March 6th-8th 2020 - found and published in June 2021 :)
It’s strange to be back in this place again. But mostly, it’s strange because it isn’t
strange, not anymore. Having only
returned from here less than 5 months ago, in some ways it feels I never
left. The things I do notice are things
I’d notice in my hometown – a new construction project has begun, for example,
which may finally provide the train connecting the airport to the rest of the
city and country.
The city is Bucharest.
The country is Romania. This
country has held a piece of my heart ever since a presentation in my church
while I was in college flashed pictures of babies with disabilities living in
cribs, of older kids with disabilities still living in cribs, and I wanted to
be there, to do something. That
impulsive desire matured over several months and became a desire simply to
serve God with my last summer of college, and he chose to send me to Romania
for 2 weeks to do just that. Only 2
weeks. I felt guilty at the time: I
promised God my whole summer, and I’m giving him 2 weeks? But a wise friend
said to me, “Do you not think God can do something in 2 weeks?”
Do something He did.
I found those kids in cribs, and I loved them as I’d expected to, and I
brightened their days in ways that would probably soon be forgotten. What would not be forgotten, though, was the
impact that the people of Romania had on me, and the impact that that trip had
on my belief in a God who was bigger than I’d previously known Him to be. I watched Christian women do every day what I
came to do for a few days – give true, nurturing, lasting care to kids that the
world had abandoned. I talked to young
men only slightly older than me (yes, I too was young at the time) who told me
of a childhood vastly different than mine.
In the year I’d attended kindergarten, walking to my neighborhood school
in the suburbs of Phoenix and enjoying playdates with my friends, they’d
watched their country come to a bloody revolution that ended a brutal
dictatorship. While my family had skipped
church services altogether in favor of a favorite family tradition of Sunday
morning hikes, Christian families in Romania had met secretly, risking prison
terms or even death if they were found out.
These men told me stories that opened my eyes. Oh, and the singing! When I first heard people sing praise songs
in Romanian, something obvious finally sunk in with me: Jesus was not
American. Worshiping him was not an
American tradition adopted by other countries. Of course I’d known these things
in my head all along, but knowing them in my heart, that was different. God was…big! His church was so diverse, his
people so multi-faceted. I watched a man
sing Amazing Grace (Maretul Har) in his congregation. He was an old man, and it struck me that this
was probably a man who’d worshipped in secret during the height of communist
oppression. You could see in his eyes
that he would never again take for granted the privilege it was to worship
freely.
Oh, I could go on for page after page about that first
trip. And the second and 3rd. Oh, and then the 4th and 5th
and 6th. The 7th
was important also, and the 8th was wonderful. And here I am on the 9th
visit. In so many ways, of course, I
have changed since that first trip 15 years ago, but in so many ways I am the
same. And the characters here, they have
been the same since trip 4. In fact, one
character from trip 1 made an appearance on my way to trip 9, and this was
impactful also. But today, I sit in a
car next to a friend who came to pick me up at the airport. He does this a lot – for me, for the teams
I’ve come with, for other visitors, for his local friends. We’ve done this before – him driving capably
through traffic and windy roads, me making small talk, offering snacks, and
eventually just settling in for the long journey.
It is strange to have a second home here. More than once, I’ve considered, and worked
toward, making it my HOME home – the place that I live. And yet, so far, this hasn’t been my story. Instead my story has been these visits –
visits to a place I love. Visits in which
each year my language skills are a little better, but also each year I remember
the tower of Babel and the confusion it successfully accomplished. Visits in
which I spend time with faithful men and women who love Jesus and love their
countrymen, and who live this out in ways I haven’t quite found in the
States. Visits in which I smile at the
little things I love – the unique haystacks, the old women sitting on benches
in front of their homes, the sheep that interrupt traffic in ways I find
quaint, the street signs that still warn, and rightfully so, of horse-drawn
carts entering the road. I keep coming
back. This time feels different, and yet
the same. And tonight, as I sit in the
home of these dear friends that make up such an important part of each of my
recent years, I have the rare opportunity to process, just a little, the
thoughts that swirl in my tired brain as I reacclimate to this place, to these
people, to that part of my heart that first came alive seeing those troubling
pictures so many years ago.
Some moments to reflect on today (March 8):
I took a walk this morning.
Not just because I felt like walking, but because I’ve been carrying
only American money aside from some crumpled up lei, and it was high time I
exchanged some. It was the perfect plan:
Go straight to the money exchange, then grab a vending machine cappuccino from
the little store across the street from the church on the way back. And unlike most perfect plans, this one
actually worked out perfectly, with added bonuses: the quaintness of seeing a
horse “parked” in front of the local restaurant with his cart full of corn
stalks while his owner was presumably inside.
Seeing boys from last night’s youth meeting (in their attention-drawing
“USA” sweatshirts) and reflecting once more on how sweet small towns are for
just running into known people on the road.
And as I was preparing to walk home, being offered a ride by a friend
who’d stopped at the church.
Church this morning was in a storage container. Oh, I love this place. During my first trip to southern Romania in
2016, I was introduced to the village of Maruntei and to my sweet friends Tavi
and Nicoleta, who were diligently ministering there. There were no known believers in their town,
and the work was hard. We walked in
pouring rain and asked for neighbors to let us in. We talked about the Lord with these
neighbors, told testimonies, read scripture, and sang songs. It was beautiful. They told me then how they were praying for a
building in which they could hold church meetings. And now…there’s a storage container! Another short-term missionary purchased it
for them, after the sudden passing of his wife.
Instead of flowers at her funeral, people contributed to the needs of a
far-away church in southern Romania, and so now there is a cozy, warm shipping
container in which the word of God is faithfully preached each week and people
gather for worship. To watch my friend
preach there, remembering his prayers from years before, was such an
encouragement to my soul.
And then I met with Dorothy.
Sweet Dorothy is such a special gift to the women in this area – both
believers and nonbelievers alike. She
has a unique talent for encouraging people – for knowing who needs it and how
they best receive it, for bringing little tokens of her love to women who might
feel ignored or abandoned or who are hurting.
And today, we met a woman whose pain was so keenly felt. She suffers from chronic and extreme pain,
and as we talked she shifted multiple times from gut-wrenching sobs to cheerful
laughter. She was a dramatic story
teller, and her face held such a range of emotions and experiences. I told her, in my limited Romanian, that I
could see the joy of the Lord on her face, and that it was evident that it was
God’s grace in her life. She wept
more. She showed me other encouraging
truths she’d been pondering and said that what I had said was a response to
those truths. She hugged me hard and
well. We both cried. She had me type it into her phone so she
could remember what I’d said. Before I
left, she showed me the dress she’d like to be buried in. She loves it so much that she wanted our
pictures to include it and had to be reminded that we also wanted to see her
face.
Worship tonight in Draganesti – hard to express how meaningful
this is every. Single. Year. God is faithful to these people. They are faithful in their obedience. Their worship fills the room. The truths on
the screen, in a language that both enamors and mystifies me, in these moments
lead me also to worship well. One song
sang a reprise of trusting that God is working even when we don’t feel his
nearness. I cried some more. I received so many hugs and kisses tonight
that the CDC and WHO would have screamed at the room to stop at once. But they weren’t there, and I felt so
well-loved.
