Strolling through the streets of Romania the other day, I turned to my teammate Krystel and whimsically posed the question, “Don’t you just feel like we’re at Disney World, you know, in Epcot Center in the Europe section?” She laughed and informed me that she hasn’t been to the theme park since she was three, but I reitterated that Walt had pretty amazing accuracy in his portrayal of the region. Well, at least in the bakery department – they are everywhere here!
Is it a bakery in Disney World…or Romania??
I am loving Europe right now, and particularly the city in which my team has the privilege of serving this month, Targu-Mures. After meeting up with our entire squad at the beginning of the month in Bucharest, we were put into new teams and sent off for our last few weeks of ministry in Eastern Europe. My new team is called Haven, and this month we are living and working in the Tranyslvania region of Romania.
A new month means a new kind of ministry – and this time it’s been working with university students in the city, establishing relationships and inviting them to church. Sounds easy enough for a group of Americans just a few years out of college, right? Right…as long as you speak Hungarian, smoke like a chimney and don’t wear bright white Columbia parkas for warmth when everyone around you is sporting sleek black leather jackets. I’m 0 for 3. Oh, and as long as you don’t offend a Hungarian by speaking Romanian to them, or vice versa…make that 0 for 4.
Our team has learned that history plays a major role in the attitudes and views of all Targu-Mures residents. For over 1,000 years, the Transylvania region of Romania was ruled by Hungarians. The area actually used to be known as Austria-Hungary (where my great-grandmother lived!) until it disintegrated following defeat in World War I. The territory was officially returned to Romania after the Treaty of Paris at the end of World War II in 1947. The population of Targu-Mures was 100% Hungarian up until then, but today Hungarians make up about 45% of the population while Romanians constitute the slight majority. The tension between the two remains high – thus why we must try not to offend either people group.
Ethnic background also has a substantial influence on religious views in Targu-Mures, particularly amongst the Hungarians with whom we are mainly working. Hungarians are hard-working traditionalists who take pride in their heritage and culture, which means that they are not looking to change their religion – even if that religion is really just a label. As our pastor here says, the people are spiritually blind – they can only see the physical world in front of them. Our job is to bring out the blind people and let them see Jesus.
It’s funny, the range of emotions you experience when you’re told about a country with such deep-rooted tensions and told that you are to minister to them in just a few short weeks. Humility, insufficiency and unpreparedness all come to mind. Yet in thinking about it, I’ve realized that I’ve already encountered the same problems in America – we just do a cracker job of disguising them, running from them or making them look so pretty that we don’t even realize they are problems. If growing up in a multi-racial family has taught me anything, it’s that our country is still in deep need of racial reconciliation. Otherwise, my brothers wouldn’t constantly get pulled over for no other reason than to figure out what they are doing in a nice suburban neighborhood of Minneapolis. Minneapolis! We’re not even talking about the deep South…but since most of us like to comfortably assume that racial tension is an issue of the past, we are free to be blind to it. Perhaps we need to bring out the blind people right in our own backyard.
For now, it’s my hope that these short few weeks spent in Romania will be impactful for the kingdom and that blinders will start to be removed. We’ve started to build frienships with some of the students from the Hungarian college here, Sapientia University, and I feel confident that it will be the young people of this city who will begin to chip away at the walls of ice built into the hearts of their parents. God is going to use them to do mighty things, and I am excited to see how He moves here.
Helga, one of the Sapientia University students, and I
I can’t believe that my team will be leaving Targu-Mures a week from today and that in just 10 days we will be heading to Africa for three months! We will be serving in Malawi, Mozambique and one other country yet to be determined. Please pray for strength, for the people here in Romania and for the people that we will soon be serving in Malawi. I am also asking for a lot of prayers of protection over my health – going to Africa as a diabetic is going to truly mean trusting the Lord to watch over me. Thank you and God bless!
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