How I Found Christian Science April 22, 2013 Issue

Sustained in a new country

Karin Mironescu

In the late 1970s, I arrived in the United States with my seven-year-old daughter to join my husband, who had already been here for three years. We came from Romania—a beautiful country, but one that was ruled by an oppressive Communist regime.

In the 1950s, a handful of Romanians had contact with Christian Scientists from Switzerland who brought them the Bible, books by Mary Baker Eddy, and copies of the Christian Science Quarterly. A Russian woman who was known as a follower of Mary Baker Eddy also visited my mother and stayed with us a few days at a time, talking with my mother, grandfather, and me. But during that time my mother’s dearest friend, a Christian believer, was killed by the secret police. My mother decided she had to drop all connections with Christian Science for her own safety and the safety of her family.

Just two weeks after my daughter and I arrived in the United States, my husband declared that he wanted a divorce. I was not expecting such a surprise and felt lost and desperate. My English at that time was very poor. I had no job and no means to start a life on my own.