Isaiah 55:5

I have been handed a huge gift in the opportunity to return to Romania for a third summer. Katie will not be with me this time because she is currently working on her master’s at Columbia in NYC. (We graduated from Lipscomb a month ago.)

I wrestled with the decision to return for weeks after it was presented to me. Not because I don’t desire to see the children and our friends, I miss them horribly, but because I want Katie to go with me. It didn’t feel right for the longest time to return without her – but now I see so clearly that God in His infinite will wants me there.

I am anxious about this trip, but I know that I have to go back. This is a continuation of the story that Katie and I started two years ago, and it is my responsibility to myself and to my children to be God’s light and love in any way that I can. I am humbled that God still wants to use me very directly in the lives of the people there. I do not feel qualified or confident, and yet I am so sure that this is His will that I will go through with this and face my fear of inadequacy.

I didn’t think that I would have a reason to blog about Romania again – but here I am.

We are finally here in Harghita. It is REALLY cold here. I’m glad I brought a hoodie, because we are up in the mountains, and Katie and I were freezing already today. It is beautiful here; I hope to post some pictures soon. This campground is very nice. Much nicer than any camps I went to growing up.

Katie and I absolutely love all of the flowers in this country. I swear, I have never seen flowers like the ones here in Romania. It must be something in the soil, or the climate or something, because I’m not kidding, you have not lived until you see the lilies and the roses. They’re HUGE. Gyula offered Katie and I some flowers from the chapel, and I don’t care if Customs pulls me aside on the way home, I may try to sneak some back in my suitcase.

I cannot believe how well behaved these gypsy children are. It just doesn’t seem right somehow. I really miss our children in Apalina a lot – these children are very quiet, and don’t seem interested in getting to know us at all. I’m hoping maybe they are just shy, or intimidated, or something, and after a day or two will warm up to us. I had to work for a smile today from any of them – I mean WORK. I can count on one hand the amount of smiles I received in return. I’m sure that once we are able to be in classes with them and start playing games and doing crafts, it will be different. They are just unlike any of the other children that we have worked with so far. Please pray that we will be able to establish relationships with them, and that God will give us the wisdom to discern the individual needs of each child here. Katie and I want so badly to be able to love them the way that we are called to love them, so pray that we will be given the opportunity to form relationships with these children and show them God’s love.

I am way behind on my blogging! Hopefully this won’t be too long of a post…
Yesterday was our last day of teaching in Reghin – we enjoyed it so much! Plus getting some one-on-one tutoring in our languages was such an unexpected blessing! We decided to invite our older students to come over to the apartment to play Ligretto, which might just be the greatest card game ever(save UNO of course). I thought it would be fun to make them some cookies, and I figured since I wasn’t used to Attila’s oven, maybe a fool-proof recipe would be the best. Katie and I decided on Fudgy No-Bakes, because you don’t even have to cook them…how could anyone mess that up right? Well, I’m very sorry to say that they did not turn out as I hoped. However, it wasn’t necessarily my fault. Apparently, the oats here are not quite like our oats at home – and they never actually cooked. They just stayed REALLY hard. So, if you ignored the consistency; it was similar to little rocks – the cookies were very good haha, but we threw them out. We bought some pretzels and cookies instead. It was a really fun night – but in order to prove to myself that I wasn’t a failure at cooking, Katie and I bought some pasta and made it for our dinner.

Today, boys from Zolie and Zozo’s villages(unfortunately, I cannot remember the village names to save my life), Gornesti, and Apalina got together to play a soccer tournament of sorts. Two teams played, and then the other two played, then the two teams that lost played each other, and the two winning teams played each other. I’m not sure if that sentence made sense or not, but I’ll move on. Here is a picture of our boys from Apalina…aren’t they precious? They’re so serious.

The overall winners of the day were Zozo’s boys – which Attila informed us, is usually the case in these tournaments. Katie and I were, as we should be, pulling for Apalina, but unfortunately we came in last. Our boys played very well. All of these boys can PLAY. WOW. I don’t even want to talk about the comparison of American middle school soccer to the soccer over here. It was incredible. All of the boys were so serious about playing and they all played their hearts out. Some of course were much better than others, but they are all so passionate; it was a blast to watch them play. Because these boys know each other so well and play together all the time, it helps with their communication. More often than not, it was flawless, and I’m sure that comes with being able to practice together every day.

