Puppet shows.

On Tuesday I found myself in a kindergarten in Petroșani, watching a group of Romanian teenagers perform a puppet show of Little Red Riding Hood for a room full of fascinated children. 

An IMPACT club had decided that they wanted to do a theater project, telling old children's stories to younger kids in order to keep traditions alive.  The club is afraid that kids today are not learning the games and stories of their childhood, that they're spending too much time inside on the internet instead of reading and playing in the parks, and they want to help change that... hence the puppet show.

So there it was: a half hour of hilarity, watching kindergartners wave goodbye to departing characters and stand up and yell when the Big Bad Wolf ate Grandma (I really was afraid they would start a riot -- that was a lot of angry little children!)  And at the end they all applauded wildly and stared adoringly at the group of teenagers who had come to spend an afternoon at their school, showing them they were worth paying attention to.  It was adorable to watch them smile at each other shyly.  It was exciting to hear the IMPACT club, buoyed by this success, talk about their next theater project -- a project to teach about the dangers of drug use.  And it was just fun.  Just plain old fun.

Homesick.

This morning, I am homesick.

My sister Kendra is graduating from high school this upcoming weekend, and tomorrow is her graduation party.  My brother Karl just finished his junior year in college and is now living off-campus for the summer in Grand Rapids for the first time, not far from where Jack and I lived last summer.  And as excited and happy as I am for both of them, this morning I'm just sad.

I wish I could be there to celebrate this milestone in Kendra's life, to help frost the hundreds of cupcakes she's excitedly making for her grad party, to look at her beautiful pictures and art and rejoice to watch her with her friends and mentors, to honor the ways she's grown up and the ways God has so evidently worked in her life.

I wish I could be there to share the summer with Karl, to dumpster-dive together and have him over for evenings of card games and pie, to share his first-ever beer at a nearby brewery, to run into each other at the farmers' market on occasion, to rejoice in the ways God has provided for him and how Good life is in Grand Rapids in the summer.

I miss plenty of other people, too, and I could name them here but I would probably start to cry.  For now, though, it's these two siblings, the people God somehow chose to put together with me in the same childhood home with wonderful parents -- these two amazing friends of mine -- and I miss them.

I guess I'm writing this blog to honor them, and to publicly admit that living in Romania is not always a glamorous, great adventure.  We were recently visited by some filmmakers from CRWM who are traveling the world documenting missionary stories and work, and they said the thing they've been most surprised by is how "normal" life is even for people on the missions field.  We buy groceries.  Plenty of missionary kids fight with their parents about how much time they can spend on the computer.  We put gas in cars, we clean our bathrooms, we gripe about work at the office, we get excited about good deals at secondhand clothing shops.  And we get homesick.

And I don't want to end this blog on some sort of spiritualized, syrupy "it's all going to be okay" note -- because it's always just going to suck to be somewhere else when you long to be with the people you love.  But there are people I love here, too.  And I know God is at work here, too.  And for now, that just has to be enough.

Potholes and corruption.

I've been doing a lot of driving through the Jiu Valley lately -- back and forth to Petroșani in the clunky old FNO van to pick people up from the train station, to and from Uricani on the maxi taxi to go rock climbing and visit churches and look for used furniture, and so on.  The roads through the Jiu Valley are pretty awful, as you might expect in a relatively poor, industrial area of Romania with a single main road between the mountains.

But here's the thing.  Yesterday I visited both Vulcan and Uricani with a friend from work, and here's what I realized: Lupeni's roads are the worst.  By a long shot.  In fact, the whole city is run down in a way that even its neighbors are not.  Vulcan has smoothly-paved sidewalks with -- get this! -- a bike lane painted on them.  There are fountains in the median of the main street, and flowers and green grass growing all over the place, and very little trash on the streets and almost no street dogs.  Seriously.  There are a few potholes as you leave town, but for the most part things are well-maintained and clean and thriving.  But drive across the municipal boundary into Lupeni, the next town west in the valley, and you're greeted by the thuds and bangs of potholes, trash and street dogs, and general disrepair.  As you leave Lupeni and enter Uricani, the town furthest to the west before you start to really get close to Retezat National Park, things improve again -- Uricani is tiny and poor as well, but at least their city center is well-maintained and clean and colorful, the streets in town have speed bumps and are pothole-free, and parks are groomed and free of trash.

