Politics, economics, and hope.

One of the things I've enjoyed about our time in Târgu Mureș so far is the chance to meet and hear about people doing amazing things in this city and throughout Romania.  Steve (the other CRWM missionary in the country, who lives in Târgu Mureș with his family) spends his time connecting and networking these Kingdom movements together, so through his connections we've been introduced to a growing group of people who love God and love His people and love this country.  It's exciting.

Yesterday we went to the Youth With a Mission (YWAM) base here in Târgu Mureș to hear a bit more about what they do.  (We were also scoping it out for my sister, who's considering spending time with YWAM during her gap year.  Kendra, we give it our stamp of approval.)  The base has an interesting history and does a lot of local outreach, but is currently most focused on music and worship.  They bring in singer/songwriters, predominantly from Romania and Hungary but also anyone else who happens to be around, and record their songs, accumulating the best into worship albums.  These monthly recording sessions happen at the coffeehouse in the basement of the base, which is also open for the use of visiting teams of YWAMers and whoever else may want to stop by.  While there, we met a YWAM group from a base in the Netherlands.  It was fun to be in a room with fascinating, Jesus-loving people from Belgium, Ireland, Holland, Romania, Norway, Nigeria, the U.K.... a tangible reminder that God's Kingdom is everywhere.  Everywhere.

Jerry, one of the leaders of the Târgu Mureș YWAM base, gave an orientation to the group from the Netherlands that we got to hear as well, and I'd like to post a few of the things he said.  I haven't done any research to back it up, but he's lived here for 12+ years (originally he's American), his love for this country is evident, and I trust him.  So here are a few tidbits about Romania, a la Jerry.  Errors in memory are mine, and I apologize.

Romania's population is shrinking.  Though some of this is due to a lower birthrate (families of 5 or more kids were far more common a generation or two ago), most of it is due to Romanians leaving the country for the West.  Anywhere in the West.  After communism fell here at the end of 1989, almost everyone in their 20s packed up and searched for a job in Western Europe or North America, creating a huge generation gap.  There are few people of that generation left here today, and the exodus is continuing.  Because even highly-educated people, like doctors, are paid very small salaries here, Romania's experiencing a huge brain drain -- almost all the quality doctors, lawyers, professors, technicians, etc., go West to where they can make more money.  In fact, because wages are so low here, many college grads move to Spain and get jobs picking strawberries, because they make more money picking strawberries in Spain than they can starting a career in their profession here.  (Sound familiar, anyone?)  They send much of the money back home to Romania, trying to supplement the terribly-small pensions of their aging relatives and the exploding costs of food and housing here.

Joining the EU was a good thing for Romania in many ways, but with it have come consequences.  Though the EU has cut down the ridiculously gigantic government bureaucracy from Romania's communist days, it has not made the system necessarily easier to navigate.  Romania is a Latin country and, like other Latin countries, is very much based on relationships.  To navigate the government offices requires friendships and conversations and time, and perhaps a gift -- not exactly corruption, but an interesting question to ponder.  Joining the EU has also made the cost of living much higher here, especially affecting the cost of food, although Romanian salaries and pensions have been slow in catching up.  Romania also received an IMF loan a few years ago, but this money had strings attached too -- the IMF required pretty severe fiscal austerity measures on Romania's part in order for them to receive the money, which means that public sector jobs are currently not hiring.  Period.  (Our friend who is studying to be a midwife at the medical university here says there are zero prospects for her to get a job at a public hospital in Romania after graduating.  Zero.)  Pensions are apparently in danger of being cut as well, in order to meet the demands of the IMF loan.  But does anyone know where that money has gone, or what it's been used for here in Romania?  Not anyone I've talked to.  The same is true for a lot of aid money from Western countries -- no one here knows where it goes, and they assume it's padding the pockets of politicians.

Speaking of politics: this past summer, Romania voted on the impeachment of its president.  The vote didn't carry (but only because of extremely low voter turnout -- of those who did vote, the overwhelming majority voted to impeach him).  Yesterday Jerry told us that he was glad the president wasn't impeached, which surprised me.  But then he said that the man who would have replaced him is the head of the Communist party in Romania -- a party which is somehow growing in popularity, despite the horrific history of totalitarianism here.  I've been reading a memoir about Romanian pastors imprisoned under communism, which I will write more about at another time.  But for now, if you are praying for the country, please pray that this totalitarian mentality does not take hold again.

Which returns me to the beginning of this post (whew, sorry about the long International Relations tangent in the middle there!)... the Kingdom.  Hope.  Jerry has spent the last 12 years talking to young, educated Romanians, pleading with them to stay.  The temptation to flee to the West, where salaries are higher and life seems easy and glamorous, is huge.  Options for those of us from the United States are pretty much endless (or so they seem to those who aren't from the U.S., despite all we say about poverty and class and racism in the States).  The reality is that our wealth is great, and that lure is huge.  But Romania desperately needs its faithful to stay.  This country needs them to "build houses and settle down; marry and have children; seek the good of the city" (Jeremiah 29).  Romania needs its faithful to stay, to complete their education and innovate here, to plant the seeds of a healthy economy and a functional political system.  It needs its hopeful, its dreamers, its faithful, to stay and speak against a politics of totalitarianism and corruption and destruction.  Romania needs its Church to stay, to "rebuild the wall," and to believe that the Kingdom of God can be glimpsed, can be built, can be entered into, from here.  It's everywhere, after all.  And in the work of faithful people here, it's already visible.  And that gives me hope.