I can’t remember the last time I have been so cold…maybe that time when my family went to Colorado to meet my brother’s girlfriend at the time, now his wife, Jody. We went snowmobiling and I was pretty positive that my toes were completely frost bitten…and even then, I didn’t have to sleep in the cold. I knew that in a few hours I would be back in a building (any building) that had heat in it and my toes, in fact, would not fall off.
After being in hot climates for the last 6 months, Moldova is definitely different. Not only in the temperature but it’s pretty much different in every way possible. For the first time in 6 months we are around white people…while they may be white, for the most part, they do not speak English. The little house we are living in doesn’t have electricity or running water, which was expected, but it is also out in the middle of no where in the country side. On all sides of our house we have mountains and a running river. A well is down the hill that we trod down multiple times everyday to fill our buckets up with the frigid well water.
In the midst of the cold and discomfort, God is so incredibly present here. Our contact is a young married couple, Andre and Larissa, who have a little boy named, Eric. They are incredible and have already done so much for us. They drive us into the village at the beginning of each week so we can get our food. We have had quite a few accidents while being here…John had an infected finger he needed medical attention for, we have broken multiple shovels, we might have cut down a tree that they actually didn’t want cut down, and on and on. It seems at times that we are more of a hassle to them than helpful at all. For some reason, they keep showing up here…maybe to make sure we haven’t seriously injured ourselves…Larissa talks to us girls in her broken English and our non-existent Romanian, and she makes us amazing food. Andre helps the boys build fires in the little stove in our room to try and keep us warm at night. Eric asks us for a “poopie”, which means “kiss” in Romanian. They continue to love us and get to know us and we want to do the same.
It’s been interesting living in a country that I honestly didn’t even know existed. One of the first days we were here, Andre took us on a hike up a mountain to one of his favorite spots. It over looks the entire village and he goes there to pray. It is an incredibly beautiful spot and the fact that it is so very hard and tiring to get to, makes it even more worth it. My teammate, Cindy, and I climbed the mountain together the other day to go spend some time alone with God at the top of the mountain. Both of us had forgotten that to climb the mountain, you have to walk almost vertically up hill for a good part of the way. Once we got up there, we were so glad we did it though. God is just so present here in the quiet. God is so present in our cutting down trees, tilling fields, getting water from the well and at the top of a huge mountain in this strange country that in fact, does exist.
All God wants for me to know right now is how much He loves me. It is such an easy concept….you would think. God loves me and I should just accept that love and get on with life. For some reason, that is so hard for me to comprehend. That no matter what I do, God loves me. No matter what my past looks like, God loves me. I will never be enough; I can’t do anything to earn God’s love, because He already loves me! He knows that I am a sinner. The other day when I was on the mountain God was telling me to just accept His love. I kept reminding Him of the ways I have screwed up in life; I kept telling Him how imperfect I am. He already knows. He’s the one who made me. He already gets that I am a screw up…He just forgives me, while I refuse to forgive myself. I am His Beloved and all He wants for my life, and for your life, is to accept that love and give it out to others.