So what gives, Lupeni?

The answers to that are complicated, but a lot of it boils down to corruption.  The mayor of Vulcan is fabulous, actively involved in the improvement of his community -- and it shows.  For goodness' sake, they have fountains!  But the mayor of Lupeni?  You don't have to ask many people to get a feel for how this community feels about him.  I've been told many times that the city hall doesn't do anything, that money which is supposed to be allocated for civic projects ends up in the pockets of the local administrators, and that most of the problems here are the fault of the mayor.  (Read our earlier street dog post to learn more about that.)   A few weeks ago FNO received 5,000 lei (that's about $1,650 US) from the city hall for its public activities in the next year.  This is a great achievement, as it took a lot of persistent youth and meetings to receive that money.  However, compared to the 10,000 euros (that's almost $13,000 US) of public money that the mayor spent on a trip to London for local administrators, it's not much.  People protested that misuse of public money, so the donation to FNO is perhaps supposed to appease... but I guess we'll have to wait and see at election time.

But that's the other thing I have to admit that I don't understand.  The corruption is so obvious, and so universally-known, that I can't wrap my head around why the mayor has been in office for so long -- almost a decade!  Why does he keep getting re-elected?  Why, with the money theft and mismanagement and the potholes and obvious neglect of public spaces, and with the clear testimonies of Vulcan and Uricani so nearby, does Lupeni stand for it?  This is what I want to know.  And it's something I don't know if I'll ever understand.

Easter.

Due to the difference in calendar used by the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, we in Romania just celebrated Easter this past Sunday instead of way back in March, with most of the rest of you. We began lent with you, though, so that made for a long time of fasting and waiting for the resurrection. A large part of our Lenten fast was that we were away from Lupeni and the work and community that has eagerly accepted us here. Once we got to Lupeni, we joined the Orthodox fast schedule that's supposed to be kept throughout the whole year. On Wednesday and Friday, we fasted from animal products to remember Judas betraying Jesus and Jesus' crucifixion. A small jolt to our lives as usual to remember events that shook our whole world.

As you can probably imagine, after so long a lent, Easter was a very welcome celebration.

It began last Wednesday. May 1 is Labor Day in Romania, so we had the day off work and decided to take a trip with our friends to Horezu, the town known for making traditional Romanian ceramics. On the way back, we stopped in a steep gorge that holds a monastery, a cave, and plenty of other beautiful adventures. On the way back into the Jiu Valley, it was dark, and we saw many huge bonfires scattered around the hills and in the towns. Folks were already getting together to celebrate and feast with joy on Labor Day. There was also lightning off over the mountains, flashing through the clouds. A night of spectacularly joyful light displays.

On Thursday, we had a Passover Seder meal with the expats in the valley. Kelly put together the Liturgy, and we spent the whole day buying food and cooking. It was a wonderful evening, full of good food, reunion, good conversation, eager hope for Jesus' coming and redemption, sadness at the hardness of man's heart, and joy at the possibilities that salvation contains. There was special joy over Kelly's unleavened bread; many requests to take the leftovers.

On Good Friday, the Orthodox congregations put on a joint liturgy between the two main buildings, preparing us for the Drumul Crucii, the Way of the Cross. Performers sing about the heavy cross that Jesus bore for us, and the priests give messages and lead in liturgy asking for mercy on our sinful hearts. At about noon, twenty people pick up a large, wooden cross that belongs in the little chapel on top of Straja mountain, and we begin to follow them and the priest up the road that leads to the top. The road winds its way slowly up the slope, and every kilometer or so, there is a marble relief carving of a different Station of the Cross, where we all stop and participate in a short liturgy.

