I am obsessed with
Romania.
We are staying in a
small, predominately Hungarian village called Sterejis (pronounced stay jer
eesh) and I could spend the rest of my life here. Each home is painted its own
unique sun-faded shade of the rainbow. Nearly all have fenced in
“yards” with droopy apple trees and chickens running amuck. The
neighborhood kids entertain themselves with bikes, teeter-totters and
nearly-flat soccer balls. Your shoes get coated in dust from the dirt roads and
the air smells distinctly of animal poo and bonfire mixed with sweet country
air. There are cornfields surrounding our lodging and horse drawn carts parked
alongside the road. Roosters cockadoodledo all the live long day and church
bells lead you to worship on Sundays. It really is beautiful. My heart is so
easily romanced here it’s a little ridiculous.
It takes half an hour to
get to the bus that takes you into town and transportation back is very
unreliable. Hitch hiking is your best bet a lot of times, but don’t be freaked
out mom, it is super common here and totally safe especially in numbersJ Verbal communication has been difficult. Ok, its
been virtually impossible, so we find ourselves using a lot of hand gestures,
drawing in the dirt, and using universal communication like smiles and hugs to
get to know the locals. We also have been blessed to be paired another team,
Kingdom Unity, who we LOVE and who has a member Stacie who speaks Romanian as
her first language. She has been incredible in bouncing around to help
translate but there is only one of her, so hand gestures are the norm.
As far as ministry we
have been loving-on a whole lot of people, especially kids and teens. We’ve
been in Hungarian and Romanian villages as well as the most poverty-stricken
Gypsy villages (my personal favorites). We’ve been getting the community
together in the streets to play games, sing songs and just spend time BEING
with the kids. It is incredible how much of Gods power can radiate from one
soul to another just sitting side by side even! The language barrier here has
only illuminated how transcendent the spirit of God is to our concept of
reality, and proven how strongly he desires to communicate HIS love to HIS
people!
Case in point: Dolma.
Dolma was a young woman I met in a Gypsy Village our second day in Romania.
When we arrived in her village she was sitting far removed from the rest of the
crowd, defensive and clearly not buying into the “activities” we brought. She
caught my eye right away. She was wearing a large bandage around her head and
another wrapped around her left wrist and forearm and she had a black eye. I
found out later because she had been thrown from a car during a car accident. I
could tell that she was in pain and I sensed an anger or bitterness surrounding
her “corner”. I felt God nudge me to go talk to her, but I figured she looked
like she wanted to be left alone and doubted I could successfully communicate
with her anyway. It wasn’t long before God so patiently nudged me to go to her
again, so when I saw her leave the corner and go to sit on a rock near the road
I followed. As I got closer to her, my heart became so overwhelmed with love
for her! She was so frail but uniquely beautiful beneath the wounds. It was an
awkward couple minutes trying to communicate my name and asking for hers but
she seamed happy that I was there so I left it at that. And there we sat for
about half hour not saying anything but totally content and at peace. I must
say it was a new experience for me. I enjoy talking. But there was nothing I
could do about it. God was
teaching me about his power and
creativity. Dolma and I had a splendid time just giggling about our silence and
basking in the beauty of it.
When it came time to
leave I wanted to make sure we prayed for Dolma’s injuries. Our translator,
Stacie, came to us followed by a trail of little village children and we ALL
prayed for healing for Dolma. I could tell Dolma was really moved by it. As we
were walking to the bus to leave for the day Dolma runs up behind me and throws
her arms around me and kisses me on the cheek. I say “I love you” in Romanian (Te u besk, phonetically) and
she says it back. Wow.
Five days later we
return to that Gypsy village and I am excited to see if Dolma will be there.
I’m looking around for her and my teammate Ashley has to point her out to me
because I didn’t even recognize her! Her bandages were gone, her black eye was
totally healed and she was sitting out laughing in conversation with the
adults. We saw each other at the same time and I ran over to her. She jumped up and clobbered me with a
hug and we jumped up and down as she showed me how God had totally healed her
wounds (and I could tell not only on the outside)!!! She was beaming. I mean
absolutely radiating with hope
and love. I was so blown away.
Then, two girls from my team (Daina and
Denise) and myself were asked to go pray for a woman who was bedridden in a
house down the road from where we were. Dolma insisted on coming and praying for the woman with us! Gods
grace had healed her and given her faith to pray for others. It was so awesome.
God is so awesome.
Dolma and I
