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Nearly Christmas

2009-12-18T21:38:00.003+02:00

One week until Christmas in Romania, and on my heart is gratitude.

I just returned from saying good-bye to the last North American I will see in this region until next year. A colleague walked me back through the dark streets to my apartment, and as we tossed snow glittering gold under the yellow street lights, I would not have chosen to be any other place.

Though I will ever be a foreigner, nearly half a year here finds me less a stranger. All the relationships I've formed with Romanians have woven me into this place, and among the threads, I have found a home.

100 Steps

2009-10-21T17:23:00.001+03:00

I wish you could come for a moment and see through my eyes, see all these images that run past the edges of language. I wish you could come with me for an hour, hear your own footsteps echoing down the stairwell, receding as you push open the heavy red door, falling silent as you step out into a different world. Today, you would see bright blue sky -- finally, after cold days of rain and heavy clouds that have sent children scampering to school under small umbrellas and thick hoods, clinging to their mothers' gloved hands. There's a school outside my window, a gradinita, or kindergarten, with white-rimmed windows. Pigeons often roost on the red-tiled roof or fly in patterns nearby, glinting grey-white when there's sun. A cement path leads up to the front door of all those years of education and cuts through a red fence that runs around the property's perimeter, separating the school from the apartment blocs. When I wake, I often go to my window and look out through the early dawn at that building. The mornings are darkening as winter nears, but still the children emerge through the dim light, trooping next to their mothers, their little feet stepping like seconds on a clock, like the seconds that will pass until they are no longer little people but big, finding their way without their mother's hand.

As you take another step, you will hear hammering, sharp strikes echoing from somewhere up above. You will pause to follow the sound, straining your eyes up past the rows of windows stacked ten floors above to the roof. A man is way up there, peering over the edge toward a pile of rubbage and boards on the ground below. You notice wires hanging around, everything just kind of a mess. You will remember that I told you the roof blew off a week ago. It had been a long story, the one I'd told you...

Last Tuesday, I had been walking home exultantly from a wonderful meeting with a new IMPACT club in the first Romanian snow of the season. One of the little beggar children who always comes up to me stepped out from one of the vendors to say hello. I was so overjoyed by the snow that I picked the child up in my arms and twirled him/her (I'm still not convinced one way or the other) around two or three times. Well, it had been extremely windy when the snow first began, and shortly after I arrived home, the wind returned with all its furious cousins. The terrace door was heaving under the strong gusts, and the trees were wipping around dramatically outside. I went to bed around 10:30 to the sound of this wind; two hours later, I awoke to the sound of crashing and shattering. Startled, I got up to investigate and walked down the hallway into a draft of cold air. Turning on the lights, I saw that the wind had blown open two of our windows, shattering one. I hadn't even known these particular windows could open, but as they were swinging wide, I was clearly unaware of their abilities. Thankfully, the shattered window was the inner of the double-pane, but the windows and their frames are so thin and poorly constructed that wind is always barreling through the cracks regardless. Closing them as best I could and assessing the broken glass, I went back to my room and opened my window to peer outside. If I had not been fully awake before, what I saw down below definitely finished the job. As it turns out, the wind had blown off part of the ROOF of my apartment bloc, sending debris careening down below into a wreckage near three parked cars. Just as I was looking down, the owners of the cars were emerging from the stairwell to move their cars out from under the mess. The view up above was even more fantastic, as a large mangled section of roof was dangling precariously off the corner of the bloc three stories over my head. Later that morning, it was quite a circus with police and firefighters hollering up from behind the red-striped tape to their colleagues on the roof who were throwing off debris and eventually sending the broken roof plummeting ten stories down to splinter on the ground.

It had been a long story, as you also recalled my waxing eloquent about the tin of hot coffee I had spilled on myself and all across the kitchen floor that same morning, though I'd proclaimed it the warmest thing I'd experienced in a week. Shaking your head and walking along the curb, you avoid the potholes that hold brown rain and nod to the older man smoking a cigarette. You walk onto a side street, past the garbage bins. You remember my telling you that the bins were new, that they hadn't been here two years ago. They are always full and overflowing on Sunday nights, various creatures nosing around what has fallen on the ground or been piled along the side. Three dogs have marked out this area as their territory -- one a doberman pinscher-type, another some kind of German-Shepard mix with a stub tail, and finally a pure-bred mutt with long, dingy white fur. As you are walking by the garbage and past the dogs, you notice a man there, hunched over in an old brown suit coat, oily grey hair sticking out from under his hat. His pants hang on him limply, and his shoes seem rather large for his feet. He doesn't notice you there, watching him -- but you wonder what he is doing, his arms reaching over the side of the garbage bin, right hand sorting through the trash with a thin metal rod. It dawns upon you that this is how he lives.

