The End

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Well, I was going to post today during my layover in Amsterdam, but after I typed everything up I found out that I didn’t have internet. 🙂 So, enjoy!

I am posting this blog from an airport terminal in Amsterdam. I’m on my way back home, and I’m fixing to board a plane to timewarp back to Dallas. I leave here at 10:30 in the morning and I’ll land in Dallas at about 2 in the afternoon. How is it possible that my flight over the Atlantic Ocean will take only as long as my drive home from the airport? I’ll tell you how… I’ll lose 7 hours (crossing time zones) during my 10 hour flight. I like to think that I’ll be traveling at the speed of time. Maybe that will make it easier for me to leave behind my friends and family in Romania.

Seriously though, I want to thank you all for praying for me while I’ve been gone. It has been a wonderfully blessed experience, and I am certainly not the same as when I sat in this airport waiting on the plane that would take me to Romania. In my last week God strengthened the bonds He has given me with my sisters and brothers in Romania, and leaving comes very hard. I am ready to be home, and I miss my family and friends dearly, but my chest is still tight from the grief of leaving behind my home here. God blessed me beyond my wildest imagination with the family I lived with, and I feel like I’m leaving behind a mother and father and some brothers and two little sisters. I will also miss my church family here and the beautiful children I got to work with every day. I almost want to be mad at God for the unity he gave me with the Body of Christ here for the fact that I have to leave, but I know that it is His timing, and I feel very strongly that He will bring me back. So, don’t stop praying now. Re-adjustment will be hard and I will be seeking God’s will about how and when to return and who to come with.

I left letters with the church and my foster family and my translators explaining how grateful I was for their help and for their time spent with me as we served the Lord together. I couldn’t bear to say most of the things I could write, nor could I take the frustration of imprecise translation, so I just left the letters. I know that someone (probably Florin) will end up translating them later, and so long as I’m not there, it’ll be alright. I wrote most of them Monday and I almost cried then, even though I still had a few days left.

Sunday morning we had communion at the church and I really understood for the first time the communal aspect of that meal. I have broken bread with my brothers and sisters here almost at every meal, and I thought nothing of it, just like the disciples probably thought when Jesus began to break the bread at the Last Supper. But, as we were all eating from the same loaf of bread and drinking from the same (incredibly strong!!) wine, I felt the connectedness of the community of the Kingdom wash over me like a tangible wave. It was a really odd/exciting experience. I wanted to grab the hands of the people sitting next to me and squeeze them and kiss them on the cheeks. While that is the appropriate way to express friendship or kinship here, I didn’t think it was quite appropriate for communion, so I restrained myself. It’s just become second nature now to greet people and tell them goodbye with the cheek kisses. Anyhow, after reading a bit and studying, I learned that Paul is so mad with the Corinthians (1 Cor 11) about the way they celebrate communion not only because they did so irreverently. Verses 17 to 22 indicate that Paul was fuming because the Lord’s Supper was not practiced in a way to unify, as it should have been. Instead of uniting the body, they were eating in such a way as to tear it apart into factions. It is a symbolic act to help us remember what Jesus did for us, but also to remind us that we all share in the same grace (Phil 1:7) and salvation, no matter where we are or how we are serving God. The same Body was broken for all of us, and the same blood spilt. Communion unites the Body of Christ in the same mystical way that the physicality of marriage unites a couple and makes them “one.” Paul describes this a little when he talks about the Body of Christ (the church), Christ himself, the individual believer, and married people (1 Cor 6:16-17, Eph 5:28-33). This view of communion makes sense, especially when taken in the larger context of the 1 Corinthians. Paul is talking about creating and keeping unity in the Body from chapter 10 to chapter 14. He speaks of things that divide and things that unite and he instructs on the way things should be done so as to promote unity and cooperation. I say all of that to say that I experienced communion in a completely different way Sunday, and I became even more attached to my church family here.

Sunday afternoon things just got worse (I’m getting ready to leave, people! Quit being so nice to me and inclusive; you’re making it even harder!!!). Gaby and Gigi took me and the family camping for the rest of the day. We were on a tributary of the Danube (so it was wide and shallow and great for playing in – even if no one brought a swimsuit) in a beautiful forest. Florin still couldn’t walk, so he stayed home, but Alex and Catalin (cousins) and Gaby and Gigi and I all went. We dug a fire pit and grilled some pork and toasted bread to eat, and we had dinner under the trees. Alex and Catalin caught some small fish and I took them off the hooks, and then we all played in the water. Afterwards Gigi fished with the boys and Gaby and I walked through the woods and talked. We went back and the boys finished fishing and we started to pack up. With my impeccable balance I managed to slip into the mud by the banks twice at this point, and the second time I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t get up again. Catalin and Gaby came over to pull me out and then Gaby gave me a thorough washing before we left. She made me stand on one foot so she could wash the other (or one of my shoes) and I was afraid I was going to slip again, but I didn’t. 🙂

Of course, on my last full day here (Thursday) things got even worse. Gaby and Gigi and the FARM team and I went to Dobrogei to see and play in some mountains with caves. Florin is, thankfully, on the mend. He’s had an infection but he is getting better. Dobrogei was a lot of fun, and I got closer to the FARM team. We may or may not have illegally fed the şobolani (fieldmice) our croissants. They were just so cute that we couldn’t help it. The FARM team members are from Bucareşti and they got here about the same time I did. They only have part of next week left before they go home. Ana translated for me again at Barǎci that morning and she did an excellent job. We both prayed for her to do well. She can’t speak probably about the same amount of English that I can Romanian, but she understands well. I can’t translate, of course, but I know enough words to be able to tell if I’ve gotten a true translation. After Barǎci we went straight to Dobrogei, and then we picked up Monica and dropped off FARM and headed to Peştera for my last day there. Those kids are wonderful. I’m really going to miss them. After that we went to Bible study at the church in Medgidia and then all the young people had a going-away party for me. I cried at church because of the church family I was leaving, and Ana (the FARM girl) almost made me cry at the party.

