Moldova. This was a country that was altogether depressing. The clothes, the lack of voices in public transportation, the unsmiling faces-Moldova needs some cheering up. Unfortunately, this was not completely enjoyed. But first, the positive.
When we arrived in Moldova, we didn’t have a fixed schedule. There wasn’t really anything set in stone on what we were doing for the month. One thing that was brought up over and over was a children’s program. We needed to organize one from scratch and that meant walking around the neighborhood and looking for children to tell to come to the church we were working with, the next day at a certain time. That was officially how the children’s program began.
Unfortunately, only 2 girls showed up. Not a great start. However, we made do and told stories, and played games. For about 2 days, the two girls showed up and on the third, about 30 kids showed up. So good! We couldn’t believe it when we walked outside to see a crowd of expectant children waiting for the program to begin.
For the next 2-3 weeks(I can’t remember) we held the children’s program and each day a crowd of kids showed up to hear Bible stories, play games, and watch the skits we put on for them. I loved it. We all loved it and it was the best part of Moldova.
Now, I know I shouldn’t have favorites, but this little girl, Vera, stuck out to me more than the others. It brightened my day to open the door to the church to see her out there waiting for us with a huge smile on her face! Right before our month ended, she ran up to us, hugged us and handed us a thank you note she had written 🙂
Now comes the worst. There were a couple of them. One was the constant idea that women were unequal to men. The girls on my team were independent and I know that every time a Moldovan would mention something about the girls not being able to work alongside us, it upset them. I would pull one guy aside time and time again and tell him that the girls on my team can do just as much as we men could and instead of automatically assuming that the women would drop out of doing work and therefore, not allow them to work with us, why not give them the choice and if they think they could work beside us, then they have the choice. So the issue with me was not that I really cared whether the girls could keep up or not, but how it affected them when they were treated as less than men.
The second issue was the pastor we were working with. Yes, I’ve been told over and over to honor our contacts and respect them and all that jazz. But, it would really upset me when he stayed absent for 6 days out of 7 and the day he actually came around, he barked orders at us about what work we should be doing and left 5 minutes later, not to be seen for another 6 days. I just felt his priorities were in the wrong place and if we’re here for 1 month to help him, then he should take the time to work with us, not remain unseen. And that’s that.
