Street dogs.

One of my tasks on day one at the office was to help a local IMPACT club administer surveys to people in Lupeni about the street dog situation here.  I should explain: Lupeni, a town of about 24,000 people, is also home to hundreds, if not thousands, of street dogs.  They're everywhere, as prolific as squirrels in the small Midwestern towns we grew up in, and that's no exaggeration.  The story is interesting: when Ceausescu's communist government collectivized Romanian agriculture, thousands of peasant farmers were forced to move off their land into government-provided apartment blocs ("filing cabinets," as one of our friends calls them).  When these country folks moved into cities, they brought their farm dogs with them, keeping them outside the apartments and feeding them, etc.  That was decades ago, so we're now a few generations of pups removed from the original pets-turned-strays, and today's street dogs are far less domesticated.  Some of them are cute, and some of them still get fed by people who are fond of them, and plenty of them are harmless.  It's puppy season right now, and there are furry little balls of adorableness all over the place, stumbling cutely over themselves in an attempt to come get you to pet them.  I can't help but love them, and I'm not alone -- I've seen plenty of Romanians standing around puppies this week too, cooing and taking pictures.  But then the pups grow up.  And some of the grown street dogs here are terrifying, shaggy and fierce looking, with matted fur and pointy teeth and angry barks.  They congregate around dumpsters, jumping in and out and tearing through the trash for food, scattering the debris all over.  And they bite people: over 200 people last year in Lupeni alone, according to one statistic I heard.

(I should add the disclamer here that we don't walk around in fear of the street dogs.  If you're smart and pay attention, and occasionally pick up a rock to scare them off, you'll be fine.  But things do happen, and they are wild animals, and their presence near kindergartens and in public parks and lounging in the middle of the road causes problems.  Serious problems.)

So on Monday I went to the park for a couple hours, asking people sunning on the benches if I could have a few minutes to ask them some questions.  And oh, the stories I heard.  In an hour and a half, I talked to nine people.  Of those nine, seven had been attacked by a street dog -- some had only had their pants ripped or their bread snatched from their hand, but a few had experienced serious bites.  Every single person I talked to said that although they like dogs as pets, they think the street dog situation is a huge problem.  Every single person I talked to complained about the lack of cleanliness in the city, with trash all over -- which can largely be attributed to the dogs.  And every single person I talked to said that the city hasn't really done anything to address the problem.  (I should insert another comment here: Lupeni's mayor is notoriously corrupt, and public opinion is pretty blatantly apathetic towards him... and yet he continues to get re-elected, somehow.)

But here's something else that I thought was interesting.  One of the last questions on the survey was about who is responsible for taking care of the street dog problem.  And again, though my sample size was ridiculously small, 7 out of the 9 people I interviewed said the same thing: the mayor and his council.  When I'd press them, asking, "What about the community?  You?  Any others?" they would say no, no, what could they do?  It's the responsibility of the city government.  The same city government that they had just told me, five minutes before, doesn't do anything.

One of the reasons New Horizons Foundation exists is to tackle apathy and corruption, legacies left over by the years of communist rule.  Living in Târgu Mureş, a larger city that has its act together and runs really well (and, by the way, is largely free of street dogs), it was hard to remember that.  I just didn't see it.  But now that we're in the Jiu Valley, I'm starting to see it again -- the attitudes and fatalism and helplessness that communism taught.  Nobody wants the street dogs, but nobody is doing anything about it.  Well, nobody except for these IMPACT kids.  And that makes me so excited and proud of them -- and hopeful that maybe, maybe, their involvement will catch on.

Monday.

We start work today!  We go to the office today!  WE ARE SO EXCITED!!!

After three months of language training, we are really thrilled to start having a schedule and work and to begin to make Lupeni and FNO our home.  Hooray hooray hooray.

And happy Mondays to you too.

The move.

I'm writing this from our living room in Apartment Lucy -- Apt. 62, Bloc A2, Blvd. Păcii, Lupeni, Hunedoara, Romania, to be exact.  (Yes, our apartment is known as "Lucy," and I have no idea where that name came from, but I do like it.)  It's an adorable, sunny, yellow little apartment on the top floor of a five-story apartment building just next to the river and across the street from the Pentecostal church.  From here it's a five minute walk to the nearest grocery store, three minutes to the fruit and veggie vendor and meat market, and about four minutes to the FNO office.  And we can see the mountains from our living room window -- all the way to Retezat National Park, if the day is clear.