I finished up my story sets at Barǎci and Peştera this week. I did a chronological set at Peştera because the kids had enough background to the stories that I could skip a few in order to have enough time to make the historical connections and explain the order of events. They have never heard the stories that way before, so they didn’t realize the Nebuchadnezzer’s dream of the statue explained the changing empires all the way up to and through the 400 years of silence, and they didn’t realize that the mountain was Christ’s first coming and the growth of the kingdom. The story quilt Olivia made for me was a WONDERFUL help to connect the stories for the kids. I could point to Jesus and his blood on the cross and move my finger just a few inches to the picture of the Passover lamb’s blood on the doorpost to make the connection for them. I could point to the picture of Isaac carrying the wood for his own sacrifice up Mount Moriah and remind the kids how Jesus carried his cross up to Golgotha. Tuesday I did the story of Jesus (birth, twelve-year-old, baptism, miracles, teachings, healings, parables, crucifixion, tomb, resurrection, ascension… *gasping for air*), and Wednesday I started Acts and explained how the rock that fell on Nebuchadnezzar’s statue became the kingdom of God and began to fill the whole earth. At Barǎci I told a cultural set because the kids had almost no background. This last week they learned about every human’s sinfulness, the punishment we deserve, and that someone was beaten for us from the story of Balaam and his donkey; about God’s power of forgiveness and cleansing from the Gaderene Demoniac; and about His overwhelming love for us and His gift of life from the resurrection of Lazarus. I’ll probably write another blog after I’ve gotten home and processed a few more things. I’ll try to give you a recap of the trip and point out the important parts, but until then, la revedere (goodbye). Thanks for the prayers, and I’ll see you soon. Thanks, guys! You were a blessing!

Blessings,

Caroline

Going Home

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I’m really sorry that almost all of my titles have been related to the amount of time I have spent in Romania or the time I have left. Talk to God about the portion of creativity He gave me. I think all of mine went to Olivia or something… Anyhow, I have come to the sad realization that I have less than a full week left here in Romania. Things have been sad and things have been encouraging. I have cried and laughed (mostly at myself) and scratched my head (quite a lot—the little Gypsy kids have lice. Just kidding – they do have lice, but I’ve scratched my head because I have no idea what’s going on), but Wednesday driving back from Peştera a contentedness just washed over me. I became aware of how fond I was of the uneven sidewalks with sunflower seeds all over them, and of Gigi’s Nascar driving, and of holding grimy little Gypsy babies. I began to realize how much I would miss all of it when I go home. Don’t get me wrong—I miss people and things at home too, but I think re-adjusting will be hard. A picture came into my head of me cutting cabbage at home to make salata and crying because I wouldn’t eat it at Gaby’s little table with enough bread to insulate a small house. As ridiculous as that sounds, I had to fight back the tears because I know I’ll miss it here more than I have missed anywhere else God has taken me on mission. I’m sure some of you know the story of David Livingstone. He was a very famous missionary to Africa. He made some big mistakes, but he had a huge piece of God’s heart for the lost people there. When he died he asked for his body to be sent back to his family at home in Scotland(?) and for his heart to be buried in Africa. I think I’ll feel a little like that when I leave—well, except for the being dead part.

Things have been good this week. I’ve been blessed to watch God work in different ways. Most of the time I can see it in the lightbulbs that light up behind a child’s eyes when they get the Bible story. Wednesday at Peştera little Florin’s face just broke open with a huge grin after I told the story of Daniel’s life (from the exile to his service under Darius) and he understood that God would do wonderful things with his own life if he was faithful like Daniel. Thursday at Barǎci I was asking questions after I told the story of Joshua when the sun stood still and one of the boys raised his two fingers in the cute way all the kids raise their hands here, and he said “Eu, eu, eu! (me, me, me!)” because he had the answer to the question. He understood that God really is on our side when we do what He asks. He understood that God made the hail fall and the sun stop for Joshua because Joshua was following His orders. The little boy answered my questions with something like ‘God will fight for me when I’m obeying Him.’ He understood that he could be just like Joshua—that there was no difference between himself and the great hero in the Bible.

This week has also been a little painful. Vagard is still in a coma, in a hospital in Norway, of course, but we’ve had a few problems a bit closer to home too. Florin and I went to the beach again Monday with the FARM team, and we had a wonderful time of fellowship and bonding. Cerasela’s 10-year-old sister, Andreea, came with us, and I spent a lot of time with her catching the dead jellyfish. Of course I couldn’t understand everything she said, but she was patient with me and I had occasion to thank God again for the understanding of the language He has given me. It’s obviously not complete, but I could understand almost everything she said. We also played chicken (where someone sits on someone else’s shoulders who is standing in the water and the person on top tries to knock down someone else on someone’s shoulders), and for some reason the hardest part for everyone else was getting on the shoulders. One time during all of the hullaballoo of three people clambering onto three other people’s shoulders, Florin got hurt and ended up in the hospital that evening. He is now on some really strong pain-killers and some antibiotics and he can barely walk. He’s been house-bound all week, so while we’ve been praying for healing, Monica has been my translator. It’s been a blessing to spend time with her, but please be praying for Florin with us. We went to a bigger hospital (in Constanţa) Saturday morning and he has an infection so he has to have shots daily, along with his other medicine.

