Green Trees! [or Teaching English in the Romanian School]

One Aspect of Melissa's ministry is teaching English classes to the Romanian school children. Thursday our team got to experience a little of what that's like for her.

The first class that we were in was a Kindergarten class for 4 year olds and then another for 3  They had been learning the colors red, blue, green, and yellow. (roșu, albastru, verde, and galben) After playing a version of "Red Light, Green Light" and shouting the colors out, the children colored pictures like a yellow banana and a green tree.

We also got to see what Melissa does with the older kids. We spent time in a fourth grade classroom where they were going over their vocabulary words like cap, pan, hippo, rat, and many others. They went through the vocab first, and then played a couple games with the words. One game was a matching game that they had to read the word in English and then match it with the picture of it's meaning. Another game was Tic-tac-toe, but they only got points if they got the words right. 

It was a lot of fun to see what Melissa did in her English classes, and to help the kids color their pictures and play the games. We had a great time, and the kids seemed to enjoy having us there. 

I have to throw in these last few pictures, because these kids were too cute to not share. They were my buddies while in the fourth grade class:

Although we couldn't communicate very well, they would just look at me every couple minutes and I would smile at them, and they would just get the biggest grins on their faces. It was too cute.

Well my friends, we have had another long and exhausting day, and have another full day, and night of traveling ahead of us tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to spend some time getting ya'll caught up on my travels throughout the country, but for now, I must say goodnight.

Thankful for green trees, 

Ali

Melissa and Bogdan

For the past few days, we have had the amazing privilege of staying with Melissa and Bogdan (and Matei). Melissa is an American missionary, and Bogdan is her Romanian husband, and Matei, Matt, is their adorable 7 1/2 mth old baby. They have been spoiling us more than we could ever ask for, and it has been a joy to live and work with them over the last couple days. We are all sad that we will be leaving their house tonight, though we are excited for what awaits us at our next destination!

Melissa and Bogdan live in one of the villages outside the city of Suceava. They have a beautiful home that they are working on remodeling. We have truly love staying with them. Here are some scenes from their village, and what they see out of their windows every day:

They have been so gracious in opening their home to us, and we have had a wonderful time with us. Bogdan is a professional cook, and Melissa is a misisonary with My Brother's Keeper. You can find out more about her ministry by reading her blog. And you totally should, cause her ministry is AWESOME! (More of that in blogs to come) http://melissainromania.wordpress.com/ (seriously go read it.)

Bogdon has spoiled us rotten with his amazing cooking. A typical Romanian meal has a few courses, including soup, salad, and the main dish. We have had a lot of chicken and mashed pototatoes, which of course is fine with me! He set the table beautifully for us, and always had amazing food ready for us.

Homemade donuts compliments of Bogdan. I told you we were spoiled.

Tiffany washed the dishes, and I dried. Addie was putting them away, but she took a break to grab the picture!

We have all had a great time playing with baby Matei as well. He is just so cute and a lot of fun. We've all taken turns helping Melissa to take care of him while we are with them.

Like I said before, we really enjoyed our time here, and we are all sad to leave. We have had a wonderful time here, but now we must get ready to travel on to our next destination.

Farewell Suceava...next stop Ploiesti.

Stuffed with donuts,
Ali

Train Rides and Romanian Friends...

We were all a little leery about riding the train with no one who spoke English, and no idea what was going on, but those feelings were definitely overwhelmed by the excitement of the adventure we were about to take. Gabi and Miheala, the missionaries that we work with in Oradea took us the station.

This is us on the platform, waiting for the train.

Gabi put us right on the train, and helped us find our compartment. Which was helpful because none of us had any idea what he was looking for. Each compartment had 6 seats, and then a door to the hallway. Our trainride was about 9 hours, and we saw a lot of beautiful scenery.

I love mountains. I always have. I’ve lived in the Appalachians my entire life. We passed tons of Romanian mountains during the 9 hours, and it was absolutely breathtaking. Unfortunately, I don’t have many clear pictures, because this is what the train window looked like:

Romania is in the height of fall, my favorite time of year, so the mountains were all brilliantly colored. As the sun set, they took on a purple hue, which was also beautiful. Here are a few pictures that came out ok…

The other 3 seats in our compartment were taken by a Romanian family – Father, Mother, and Son. They were very nice and proved to be extremely helpful at the end. Everyone kept trying to talk to us in Romanian, and then they must have figured out that we were clueless Americans because we started to hear "trei americani" up and down the train car. And then we turned into celebrities.

The father checked our tickets to see where we were getting off. At first I wasn’t so sure we should show him, but there wasn’t much else to do. Then he started talking to us about Suceava, which we have no idea what he said, but oh well.

It was so much fun.  At the end of the trip, the father asked if he could get a picture with us on his sons phone. We weren’t going to, but then we figured, why not. So he’s probably showing all of his friends the picture of him with the 3 crazy American girls that rode the train from Oradea to Suceava and didn’t speak any Romanian.