There are 10 stations before we reach the little ski village where the chapel is perched. It's a long way up. There were a number of teenagers from IMPACT clubs there with large water bottles to share with thirsty pilgrims, sponsored and encouraged to do so by a wealthy, Orthodox philanthropist. A number of people, however, choose to fast from food and drink on the walk up the mountain, just like Jesus. It's Orthodox tradition to fast from Thursday night until Sunday morning, though plenty of people don't do it that long. Walking up a mountain for a few hours on Friday really makes one connect viscerally with Jesus' suffering; I really felt more connected to the story than from hearing a sermon while sitting in a slightly uncomfortable pew. We engaged in the Good Friday suffering together, and began to hope more fully for the joy of Easter.

Kelly and I decided to fast only until Friday night, since we went camping with our friends. We decided to celebrate with them while we were together, so we made hobo pies (potatoes, carrots, onions, chicken, corn, beans and butter all wrapped in tinfoil, thrown on the fire, and spiced to taste--I dearly hope that hobos can eat this well) and weird s'mores with twisty marshmallows. We played a small amount of rugby, went into a little cave by the campsite, and sang worship songs together.

The next morning, we had eggs and bacon for breakfast, packed up most of our things, and went into a cave. Supposedly, there was a lake somewhere in this cave that we were trying to find, but never did. We did climb up many a muddy, slippery slope, lower ourselves through holes, and say, "Whoa!" a lot. God must have quite a good time making all this landscape, above, below, underwater...all of it. When we came out, it was another wonderfully visceral Easter experience. I had never thought about the joy of emerging from a cave from Jesus' perspective before. Every smell was a gift, and the sunlight was beautiful, even after only five hours.

We came home and I fell asleep immediately. I woke up to talk with some dear friends in the States, and to take a shower before we went back to the Orthodox church. Their Easter service began at 10pm on Saturday night, with them walking around the building, pausing now and then to do prayers and liturgy. At midnight, they approached the entrance, and the priest pounded on the door and requested it to be opened so we can celebrate. The doors opened and the people flooded into the sanctuary. For the next hour or so, we repeated the same 7-minute liturgy of various songs and prayers celebrating the resurrection. We left at about 1 because we were so tired and didn't know if the liturgy would ever change (it's perfectly acceptable to go in and out of Orthodox services like that). The service usually goes until about 3. And then they start again next morning.

We concluded that it would take a long time for us to feel natural celebrating Easter like that. It was very strange to celebrate the resurrection and then go to sleep, and we decided to just let our bodies rest, so we attended no service that morning. We woke up late, cooked some more food, and went for a big, joyous Easter lunch/dinner with our friends at the Bates' house. And there was much rejoicing!

It's different. It's wonderful that so many of us celebrate the resurrection. We enjoy that Easter is as big of a deal here as Christmas. We hope that we can feel at home in a congregation next Easter, and still celebrate as much as we did with our other friends.

Cristos a înviat! Adevărat a înviat!

Charity, dignity, and culture.

Last week I found myself unexpectedly helping at an event organized by a local Orthodox charity, handing out food bags to low-income residents of Lupeni.  The leader and funder of this charity is a rich local Orthodox man who owns multiple businesses in the area and is known by everyone in the community -- his influence and his money have been a part of every good initiative that has happened in Lupeni, apparently, and for that the community is grateful.  He has also donated money to FNO, and often calls on the IMPACT kids to volunteer at his charity's events, such as this Easter food basket program.

Ever since that day, I've been mulling over charity and dignity and culture.  I found myself admittedly frustrated and upset by the way things went on that day, but in the time since the event I've realized just how much my own expectations are formed by my culture -- and that claiming "best practices" is really, really hard.  Let me explain what I mean.

