God loves to teach us lessons. Lately He has loved to humble
me.
This morning started off with one of my favorite things to
do…greet complete strangers! One of my jobs at school used to involve getting
people to sign petitions or handing out informational things (yeah, that
annoying person you avoid on the street because you think “WHY ARE THEY
BOTHERING ME WHILE I AM WALKING?!” I could be offering a $50 and people will
still say not interested in the US. Ha, anyway…).
So today we were asked to pass out fliers for a program we
are doing this Sunday. It was market day so the streets were hopping with
people.
We are going to have worship music, pastors from other
villages…you know, the works. I LOVED IT. It entailed walking up to people with
a big smile saying “Bună ziua” (pronounced BOO-nuh ZEE-wah, meaning “Good day”
or “Hello”), handing them the mini-flier, pointing toward the church and saying
“Biscerica” (meaning church), and then saying “Mult‘umesc” (thank you), and that was the extent of the conversation.
That’s World Race style for you. Even when people walked straight past me
saying “No, not interested!” (just like in the states) I still loved it. I did
not like the man who shoved Ana, the 19-year-old Moldovan with a heart sold out
for Jesus, but she handled it with class. Other than that one instance, it went
rather successful.
I decided to go try to sneak in one house visit before lunch. We start walking
the usual downhill long path towards the next village. As we’re getting to the
bottom of the hill we spot this cute lady. She looked quite distressed, which
was very understandable considering her situation. There in front of her was a
bag LITERALLY about the size of her. She had stopped to rest and did not look
like she wanted to take another step up that hill. Ana was quick to offer to
change course and help her carry it up the hill. I moved in and took the other
side of it from the tired young lady. She could not have been more than 5’2″
nothing, with arms the size of my finger. I swear to you, there had to be a
dead body in that bag it was so heavy! Between the two of us it was heavy; I
don’t know how this little thing was carrying this bag alone!
Ana doesn’t speak much English, and this little lady, Iulia
(who actually ended up being 26) didn’t speak English either, so I had some
good thinking time. As we were walking up the hill with this dead body (ok, it
probably wasn’t actually a dead body, but it felt like it) Ana told me that Iulia
had been visiting her family and was now headed back to the capital (yep, no
dead body, just her stuff). I immediately thought, ‘Jeeze, this is a lot of
stuff, really heavy for her size! Trying to carry this in heels, crazy!’
That’s when it hit me. Are you kidding me?? Am I really thinking this is a lot of stuff? In America if we
were visiting home we would bring probably double the amount of stuff. We would
have a wheelie bag with far more clothes then we could ever attempt to wear in
a week. We also would NOT walk miles with our 60+ pounds. We would either drive
or hail a cab; no way would we walk that! We walked about 20 minutes, to where
she found a prime place to hitchhike home. In most places in the states that’s
illegal now. But this tiny little 26-year-old with an adorable smile was
trekking along with her two handled bag. Seriously?
during the time we waited with her until someone stopped and let her hitch a
ride. We parted with exchanging numbers, hugs, cheek kisses, and well wishes.
Less than an hour with this lady and barely any words spoken between us and yet
she reminded me of some valuable lessons.
We have it so….comfortable in America, too comfortable. Are we missing out
on valuable things because we are too focused on our merchandise, our money,
our ‘comforts’? I know I have taken things for granted. But even more than
that, do I need to evaluate and make some changes when I get home?…I would say so.