I started reading a book by Henri Nouwen called In the Name of Jesus, and one of the passages just jumped out at me yesterday. I was watching all of the boys during the soccer games, and noticing how the ones from Apalina were so much worse behaved than everyone else . After the games we went to Apalina to take them home and have the children’s Bible meeting, and I couldn’t help thinking, as bad as they are, they’re my favorite kids in the entire world. And I would rather spend an afternoon with them than anyone else. I came across this passage in my book: ” I discover that I am learning many new things, not just about the pains and struggles of wounded people, but also about their unique gifts and graces. They teach me about joy and peace, love and care and prayer – what I could never have learned in any academy. They also teach me what nobody else could have taught me, about grief and violence, fear and indifference. Most of all, they give me a glimpse of God’s first love.”
I couldn’t have put it better into words if I tried. These children are teaching me – I came here to teach, and I am being taught. I have learned more about prayer after listening to them pray, more about joy after playing with them for an hour, and more about peace every minute that I spend in their presence. Every day that I am with them, I love them all a little bit more.

Yesterday morning we were able to go swimming at a pool here in Reghin. Well, I didn’t swim, but Katie did. You have to pay to swim, and they keep it VERY clean. I was really impressed with how sanitary everything was. It was much nicer than any of our public pools. I sat outside in the sun and read the only book I brought with me: C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces. I haven’t had the opportunity to read yet at all, so I was excited to have some down time. I put sunscreen on twice, but as usual I got extremely sunburned. I think my skin is just a magnet for pain. And to make things worse, it is NOT an even burn at all haha. It’s in weird splotches. I guess I should be happy that I got some color…

As I suspected, my class has been different sizes every day, because different children from Apalina are coming, and not all of them have the time(or want to come) every day. I have had about four consistently come to class, but yesterday I had about 14 students, and today I had 7, so I really just have to take my lesson planning one day at a time. I didn’t want to teach just vocabulary today, but that’s what ended up happening. I think because tomorrow is the last day, I’ll try to focus a lot on writing and forming sentences in simple present using the vocab that they have learned, and hopefully everyone will be able to keep up. I’m glad that we will have most of these children at Attila’s camp in July, because we can review some of this and make sure they all learn it.

This morning we went to an outdoor market. It was so much fun! This market was mostly vegetables and fruit, but there were people selling clothes, and men cooking sausages and whatever that meat is that sounds like “mitch” but I’m sure is probably spelled like “mics”. Anyway, Katie and I bought some strawberries because we have both been craving them. There really is nothing in this world like the smell of fresh strawberries. It reminded me of being home actually – when we were young and Mom would get us up at 5:00 in the morning to go to the strawberry farm…but I digress. These were the best strawberries I have ever had, hands down. We bought two kilos of them(we paid about $3.50!), and they are already halfway gone. I don’t know what it is about the produce here, but there is no comparison to the produce at home. I know everything is fresh and organic here, and that makes a huge difference, but wow. I didn’t even think I liked certain vegetables until I had them here – like cabbage, for example. I have always hated cabbage, but I am now a fan. Shocking I know. It must be something in the air, because we can’t drink the water.

Our English classes are going so well, but let me just freak out a little about my Hungarian class. I cannot BELIEVE how much work Orsi is putting into teaching me. That girl is incredible. I feel a little guilty, but she promises that she had time, and it wasn’t any extra work at all…I’m still not sure I believe her, but I think she really enjoys teaching, so maybe this good for her. I learned SO many verbs yesterday, and actually conjugated three correctly in front of her. She has also come up with more helpful vocabulary than I’ve learned all semester with my computer program. I’m really disappointed that we only have one day left teaching here in Reghin, because I am learning so much.

As much as the title of this blog sounds like a kindergarten show, we actually had a real adventure today. We decided to walk from our apartment to the church in Reghin. We knew approximately where it was, and we were pretty sure we could find it. We actually ended up taking the long way, but we definitely made it in about 20 minutes. We were so excited!

About four more of our children from Apalina came to my class today. I was so happy because they are all so incredibly eager to learn, and I’m better with children than with adults any day. I have the feeling that my class will be different kids from the village every day, which might make it a little hard to plan lessons, but I think as long as I make them enjoyable and they actually learn something then that is really what matters the most.

Katie and I are taking classes too! A couple of her Advanced students offered to help her with Romanian, and me with Hungarian after our English classes. I’m so excited. I have learned more in two days than I learned in a month with my computer program at home. I think if I can learn to really start forming sentences, I could be on my way to becoming somewhat proficient by the end of these nine weeks. I know a ton of vocabulary, but I can’t seem to conjugate verbs and put sentences together to save my life.

After class today we went to Apalina to spend some time with the children. We ended up playing on the hill, and for about an hour, engaged in the most intense game of Red Rover I have ever been a part of. I thought for sure someone’s arm was going to get broken. The children were extremely energetic today; more than usual, and Katie and I were worn out after a couple of hours, but it was wonderful to get to spend so much time with them.

