.

Magdalena's friend came into the room and took her to a hospital and to a doctor who knew the family. Learning that no one in the extended family wanted the child, and that Magdalena had agreed to an abortion to keep peace, he agreed to do it in spite of his fear of what might happen if anyone found out. He tried different procedures, including shots, to make the baby come.

After two days in the hospital, Magdalena became very weak. Finally, the doctor said to her, "This baby will not die; it wants to live." But because he did not know what the quack abortionist had done, he told her the baby might be physically handicapped, with no fingers or toes or possibly missing an arm or leg, and it might be mentally retarded.

The family decided to keep the baby. A faithful member of the Orthodox Church, Magdalena believed in God. She prayed and made a covenant with God that if he would let the baby be born healthy, she would give the child back to him to use in any way he chose. The child was born in the eighth month of the pregnancy. A tiny girl weighing little more than four pounds, she was kept in an incubator for two weeks. But she had all her limbs, and as she grew, she was obviously quite normal.

A Gift to God: Paula Cini Photo Credit: Nikolay Kolisnichenko

The child was loved and treated as very special. The parents felt she was God's child now and had to be protected. They did not allow the little girl to play rough games or do things that might cause her to get hurt. She always wondered why she was treated so differently.

That little girl grew up. At age 14 she started attending some activities of the Church of the Nazarene in her hometown and found Christ as her personal Savior. After some time, Magdalena sat down with her daughter and told her of the circumstances surrounding her birth. The girl is now 20 years old.

Magdalena had named her little girl Paula. I am that Paula. Magdalena is my mother.

I am now a student at European Nazarene College preparing for a life of Christian service. It is not easy being in a different country, far away from those I love. But in my mother's womb, I refused to die. Today I refuse to become anything other than the gift my mother promised to give back to God.

Editor's Note: Paula Cini is a student at European Nazarene College (EUNC) in Busingen, a German enclave within Switzerland. Rob L. Staples is a professor of theology emeritus at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City. He interviewed Paula while serving as interim professor at EUNC during the fall of 2002.

Reprinted from Holiness Today (April 2003), ©2003 Rob L. Staples. Used by permission.

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