We arrived at the old cinema in town at about 11:00am, gathered together with the 15 or so IMPACT kids who had come to help, and mulled around for 40 minutes waiting for the organizers of the event to arrive.  There were already at least a dozen people sitting around in the heat waiting for food bags, but we had no information for them yet, so we all waited together.  Eventually the organizer arrived, and we eagerly anticipated getting started -- but instead were made to wait for another hour while the charity's volunteers discussed and argued over how to set up the lines, where to put the bags, and so on.  In the meantime, more hungry people had gathered, hot in the midday sun, eager for information -- and when they crowded forward towards the closed glass doors behind which all of us volunteers were gathered, they were yelled at.  I was rather dismayed by the chaos and the disorder, the sheer inefficiency of the event, but especially by the yelling at the people we were there to serve.  Eventually three tables were set up in the two doorways, each corresponding to the three schools in town where kids were enrolled -- but no one bothered to explain to the people waiting outside which table was which, or what sort of ID they needed to have, or how long they would have to wait.  The police came to help hold the crowd back, and slowly the distribution of food bags began, with a few volunteers checking people in and a few more carrying the food bags to them while the rest of the volunteers just watched and waited.

Eventually I went out and spent time in the crowd trying to explain to people what was going on (though I didn't know the full story either, since it kept changing).  I sort-of gave up trying to help at all and just tried to be kind to people, talking to kids and doing my best to smile and entertain them while they waited and waited and waited.  But eventually I left, feeling useless.

When I left, I was irritated.  I worked in food pantries and soup kitchens all through high school and college, and I am used to the American Midwest style of charity -- orderly lines, well-organized protocols and rules, people who generally stay where they're supposed to and volunteers who stay busy with lots to do.  As I watched the crowd outside the doors and listened to the chaos inside the doors, I felt frustrated that there was no similar order here in Romania -- that such a big event was so disorganized, and that in the process people who needed help were being yelled at and treated without dignity, forced to push and wait and kept from knowing what they needed to know.

But in the days following, and in conversations with my Romanian colleagues here at FNO, I've learned a few things.  First of all, this is common at Romanian charitable events -- the chaos and disorder and disorganization was not a surprise to any of the Romanians there.  And maybe that's okay.  It doesn't jive with my American desire for efficiency, but efficiency is really a cultural preference, not an absolute good.  Plus, perhaps the efficient, tidy lines and rules and protocols which American charities often force upon the poor ultimately aren't any more dignifying or humanizing than the jostling crowd supervised by police officers here in Romania.  After all, in the States there were many times that I saw rules enforced with ironclad strictness rather than compassion and love, and people demurely adhering to rude volunteers who lorded power over them -- and there is nothing dignifying about that.  So again, it's a cultural difference. 

After the event I found myself remembering my first weeks at Supper House and the shock and fear I felt in seeing the hungry desperation of some of the people there.  It's overwhelming when there are a lot of hungry people clamoring for food and you are in charge of distributing it.  It takes a while to get used to, and I  think it's only by the Holy Spirit that we can be kind and compassionate yet wise.  I remember those emotions now -- and it gives me more empathy for the way things were run at the event last week.

Ultimately, hungry people got food.  A lot of food -- big bags of chicken and oil and bread and eggs and Easter sweets.  And that is a good thing.  I don't think the end result of people getting fed necessarily makes the method of distribution okay.  But I have come away from the whole event pondering, wondering which aspects of charity are simply cultural preferences, and which ones are truly "best" -- the most dignifying, the most humanizing, the most empowering for those who give and those who receive. 

Sheep.

The other day we went on a run along the one road which winds from Lupeni to the next town in the valley, Uricani.  This is the only road -- the highway, really -- and the only way to get to Uricani from the eastern side of the Jiu Valley (the western side is filled by the mountainous Retezat National Park, so you can't really get there from that way either).  I mention these details just to point out how amusing the following picture is: sheep, all over the road.

(Needless to say, we stopped running.)

This actually happens a lot here.  Today we drove to Horezu and Târgu Jiu, a few hours south of Lupeni, and almost had a front-end collision with a rather assertive bull who was, again, walking down the highway amongst a herd of cows.  The bull probably would have won in a scrap with the old van we were in, so we were rather relieved when he moved at the last minute. 

It happens with goats, sheep, cows, dogs... animals are bold in Romania, apparently, and the men and women who accompany them are similarly brave.  It's amazing to me, considering that most Romanian drivers swerve around the roads at incredibly high rates of speed, jerking from side to side to avoid the potholes -- but I haven't seen a single accident here in the last few months, so apparently it all works out!