Tag: gypsy

Wagon Wheel

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I have a wagon wheel tattooed on my leg. It’s a pretty permanent reminder of impermanence. I like to take pictures of it whenever I travel somewhere new, to keep a chronicle of all the places I’ve ‘parked my wagon wheels.’ But its meaning is so much deeper than that.

A few years ago I lived and worked with the Roma people in Bulgaria. Known and stereotyped for their nomadic, ‘caravan’ lifestyle, this community taught me a lot about transience. I learned what it is to make a home wherever you are, to not depend so much on a place and its things as on your people. I experienced life embraced by a ‘clan’ and accepted as family even though the difference in my culture and skin tone were as obvious as night and day. I felt all the hard goodbyes without a promised ‘see you next time,’ and all the joyful reunions and relationships that picked up right where they left off, no matter how much time had elapsed.

My ‘gypsy’ years taught me a lot about expat life. I live in a country that doesn’t match my passport, so I’m an expatriate, and I experience all the joys and sorrows, trials and triumphs attendant to this special lifestyle.

Being an expat means I know things can turn on a dime. Life can change drastically in a matter of hours or days, and you have to roll with the punches. It means I say a lot of goodbyes. It means I have built lots of rich relationships. It means I have friends in lots of different corners of the world. It means sometimes the people closest to my heart actually live the farthest away from me. It means having a go-bag in my closet. It means trying to monitor a sometimes overwhelmingly foreign culture for a few signs of ‘different’ that mean something isn’t right. It means being misunderstood and misunderstanding. It means stuttering along in the language of a friend. It sometimes means being utterly, nakedly, vulnerable and dependent upon the kindness of strangers and new friends. It means I build family fast and bond deeply but sometimes I hate myself for it because goodbyes are awful. It means opening my home to strangers because I know what it means to be welcomed in as one myself. It means a rollercoaster of emotions and changes. It makes for a wild ride.

This worldwide pandemic going on right now has really made the impermanence of expat life stand out harshly. In the past week alone I’ve felt the border crossings lock tight shut around me. I’ve helped friends, neighbors, coworkers pack to leave the country at the drop of a hat. After much anguish and many changed plans, they got out of the country on one of the last possible flights. I’ve stocked up my house in case social upheaval keeps me indoors. Unnatural crowd sizes made my skin prickle. I’ve fielded texts and calls from friends and acquaintances leaving that I didn’t even get to say goodbye to. I’ve kept a wary eye on emails from the embassy. I’ve played ridiculous games in the market shopping with friends to create some sense of lightness and normalcy. I’ve munched on a mendazi in town while counting heads to make sure I was spatially aware of my people… just in case. I’ve cried hard and laughed hard. I’ve stress baked until it seems like every surface in my house is dusted with flour. I’ve belted out my emotions singing along with “I’m just too good at goodbyes” and “all by myself” and “big wheel keep on turnin'” along with plenty of hymns and worship music as well.

This expat life can be an extra source of stress at times when everywhere in the world has more than enough stress to go around. But the flip side of that coin is that this life has taught me and better prepared me for such a time as this.

Coronavirus didn’t do much to remind me of the impermanence of life and home and relationships. I carry that thought always at the back of my mind and tattooed on my leg. I didn’t need a worldwide pandemic to firmly plant in my heart the truth that our home in this world is never promised, but that we deeply long for a permanent one with our Creator. In times of trouble my mind and heart already ask with Moses, “teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” My life carries a base level of urgency already because I know not to take the days for granted and to make the most of relationships and opportunities here and now. As volatile as life is right now, and as much as my whole world changes sometimes by the hour, I have the immovable hope and assurance that my real home doesn’t change. My heavenly home waits for me just the same, and the parts of my life given to build up that kingdom will not go to waste—no matter what happens in the world around me.

Another huge comfort is knowing that God is not surprised by times such as these. No matter where you are trapped or stranded or locked down, God is there with you. When God appeared to Ezekiel and the Hebrew exiles, he chose to show himself as a wheel. Wherever we may be, and however far from home and family it feels, God reminds us that he is an ever-present, traveling God. He sees us. He knows us. And without moving himself, he is with us wherever we go. He was there before us and he’ll be there behind us. And that is a great comfort to this expat heart.

As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like topaz, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not change direction as the creatures went. Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around.

When the living creatures moved, the wheels beside them moved; and when the living creatures rose from the ground, the wheels also rose. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. When the creatures moved, they also moved; when the creatures stood still, they also stood still; and when the creatures rose from the ground, the wheels rose along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

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