Thursday morning I managed to twist my ankle trying to keep up with Gigi, so I’ve been hobbling around for a few days. It’s barely swollen, but it still hurts. On top of all that, Gigi’s father had to go to the hospital Thursday afternoon. He had a stroke a few years ago, and he is paralyzed, but he can still talk. We still don’t know exactly what is wrong with him, but he can’t keep food down and he has a lot of pain in his trunk. Please pray for him, as he is not a believer. Pray for brother Gigi as well. I talked to him late Thursday night when he came back from the hospital and he told me the same information again, but he stopped fidgeting about partway through the conversation when I cut off some of his stammered English with “God is still in control.” He was apologizing again for not being able to drive me to Peştera that day. He felt very responsible for anything that happened that day that could be seen as going wrong. I had been praying for God to give him peace and I think the prayer was answered. 🙂 His father is doing better now, but he’s still not out of the woods yet.

The story of the Tower of Babel has been more or less of a recurring theme for my time here. I’ve told it at least twice to different groups, and one time I laughed at the irony of the double translation we needed (from English to Romanian to Turkish) and a second time at the irony of the pantomime being too far ahead of my words in an attempt to anticipate the delay of translation. I personally love the story, because it makes me feel a little bit better when I can’t speak Romanian or Ţiganesc or Turkish or Spanish. I know there is a reason that the languages were separated and that eventually, when all things are set right, all of God’s children will be able to understand each other. But, Paul talks about things being imperfect now – not completely broken. God has been teaching me that we can see a glimpse of that perfection (in which we can all communicate perfectly) now, within His kingdom. You’ve heard how music is the universal language, or of the love languages, or the language of touch or of body language. I think those are all real things. The little gypsy kids love it when I hug and kiss them or tickle them. I’m communicating affection without words and they understand it (I had a really happy moment Friday when “the kid from the grass” came over and held his arms up for a hug. I don’t know his name because the little gypsy kids only speak Ţiganesc, but he will never come join the rest of the kids. He always listens and watches from the grass. He’s been afraid and run away every other time I approached him, but today he watched me love on his sister a lot and he finally came over and I got to hug him several times).

But anyhow, I’ve been learning about the language of praise; body language and the language of touch don’t even compare. Wednesday Gigi and I were looking ahead to the passage for Thursday evening Bible study and we were reading and stammering back and forth in choppy English and a few of my stammered Romanian words. I pointed out a part that I had never really understood before and we both got a fire in our eyes and started flipping through concordances and commentaries and turning the pages of each other’s Bibles to a verse we wanted to show the other. We both came to a new understanding of the passage after cross-referencing elsewhere in Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 2 Corinthians, and several places in Isaiah. It was a beautiful experience because we were both a brother or a sister in Christ and He had given us the common language of His word and His praise. Gigi mentioned the Tower of Babel after we were done and said something about how wonderful it was that even though our languages were different, we could communicate to each other because we were both part of the same împǎrǎţia (kingdom). I was thinking and praying about the Tower of Babel story later and my mind came to rest on a part of the story that has always confused me just a tiny bit. We know from other stories that God confused the languages because the people had congregated at Babel and refused to fill the earth, The actual story of the Tower says that God says something like, ‘If they can do this with one language, nothing they attempt will be impossible for them.’ We know from science that there is no possible way they could actually build a tower to reach heaven. God’s heaven is outside of the universe. I’ve always wondered what God was talking about. What great work would the people be able to do with their single language? That work was glorification. The people at Babel could all communicate as one people and they could glorify. Instead of using this beautiful gift of sound and meaning and communication to glorify God, they used it for themselves. They wanted to glorify themselves with the tower. And they would have done, if God had not confused their languages. As members of God’s kingdom here on earth, and eventually one day in heaven, we all desire to glorify God with our words and our actions. Thing sounds and meanings we communicate with all glorify God (or, they are supposed to, anyway). When we praise God it doesn’t matter if we sing “Ce mare eşti Tu” or “How great Thou art.” We all mean the same thing. It really is a beautiful thing.

Along with this theme I thought I’d tell you about a couple of gifts I have received while I’ve been here. The first one is a memory. Last Sunday morning Frate Gigi and Sorǎ Gaby and I went to Peştera for the service. The church plant there has no pastor, so the more mature men of the church here in Medgidia take turns leading. The services here last as long as the congregation feels like. We sing a few hymns corporately and a few people pray, but before the message there is almost always a time when anyone can (and most everyone does) read some poetry or sing a favorite hymn or read a scripture passage and share a testimony. After that is a long serial prayer, starting with a short prayer from the pastor, filling up the middle with almost everyone else in the building, and a closing prayer from the pastor. Afterwards the pastor or fill-in reads a passage and gives more or less of a sermon (less exegetical and more narrative focused). During the singing time I asked Gaby to sing Come Thou Fount with me. It is one of my favorite hymns, and it has been adapted into Romanian and it’s in their song books. It is one of her favorite songs too. I knew she liked it because during the day whenever both of us are at home we almost always sing together (she in Romanian and a little in English and me in the reverse). She has a beautiful and strong soprano voice and God has given me a strong alto voice and I love to harmonize. Together we sang the first two verses in our own language and then I looked at her songbook and we sang the last verse in Romanian together. It was the most beautiful song I have ever sung, and pretty close to the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. I say that not out of even a smidgen of pride—but because God has given us both voices to praise Him with and because we both sang out of the depths of our souls. It was beautiful sounding, but all the more because of the souls behind the sounds. The second gift was a Romanian Bible. I’ve been trying to think of something I want to bring back to remember my time here by, and I kept coming back to a Bible in Romanian. Because of what God has been teaching me about languages and words and the universal language of praise used by His kingdom, I felt like a Bible in Romanian was the perfect thing. Thursday when Gaby and I were just talking in my room she stopped and got up and walked over to the bookcase and took down a New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs and study notes and gave it to me. I hadn’t said anything to anyone about wanting a Bible, and she gave me that one with seemingly no prompting. It was a heartfelt gift and a heartfelt blessing to me. I’ve memorized a couple of verses so far, but I’ll write my favorite for you here. Again, I’m seeing a repeated theme from my trip. 😉 Ioan unu cu unu (1:1): „La început era Cuvântul şi Cuvântul era cu Dumnezeu, şi Cuvântul era Dumnezeu.” That’s John 1:1, if you want/need to look it up. 🙂

Well, I’m sure you have to get back to your lives, but in case you want any more advice on dealing with food in Romania, read on.

