The black hole…

I apologise for not writing sooner, but I’ve had little internet and, more importantly,  I really have no words for what has occured this last week. 

We left Bucharest for Ville Tecci on the 15th. Starting with even the train ride…this has been nothing but a blur of weirdness. 

I could easily sum it up to two things: 

1. Murphy’s law

2. Black hole surreal vortex

The rest of it though, it seems I am only able to describe in stream of consciousness format. 

Our 13 person team (us and Syd’s team) split up into three different houses of this mafia like family that sprawls out on a one street gypsy village with houses painted in Easter egg colors decorated in charming flowers,  has many horse drawn carriages bearing tons of hay, a trash filled creek running parallel to it where children swim and play, a beautiful sheep dotted/spider web infested/ wildflower espousing hill overlooking it, various stray children and stray dogs, garden working gypsy babushkas, shirtless men mowing lawns with sickles, cars/ 18 wheelers speeding through the town at 80 miles an hour, freezing cold showers, sweltering hot afternoons. Our house has a shed in the back with what must be a 800 pound pig and 2 baby piglets that make me laugh. On the way home from an outlying village one night, we picked up fresh cows milk and a live duck, which rode in Jessica and I’s laps all the way back. A genuine white feathered duck. In my lap. No joke. Lightning struck less than 10 feet from Matt and I whilst playing with lice infested children. He squealed like a little girl and it was fabulous.  The kitchen floor is covered an inch deep in the grease that is used to cook every meal. Which by the way…???? We literally had a pig tail sitting on the counter.  White bread and butter are for breakfast each morning. I usually skip said bread and have opted into my own stash of Muesli after heading to my lovely spider infested, cloud swimming hill each morning at 630 to spend time with the Lord, sing at the top of my lungs, read, journal, and exercise my otherwise completely idol legs.This hill is my refuge and safe place and has become my purpose here. To learn how to actually seek the Lord’s face and know him. To walk in his love, like for real. Rather than doing a bunch of things in his name, but not actually knowing what it’s like to sit alone with him for hours. Or what it feels like to get butterflies when talking to Him or about Him.  Or how to look Him in the eyes when He calls my name. 

 There seems to be a darkness everywhere below this hill that has created in me an angry and confused 4 year old version of myself that is frankly scary. I can’t quite name it completely, but there is an oppressive feeling of lust, deception, and confusion down in the valley.  We have felt much futility and frustration. I’ve felt attacked and threatened in unbelievable ways. 

However yesterday, long story short, we played musical beds as we all changed houses. Jess and I moved down the street to a paradise of a family. So I am slowly diffusing. I mean I’d still take the first train out of here if I could. But that seems to not be anything of a possibility at the moment. Although. Hmm.  There is a bus that comes through often enough…

It’s interesting though. An ironic contrast exists between how God is personally rocking our worlds with his love, while at the same time we are all so angry about our situation that we are ready to pack up and leave. Wall after wall keeps arising in ministry, relationships (like the one where I absolutely hated one of my teammates guts for no reason at all), and just with living and breathing in this village. Yesterday we were sitting in a room discussing (to put it lightly) the situation. And suddenly, a sledge hammer busts through the wall and knocks a hole in it. The family we are now staying with was putting a door between this room and the next. I mean. We had been hearing the knocking for a bit, but were choosing to ignore it. Then all the sudden, we are surrounded by concrete, brick, and paint. There was light beaming in through the wall. There was a place to crawl through. 

Symbolic? Maybe. I hope so. We have 10 more, ugh, days to find out. 

(P.S. This song is all I can dwell on right now. I’m praying to believe it.)