Currently, the living room is in a bit of shambles: the defunct little fridge we just replaced is sitting in the corner and being used as an end table, holding up a pile of yet-unsorted books and pictures and all those miscellaneous papers you somehow find when you move (even when you are moving with just a few suitcases).  The desk is an old metal relic without a chair, similarly covered with half-unpacked bags and piles and folders.  But I love this room, with the rug we found in Târgu Mureș and the huge bunkbed in the corner and the beautiful, beautiful view outside.  I can't wait to fill it with memories.

We left Târgu Mureș on Thursday morning, exhausted but satisfied after a week of goodbyes.  Otilia made us a big send-off breakfast of eggs and fried potatoes with garlic and good Romanian bread, and then helped us carry our many bags to the bus station, about ten minutes away by foot.  We had accumulated a number of things in Târgu Mureș, so we were definitely trundling along, huge backpacks on our backs and arms full of computers, books, and my two little houseplants.  (They got a box to themselves.)  Otilia and her daughter and son-in-law Laura saw us off from the bus station, reminding us to count our bags at each stop, eat garlic to stay healthy, and come back to visit soon.  We settled in for the now-familiar trip, settling the plants on the seat in front of us in a remarkably uncrowded bus: Târgu Mureș to Turda by bus, wait forty minutes, then another bus from Turda to Petroșani, and then another forty minutes through the Jiu Valley to Lupeni.  We ate lunch on a bench at the bus station in Turda with a strange older woman who we couldn't understand at all, to whom we gave some of the sausage and bread that Otilia had helped us pack, then watered the plants (with my Nalgene) and waited for the bus to Petroșani.  The ride was gorgeous -- Romania is fabulously beautiful in the spring, and I spent most of the ride staring out the window at the blue skies and budding trees.  In Petroșani we were greeted by a friend from Lupeni named Adi, who was driving the Bates' van to bring us to our apartment (a welcome mode of travel with all of our bags, instead of trying to cram onto a maxi-taxi like we usually do).  And finally, after a long day of lugging our stuff around and listening to incessant obnoxious music on the radio (and carefully watching out for the plants), we were here: parked outside the green metal doors of our apartment building, entering the rotten-smelling darkness of the stairwell, climbing past the strange pictures of a steepled church and a child's doll, and arriving at our front door, flanked by the neighbor's woodpile for their wood-burning furnace.  Home sweet home.

It is so good to be here.  As soon as we had dropped our bags, Jack and I looked at each other and grinned, saying, "We're going to live her for three years!"  I haven't lived in the same place for that long since high school, and I am so excited.  We will miss people in Târgu Mureș, and the beauty of the city, and its delicious pretzel stands... but already it feels right to be here, and I am so, so thankful we will call this place home.

Biserică.

On Sunday, we said goodbye to our churches here in Târgu Mureș.  We don't have nearly as many goodbyes to say here as we did when we left the States three months ago, but the people we've become friends with during these three months of language training have been lifeboats for us -- promises and signs of hope that we will find community and friends here in Romania, that we will be accepted by our neighbors, that we can become part of the community around us.  We still mourn the loss of our close community in Grand Rapids, and the ease of access we had in the States to beloved family and friends scattered all over the country.  But now we live in Romania.  We are committed to doing that well.  So making our first friends here, even if those friendships have been short -- and now saying goodbye to them in order to move six hours south and set up life in Lupeni -- well, it's a little sad, all over again.

Especially regarding church.  Jack and I have been going to Noul Legământ, a charismatic non-denominational church in the center of the city that meets in a municipal building and is full of really friendly people of all ages and backgrounds.  We usually go with Otilia (well, sort-of -- she likes to get there, like, 45 minutes early, so we usually just meet her there).  Usually we stand around for at least 15 minutes before the service starts, talking with people in a mix of Romanian and English and the occasional accidental Spanish word when we get flustered.  And we feel welcomed.  We really like this church.  People remember our names and smile at us, and honestly?  It goes a long, long way.  Plus, tonight we saw the pastor out for a speed walk with his family and it made us smile.  A lot.