  1.         If anyone offers you cletita or cozonac, heartily accept them. You might even tell them that you have a rare stomach condition that allows you only to eat cletita and cozonac. Cletita are like sweet crepes, and you put jam or nutella on the inside and roll it up to eat it. Cozonac is a sweetbread with raisins, walnuts, and chocolate swirls. It has the puffiness of wedding cake and the perfect amount of sweetness.
  2. Make sure you have an accountability partner with you if you think you are likely to run into a corcoduş tree. Those little fruits are so good that you may not realize how many you’ve eaten in one sitting. They are as soft and juicy as the best plum you’ve ever eaten, but in the center around the pit they are satisfyingly tart. They are about the circumference of a quarter, and the trees are loaded with them.

Until next time, keep my in your prayers!

Blessings,

Caroline

Halfway Through

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Alright… Fasten your seatbelts. This is probably going to be the most intense of my blogs. It should probably be split into several parts, but I only have a little internet time to post. For the sake of your corneas you may want to ration your readings over a few days or turn the brightness down on your computer. 🙂

I have worked mostly with children in the area (Turkish/Muslim/Gypsies), Romanian children, poor children from farming families outside the city, and the children in and from the slums. In each situation the number of children who attend the programs far exceeds the number of parents who come for the services or Bible studies. In many households we have visited, the parents and grandparents explain how free they are from the restrictive Orthodox church or of how they want to live their own lives in their own way. What I have learned from this is that, while many children attend the program (15 avg. in Peştera, 40 avg at Golgota, 30 in the slums, and 15 in the Turkish church) , many will no longer come to church when they are too old for the program. In other words, while the kids are doing a wonderful job at listening to and learning from the stories, as adults they will not darken the doors of a church. The stories have no lasting effects on their lives. When I am confronted with this I hold onto God’s promise in Isaiah that his World will not come back void.

My prayer is that these ‘free’ people would taste the freedom that the Lord offers to us through his salvation. I pray that they would learn of and exercise their freedom to enjoy Him instead of living in their slavery to sin. Because they are so poor, many live lives of addiction, sex slavery, and anger. Please pray with me that God would bring a new dawn of His glory in their lives and that they would begin to hunger for something that would truly satisfy. Pray that God would continue to call people from his kingdom to feed these Gypsies with His words and that they would search for freedom from the tyrannical hold of their sins.

Now that you have prayer requests and you have a little of an idea of what God is doing here in Romania and in my life, let me share with you a few stories to further highlight what I’ve already told you (and in some cases provide a little amusement and/or comic relief).

Many of you know that I have been in prayer about whether or not God is calling me to long term service with the Roma (Gypsies). As I approached the halfway mark of the trip, I began to wonder what that affirmation would feel like if it came: a lightning bolt, and gradual realization, a still, small whisper that I had already missed? My answer was two-fold, and both parts hit me in the same day – one like a load of bricks and the other like falling into a soft bed at the end of a day of hard work.

The load of bricks came first. I was working at the Turkish church like I normally do in the mornings and I was pleased to see Sibel there that day. She is 11 years old, stunningly gorgeous, and smart as a whip. The Turkish Gypsies are given no education, and many of them are worse off that the Romanian Gypsies. Some of them can still only speak Turkish (the last time I told a story it had to be translated into Romanian, and then Turkish for the kids; the story was, appropriately, the Tower of Babel). Anyhow, Sibel has been given no education except what could be given at the church, and she can read and write and do some mathematics. She also has learned some Bible stories and can quote some verses. I had just played tag with her in the parc the night before and I was struck by how universal tickle tag is because she played the same way my little brother Jacob does. Monica told me afterwards that Sibel’s mother had married her off the summer before (because she is so beautiful and smart) to an old man for money. Monica was so happy to see her because it meant she had run away. She came late to the program at the church, with her brother and sisters and we had just started to color when her mom stormed into the church. They were speaking in rapid-fire Turkish, so none of us could understand exactly what they were saying, but Sibel started to cry along with her cousin, and her mother grabbed her by the arm and started to drag her out. Her mother was taking her back and none of us could do anything to stop it because it is perfectly legal and we would be beaten if we tried. Sibel resisted as much as she could, but she wasn’t crying hysterically. It was sort of a resigned understanding cry, and it broke my heart. I haven’t been drowned in suffering during my life, but I have seen plenty, especially on other mission trips. Nothing hit me so hard as when Sibel was taken away. I felt like she was my little sister (because she was so close to Jacob in age?) and I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t even cry.

Later that day I was in Peştera and still exhausted from lack of sleep and what had happened that morning. Fratele Corneliu had brought the Legend of the Three Trees cartoon, so I didn’t have a lesson, and I was just sitting on a bench with a couple of the girls on either side of me. I had my arms around them during the cartoon, and after it was over they just leaned in closer and none of us wanted to move. I felt perfectly content – you know, like those times when you know you are smack-dab in the center of God’s will? – and I literally felt the joy and love inside of me start to gush for them from a heart much bigger than my own.

Later that night after those two experiences and the next day I was praying and God began to show me that He had given me a piece of his heart for the people here. I have cried for them and prayed for them for so long, but I wanted to make sure that God wanted me with them, not just that I desired it. I have no doubt that I’ll be back, even though I don’t know God’s timing yet. If God has truly lent me His eyes to see this people’s pain, and a piece of his desire to glorify His name among them, I don’t know that I’ll be able to stay away – maybe only for as long as Jeremiah could stand the burning in his bones and keep quiet.

