The Public Square® · The American Policy Roundtable

TPS Express: Fleeing Communist Romania, Continued

·26 min·1 clip

Cosman says he discourages people from coming unless they plan two or three more trips.

1. The Public Square® episode follows Rob Walgate and Cosman Bota as they continue a conversation about work that grew out of Cosman’s childhood escape from Romania’s communist socialist regime. 2. Rob Walgate hosts the conversation, and Cosman Bota speaks as a Romanian American business owner, foster parent, and ministry organizer who works with orphan and foster care needs. 3. The episode asks what Cosman is doing now and why repeated trips to Turkey and Ukraine matter more than one-off help. 4. A missions pastor in Medina asks Cosman after a Ukraine visit whether he wants to help 900 orphans and foster kids living in Turkey. 5. Cosman, Dallas, and Tommy travel to Turkey with four or five duffel bags of soccer equipment and work out of three hotels. 6. One of the hotels holds military families, with mothers and children staying while husbands are on the front lines. 7. Childhood Without War appears as the nonprofit that moved orphans and foster children from Ukraine into safety in Turkey. 8. Cosman says the team returned to Turkey six times over two years, with volunteer counts growing from three to twenty-four. 9. A 13-year-old orphan tells him, 'it's maybe better if you don't come here,' because they love the children and then leave. 10. Cosman answers that he cannot promise to return, but he will do everything he can to come back, and he later sees her five times. 11. The Ukraine work begins after the Turkey project ends and the children are sent back into foster families in Ukraine. 12. Cosman says he did not expect God to open a door to Ukraine during a war, and he only went when Dallas and Toma agreed to travel. 13. The group takes four flights to Romania, crosses the border, and then rides 16 hours to a village near Cherkatsi, two hours south of Kyiv. 14. A foster mother with nine children accepts the invitation and comes to a Christian camp even though she is not a believer. 15. The camp director tells Cosman that they brought the first non-Christian family to the camp. 16. Cosman says the mother trusted them because they had loved on her kids in Turkey, and she later asks to return the next year. 17. The episode turns to foster care in Ohio, where Cosman says he and Christina have two sons, homeschool, and have had about nine foster kids in and out of their house. 18. Cosman says they have opened Transform Lives Global to support orphan and foster care work internationally and locally, especially for aged-out foster kids. 19. The tone is conversational and testimonial, with Rob asking direct questions about money, logistics, family life, and mission work while Cosman answers with specific examples. 20. People who care about foster care, family-based ministry, and practical service will get the most from this episode; listeners wanting a tightly edited news update may skip it.

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