About 5 weeks ago, we also started attending the young adults' group on Sunday evenings at Noul Legământ, and this has been... So Good.  Life-giving.  There's a group of about 20 people, spanning from 17-30, who meet every Sunday night to worship, discuss Scripture, plan events, and laugh.  Lots of laughter.  And lots of Romanglish and conversation and prayer and discussion.  Again, we haven't known these friends that long, but their welcome -- and their prayers and hugs and support and goodbyes -- have meant a lot to us here.

We've also been attending an afternoon English service (I know, I know, three church services on a Sunday seems a bit excessive.... it's the busiest day of our week!).  The English service is, to be frank, sometimes a little bit amusing -- it's a motley crew of expats from the United States, Hungary, Britain, the Netherlands, and Romania, mostly, and we sing old '90s worship songs with rather interesting rhythm and listen to a sermon and then eat cake and drink tea for at least half an hour.  But for as endearingly ridiculous as the English sermon can be, we've also made some good friends there, and our goodbye on Sunday (complete, of course, with cake) was also bittersweet.

There is a lot I'll probably miss about Târgu Mureș once we live in Lupeni: the wide-open sky from not being in the mountains, the availability of brown sugar and peanut butter and tortillas, great public transit and a beautiful city center, the gorgeous flowers and trees.  But mostly the people, as always: our host mom Otilia; her daughter and son-in-law Laura and Alex; our fabulous language teachers Ramona and Lidia; the Michmerhuizens, who also are here through CRWM; Maria and Daniel, our first English-speaking Romanian friends; and all our friends from church (yep, all three services).  But we know we're going to a place that is also good, also full of community.  So for now I'm just thankful that the Church has been home for us here, just as it is supposed to be.

Friends, spring, and adventures.

Well, it's been a while since we last posted, but this time we have an excuse: it's spring break here in Romania, and we spent all of last week gallivanting around with our friend Andrew, who visited us from the States.  It was a lovely, lovely week together of rest, exploring, hiking, climbing, and eating a lot -- and I really mean a LOT -- of Romanian food. 

Andrew had mentioned that he hoped to sample some of our host mom's cooking, so we asked Otilia if we could make sarmale -- the traditional Romanian treat that is drop-dead delicious, consisting of pickled cabbage leaves stuffed with meat and rice and cooked in a tomato sauce or in a wood oven.  Delight.  Otilia even let us help stuff them, which was a bit of a learning curve to say the least... but it all ended well when we sat down for a late lunch with heaping plates of sarmale, topped with dollops of smântână (basically sour cream).  Yum.

We spent the rest of our time in Târgu Mureș exploring the city's beautiful, historic center (whoops, I sound like a tour guide, but it really is true!) and wandering around its woods, zoo, playground, and shaorma restaurants.  There's an old citadel downtown that encloses a Reformed church built in 1490.  1490!  Folks in America, that's two years before Columbus even sailed the ocean blue and stumbled across our continent!  History here amazes me.

 Part of the citadel and the Reformed church.

After a few days in Târgu Mureș we got on a bus and headed for Lupeni.  The bus system here is fabulous: on-time, clean, cheap, and easily accessible from almost every part of the country.  We can travel directly from Târgu Mureș to Petroșani (the larger city about 40 minutes from Lupeni) in about seven hours, with only one transfer in the city of Turda.  We live in a pretty isolated place without a car, so this has been fabulous and liberating.  Plus, we recently learned how to turn off the speakers above our seats, so we can minimize the endless repetition of Rihanna on the radio.  Definitely an improvement.

Our time in Lupeni was full of friends and hiking and running around in the mountains and, once again, food.  Some of our friends in Lupeni had been organizing a "girls' night" for women from church, and soon Jack and Andrew and more friends from Lupeni were planning a "boy's night" to match.  We spoke a lot of Romanian, played games, laughed, made food and shared it, and just generally enjoyed a taste of the community we will be part of once we move to Lupeni next week.  Needless to say, we're looking forward to it.

Another highlight: we went on a lovely hike on Saturday in the mountains near Uricani, the next town down the valley, with the Bates family and the Silvas, our friends and coworkers at FNO.  It was a beautiful, warm day in Lupeni when we left, so I entirely forgot that we'd be climbing into the snow-capped mountains... whoops!  Thankfully it was sunny most of the time, so our toes were the only things that got really cold and wet.  Andrew took some beautiful pictures from that hike, which I've snagged to post here:

At the bottom of the hike, there was no snow...