During my time here in Romania I have really come to have a new understanding of the story of the Fall. I really have. 🙂 I have come to believe that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a Corcoduş tree. That’s a tree here in Romania and it has a fruit kind of like a plum. They grow wild here and everyone just picks a few as they walk by one on the road. The fruit is delicious and good to eat. I’m just sure it was the one Adam and Eve ate one because they are so delicious and tempting. I climbed up a hill with a friend to get to some ripe ones and ended up sliding back down. The tree I was holding onto stabbed me and gave me a nice puncture wound with a big knot and a beautiful bruise. I experienced the consequences of sin firsthand. 🙂

I went to the Black Sea Monday with the Norway team before they left. It was wonderful. By the way, Vagar has been flown home to Norway after he was held for a little while longer here because of an infection scare, so while he is still in a coma, now he is home. We swam and I found some beautiful shells and I shucked sunflower seeds on the beach like a real Romanian. Florin got very sunbunt because he didn’t use sunscreen. I forgot mine too but I sat under the umbrella some of the time and I just got a little pink for a few hours. We were there from about 9 to 6:30 except for when we went to eat lunch. Tuesday Frate Cornel Dema (the pastor of Golgota and a big joker) called me a cartofi (potato) and Florine a roşi (tomato). He always makes vegetable jokes because when we first met someone told him I could name the vegetables growing in his garden and so we spent a few minutes pointing and naming.

Well, thanks for reading. I hope you learned something or got your curiosity quenched and learned about some prayer requests. I’ll finish off with some humor, if you don’t mind. Thanks for the prayers, and I’ll see you again soon!

Romanian expressions:

1.”Tu esti varzǎ.” Literally translated, it means ‘you are cabbage.’ It is an insult, kind of like ‘You’re a jerk’ or goober or loser. If you say this to someone with the right tone of voice it can be taken as a light-hearted jab. I have yet to say it to anyone, but maybe sometime soon. 🙂

  1. “Anything is possible in Romania.” This is a catch-all statement used to excuse anything that happens out-of-the-ordinary. Why are the Gypsy children bathing naked in the nice fountains and pools in the square and no one is trying to stop them? Oh… anything is possible in Romania. Why do the horse-drawn Gypsy carts use car tires? Because anything is possible in Romania. 🙂
  2. ‘It will pass by the time I get married.’ This is an old gypsy saying appropriately used when you are hurt or something is inconvenient. Monica says it to me anytime either of us takes notice of a scratch or sunburn or a stubbed toe. “Yes, it hurts, but it will pass till I get married”. She says it to me sometimes too. For example, I broke a plate when I was cleaning the other day and she said, “Don’t worry, it will pass till you are married.” We both laugh because neither of us have much on the horizon in terms of prospective husbands. 🙂
  3. The proper greeting to men at church is “Peace bro.”I thought it was kind of funny, considering the alternate meaning that phrase has in my American context. 🙂 Actually, they say “Pace frate (PAH-chay FRAH-tay),” and frate is short for fratele, or brother.
  4. “You have a giant head.” This is, contrary to the American reading of it, a compliment. It means you are smart or you learn quickly. There is no sarcasm or mocking in it; the phrase is just a plain and simple compliment (so if I say it to any of you when I come back home, don’t be offended). 🙂
  5. “Have a funny dream.” This one is an amusing way to say goodnight to someone. It is the equivalent of ‘sleep well’ because you wish them a refreshing and restful sleep.

One Week Old Romanian

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I’m a week-old Romanian!! I will have officially been in Romania for a week at somewhere around 1 o’clock tomorrow morning your time. I am practically immersed in the language, and I am learning quickly. I thank God every time I think about it because the people here see it as an effort to relate to them and they appreciate it and listen to what I have to say. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “They don’t care what you say until they see that you care.” I know numbers, foods, days of the week, important phrases, colors, some church words, a few other everyday nouns, and the alphabet. I think this week I’m going to tackle some verbs and conjugation. They are harder than the hard parts of both French and Spanish combined. The little bit I know of French and Spanish have been a gift as well. Because I know words from those languages (and because some body language is universal) I can often guess correctly the topic, and sometimes the content, of a conversation. I have learned the song  “Head, shoulders, knees, and toes” in Romanian, and I am starting to learn others. God has blessed me in so many ways that I am overwhelmed. He is helping me to learn the language, He has blessed me with a wonderful Romanian family (Gaby and Gigi repeatedly tell me that I am their American daughter and they are my Romanian parents), the people I work with are wonderful Christians, and He has given me a burning love for the children here that spurs me to teach and play and sing and laugh with them. Thank you all for the prayers; I am blessed too with friends and family back home who are praying earnestly for me and for the people I bring God’s love to.

I had my first week of ministry, and everything went well. I loved working with the Norwegians. Half of them speak English just like you guys, and some of them speak with British accents, and only a few have a Norwegian accent when they talk. Thursday evening after one of our afternoon camps some of their group was wrapping up and playing with some children on a soccer field when one of the Norwegian boys got run over by a car. The car was going over 100 kilometers per hour (I have yet to figure that out in miles, but when Gigi drives me somewhere at 120 I feel like my eyeballs are coming out the back of my head). He was responsive immediately afterwards, but soon after he got to the hospital he went into a coma. He had a head injury and shattered bones in one of his arms, and the skin was all ripped up on that arm and his side. He was moved to the capital the next day, and his parents are there now with him. It was a huge shock to the team, but God has been faithful in providing the strength and motivation to continue to work. Please pray for them as they seek healing and deal with this event. The boy (Vagard) is still in a coma, and we don’t know how things will turn out.

Please pray for the team as they continue to deal with the accident and formulate understandings of God’s character. I was able to go to the church and talk and pray with a few of them the night of the accident. Most importantly I was able to listen when they needed to talk and didn’t want to talk to a team member or when their leaders were busy. I pray that I was a blessing to some of them – they certainly were to me.