You take a few more steps and turn onto the sidewalk along the main street, walking by the corner bread shop. Adriana is there, the friend I'd told you about, the one who always coordinates her clothing to a single color. Today she's wearing yellow earrings, a yellow headband, a yellow shirt, and yellow shoes. She's thirty and married, with blond-dyed hair and a friendly exuberance that takes you in before it sends you away with fresh bread. You know she is kind by all the people who pause to visit and the ones who linger around her all day. When the weather is warm, she sits outside her shop on a cushion, one foot up on a rock, her elbow on her knee, and a handful of sunflower seeds diminishing in her palm. She offered me some when I first sat down with her there, and that was how it began -- she and I spitting shells, communicating with dramatic hand motions and laughter between all the words we couldn't say. Now she calls me prietena mea, her friend, and I stop by or wave nearly as often as I walk by her shop. We kiss each other on the cheek and laugh, asking the daily kinds of questions. Sometimes, she'll assess the forms passing on the street with a critical eye, pointing out various ones and asking my opinion, making a face or shaking her head if she disapproves. She works every other day, from dawn until dusk. On some early mornings when it is still dark, I look down out my kitchen window to her shop, and her light is surely on, illuminating the night's still-falling rain. I often stake myself out at that shop as a strange local, meeting many other people on the street that way -- and now you are one of them, walking by on the sidewalk, thinking your own thoughts, waving a hand to the woman with the blonde hair in the bread shop. You notice she's wearing blue.

Walking a few steps further, you glance at the horse plowing the small potatoe field behind a fence near the sidewalk -- and you look again. An older peasant has his hand at the plow, and a woman near him is raking the tall grass that had been cut with a scythe next to the field. Their property is a slice of land between the enclosed soccer field and Parcul Copilor, the Children's Park. What must they have thought when that soccer field went up last year, nightly games suddenly running under bright electric lights right next to their sprouting potatoes? You notice their flowers and remember that I had told you of the beautiful marigolds planted around their field in the summer, flaming orange to ward off potatoe beetles until the bitter end. Flowers also have sprung up everywhere in the Children's Park, city workers pulling enough weeds to reveal neat patterns skirting the sidewalk or to make room for beds of roses and zinnias. Metal swings and merry-go-rounds have multiplied in the playground, ticking like pendulumns and spinning like colored tops on all the sunny days. The soccer field and this park are symbols of a different, better community that is growing in Lupeni -- but the peasant plowing his field between it wears upon his back the history of the Jiu Valley. He steps upon the earth knowingly, making this soil remember all that it has held.

You pull your eyes away and step through an opening in the hedge along the street, waiting to cut across. You watch the little red Dacias, diesel trucks carrying freshly cut logs, maxi-taxis carrying people, scooters, an ATV, some sleek newer-model cars, and even a horse-drawn wagon -- and as you pause to negotiate the traffic before stepping into the road, you realize that you are standing on the edge of something much more profound.

You are standing in a different world.

It's a Monday: Part II

2009-09-28T17:56:00.000+03:00

The series of unfortunate events that transpired this morning has already been righted! Well, mostly.

Robi may be the Romanian modern-day version of a super-hero, as he has kept me from demise more than twice. He's a professional rockclimber and fix-anything guy who knows how to put real zest into "ceau, ceau." Many of you will remember that I came down with food poisoning in the Retezat mountains two years ago, and because two others and I were too ill to trek out, Robi came careening over the narrow mountain road in his red Dacia to collect our limp frames and take us home. Seeing him emerge at Poiana Pelegii with that Dacia was one of the most blessed sights I'd seen, and even while listening to "Bette Davis Eyes" play on a repeat track of five songs over that three hour drive, Robi seemed to have plucked us from the hand of a wasting disease called cascaval cheese and sausage.

When Daniel told me that Robi would be coming around noon today, I knew the situation in the bathroom was about to meet its match. As the three of us finally stood assessing the general spread, I learned that the fantastic assemblage of pipes, valves, and cement beneath the sink actually had an explanation. Because mice had been coming up through the paneling last winter, someone had devised the solution of mixing cement with broken glass and smearing it in prodigious amounts all around the pipes. Since the pipes were thus elegantly cemented to the wall, it would have been impossible to access them without completely ripping off all the paneling.

To avoid such an extended, expensive project, Robi left to contrive his own devices and soon came back smiling with tools, paneling, drills, new tubing, and all manner of items. Oh vie, vie -- problema mare! The problem WAS big, and though the shoddy construction of these apartment blocs would leave most North Americans scratching their head as to how to fix anything, Robi was cheerily twisting washers, taking off the faucet, and making good of the situation before I could even figure out which pipes were going where. He nearly soaked himself a couple times but kept ratcheting and drilling at the problem for most of the afternoon. And now! Este foarte frumos! We laughed and proclaimed it beautiful, the new white pipes twisting almost artistically from the newly-affixed faucet and running up and over and around to the hot-water heater. Never mind that the water pressure in the sink is so low from straining up the rust-clogged pipes, that the shower head is currently held on by red masking tape, that the tub is stained various shades of brown, or that the pipes are fixed in a grave of cement and broken glass beneath the sink -- the hot water is working again, which warms me to the core.