... but soon the path looked like this.

 

 At the top of the mountain was a village of old, abandoned shepherd huts...

 

... and a beautiful view of the place where we will soon live!

So between gorgeous hikes and rainy caving expeditions and Romanian hospitality and food with neighbors and a game of frisbee with a bunch of Romanian friends on a field overlooking the mountains... all in all it was rather idyllic.  I'm sure life won't always be so fun and exciting once we settle into the routines of work and life in Lupeni, but for now we're just rejoicing.  Such fun spring adventures.  

And now, if anyone else wants to come visit, we'd love to have you!

Joys.

Just so you know, this post might be rather vulnerable and honest.  The last few weeks have been difficult ones for me.  Jack and I have reached a level of competency with the Romanian language that now plunges us into the realm of more difficult grammar, and my brain feels like it's reached a temporary saturation point.  We've been living with our wonderful host mom for over two months, and my independent, American, 23-year-old self has been chafing a bit from the constraints of life together in her apartment.  And for a week or two, I just felt lonely, and maybe homesick, despite (or perhaps because of) some nice Skype conversations with friends back in the States -- a tantalizing, real glimpse into the lives of people we love dearly and a place and lifestyle we've left behind.  But.  Easter weekend came, and something changed.  And I want to write about it.

I think the change came because, first of all, I finally confessed.  I sent a long, honest, ugly email to some people I trust and told them all about my bad weeks, my bad attitude, and the war waging in my heart between -- well, quite frankly -- the sin in me and the Spirit in me.  And like confession and accountability are meant to do, this burden of guilt and irritation and self-chastisement and bondage to my grouchiness and selfishness lifted.  It's being shared now, carried in prayer by other people.  It's been let out into the light, and I've heard truth from people who love the Lord and love me, and it's so Good.  So very Good.  So thanks, to those of you who pray for us so often -- your prayers are tangible to me these days.  I'm still grouchy sometimes and working on self control and patience, but at the same time I am continually being bowled over by all this grace and love. 

Second, speaking of grace and love, we got this crazy surprise of a package the other day from Jack's former coworker Lisa.  I've met Lisa once, for all of three minutes, when she dropped Jack off one day after work, covered in paint.  She seemed really nice, and wanted to hear about Romania and pray for us and support us there.  And then on Tuesday we went to pick up a package, having received the notification without knowing who it was from, and lo and behold: a book of encouragement, an incredibly sweet card, a bag of Reese's dark chocolate peanut butter cups... love in a box.  We don't deserve it.  Such grace.

And then there's all these things that make me smile.  For one, we got a postcard from our dear little three-year-old neighbor from GR last week, and I grinned nonstop for about an hour after reading it.  And on Sunday it was Easter for the Reformed and Catholic churches here -- so essentially, the Hungarian population of Romania celebrated Easter on Sunday (and Monday and Tuesday).  Everyone else goes with the Orthodox calendar, which this year doesn't put Easter until May 5.  But still, it was Easter for our families back home, and for half the population of Târgu Mureș, and that's just great, because the reminder that Christ is risen indeed just fills the earth and my grouchy, lonely heart with all sorts of joy and hope.  Plus, for Hungarian folks the tradition on the day after Easter is for young men to go around all day dressed in suits and ties, carrying gift bags with perfume and visiting their female friends to squirt them.  I guess it originated as a courting ritual, but on Monday we even saw little boys toddling around with brightly colored gift bags, presumably on their way to give Grandma a good ol' dollop of sweet spray.  It was adorable. 

And now our friend Andrew is here for a week-long visit from the States, and we're going to Lupeni for the weekend to move the first half of our stuff into our apartment and visit friends and go hiking and caving and rock climbing, and I just can't wait.  And the flowers are blooming, and today we made sarmale with Otilia and had a fabulous lunch together, and now there's banana bread baking in the oven, making me drool.  How can I not be smiling?

So thanks to all of you -- for holding me accountable, for loving me in a myriad of ways that amaze and encourage, and for being a community that reminds me and helps lead me back to the arms of Christ when I wander.  Much, much love.  Much joy to you too.

New food pastime.

Dipping corn flakes and almonds in honey. After pasta with green veggies and pesto.

Do it.