Anyway, ministry went well this week. I was at Pestera for two of the mornings and Golgota every evening, and Thursday and Saturday (today) I was able to go to the Turkish church (mostly Turkish Gypsies who were, at least marginally, Muslim) and work with the kids. The Norway team had Bible lessons for all of the sites, but one evening they didn’t go to Golgota and one afternoon Fratele Cornel Dema and the Farm team and Florin and I went into the slums to have a lesson with the kids there. Those two times I did the Bible story and had a great time. We sang “Singing in the Rain” with the kids at Golgota and in the slums, and they love it (that’s the one where you end up looking like an epileptic duck at the end of the song after all the motions). The schedule was crazy this week, but my days were filled with the most beautiful children and teaching and serving and my gibberish Romanian. Next week things will be a little more solid, and I’ll be responsible for a lot more. Please pray for energy and sensitivity to God’s leading. I’m exhausted after this week, so next week I pray for extra focus of my mind and heart on things above. Perspective is very important when working with these children.

Alright… One more highlight of the week and I’ll close with a little humor. Andrea and Roxy left on Thursday (that’s not the highlight – that made me terribly sad), but before they left they taught me the alphabet and some pronunciation rules. Romanian pronunciation is not that hard once you get used to it. Anyhow, when we had the camp in the slums we made salvation bracelets with the kids. Florin was busy with some other group of kids and I had the little ones and those who couldn’t read. There was a note inside their bags of beads and twine that explained the meaning of each color and the knots in Romanian as well as English. I knew my colors by that time, but I because of the alphabet lessons I was able to read the Romanian words that explain the colors’ meanings to the kids. It was a blast. The only problem is that some of them still somehow think I can understand Romanian (after I shook my head and said “Nu inteleg” a thousand times).

Romanian Food Rules: (Preparation for anyone with a possibility of visiting Romania soon)

  1. “You try… This pepper not very hot” means “This pepper is very hot – so hot you’ll get second-degree burns inside your mouth if you try it. Oh, and I won’t tell you until you’ve already taken a (small) bite, but it’s too hot for us too, so we only nibble on it. ”
  2. When eating sunflower seeds like a real Romanian (anywhere you please, shelling them with your fingernails, and dropping the shells anywhere on the ground where you are standing or walking), do not wear closed-toe shoes with open holes in the top. You’ll be too embarrassed to dig it out of your shoe in front of everyone, so you’ll be stabbed in the toe with every consequent movement.
  3. (This is not a rule, but worthy of note, all the same.) If you didn’t like carbonated water before you came to Romania, don’t expect anything different once you get here.

-Caroline

Getting to Work

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New things I have learned:

  1. Fratele Gigi can fix ANYTHING. It really is amazing. Just yesterday he cooked mackerel for dinner and it was good! (I don’t like fish, so that’s quite a bit from me). We are still carrying on with our mimed and sound-effect infused conversations, and he has tried in vain to teach me the difference between a ‘i’ with a tent on top and an ‘a’ with a tent on top. They both sound like tortured ‘uhhhhh’s to me…
  2.         How to count to twenty and say my alphabet (except for the tented vowels, of course).
  3.         Gypsies are the most beautiful people group on the planet. Hands down.
  4.         It is possible to play monopoly in Spanish with two Romanian girls who have taken less than 6 semesters of English combined. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to read the instructions well enough to understand and explain the rules about the many ways you can get into and out of jail.
  5. There are no motokars here, but the transportation is just as much of an adrenaline rush. Maxitaxi drivers take pleasure in stomping on the gas or slamming on the brake to throw you to either end of the bus. The taxis drive so fast it makes your head spin.

I am finally a little clearer on my duties, and I am so excited and blessed, but also a bit overwhelmed. Next week a team from Norway will be here to help at Golgota, so I’ll just be there to help and observe and learn. That ministry with the children will be almost like a kids’ camp or VBS with the Roma children. It will start at 5 in the evenings and last until… the kids go home. In the mornings I will be at Pestera doing a similar sort of thing, except I will be the VBS director. AHHHH!!! Just kidding… Well, not exactly. I intend to tell stories chronologically throughout the Bible with them – so they can get at least a little understanding of the meta-narrative there – and I’ll also have a craft and some games and songs, God willing. I don’t know if any of you learned any Romanian (or any Gypsy) songs when you were growing up, but I didn’t. I’m either going to have to get someone from my host family to teach me some or have them translate some I already know. God may bless me with someone native to the area to do songs for me. That’s my prayer, anyway. I’ll start on Wednesday with Creation. I’ll use my story quilt that Olivia (my wonderful little sister) made for me to give them a visual depiction of the history. Some of you probably know that creation is my favorite story, so I am glad to start with it. Plus, a very wise person once said, “Let’s start at the very beginning – a very good place to start…” Mom and I found a 8” roll of paper before I left, and I brought it to use with the kids. I’ll probably use it to make a creation mural with the kids. It’ll be GREAT!! It always makes me feel a little bit better when the 4-year-olds’ alligators and flamingos don’t look any better than mine.