You see, the water heater is important for more reasons than just showering with warm water or using the bathroom sink; it really is the only source of hot water in this apartment. The kitchen faucet runs cold, so to do my dishes, I first take a big plastic tub into the bathroom, fill it with hot water, and carry it back to the kitchen counter. Losing hot water for a day reminded me how grateful I am for it, however it manages to find its way up and out the pipes.

Things fall apart, but today, I am thanking God for the people who put them back together. Multumesc foarte mult, Robi.

It's a Monday

2009-09-28T08:33:00.000+03:00

Though I try to avoid the Monday mentality, some Mondays do seem to have a mind of their own, regardless of the mindset we choose. Just to give you some perspective into my glamorous Eastern European life, here's a small anecdote from the past 24 hours:

Late last evening, the neighbor immediately below me in this stairwell came tapping at my door with a problem. Something from my bathroom was leaking into hers, and after investigating first mine and then following her downstairs to examine hers, we decided that a small pool of water on my bathroom floor was the culprit. It's an area that nearly always stays wet, but after sponging up the water, I hoped the problem would be resolved. My neighbor below was indubitably hoping the same, though she must have doubted my capacity to fix a single thing upon seeing me standing perplexed at the door in my bright purple knee socks with obnoxious pink hearts on the side.

This morning, I woke up with a start-the-day-right kind of resolve, but as I wandered into the bathroom still rubbing my eyes, an alarming sound bore into my consciousness: dripping. Oh blessed Providence, something is dripping. Pulling back the shower curtain, I saw plump water droplets heaving themselves off the bottom of the hot-water tank and plummeting down to the drain. Leaning in to examine the situation, I noticed that one of the metal pipes attached from somewhere inside the wall to the bottom of the tank was leaking. Since it appeared to just be loose, I gingerly reached up to screw it on tighter. No sooner had I even touched the little sucker, and the pipe came flying off, shooting hot scalding water onto my left hand and face. I leapt back completely stunned and watched as the only source of hot water in my apartment pounded in a pressurized stream into the bottom of the bathtub. The water was so acutely hot that steam started rolling up in clouds, filling the bathroom, seeping out the door, and hanging heavily in the hallway. Pacing in the fog bewildered, I could see that the tank was bound and determined to empty itself, and I could also see that the water pouring down a section of wall narrowly tucked alongside the bathtub was undoubtedly seeping into the ceiling of my neighbor's bathroom below. Oh heavens! As I grabbed towels and stuffed them against the wall and along the floor, it struck me that the steaming water in the tub had turned rust orange -- oh Lord, what do I do? The little red handle next to the water meter beneath the sink presented itself as my only hope; with a tug downward, the water supply was off -- and the dripping that began the disaster was the only sound that remained.

The little situation in the bathroom is still in a fix and needing to be fixed, and though the necessary fix is going to involve some complications, my left hand is not bemoaning the lack of hot water since it still feels as if it's on fire. My fix for that situation: I pulled a new container of yogurt from the fridge, pried off the lid, and stuck my hand into it. So much for those probiotics!

It's a Monday in Romania, and I've a new start-the-day-right kind of plan: more yogurt.

Nicoleta

2009-09-24T21:16:00.000+03:00

You exhale desperation,
murmur syllables like
a sigh. Tears cut a path
down your cheek,
breaking at your feet
upon ground parched
for compassion.
I beg you, tell me the story
sliding down your face.

Cum te numesti?
Nicoleta, you say, startled

to be no longer a beggar
but human, fitting into a plastic
bag the weight of your griefs.
The handles dig into your hand
with each step, reminding
you that this is all you have -- this
and a child to feed, he your only
crumb from the family
scattered behind.

I hug you good-bye
but am suddenly turning
back, pulling from my bag
a loaf of bread and two pears.
My hands are all that can
speak to you. Again I pull
your life into my arms,
willing upon it mercy for this
road of unforgiveness.

I glance back to watch you,
but you are already staring
after me, holding your white
bag. You wave and keep
looking over your shoulder,
like one peering through
the dusk after fading light --
but no longer are you
alone in the dark.

Someone knows your name.

Multumesc Means Thank You

2009-09-22T20:58:00.000+03:00

My dear family and friends, buna ziua from the other side of the ocean! As if writing this blog were not difficult enough, I'm now fantastically behind. The events of a month ago seem to have already happened in a slightly different lifetime, but my! how much I have to tell you! Since it remains impossible to capture or express all that has been happening when so much comes tumbling forth from each day, I must again hope that a smattering of images will bring you alongside me. I will be posting some updates over the next week, but for those of you who were constructing all sorts of wild speculation as to my activities in this intervening time, take a look at the link below:

http://www.new-horizons.ro/about_us/staff.asp?page=4

This is real, which still seems unreal! But I could not do this alone. So many of you reading this blog are faithfully partnering with me in this journey. Your presence in my life is a precious, daily gift. No matter where I climb, you are standing with me.

