What is it?

Faces In The Dark is a simple ballad for low female voice and piano, ideally with electric piano and acoustic bass also. It has a somewhat soft, magical feel about it, being a melody that was inspired originally by a poem by a young friend in Cyprus. It is fairly straightforward to sing.

I lived in Chișinău, Moldova for an agregate of around four years. So this song is my imagining of how a young woman at my local church there might feel about living in a place that she loves, viewed by others as somewhat dilapidated, at a time of change.

I did two spells of working in Chișinău. The first, from late 2001 to October 2003, was a mixed experience: friendliness, wonderful colleagues, elsewhere hostility in some respects, and an encounter with downright deception that left me with post-traumatic stress disorder. It took me nearly ten years to summon up the courage to return, which eventually I did in 2012 with diplomatic status as a representative of the United Nations. Second time around I enjoyed my time there, although the circumstances in which I departed once again left something of a sour taste in the mouth ... but that's another story.

I suspect that in many ways I was something of an emigma to the Moldovans, not least because I could follow their conversations in both Romanian and Russian. In fairness to them, though, I must have come as something of a jolt to the system!

During my second term in Moldova, I attented the Isus Salvatorul Baptist Church. I have continued to follow them online in the years since. There is one particular woman in their music group who can appear solemn at times but when she is singing, her face brightens into the most wonderful smile. This song is for her.