Meet Radonna.
The lightbulb isn’t really a part of this story, it is just in the picture for perspective. The Soviets liked to make things BIG. Radonna is small, but she unexpectedly became a big part of our time here in Ocnita, Moldova. So, here is Radonna’s story.
It was a typical Moldavian evening. Our team, Fire! Glory! Freedom! was frequenting the local internet cafe, which wasn’t a cafe at all, it was just a bunch of computers at desks in a small room with an ethernet network set up. Across the street was a store that was stocked with the essentials, like ice cream. For a treat, we decided to have ice cream as a team, all six of us: Caleb, Christina, Chuck, Susan, Lizzie and myself. It was beginning to get dark, and little did I know, there was another creature that liked ice cream more than we did…
Ocnita is a dog-eat-dog, or at the least a dog-eat-chicken town. One evening as I was sitting outside, I heard a commotion up the road, dogs barking and a chicken squawking. I looked toward the road to see two dogs running side by side, one with a chicken in it’s mouth. The chicken was whimper-squawking softly as it met it’s end. Cruel world. Another evening as Chuck and I walked back from the church to the house, we heard dogs growling and scuffling in the darkness. As we walked further, we saw one dog on its back on the ground with two dogs over top of it, pinning it. A man was attempting to break it up, but it seemed like this was a frequent thing, considering all the stray animals walking around.
As our team walked back from the internet “cafe” in darkness, we walked in two groups, one trailing the other. Every once in a while, I would look back to make sure the second group wasn’t too far behind. At one point, I looked back and the second group was pretty far back and they weren’t walking. We stopped to see if everything was alright, and they started walking toward us, only they weren’t alone. Chuck had a puppy in his arms. Apparently the puppy had followed us all the way from the internet “cafe.” Someone had given the puppy ice cream. And a small pack of dogs was acting aggressive and following the puppy. So, we were carrying the puppy home.
My thoughts:
We can’t take a stray dog back to the contact’s house!
It might be diseased or infested with fleas.
Who is going to be responsible for this puppy?
This is NOT how you honor the person who is hosting you!
We can’t just rescue every stray dog we come across!
It’s going to have diarrhea, we gave it ice cream!
Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly happy that we were bringing the puppy home. Once we got home, I shared a few stern words with everyone to make sure they realized that I wasn’t going to end up taking care of the puppy. I was determined to get sleep. Within a half-hour of laying down, the puppy was whimpering and jumping on my tent and I was losing patience. After throwing a few frustrated words back and forth with my teammates, the puppy found a resting place and I lay down, but I didn’t really sleep much as I couldn’t but think how irresponsible a decision we had made.
In the morning, there were two of us who didn’t think we should keep the puppy, while the rest were not willing to send her off. It became a stand-off between the “animal lovers” and the two of us concerned with the (ir)responsibility of it all. It didn’t help when our host, Andrei showed up and asked if the dog was a girl or a boy. When we said “Girl.”, he said, “This not good, you take dog to Kenya.”
So, it seemed the responsible party won the battle. We agreed we would take the puppy back to the internet “cafe” and let her fend for herself. But then things changed.
There had been some discussion about what to name the puppy. Someone had mentioned Brittney. But it didn’t matter, she wasn’t staying. Then, Andrei’s wife Larisa arrived and saw the puppy and gave her the name “Radonna” and in an instant decided that the puppy was staying. I knew at that point there would be no argument, Andrei’s opinion wouldn’t carry much weight anyway.
So, in a moment, a decision to give a stray puppy ice cream became an adoption by our hosts of their new puppy, Radonna. I was pretty baffled by how everything turned out, but I couldn’t help but see how the situation had been redeemed and put at rest.
So Radonna became a part of our family in Moldova, and she really enriched the rest of our time there. It’s a lot of fun having a puppy around, and Radonna grew on us all. I didn’t want to say goodbye to the little troublemaker, but she helped me to learn an important lesson this month: I don’t have to have my way. Even when I am convinced that I am right, I don’t have to have my way and it’s OK! It might even turn out better than if I did have my way. So as I continue the Race, I’m looking forward to things NOT going my way and seeing how the Lord redeems every circumstance and situation and turns it around for GOOD.
Goodbye, Radonna! Enjoy your new family!