"The Lord is my Shepherd; I have everything I need..." Through those of you who have been led to support me financially, God is providing for my physical needs; I am grateful for this provision at every meal. Many Romanians have asked me how I'm living here, and when I explain that the financial support of family and friends in the States is covering my living expenses, the response is always amazement. In Romania, such financial generosity is all but non-existent. One person tried to imagine asking a Romanian for financial support but, laughing at the very thought, said it would "never happen."

I am able to be here because you are there.
Multumesc from the bottom of my heart.

La Clase de Balet: Tales from the Dancing Feet

2009-08-16T20:08:00.000+03:00

This Tuesday, I will be teaching the Jiu Valley’s 4th ballet class! Little would I have imagined when training for years in the States that my abiding love for dance would eventually find expression in post-Communist Romania. I know many of you have been praying specifically for the little feet that would come to this hopeful ballet class, and have the little feet come indeed! I had 6 children my first class, 9 my second class, and 12 this past Tuesday! For Lupeni and the Jiu Valley, this is simply incredible. Because of the high levels of distrust and suspicion among these mothers, the increase of children every week has been an unfolding miracle.

Most of you know that the possibility for this class arose when Brandi (Dana Bates' wife who partnered with him in founding New Horizons) realized I was a dancer and asked if I would be willing to teach her 4-year-old aspiring ballerina Briana and any other little Romanian girls who might be interested. Of course, I was completely astonished and elated. As I had wrestled through the discernment process of coming back to Romania, the unexpected opening of a space to share dance was like God icing the edges of His calling.

In my first couple weeks here, Briana was ready to do ballet every time she saw me and would say, “Lindsay, let’s do ballet now!” She taught me her “magic jumps” that involved a complicated twirl in the air with one leg and both arms thrown up and told me she had been dancing for 50 years. Her enthusiasm was so affecting! The week before our first class, she also proudly gave me a formal invitation to la clase de balet, complete with an image of tutu-bedecked mice dancing en pointe.

Brandi did so much to spread the word for our hopeful class and even acquired many pairs of ballet shoes that a friend of hers collected and brought over from the States. As I walked to our class building that first Tuesday morning and pondered Brandi saying that anywhere from 2 to 6 girls might come, I felt that all 6 would be there. And -- with little feet stretching, all mothers watching, and Andreea from Uricani translating, I began my first ballet class in Romania...with 6 students! Daria, Briana, Adela, Alina, Andreea, and Rebecca were so darling, imitating my every move before Andreea could even finished translating.

The first class seemed a wonderful success to Brandi and I, but we knew that the following week would tell. As I rushed to the next class with a loaf of hot paine cu piersici (peach bread) that I'd just pulled out of the oven for snack, increase was the word on my heart. That day, children and their mothers seemed to pour through the door all at once -- and there were 9, even one boy! The grandmother of one of the girls told me her Claudia had been asking about ballet class since 7am that morning, as she did not want to be late! “Domnisoara Lindsay!” little Claudia would call to me while putting her leg up in arabesque. Another older girl who came for the first time, Diana, had been taking a modern class somewhere in Lupeni but decided to quit that class and come only to mine. It was such joy to see kids twirling, hopping, and giggling in balletic glee and to glimpse the smiles on the faces of the mothers. The class ended up having quite an audience, as Dana and two Americans visiting from Northwestern College stopped by as well. Who knew the possibilities for building social capital could be so diverse?

This past Tuesday, twelve children took the floor! 12! I've been integrating formal ballet training with all kinds of creativity and energy to make class fun and exciting. We sprinkle fairy dust on our toes when we stretch; imagine someone in the ceiling pulling on the string attached to our heads so that we stand up very tall in first position; blow a big bubble into our arms to practice ballet arms; dance phrenetically to the Nutcracker before striking first, second, or third position when the music stops; practice plies and tendus from lines in the centre; and turn en releve on ballerina toes, among many other things. We have no barre, no mirror, and no wooden floor -- yet for now, we have what we need.

This is so unique in the Jiu Valley, as no sort of ballet is available here. For these little girls, it’s the highlight of their week, and as Brandi has said for her and Briana, it has brought such life to them. My prayer since the first day has been increase – increase of joy, of life, of trust, of freedom, of children. I've been amazed and humbled to see God already working this increase, and though I do not know His purposes for our class, I just pray that His name would be lifted up by these dancing little toes.

Beyond this, I have a personal vision for beginning a dance program for adolescent Romanian girls in the Jiu Valley, and though I’d need to stay in Romania for several more years to actually get such a program off the ground, opening the Lupeni School of Ballet within the first month of being here is quite a beginning!

In Walks the Bride...in 10 Minutes!

2009-08-15T02:03:00.000+03:00

Happy Wedding Day, Jacque and Kenton!!!

I love you both so much and am standing with you in spirit! It is so incredibly hard not to be able to be there right now. If only the Atlantic were not so much larger than a pond, but my heart has been crossing it constantly today in thought and prayer for you.

May pure joy abound in every way as you begin your life together this day!

