Romania culture largely revolves around spending time together over meals, snacks, and coffee. They simply enjoy being with one another, and our church community continually teaches us how to simply… rest. Monday was a national holiday celebrating Pentecost, so ministry for the day turned into a church picnic with the only plan to hangout, have some food, and enjoy being together.
When I was told “picnic” I never imagined needing to trek through overgrown woods up a mountain to get there. However, the struggle up the mountain ended in a beautiful meadow, making all the hard work worth it.
It’s the closest place I’ve ever been to the hills Maria sings on in The Sound of Music. The beauty of it froze me, demanding the whole attention of my eyes, and I stare at God’s handiwork as some of my teammates immediately take off across the open field, kicking off shoes, and marveling at the soft grass and beds of wildflowers.
Once I can move, I spend the first bit of the day staring at flowers, looking down at the village in the valley, and exclaiming “wow!” every few minutes, seeing the wonder of this place with fresh eyes each time I stopped and looked around. It felt like the stuff of fairy tales and movies.
While waiting for lunch to cook over the fire, a few of us decided to try and hike to the tip top of the hill. We found a thin herding path through the wood above us and followed it up, up, up. The woods grow thick with oaks and maples, trees huge, old, and feeling a bit like magic. Joking about vampires, bemoaning our lack of hammocks, and slipping our way up following the hoof prints, we made it to the top.
There was no view; the trees grew too close. However, there was a nice flat part of the ridge we followed, enjoying the respite after the day’s second steep hike. Walking, we talked about dreams, and tried to define beauty. We wondered about our futures, what we would be eating for lunch, and discussed our favorite cartoons.
We reached another meadow, this one with a pond in it where two boys were sitting and fishing. They shouted hello and waved us over. Bliz, Walker, and Conner headed right over as Caleb and I sat in the grass near the treeline watching them.
“Walker’s going to be the first one to say something,” Caleb says quietly, soon followed by Walker’s jolly “Hello!”
Caleb looks and me, smirking, as I’m cracking up.
“Yeah, and Bliz will be the one to ask if she can try fishing,” I say. Not two minutes later, Bliz has the pole in her hands and is set to cast out.
Caleb and I play this game back and forth, guessing what our friends are going to say and do next. We were right nearly 85% of the time. Together we marveled at how spending nearly every minute of every day with people for months on end really truly lets you get to know them.
We wave goodbye and head back into the wood and down the mountain. The trek back down doesn’t kill me nearly as much as the hike up did, but by the time we get there, I’m exhausted. I find a spot on a blanket next to my dear friend, Raluca.
We’re talking, I’m fighting sleep, and the next thing I know, my head is in her lap and she’s plucking away at my eyebrows. For some reason she brought tweezers with her and, well, she was cleaning my brows up.
“Kayla, you are on a mountain in Romania with a Romanian plucking your eyebrows,” She says to me in her delicately accented English, giggling.
I don’t even open my eyes at I reply, “You took the thought right out of my brain. Crazy, right?”
We keep talking. Walker, Caleb, and Bliz are asleep on the blanket next to us. Rashidat is reading in the shade of a tree, Nano and Joshua are running around with the other guys at the church kicking a soccer ball. The sounds of Romanian and English flow over and around me. The sun is warm, the blanket is soft, and I am loved.
After a late lunch, I steal away to be alone for a moment, wanting to capture some of this place in my journal.
I’m sitting on a part of the meadow a bit away from the rest of the group in a shady spot around a bend. I’m writing about how much this place feels old and imbued with magic. “The only thing ruining the illusion,” I write, “is the obvious markers of modernity in it all.”
I put a period on that sentence and start to hear a whistling. Coming down the trail toward me is a very old woman leading a flock of sheep and goats. I can’t really do much but stare at her and blink as she approaches and fires off in rapid Romanian at me.
“I’m sorry, I only speak English,” I say. She nods and smiles, whistles to her flock and comes to stand right next to me. She pulls some mushrooms out of her pocket and starts telling me something about them. And she points to her sheep and tells me about them, and I’m having another conversation with another European grandmother without knowing a single word being said to me.
As I did with the babushkas in Ukraine, I nod along and talk back knowing she won’t know what I’m saying. I tell her about my sheep in Ukraine and the planting we did. I tell her I’m from Texas and that I’m a missionary for Jesus.
She does as I did and nods along. Soon, Rebekah and a few Romania friends come around the bend on a walk. They all laugh at me and I realize that as we’ve been talking, the flock has surrounded us. Both the grandmother, who I learn is named Irena, and I laugh. We stand and I bid her goodbye, joining my friends in their walk.
The rest of the afternoon slips by far too quickly. It ends with all of us sitting on a porch back down in the village, a slice of cake in my hands, a guitar strumming away, and us all singing praises to our God.
The point of all this? Rest. Rest amongst community. Rest amongst nature. Rest just as God knew I needed.
The Romania church knows how to live in community well. Not only can they serve together but rest together too. After two weeks of service that has left me emotionally drained, there’s no way and no other people I’d rather have spent a sunny summer afternoon with.
