Coremi sits at the very end of the number 19 bus line heading out of Pitesti. By the time the bus stops, most of the passengers have gotten off. You’re let off at a cracked sidewalk with grass growing tall through the cracks. As the bus pulls away, you see the only a large building out here, a practical rectangle looming several stories high, blocked in the typical communist style.
In front of the building sits a dilapidated playground and a wide open concrete black top. Sitting, running, jumping, playing, shouting—a group of children. And at the sound of the bus engine, every single one of them turns to look at you, faces bursting into smiles, legs beginning to run.
They are wild. As a unit, they are intimidating. Together they move, a flow of energy headed by the leaders of their group, the rest of the children following in the accompanying swirl of chaos. Across the street, heading directly to you, they grab your arms, and pull you into their play area.
This is Coremi, a gypsy ghetto of Pitesti, a housing program, a place where Jesus still reigns. We’ve visited multiple times since coming to Pitesti, and I leave each time exhausted and frankly feeling burnt out on kid’s ministry.
As the wave of children crashes over me, seven year old Irina runs straight toward me, plowing into my stomach with violent affection, hiding her face in my shirt. I hug her tight, pretending not to see the visible lice crawling in her hair, and tapping a light beat on her back that always makes her giggle. She pushes away from me and demands, “banana!” Throwing her arms up in the air.
Let me pause here. “The banana song” is a silly song I learned from my dear alumni Squad Leader Bethany back in month two. I’ve sung it in every country since. Kids LOVE it. At the start of this month, our partner team, Dynamic Pursuit, begged me to not sing the song. They said it’s month nine and they’re DONE singing and hearing it.
Well, I tried not to, I really did, but the kids needed a distraction the first day we met them, and it kind of just slipped out. All it took was me singing it once for them to beg for it every time we see them—Irina most especially.
So I sing the banana song and the chaos of swirling children slowly starts to congeal around me, tan faced gypsy kids trying their hardest to follow the English words of the song and remember the steps to the silly dance.
As soon as we finish, a wave of them shouts “THE MOOSE! THE MOOSE!” demanding yet another silly song/dance.
I take a deep breath and remember how Holy Spirit led me in prayer before we came to visit them here; “Lord, we thank you for Coremi. We thank you for the… patience you are going to give us, the strength to play with these kids and love them well… even if that means singing the banana song for an hour.”
The teams laughed at my prayer, but I think God heard me and said, “Banana song for an hour? Sure, Kayla, if you want to sing it I’ll make the way for you.”
After ten minutes of singing, I’m pretty done with the songs, so I tell the kids, “later, later,” feeling convicted because of my prayer and guilty because they’re begging me.
As I’m trying to untangle myself from the begging kids, Irina grabs my hand, and pulls me away, firmly telling the others to go away in Romania. “Mama,” she says, “you, me, mama.” She starts dragging me over to the group of adults sitting in the shade of the building.
She leads me to a very pregnant woman with a newborn baby laying in her lap. “Mama!” She shouts, pointing at the woman. The woman doesn’t even look up at us and is instead staring at the phone in her hands.
“Salut,” I say, greeting the woman. Her eyes flick up and she nods at me before going back to looking at her phone. I stand awkwardly while my young friend keeps speaking to her trying her hardest to get her mother’s attention despite the woman’s attentions being firmly fixed on the phone in her hands. Finally, the woman looks up, anger distorting her face, and says something loud and rapid to Irina.
“Hello,” She says, looking at me with tired and empty eyes. The baby in her lap is sleeping peacefully, their lips moving in phantom imitations of nursing.
“Your baby?” I ask, pointing to the swaddled bundle.
“No.”
“Where is their mother?”
She shrugs. I’m not sure if she understands my English, but as pregnant as she is, I know it’s impossible for this newborn, not even a month old, to be hers.
“Who are your children?” I ask. She points to Irina, another little girl sitting near her feet, and at her pregnant stomach. “You have beautiful daughters.”
She doesn’t react to what I say, dropping her eyes instead, pulling a cigarette out, and beginning to smoke.
Irina, the restless girl, is beginning to pull me back toward the other children playing.
“It’s nice to meet you.”
She doesn’t look at me. Her phone is back in her hands, cigarette smoke floating near the newborn’s face. The baby starts to fuss. Her hands stay firmly on the phone.
I look at all the adults sitting here. I see the lack, the hurt, the passivity. I see how their inaction has led directly to the wild children we work with, these children who exhaust me and are called nothing but a nuisance by the world. I see a problem and what my momentary solution can be.
I follow Irina back toward the other children and feel a new wave of energy flow over me. My spirit pounds a clear beat into my mind, animating my arms, my legs, my face, my voice; Be the love, be the love, be the love.
So, turn to Jesus’ wild children. This group who has pulled my hair, pinched at the extra fat around my waist, and tried to rip the watch off my wrist multiple times. This group who shouts, pushes, punches, and tackles, the physicality not always meaning “angry” but most often meaning, “I’ll do anything if it means you’ll pay attention to me.”
And I pay attention. I hug, I sing, I dance, I hold the littlest ones, I go down the cracked slide that frankly terrifies me, I play patty cake, I kick soccer balls, and yeah, I sing the banana song… a lot.
And as we wait to get back on the number 19 bus line back into town, Irina holds my hand tight and looks up at my with her pretty green eyes.
“I love you,” she says.
“Sweet girl, Jesus loves you. Isus te iubeste.” She smiles, always excited when I use the small handful of Romanian words I know around her.
And she’s waving to us as we drive away and I consider today another step on the life long journey to be the love. And I know that this journey lasts not only for the next two months, but for the rest of my life. Today, tomorrow, forever… I want to be the love.