Much, much love from Romania. :)

One Month Home

2009-08-01T09:46:00.000+03:00

Lupeni

2009-07-31T01:14:00.000+03:00

In her provocative book Café Europa, Slavenka Drakulic explains that Eastern European “people were forced to jump from a village into a city, to make the giant leap from feudalism to communism, without the time or education to develop a civic society and all its values and habits, from the concept of private property to human rights…” (36-37).

This coerced urbanization resulted in country folk bringing the country to the city. In Lupeni, evidences of this history are still seen in the interaction of peasant culture with city life…or heard in the rhythmic clopping of horse-drawn wagons down the main street, carrying all manner of farmer and cargo right alongside the cars. While walking with friends along the main road a couple evenings ago, I heard the customary clopping but soon stopped to watch in astonishment as two beautiful unbridled horses ambled across the street, through a hedge of bushes, across the sidewalk in front of us, and into the adjacent park. What?! Returning down the same street later in the night, I was even more amazed to see the two horses again, apparently satisfied from good grazing and placidly walking in a line down the middle of the road! I stood peering over the bushes along the sidewalk, watching cars veer and slow, but the horses appeared unperturbed even by oncoming headlights. Perhaps they were the more audacious but less reasonable distant cousins of Boxer from Orwell’s Animal Farm. Fortunately, Napoleon was nowhere in sight.

All Things Dogged

2009-07-31T01:07:00.000+03:00

There are just as many, if not more, stray dogs as when I was here last. Bucharest has two million stray dogs, and I’ve heard from a few sources now that dogs from the city are captured and released in this region. Regardless of where they are coming from, the dogs are clearly demonstrating the principle of multiplication! I’ve seen big dogs, little dogs, dirty dogs, sick dogs, maimed dogs, mating dogs, puppy dogs – and all in the city. In Oman, Muscat was plagued by feral cats, waiting like bloodhounds for scraps, climbing onto restaurant tables to pull off anything uneaten, lying out like flea-ridden carpets on the pavement, ambling closer with that starved eye. Here, the dogs are similarly pitiful and would eat pumpkin seeds if given the opportunity, but at least the Omani felines didn’t run in packs at night.

Mosquitoes also fall into this category of gross multiplication and proliferation. I accumulated some 40 bites just on my arms over the course of a week. One of my Armenian apartment-mates, Anahit, and I have taken to decorating the place with mosquito skeletons, killing the little miscreants whenever they poise themselves on the walls or ceiling. Anahit said the mosquitoes here are more ugly than the ones in Armenia, and while this clearly makes them more deserving of death, I’ve never been able to differentiate between the ugly and beautiful ones. Perhaps this is a rather unorthodox case of beauty being in the eye of the beholder!

Fundatia Noi Orizonturi: Re-Learning an NGO

2009-07-31T00:54:00.000+03:00

“She’s apparently been stomping around the mountains over there for the last four weeks, but what is she actually doing?”

You are not alone if you have this wondering, because I am still discovering the answer to this question…and will continue discovering it until the day I leave! You will see my work unfold through these posts over the upcoming months, but for now, I’ll make some brief observations on returning to the Fundatia.

I think NGO work can be legitimately described as organized chaos. Being here as a volunteer has been completely different than being here as a student. During the first two weeks, I felt that I was suspended in a giant nebulae, trying to find my footing in such a new capacity. I have been simultaneously bewildered, energized, overwhelmed, and inspired. I’ve felt extremely weak and incredibly strong. All these feelings have been part of an adjustment process, a daily re-learning of this place. New Horizons is growing exponentially, and as I have come to join this effort, it has been necessary to learn again the Fundatia’s current vision, objectives, challenges, and needs. Dana told me this would probably take me two or three months, and I agree. So far, however, my re-learning has been effectively supported by two specifics.

First of all, I’m currently working on proofing/editing the English version of the IMPACT manual and imposing on it a clearer organizational structure that will allow for DVD formatting. Working through each chapter has been a comprehensive re-introduction to the IMPACT model for me…not to mention that this is a great project to be working on immediately!

Secondly, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in the Fundatia’s Strategic Planning Meetings this week. (Dave, I’m such an insider now!) This annual three-day meeting brings together New Horizons staff from all over Romania, and through intensive 8-hour-a-day sessions led by a professional facilitator, we have been working with the DNA of the organization. Dana has emphasized that “vision without details is hallucination” – so with the depth and complexity of detail we’ve been discussing, any hallucinations have arisen from the sheer detail of the detailed view! The focus of the meetings has been on the development of the new IMPACT curriculum, and wow -- the vision, intellect, honesty, ideas, and insights driving our discussions have been amazing. Engaging with the New Horizons team in strategizing the future of the organization has been an incredible opportunity. Already I have gained a deeper understanding of the immense work and thought that go into all aspects of planning, implementing, and evaluating these programs that change the lives of youth.

The two specifics above are foundational to the projects I will be working on throughout my time here, such as the IMPACT Youth Journal. Essentially, the aim of this particular project is to democratize the IMPACT model by putting the vision and aims of IMPACT directly into the hands of the kids. Implementing this project in conjunction with the new IMPACT curriculum will facilitate a crucial accountability between kids and leaders. Though collaboration will be as important to this project as any other, I’m going to be creating it from the ground up, which will take at least a year to do effectively.