I fell in love with a new child today. His name is Gyorgy, and he can’t be more than four years old. Attila had never met him before, and had to ask the other children who he was. They informed Attila that Gyorgy’s family is very poor, which by Apalina’s standards means his family is probably starving and possibly homeless. He stole my heart the minute I saw his little brown curls, and even though he didn’t say a word the whole time we were there, when we finished playing on the hill, he took my hand and smiled at me, and I was a goner. Look how precious he is!

Yesterday was Sunday, and our first church service that we attended was also a 50th wedding anniversary celebration for a couple in the church. It was such an honor to get to be a part of that celebration, and even though I couldn’t understand what people were saying, it was still beautiful to see the children of this couple get up and speak about their parents. I could only imagine their words, but I’m sure that the couples lives had been extremely influential, as everyone there was very emotional.

Later on that day we went to Targu Mures with some of our friends from Gornesti and Reghin to see a concert(Attila had to preach). The group was called The Messengers, and Attila was really sad that he didn’t get to go because they’re one of his favorites. Imagine a Romanian version of the Gaither Homecoming. But, it was actually really fun and Katie and I were excited because we realized that we actually have friends here – comparable to our friends at home. I know that sounds strange, and I guess it’s really not the same, but it was just so exciting for us to have people call us here and invite us to do things with them. We both thrive off of what little independence that we have, and our free time is so limited that we get excited about doing small things that are unplanned or by ourselves.

I have a prayer request that I would like to bring to your attention. The Seventh-Day Adventist group here are constantly doing everything they can to start conflicts with Attila and the gypsies in Apalina – sometimes it is worse than others, but they hate Attila and the ministry that he is doing with the people. This past week when we were teaching in Gornesti, he wasn’t able to spend as much time in Apalina with the gypsies, and the Adventists apparently took note of this and took advantage of his absence. They targeted about ten of our older children in the village, namely the ones who are within a year or two of being considered adults by the village standards(12 and 13 year olds). They told the children that if they would come to the Adventist church, and quit spending time with Attila, then they would pay for these ten to go to an Adventist camp. And if the children would be baptized into the Adventist church they would take them to camp every year. The problem here is that they are using the children to deliberately hurt Attila. If paying for these kids to go to camp was just a gift, then that would be one thing, but manipulating them into the church is completely different. These children don’t know the difference between the two groups and don’t understand anything about doctrine; they simply see an opportunity to go to a camp about Jesus every year and have fun. They don’t understand what they’re doing. I don’t want it to sound like we just want the the children to come to our camp because it’s ours so it’s better; I know I am biased, obviously I would rather the children came to our camp. It is just the way that the Adventists are going about manipulating the children that is upsetting, but there really is nothing that any of us can do about it and like Katie said in her blog, “This battle isn’t against flesh.” I’m asking for your prayers on behalf of these children, because thankfully God is in charge of their salvation, regardless of the decisions that they make this summer, however, I ask you to join us praying that all will end well.

Today we started our teaching in Reghin. We only have two classes, Beginner/Intermediate and Advanced. Katie and I are so excited though. Both of are classes are wonderful – and my “son” Alex from Apalina is in my Beginner/Intermediate class. Attila was surprised that he came, because he didn’t even tell Alex about the English classes. He’s the only child there! All of my students are either in their late teens or twenties, and Alex is 9. He is so precious – he didn’t have any paper yesterday, so I gave him some, and that boy took a page and a half of notes, front and back! I went to the Billa and bought him a notebook, so he can take notes in that from now on. I want so much for everyone to enjoy them, but especially Alex because Katie and I long to be able to speak with our children in Apalina more than just a few words here and there.

Attila has informed Katie and I that we are to learn a new song every week to sing for the churces…we decided on Hosanna from Hillsong this week – I apologize for the length of this blog, but I’d like to share the lyrics with you because they I think they’re so beautiful:

I see the King of Glory
Coming down the clouds with fire
The whole earth shakes
The whole earth shakes

I see His love and mercy
Washing over all our sin
The people sing
The people sing

Hosanna Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest

I see a generation
Rising up to take their place
With selfless faith
With selfless faith

I see a near revival
Staring as we pray and seek
We’re on our knees
We’re on our knees

Hosanna Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you
Have loved me

Break my heart for what breaks yours
Everything I am for your kingdom’s cause
As I walk from earth into
Eternity

Today we had to wake up at 3:00 in the morning because we had to drive an hour to go fishing at a huge lake. It was amazing. The sun rises really early here; about 5:00 I would say and I was just in time to catch the tail end of it. Isn’t that incredible? I am never up early enough to catch the sunrise here, so I was so excited to finally see it.