After the Norwegians leave I’ll have the same job in Golgota, and the times for Pestera will move to 6:30 or 7, depending on when the kids show up. I’ll have those mornings free, so I may work with a Turkish Gypsy church (ministering to a Muslim Turkish Gypsy community) with Monica or follow along for house visits with the FARM team that is here helping Fratele Corneliu as well. Monica is 22 and part Roma, and she speaks wonderful English. She is a large part of anything that goes on at Golgotha, and she will help me translate on days that Florin gets tired of me or his brain melts from translating into Gypsy Romanian (a little bit like Eubonics except far more different from the main language) or if he just needs a day off or doesn’t come. I have already spent some time with her, and she is a wonderfully mature young woman of God with a fiery passion for helping the Roma to learn about Him. She’ll be doing some other work with the Golgota teens that I may help with sometimes. The FARM team (an English acronym that I can’t remember, but it means native missionaries helping their own people) will be working with Fratele Corneliu in a different way. While I work with the children, they will be doing house visits and prayer walking. Some days I will have the opportunity to join them, but I am still praying  about God’s will in that area. I can speak enough of the language to endear people to me, but that’s about it. It’s kind of like when a baby stutters out ‘Dada’ or ‘Mommy’ or when they begin to lisp out common phrases or sentences and everyone thinks their sooooo cute. Yep – that’s my Romanian level. Anyhow, I don’t know the culture or the people or the language, so all I can really do is pray and smile. I’m not belittling praying at all; that’s alright if that’s what God wants me to do, but I don’t know yet. The FARM team is four people about my age – a married couple and a couple of singles – that are not from Romania. They are Roma, but they lives elsewhere and were trained to work with their own people. AnnaMarie can speak a little bit of English, and I think she can understand more that she lets on, but she grew up speaking Romani. So, if she ever needs to translate into Romani for me, we can do it with some prayer.

I do have one more opportunity that I’d like you to be praying about. I have the opportunity to work as a counselor at a camp for two different sets of church kids during the third week I’ll be here (one set in the morning and one in the evening). Right now I want to skip the opportunity because the woman leading it already has a team scheduled to work with her, finances to afford her camp, and she’s working with Romanians (the group that mistreats the Roma, generally) that already come to church. I’m only going to have four weeks with the Pestera kids and 3 with the Golgota kids to tell through the whole Bible, and they won’t get that information any where else – especially after school starts back for them. I already have a hard enough time cutting out stories to cover 4 weeks of material, but if I only have 3 and 2 weeks, I know it won’t be easy. I know for a fact though, that that is my opinion, not God’s. Pray for God to change my heart if He is calling me to work at the camp, and pray overall that I would be sensitive to His leading rather than my own feelings and hopes. Pray for strength, encouragement, and rest, as well as a united spirit among the many workers of the Lord here. Thanks for sticking it out to the end, and I’ll let you know how things are going when I can!

Blessings,

Caroline

I Made it!

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I am a bit jet-laggy, but all things considered it was a good trip here. No luggage lost and no planes left without me on them. 🙂 I couldn’t sleep on the first trip because of the excessively friendly and slightly creepy Ugandan next to me, and because of excitement. At the airport Fratele GiGi (Brother George) had just enough English to turn me away because my name wasn’t Charlotte (I can’t spell it with the accent on my keyboard, but it sounds nothing like Caroline). About that time my IMB contact turned around and sorted things out, and I wasn’t left at the airport. 🙂

I have learned many things already, and God has reiterated how wonderfully faithful He is through all of this. I live with the Alexandru family (in Romanian the family name comes first, and then the individiual name), and they have already been a huge blessing to me. Mama Gabbi (Gabby) has already made some fantastic food for me and she treats me like one of her own daughters. I spent a couple of hours with her yesterday looking at her family photos and swapping words between our language. It was a great bonding time. Fratele GiGi makes me laugh with his English, and I try to return the favor with my Romanian. 🙂 Their son Florin is 18 and speaks fantastic English considering the teacher I’ve heard about. Between him and a Romanian/English-English/Romanian dictionary, I’ve got a translator! The two daughters are beautiful and amazing. 🙂 Andrea is 13 going on 14. She and I have been fast friends and she has taught me the most Romanian that I’ve learned here. I’ve learned helpful phrases like “I’m sorry,” “Thank you,” “excuse me,” and a few nouns to fill out my vocab a tiny bit. I still don’t have any verbs or conjugation or tenses, but I’m hoping to learn a few. Roxi (Roxy) is 9 going on 10. We can only communicate a few words to each other, but she likes to hold my hand on walks and giggle at me. 🙂

I am living with the Alexandru family, like I told you before, and they attend Brother Corneliu’s church. Brother Corneliu has planted a church for the Roma called Golgota, and I will work there Tuesdays through Fridays. It will be like day camp. I can tell Bible stories and we will have rec time and a craft. Early in the days I will be at (Peshterah – I can’t spell it in Romanian without their letters) doing something similar. Be praying with me about some other opportunities that I may have. There is an option to quit working at those places and work at another camp. I don’t know what God would have me to do yet, so pray with me as I seek his will and begin working in Peshterah and Golgota. Mondays are market days, Saturdays are rest days, and Sundays are church days.

I’ll sum up my couple of days here with a list of things I’ve learned so far:

1. Don’t be too nice to the Ugandan at the terminal. He’ll be seriously trying to schedule a visit before you board and you’ll spend a good two hours of your flight answering and evading questions about your views on dating…

2. Jet lag will always baffle and intrigue me.

3. I LOVE ROMANIAN FOOD!!!! I may exceed the weight limit though for the plane ride back. 🙂 We eat several slices of bread with each meal.

Well, that’s all for now folks (in my best Porky Pig voice). Pray with me, and I’ll keep you updated. 🙂

Blessings,

Caroline

And So it Begins…

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Yes… I have a blog now. I never would have predicted it, but that is yet another demonstration of the fact that I am not omniscient. 🙂 I intend to use my new blog to inform my friends and family of what God is doing in my life and around me. That means, if you choose, of course, you can read about mission trips, lightbulb moments with God, and other exciting stuff that’s going on. I’ll christen To Be a Blessing with stories from my upcoming time in Romania, which somehow seems appropriate, considering the way it hinges together my life now and one that could be completely different (see my last post). I hope that you will all read and pray with me as God takes me on that adventure. One last thing: I am incredibly, terribly, sometimes soporifically, long-winded. I would apologize, but that’s they way God made me, and I hope that someday He’ll use it for His glory. Happy reading everyone!