The second week I was here, Dana asked me to compile a list of projects that we had discussed and that I personally envisioned. Including those mentioned above, the final result was a list of 15 projects, varying from smaller tasks to long-term projects. You will be reading more of these things in the next months, but my willingness to take on nearly anything and my desire to proactively invest in the Fundatia, the kids, and the Romanian people has already landed me far beyond the edges of a typical job description!

My adjustment curve will continue to have its highs and lows, but the daily learning process of living and volunteering here will be one of the greatest adventures of my life.

Mountain Gloria

2009-07-30T02:06:00.000+03:00

Within my first week of being here, I joined a trip into the mountains with Tibi (an FNO staff person and Regional IMPACT Coordinator) and IMPACT kids from the Jiu Valley. I was in a fog of jet-lag and cultural re-entry, but since I came back to Romania with a heart for IMPACT and building relationships with IMPACT kids, I decided to pull out my hiking boots and leave the rest of my luggage unpacked. It was the best thing I could have done.

Picture this: climbing mountains with 12 Romanian kids ranging from age 11 to 22, only one of whom could speak English; prodigious amounts of white bread; exhaustive use of non-verbal communication; sleeping in a tent with the youngest darling of the group, Isabela, who wondered anxiously if my “snoring” would keep her awake; afternoon downpours; a highly sketchy outhouse; the same pants for three days; thinking the trip was just overnight but discovering it was actually 2 nights and 3 days; talking to myself in English just for the sake of hearing English; being so clearly determined to learn Romanian that Tibi proclaimed I would be fluent in two days; the complete absence of hand sanitizer; Isabela wearing my Chacos down the mountain after her shoes were partially burned in the campfire; hordes of wild mushrooms; carefully styled mullets; avocado on homemade wheat waffles; walking through thigh-high blueberry fields and eating as many as our hands could grab; hiking off a mountain top in thick fog and rain; earnest conversation translated over the campfire; standing in the wind looking across the Transylvanian Alps from Straja, a view I thought I might never see again; and so many other moments.

Of all these moments, one especially touched my heart. As we were hiking through the forest, Busu, an 18-year-old young man who seemed very self-assured, came alongside me and offered me one of the ear buds from his music player. Surprised at this gesture, I took it…and was completely astonished. It was Gloria – the song I did sign language to two years ago at one of the last IMPACT meetings. I looked at Busu in amazement, and he showed me on his music player the title he had for the song – “Lindsay.” Through translation, I learned that he had been quite new to IMPACT that day two years ago but had been one of the several who recorded my signing to the song. (Busu had looked familiar to me but had grown up so much that I couldn't quite place him.) He told me that he and his friends really liked the song and listened to it often. What?!

As we walked alongside each other through the forest wishing we could crash like the waves or turn like the autumn leaves, I deeply felt the presence and faithfulness of God, that so small a gift laid at the altar would be so remembered, that worship then would still be worship now...

...and for those minutes on that forest trail, all I knew was joy.

Prieten, ce facii acolo?!

2009-07-29T22:58:00.000+03:00

For those of you who were beginning to wonder if I had been chased by a pack of dogs beyond reach of civilization or had another unfortunate encounter with Romanian sausages, rest assured that no such thing has happened – yet! Last Saturday, I did unceremoniously force down a slab of slanina grilled over a fire in the mountains, and though said traditional Romanian delicacy is literally a chunk of pure meatless fat, acculturation sometimes means just swallowing it!

Unbelievably, I’ve been in Romania for 4 weeks and am still stunned to actually...be here! Figuring out how to choose some thoughts and words for a public blog has often left me staring out the window. My first conundrum for this blog has been the diversity of audience. Because I deeply value the unique relationships I have with each of you, it's important to me that my writing allows all of you to access and be welcomed into this journey. How can I best do that?! I'm just not sure. My greatest obstacle to writing, though, has been the pure deluge I've been soaking in for the past 29 days...wow! Trying to pull words from the river just has me slipping (or trippin', Claudel!). Though these sentiments possibly confirm my aversion for blogging, thank you for your patience with this process!

All that being said, I must begin writing somewhere – anywhere! In these next few posts, I’m going to share some clips of images, thoughts, and observations I’ve had since being here. Perhaps these will serve as small windows into the new life I am carving out of Eastern Europe and Romania’s Jiu Valley.

From the Terrace

2009-07-14T11:25:00.000+03:00

The Jiu Valley is a paradox of permanence and change. In a half hour, I watch heavy clouds slide over the mountain tops, seeping fog down the mountain tresses and pressing darkness against the afternoon sun. Thunder echoes across Lupeni, pounding lightening bolts over the eastern edge of the city and in the foothills. The warm breeze of a few minutes ago is swept into confusion, blowing my hair against my face. The streets are suddenly less full; children scream and run. Visibly the rain approaches, folding the city beneath grey sheets. Wide-thrown drops begin to wet my skin as I watch, mesmerized.