Katie and I sort of got to experience life as a gypsy today. I have only been fishing a couple of times before, and none of those trips were like this. These men are serious about fishing;they devote an entire day to it and they’re really good! I mean, they kind of HAVE to be, because for some of them, that’s what their family will be living off of for awhile. But even though they are intense about it, fishing today was actually incredibly relaxing. We started fishing at about 5:15 and were there until 4:30 in the afternoon, but we caught so many fish! I caught ten but three of them were too small so we had to throw them back, and Katie caught ten and we were able to keep 8 of hers. According to the gypsies, Katie and I are fishing champions. Haha yeah right, I think they were just surprised we caught anything at all.
Because Katie and I don’t like to eat fish, Attila gave what the three of us caught to some poor families in Apalina, and I think it made catching the fish so much more meaningful for us.

I was really thankful that the rain was minimal today. It rained for about an hour, and then we pretty much had beautiful sunny weather for the rest of the time. I think I got some more freckles on my nose; I’m so excited!

At about 1:00 we had a picnic and all of the food was prepared over a little fire! It was SO good. I would definitely define it as “man food” haha considering it was mainly meat, but it really was incredible. I think the french fries were my favorite, but there really wasn’t anything prepared that wasn’t fantastic.

Katie and I are both more than a little sleep deprived and exhausted from our week of teaching, but we have been looking so forward to this trip; I can’t begin to describe how happy we were to be able to do this. Plus we actually got home at around 6:30 tonight, so we might actually catch up on most of our sleep!

Yesterday Katie and I almost had a reenactment of the Office Space scene with the copy machine – except ours was with Attila’s computer. His printer has given us trouble from the start with at least three paper jams a night, but yesterday morning we woke up to find that his computer was refusing to cooperate and promptly froze as soon as I tried to open one of my documents. This was at about 8:40 and after spending a good twenty minutes trying to figure out what to do, Katie and I just had to go ahead and leave with absolutely no notes, and no idea what to do. I knew I wanted to teach prepositions in a new way because Wednesday I just didn’t feel like anything was getting through. So Katie and I improvised all four of our classes and I think it probably ended up being the best teaching day we’ve had so far.

I think God was trying to teach US a lesson in confidence, but apparently it didn’t take too well because this morning we were still without a printer and computer, but we saved a bunch of things on Katie’s computer. Unfortunately, Katie’s computer died as soon as we got to the church – so once again we were without any notes. And this time, I had absolutely NO IDEA what to try to teach. Katie and I both had spurts of genius for our classes and we ended up being just fine. I made up games today for my afternoon Intermediate class because it’s mostly children and I think this was the most fun that they have had in the entire two weeks. They begged us not to stop the games when it was time for class to end. It was really rewarding and such a good way to end our two week teaching period here.

We have fallen in love with the ice cream here. Attila informed us that he could live off of it haha. Yesterday during our break, we bought some at the store and ate it in a little park a couple of blocks from church. We were all three sitting in silence just enjoying the weather (it actually wasn’t raining!) when out of the blue, Attila turned to Katie and I and remarked, “If you ever don’t know something, just eat an ice cream!” Oh the wisdom of that man. I think that might have to be my new life credo.

Today Katie and I were able to take a nap outside during our break! It was incredible. As I’m sure I have mentioned more than once, I have been missing warm weather, and today really was the first day that we have had sunshine for a lengthy period of time. It was sunny for awhile yesterday, but then it rained later on. Today, however, was perfect. I think summer is finally on it’s way.

We ate lunch at Lala and Ester’s (Zozo’s brother and sister-in-law) house today, and Ester made the most amazing cake I have ever had in my entire life. I am not exaggerating. The closest thing I can compare it to is an ice cream cake, but it wasn’t. The filling was some kind of chocolate and vanilla mousse, and I think the cake part was a yellow cake, but the mousse was frozen. I don’t know – I really can’t describe it much better than that. It was incredible. Katie and I both made Ester promise she would teach us how to make it. She is precious. We have really enjoyed having her in our class. She and Lala are having a baby in November, and they plan to name her Katie. We were both so excited to hear that haha.

Tomorrow we are going fishing!! I can’t wait. I really hope it doesn’t rain. The weather forecast has predicted it, but I’m hoping maybe it will be wrong. We have to wake up at 3:00 tomorrow morning! Aaaahhh. Oh well. I’m pretty sure it will be more than worth it; I’m just not looking forward to losing sleep. I am not sure at this point exactly who Attila has invited; I think some of the gypsy men from Apalina, and possibly Isti and his father. I’m sure tomorrow we’ll have a huge group because word gets around quickly here, and the men LOVE fishing.