Blessings,

Caroline

Waiting for the Romanian Month

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Here in my journey with God, and at this moment in my life, I feel like I’m standing on the brink of something unimaginable — on the cusp of two different lives. I don’t only feel this way in this exact moment; I’ve felt it for a while. It’s like a chapter in my life is ending, as hackneyed as that may sound. I feel like I’ve been reading this chapter for about a year now, and while the plot wasn’t moving very quickly at the beginning, I’ve flipped the page and read down to the last couple of lines, afraid to flick my eyes across the spine to the last page. I’m afraid to know how many lines are left in the chapter. Once I know that, I have to read on, and afterwards the book closes and I have to open a new one. This book has lasted for twenty years, and it’s been my constant companion. It has held my stories and my interpretations and my prayers. Once it’s over I’ll hardly know where to begin again. The anxious thought playing in a loop in my brain is that I do  know how many lines are left — 2 months and 29 days. In two months and twenty-nine days I’ll board a plane in Bucharest, Romania after an anxious, sad, and numb ride to the airport and the mechanical routine of going through security. When I board that plane I’ll fly to Amsterdam and distractedly catch a flight to Dallas while trying to tame the raging sea of thoughts and emotions and fears. I’ll have just experienced a month in Romania, and I can’t shake the feeling that that experience, more than just about any other in my life, will shape its direction. Boarding that plane I’ll jump off the brink and fall and fall until something catches.

God called me to vocational service to him as a ten-year-old. I don’t really remember all of the particulars, I just knew at that point that I couldn’t imagine a life spent doing anything else but sharing the gospel and loving people far from my own home. God has refined that call through the years, sometimes gently and sometimes painfully. Some days I’ve had the prophet Jeremiah’s case of incurable ‘heartburn’ and some days I caught Jesus’ leaky eyes from standing too long and looking out over Jerusalem. More often than not those ‘inconveniences’ have been so uncomfortable I’ve buried them under a schedule, hard work, and not enough sleep. But there have been those times when I spent a whole summer serving food and clothes and Stories to Hispanic people like Jésus in inner-city Houston. And those times when I fingered the curls of a Pott-Lincoln county DHS girl whose face was covered in spaghetti and told her with all of my heart and a lot of Someone Else’s that she was beautiful. And those times when I told Stories — to children in Sunday School, kids I babysit, five-year-olds from Houston who could barely understand my English, and DHS kids from Shawnee. All of those times I saw light streaming in from a button-hole in the tent I’d put up around myself to ‘protect’ me from my calling. That chink of light fell on me each time and reminded me that this was my calling, and no matter how much I wanted to hide from it and hide from the times when the little girl with the curls started to cry, and the teen wouldn’t listen to the story, and Jésus took his food and clothes and disappeared into the crowd — no matter how uncomfortable those times made me, I couldn’t hide inside a big fish like Jonah forever.

A year and a half ago I spent about a month in a remote part of the Amazon Jungle in Peru, living and loving and sharing my faith with a native jungle tribe. It was a journey of faith, but while I was living in probably one of the most isolated places on the planet I felt more deeply connected than I ever have. I was with a handful of people who could speak my language, loving a village of people who couldn’t, and serving a God who understood the words in the villager’s hearts and in my own better than I will ever be able to. Far from feeling isolated I felt deeply connected. I allowed that chink of light coming through my tent to come in through the tent flaps and bathe me in the light of my calling and living in God’s will.

As meaningful as all of those experiences have been, I still feel like my trip to Romania will carry so much more meaning. I told a dear friend at one point that I had an idea of what falling in love felt like, because I couldn’t think of anything else but the trip and the people and God’s work. I was giddy with excitement. Even still that giddiness hasn’t worn off. After praying hours and hours of prayers and sending out what felt like a  million letters and speaking at churches and raising $3385 and buying the plane tickets and purchasing supplies for the trip, I still have moments of breathlessness. ‘Oh-me-of-little-faith’ can’t believe how faithful God has been, and I still tear up over how honored I feel to be God’s servant in a place like Romania. As Gladys Alward said,

I wasn’t God’s first choice for what I’ve done for China… I don’t know who it was… It must have been a man… a well-educated man. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn’t willing… and God looked down… and saw Gladys Aylward… And God said – “Well, she’s willing.”

I wasn’t God’s first choice for Romania. He had probably picked someone smarter and bolder who at least knew how to make a sentence in the language. God didn’t find me equipped, but He did find me willing. I still become short of breath at times because I can’t believe that I will actually get on a plane in 61 days and fly to the Roma people, who desperately need God. I’m afraid to breathe too hard for fear that things will fall apart because they feel to good to be true.

I told you earlier that I felt like I was on the cusp of two lives. I mean that I feel like the Caroline who comes back from Romania will not be the same one that left for Romania. As much as I have grown or hidden from growth for these past twenty years, I have the feeling that God will do a wonderful work in my prayerfully obedient heart in that Romanian month that will change me for a lifetime. Maybe he will unquestionably indicate a call on my life to the Roma people. Maybe he will change my Jeremiah’s heartburn into a third degree burn from the outside that destroys my insides so much that they have to grow back, like Isaiah’s refined gold. Whatever He does, I feel like I am reading the last sentences of the last chapter in a book. When I close the back cover I don’t know what will happen. Yes, I’ll go back to school, and then probably to seminary and eventually to a mission field somewhere, but those are only the outside motions—the first few seconds after jumping off the cliff. What I need to know is what’s at the bottom. That is what I mentioned before that was unimaginable. The blessing of it all is, though, that indeed I don’t know what’s at the bottom. One of my favorite verses is Ephesians 3:19-20. It says:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

God will do more than I can imagine in Romania, and I give Him all the glory for it.