In this moment, I am invisible. I am an observer listening intently for every sound, forgetting to breathe, and completely spellbound. Endings merge with beginnings, waiting coalesces with realizing -- and for a moment, my thoughts cease as I feel again rain on the other side of the world.

Quote from the Mountain

2009-07-02T23:51:00.000+03:00

I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted, and behold, service was joy.
-Rabindranath Tagore

Bine Ati Venit!

2009-07-02T01:31:00.000+03:00

I AM BACK!! I am back.

I have been in the Jiu Valley for nearly 24 hours and am still soaking in the reality. Thank you to all of you who have been so faithful to hold me up in prayer. All the divine appointments during my travel here made their locations on time, and as I prayed my way through each place, I felt the numerous prayers that had already gone before me. When I was flying toward Chicago and watching the square miles of cropland blur through my tears, I felt literally lifted up by the hands of so many of you who love me and deeply believe in me. Saying good-bye at the airport to the two people who are embedded in my very being was truly a rending, but no matter what I do or do not accomplish here in Romania, being so loved by them and by all of you will continue to be the most abiding blessing in my life. In being loved, we find the courage to be ourselves -- to try, to fail, and to fly.

For this post, I want to mention three people who were clearly positioned throughout my travel time. After I learned that my connection from Rome to Bucharest had been re-booked and that I would need completely new baggage receipts, the woman behind the Alitalia counter was very skeptical of my visa situation and went to verify if she could even issue me a new ticket. She suddenly had the power to deny my boarding the plane to Rome, so I prayed. Coming back with a ticket and best wishes, she assured me that I would have to buy a one-way ticket back to the States immediately if visa problems ensued at the Bucharest airport. Shaken by this vulnerability and relieved just to get on my plane, I found that I was assigned to an aisle seat, with an empty seat between the neighboring passenger and me. The pretty girl in the other seat seemed happy with the roomy situation for a trans-Atlantic flight as well, and as we began chatting, I asked her where she was going. “Romania,” came the accented reply. What? Romania? When I told her that it was my destination as well, we were both amazed. Incredibly, she was born in Romania and moved with her family to the States when she was 8 but still makes a yearly trip back to Romania for a month during the summer. Our fascinating conversation over the Atlantic turned into a sense of companionship when we landed in Rome. The bewildering experience of the Rome airport and our boarding problems made this companionship a relief. We shared excitement on the flight to Bucharest, she even helping me with Romanian translation. She waited to make sure that I made it through customs, and after hugging good-bye at the baggage claim, I knew she was unaware of her role in the Kingdom that day.

After feeling the weight of my luggage and sudden aloneness at the airport, I lumbered out to the waiting area looking for a man I’d never seen. Thankfully, George was taller than those around him and waved when he saw me scanning the crowd with feigned confidence. George was wearing his wings on the inside, because he stayed with me from the moment we got on a bus leaving the airport to the moment he ensured that I was safely on the train. Our hours together were such a blessing, as he took care of me completely. He even darted back into the train car when he noticed from the platform a wily beggar approaching me.

My train ride through the Romanian countryside was 6-7 hours, and as much as I enjoyed quietly watching the patchwork of sunflower fields, crops, and villages passing by, I became anxious at the thought of getting myself and all my luggage off the train in only 2-3 minutes. Because all the stops were unannounced and in the dark, I imagined nearly missing the stop, throwing my suitcases onto the platform just as the train was accelerating to leave, the doors closing abruptly in my face, and my standing there helplessly on my way to Greece. It was such an unpleasant image that I had my internal frame strapped on nearly 40 minutes before arrival...ha! Because of how the Lord had provided for all my needs throughout the trip, however, I knew He had someone on the train for me.

Remarkably, it was another George, only this one was middle-aged and a composer of twenty years from Bucharest. He was an artistic-looking chain smoker, routinely getting up to stand at the door of the car every time the train slowed for a stop. He seemed curious of me most of the ride, but since I had my determined, disinterested, and it’s-completely-natural-that-this-clearly-non-Romanian-red-head-is-traveling-alone-with-all-these-suitcases look, he made no attempt to talk to me until I finally ventured, “Petrosani, da?” We had a broken exchange but were able to communicate decently well, he marveling at the weight of my backpack and being astonished when I swung it up onto my back. He was so impressed by my strength and good piano hands that he told me to call him and gave me his card. Knowing less Romanian made for a more harmonious outcome at this point, as any other overtures landed flat. (Monsma, the pun is for you!) Just the same, George was insistent on helping me with my luggage, averring that he would turn into “superman.” No capes ever came of the matter, but his help was so appreciated.