I cannot believe that we have already been here for two weeks. It is going by so fast! I cannot even begin to express how much we have been blessed by this trip so far. Even when things have gone wrong, God has pulled us through in marvelous ways, and has sent us blessings we could never have imagined. Why is it so hard to just let go and trust Him sometimes? “I do believe, help my unbelief!” He is taking such incredible care of us here – every day I am being reminded of how His love is steadfast; it never wavers.

Today we had sunshine. Real honest to goodness sunshine that lasted more than 20 minutes. In fact, Katie and I sat outside today for about an hour during our break. It was AMAZING. It’s always really cold in the church, so getting to sit outside in the sun was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Attila and Katie have an UNO tournament going on – I don’t really understand the rules but they are intense about it. All I know is that the loser has to buy the winner a small gift. I think they decided on ice cream. I’m pretty sure Attila is winning right now, but they play every break that they have – I’m sure Katie will give him a run for his money.

Today I taught the Intermediate class some Prepositions and was caught completely off guard at just how confusing they are. I’m trying to find a slightly easier way to teach them tomorrow – possibly some visual aids would be helpful. Throughout this teaching process, Katie and I both have been finding out things about our language that we never knew before – or realizing that the way we say things doesn’t always have a rational answer. That is incredibly confusing to someone trying to learn our language. However, the Hungarians really can’t complain that much about English. Speaking as a student of the Hungarian language, I can safely say that this statement once made by a native is more than true, ” Do you know why Hungarian is the language of heaven? Because it takes an eternity to learn!”

Funny story: Attila came over last night to use our internet because apparently he lost a bet with his fiancee Adele, and he has to write her a love letter every day for a month! He claims that she picked this for him to do if he lost because he hates writing people, which I know is true, but I think he’s kind of tickled about having to compose love letters. Maybe a little clueless(he tried to get Katie and I to help him, but we adamantly refused haha) but as much as he pretends not to want to, I think he is enjoying it.

At almost every church service that we have been to while we’re here, everybody has asked us if we would sing a song, and Attila is making us prepare a new song every week. This has really been a struggle for me, because everywhere that we go if they have an organ I HAVE to play the organ, and Katie and I HAVE to sing. There have been times when I felt like a traveling performer, and I have really been wrestling with it. I have come to the conclusion that as much as I want to tend to feel guilty about seeing it as a performance and being afraid of showing off, it really is a blessing to these people. And if I can have my heart in the right place, and see that all I need to be doing is glorifying God and blessing the people around me, then it no longer becomes a performance but a ministry. Although I have thought about this many times while we’ve been here, tonight I finally felt okay because I could finally see that it really has nothing to do with me. My main goal here was for the people to see God, not me. And standing in front of people and singing is actually one of the best ways that I can do that. Katie and I both had a…well we’re going to call it a “moment” tonight where we literally didn’t see or look at anything but just sang for God, and I think that’s when I finally felt a peace about standing in front of the church and singing. If God has given me a voice, then I should use it for His glory and not be ashamed of what I have been given.
“For to whom much has been given, much will be required.”

I’m thinking of writing an Ode to Milka…seriously. What do you think? Katie and I were in a mood last night, and as only it can, Milka came to our rescue.

It has been raining here for what seems like FOREVER, and I think it’s getting to everybody. I’m finally adjusting to it not getting dark until 9:30 pm, but it is JUNE. Where is my warm weather?? It’s freezing here. They tell me it is because of the rain – I need sunshine. How am I going to get as brown as a gypsy if it rains the entire time I’m here??? Ok, we all know that will never happen, but I can at least hope.

I think it was just especially hard today because our classes were much smaller than usual; in fact, none of my beginners even showed up(I only have four – two in the morning, and two in the afternoon) and those who did show up were so quiet. It was unusual because most of the students are usually so upbeat…I think we are all just ready for some good weather.

Before we left for class yesterday morning, Katie read me the headline about the plane that disappeared over the Atlantic. It was extremely sobering news for both of us, and I think it was probably on our minds all day – I know it was on mine. Katie knows more about planes than I do, and informed me that it was the same kind of plane that we flew on to get here. My heart goes out to all of the people who were on board and to their families, and will be remembering them in prayer. I really cannot imagine the hopelessness of such an experience, or the terror of being on that plane.

Katie took some pictures of our apartment last night. I’ll post one – this is the view from our balcony – I LOVE IT! I really wish you could all see how amazing this place is that we live in. This picture doesn’t do it justice, but it is the best one we’ve taken so far.