Loredana arrived in Bristol from Romania in 2016. She was pleased to find several Romanian churches in the city. This bilingual bible represents her faith.

She is inspired by George Müller, a Christian evangelist who set up orphanages in Victorian Bristol. Profits from Loredana’s business go to Christian charities.

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. – Revelation 3:20

Listen to Loredana’s story:

Read the transcript from Loredana’s story:

[00:00:00] [Actuality: “Hello” “Hi Dana, come in. How are you?” “I’m fine, thank you. How are you?”]

Loredana: Hello, my name is, uh, Loredana Anghel, I’m from Romania. I arrived here in Bristol in 2016. My husband came here first one year before me. Yeah, in the beginning, my husband, uh, slept on the streets for a few nights. So yeah, it wasn’t very easy. That’s why we needed to start, uh, from the ground up.

In the beginning I, um, didn’t have the children with me. I have two boys – teenagers now. We wanted a better future for our children. When the kids, uh, were, um, at school, they didn’t speak English. The children received one to one English lessons, uh, at their school. It [00:01:00] was a real help.

A friend of mine recommended to a cleaning agency. I worked there for almost one year. And after that, I started by myself. And in 2018, I started my own company. The government is helping a lot, the small companies, you have a lot of information online. It’s good that we can have this help and support. Because we are trying to keep high standards, our customers who are very happy with our work, so they recommended us. So in this way, uh, the business started to grow. I was so happy to see that they are so thrilled with what I’ve done, so this encouraged me a lot.

What I enjoy most, uh, living in [00:02:00] Bristol…there are a lot of parks. My boys love to play football. So especially in the afternoons, uh, we go in the park, and we can spend some time together.

I can say that the Romanian culture is reflecting here in Bristol. We have Romanian shops so we can find our food from there. Also, there are, um, four Romanian churches here, so there are a lot of Romanian people. There is a Romanian restaurant, which is really good [Loredana: chuckles].

[Church: people singing hymns]

I am really happy here. The people are very friendly and lovely. My hopes and dreams are definitely coming through and I’m very grateful that, uh, God helped me to fulfil this here in Bristol. [00:03:00]