When I saw Dana’s face at the train door amid the mulling people, I just thanked the Lord in heaven. Driving into Lupeni in the dark was profoundly surreal. I did not know if I would ever see this place again in my life, but now, I am back to live. I have had my jet-lagged, adrenaline-laced eyes and ears peeled open and am gulping in the sights and sounds, almost like the Romanian man on the train gulping lemonade from a prodigious 2-litre bottle between handfuls of sunflower seeds. I've chosen not to evaluate my emotions now or over the next few days, as I'm in this state of thoughts both racing and standing still, senses whirring alive and trembling overwhelmed. I’ve ran to the terrace window or stopped on the street so often today, staring out and watching the city sprawling against the mountains. A funeral procession moving down the street, a horse-drawn wagon with bells jingling from the horse’s halter, the same dank smell of the apartment stairwell, howling dogs, Romanian echoing through the window, the fresh produce of the farmer’s market, brunza sunca, Borsec water, pink toilet paper, the guards at Penny Market, late night rain pouring off the terrace, the 500 ft. smokestack still standing sentinel over the city – so many things have changed and so many have stayed the same. Perhaps it is I who have changed the most. I went on a long walk with Dana, Brandi, and Briana today, following a rocky road up into the mountainside and along a beautiful stream. The shafts of light filtering into the trees and mountain glades were so beautiful, blessing of nature hiding structures of Communism. I have been here before, yet I am experiencing this place again for the first time.

Thunder rumbles across the mountains. This blog must end and I must go to sleep, though jet-lag has kept me up until nearly 1:30AM. Tomorrow, we are going up to Straja mountain for part of Viata training. Thank you again to all of you who prayed through my travel and who have prayed far beyond the edge of tomorrow. The steps I have taken in the last 36 hours are ones I have been waiting to take again since leaving, ones that are now significant to the rest of my life. God has made these steps firm, and I know that I am here for such a time as this.

Until next time, be well and be blessed.

Time to Go

2009-06-28T00:54:00.000+03:00

I leave the day after tomorrow.

So quickly this long-awaited day has come...
...but finally, I think I am ready.

It's time.

Taking Off toward a New Journey

2009-06-27T06:06:00.000+03:00

Welcome to the beginning of a completely new journey! To those of you who will periodically or regularly read my blog, I deeply appreciate your care, support, and prayers. As I prepare to step on a one-way flight Monday morning, your standing behind me and keeping watch on the wall unspeakably strengthens my spirit.

I named the web address of this blog “holding by the edges,” because in so many ways, I am. Though I’m returning to a place I have been before, I am holding by the edges something much larger than I, seeking to grasp with childlike understanding a reality much older. I am an infant in the shadow of the world’s vast need, asking God to teach me again how to walk through broken places with the childlike faith that so delights Him.

Four months in Romania in 2007 began steeping me in a complex social history, one that I have since spent my Honors Research and an advanced writing project studying. The paradox of Romania and its people has been embedded in my thoughts, expressed in pages upon pages of my writing, discussed in numerous conversations, and pondered quietly in the recesses of my spirit. Eastern Europe has captured my heart every day since leaving, and now, God has called me back to again immerse myself in a world so different from any that has formed me. I didn’t know if I would ever again see the faces that became so dear to me there, but two years later, here I am packing my bags to return! Incredible. I believe God has been preparing me for this day since I was a child, so I step out in confidence of my Father.

Only two days left! I am so excited and overwhelmed. I am not sure how often I will be able to update this blog, but I hope to at least post glimpses and clips of living in Eastern Europe and working with New Horizons Foundation over the next year. Consider this my disclaimer: these blogs may in turn be appallingly honest, terribly unprofound, or perplexingly theoretical...but do not be daunted! Please feel welcome to comment, express concern over my sanity, or contact me by e-mail. :)

Below is a poem I wrote last fall that holds the original idea of “holding by the edges.”

Holding by the Edges What Measures Me
My hands smooth over
the Formica, fingers curling down
beneath the countertop ledge,
supporting this weight.
I am standing in the sunrise
and the fields are running up to the horizon.
By what I am see
I am held against
other mornings,
when the sunbeams were just falling
upon my head and years later
descending over my shoulders.
I used to wait for the sunrise, here,
fingers clinging
to the cool countertop.
My head barely reached
the kitchen sink, but I had
wanted to see those undulating fields,
ribboning up to the brink
of the world just
beyond the window.
Straining on little toes,
pulling up my feather-light
understanding with a
fingertip grip,
I held by the edge
what measured me.

I wanted to change
the world. My mother
had read to me their stories --
Amy Carmichael,
Corrie Ten Boom,
and others who had
lived the meaning of
grace. When my chin
could rest on the counter,
I stared into
the glass-framed sky
waiting for my chance
to go, to be
something of what
they were.
And finally -- I went and
watched the ways of the world.
Edges jagged and crumbling,
I saw abused and starving
children, the oppressed
suffering affliction, lives leeched
by addiction, devastation the
prediction. Need and grief
and why -- and I was a child again,
fingertips slipping
from what I had wanted
to hold in my hand.

Now, my palms pressing down
against the countertop,
I am taller, and smaller,
gripping more, and less,
learning from each day's turning
and from warmth upon my skin
that I will always be a child,
reaching for the edge
of something far
above my head.

Thank you so much for being part of this journey and for supporting me as I keep reaching.