Making friends with our Romanian train-mates proved helpful, however, as we had no idea what stop to get off at, and which end of the train to exit, and all that kind of stuff. And so when it was time, the father and son helped us get our bags down, and carried them out to where we needed to wait to leave the train. Which was SO nice of them. Especially since the stop in Suceava wasn’t actually called Suceava.

None of us slept much during the trip, we all just read, and listened to music, and talked some. It was definitely a bonding experience, and an experience that I am so glad to have been able to be a part of.

And then there was the bathroom. We had been warned about how sketchy the train could be, but God protected us and we didn’t experience anything like that. Except the bathroom. Tiffany and Addie had to go first, and after they came back and gave a report, I vowed to try make it the whole 9 hour trip without using the bathroom. I made it til about 2 hours away from the destination. We weren’t sure how far the house we were staying at was, so I had to make the venture. Let me just tell you, this bathroom made the squatty-potties in Cambodia seem like the Ritz. It was quite the experience, and one that definitely bonded the three of us more.

Melissa, our contact in Suceava was there waiting for us. She was told to look for the 3 blonde girls that speak English. Hahaha. With all three of us being blonde, we stick out more so than we already normally would.

It was nice to be on land again, and not to be in constant motion, with the lurching starting and stopping at every station. We tried to take pictures of every station we stopped through, but it was to no avail.

Thankful for the helpful Romanians,

Ali

Cighid

"Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty, than the person who has nothing to eat."

[Mother Teresa]

This story starts with a history lesson, that is not too much unlike that of many other countries at some point in their histories. It starts with a people group, those with mental and physical disabilities, and ends with them locked away in an institution to be forgotten. There were many of these Asylums in America past, and we witnessed first hand the effects of the communist hand during our visit to Cighid.

Cighid today is not what Cighid was a mere 15 years ago. When the orphanage was discovered, it was a picture of what Mother Teresa was speaking of with the quote above. The children were tied to their beds, lying in their own filth, abandoned, and left to die. Again, not much unlike the Asylum days we learn about in American history. 

To get to the orphanage, we drove about an hour into the deep Romanian countryside. We then turned down this straight road that ran for about 2 miles. As we continued down the road, getting farther and farther from civilization, you could feel the loss of hope that one being taking to Cighid in the communist days must have felt. The road was ragged and difficult to drive down. And then, after passing a line of trees, you come upon the gate of the orphanage. Completely hidden from the world and abandoned. 

The main building is a privately owned castle that was seized by the communists, no doubt for it's remote and forgotten location, and turned into the institution of which I spoke about above. 

But now things are much different. The residents there are roughly between the ages of 15-35. They almost all die before the reach the age of 35. Many of them were there, tied to their beds, as babies. But now, they live in houses. They have freedom to roam about the grounds. They have nurses and staff that assist them. They attend physical, occupational, and educational therapy. They play and have fun. All of the residents have various stages of mental handicapps. Some have very high levels of functioning, and some less so. 

We had the privalege of spending a day with the people at Cighid. I won't lie and say that it was easy. This was definitely the hardest task our team of 3 faced. But it was definitely a growing experience for us, and a profound glimpse into Jesus' ministry. 

We weren't allowed to take pictures, so unfortunately I cannot show you the colorful rooms and artwork that adorned all the walls. Or the smiling faces of the residents there, and the friends that we made. 

One of the challenges for us, was that no one spoke English, and we, obviously, don't know Romanian. Our contact there, Claudia, was a wonderful lady who really did her best to work with us. Even with the language barrier, it was very clear to see her love and passion for the people that she worked with. 

I spent the morning helping one lady, Leonata, color some pictures, and make bead necklaces. She would show me what color to use, and then would tell me that I did a good job after coloring a section. "Ah, bravo, Ali" she kept saying to me. 

In the afternoon, we just played with the people more, and just spent time hanging out with them. By the end of the day we were exhausted, both emotionally and physically, from the day we had. 

A huge challenge for me, and a way that God definitely stretched me was that the people at Cighid loved to touch us. Basically for the entire 8 hours that we spent there, we were touched in some form about 85% of the time. For those of you who don't know me, let you clue you in. I do not like to be touched. I much prefer to keep people out of my personal bubble. But there was no such thing there, and that was very hard for me. It took me a couple of days to process everything, but my mom reminded me of Jesus' ministry, and how he let the lepers touch him, and about the ministry of Mother Teresa, who has been a great inspiration in my life. 

And that is why I chose to begin this blog with that quote. To the people at Cighid, it didn't matter that we colored pictures with them, or that we kicked a ball around the yard. What mattered is that we were there. That we smiled at them. The we let them take us by the hand and pull us along to see the baby calf. That we spent the afternoon just hanging out in their living room enduring back rubs. It wasn't about us. It was about them. And ultimately, it was about showing them His love. 

And that is the place that God had to bring me through these past few days of processing the uncomfort that I felt. He needed to remind me again that It's not about me. I'm not here for me. I'm here for Him.

Humbled once again,

Ali