Romanian Nurse's Help "Invaluable" In Corrective Eye Surgery Gift

TARA CUSLIDGE, Record Staff Writer

Nancy Shephard and her friend Patricia Glogowski fell in love with a group of Romanian orphans during a 2001 volunteer visit to the European country.

Since then, the women have sponsored three girls from the group, helping two of them reunite with their families and assisting the third in finding a foster family. But they were continually frustrated in their attempts at helping one of the girls, 6-year-old Cecilia, obtain corrective eye surgery.

And then Gabriela Briazu, a Romanian nurse and the pen pal Shephard met on an Internet site, stepped in. Her efforts were a true gift.

"Theoretically, the services are there. It's just a question of accessing them," said Shephard, 60, who lives in Stockton, California, USA.

Briazu was key to that access. She spent her two weeks of annual vacation helping ...