Standing up to violence.

Last week our IMPACT club started the final stages of their second project together.  This one is called "Ridica-te impotriva violentei," or "Stand up against violence," and they're trying to help reduce physical and verbal violence in School 2 in Lupeni, where most of them are students.  We've been working on this project since late October (with a considerable break over the holidays), and so it feels good to finally be in the actual implementation stages, after months of planning and discussing and hemming and hawing.

The project is pretty simple, but I think they've grown since their last project.  The club members have put together presentations about violence and its effects, complete with film clips and an interactive game, which they're now presenting in some of the most problematic classes at their school.  They've also found a graffiti artist to come make an anti-violence mural, which they'll install in the school courtyard once the presentations are over.

But the presentations.  Oh man.

Last week the kids did four, and I want to tell you about just one of them.  It was with a class of fifth graders, who our IMPACT members told us were in the class of "the strictest teacher ever" -- a religion teacher who apparently ruled with an iron fist.  As we walked up the stairs to his third-floor classroom at 9:00 on a Thursday morning, we walked into chaos, as little kids raced down the cement-floored hallways, yelling and playing, pushing and laughing, and sometimes pushing a little too hard.  There weren't any teachers in the hallway during the 10-minute break between classes, and this school (which houses students from first to eighth grade) was a zoo.

But soon we entered the relative calm of the teacher's classroom, where we were quickly informed by a huddle of little boys that some of their own classmates had just gotten in a fight and one of them had run home, afraid that if he stayed he'd be beat up even worse.  Apparently this is relatively common, as the boys mostly giggled about it and didn't seem too concerned.  But they responded to the presentation really well, engaging with the film clips and the game, and talking openly about the issues in their classroom.  It was going really well.

And then suddenly the door flew open, and in stormed the angry mother of the little boy who had left school that morning.  Hair flying, she pointed an angry finger over her son's head at the bully who had apparently choked him and pushed him into a chalkboard that morning.  "You!" she yelled.  "This is the third time you've hurt my son!  You do it again and I'll throw you out a window!"

Jack and I raised our eyebrows at each other.  No wonder these kids speak violently to each other, I thought, if a middle-aged mom is saying this to a 12-year-old!  But we didn't say anything, just waited to see what would happen next.

And then the teacher got started.  With a flood of angry words, he pulled the bully in front of the class and proceeded to lash him with his tongue -- "You're hopeless!" he yelled.  "You're only in my class because everyone else has given up on you!  You never change!  You never will change unless you change your heart!  You have tested me to the limits of my patience, and now you've really done it!"  He stormed out of the room with the angry mom, telling her that "just this minute, we'd been talking about violence and how important it is to stop it..."  As he left the room, our kids looked at us, a little stunned.  So Jack and I asked the class if this sort of thing happens often.  Yep, they replied.  And do they want it to happen?  Nope, they sighed.  So how can they work together to stop it?  How do these fights get started?  They had just begun discussing it when the teacher came back in.

He then proceeded to rant on and on, about how this class was full of delinquents who everyone else had given up on.  How he was so angry at that bully that he had no saliva left in his mouth.  How God is the only boss, and God is watching, and God is not pleased with this sort of behavior.  It went on and on.  It made me cringe.

Finally he paused, and our kids re-started their presentation.  This time they were way more confident -- something had changed in watching the horrible rampage of the teacher and the real needs of this class.  They owned their presentation in a way they hadn't before, even if it was still awkward and juvenile.  They did a great job.  I think they finally realized that even if there project wasn't enough to change much, it was a step in the right direction -- an important step.  And in that class, as awful and painful as it was, they realized that they were combating a real problem, even if in a small way.  And they were proud, and passionate, and powerful.

I should note that not all of the presentations were in classrooms like this.  In most of the classes we visited, the students seemed to have real respect for their teacher, and the teachers seemed to really care about the students.  There are some great people at School 2 in Lupeni.  And yet the problem persists.

So here's a prayer for peace in that school, and for seeds of non-violence to have been planted in the soil of those kids' hearts.  Here's a prayer that those children would know that they are worth something, even if the words of teachers tell them otherwise, and even if that pain makes them act out.  Here's a prayer for brave kids to stand up against violence, again and again and again, until it is no more.

And some pictures of our amazing IMPACT kids giving their presentations.  We're really proud of them.

The mayor, arrested.

I am slow in writing this post, which is odd because it is one of the most exciting blog posts we've gotten to write so far about our life in Romania.

Two weeks ago, the mayor of Lupeni was arrested.

This is really good news.

Ever since Romania joined the European Union in 2008, they have been making slow strides towards European economic and civic norms, one of the most challenging being in the area of corruption.  But in recent years the anti-corruption unit, called the DNA, has been slowly gaining power and arresting people that our friends have told us "they never thought would get caught."  The election of Klaus Iohannis as president of Romania was a huge step and symbol of progress too, which also made us giddy with hope.  But now -- now! -- it's come here to Lupeni, and I am so pumped.

There are all sorts of stories about Cornel Resmeriţa, the man who has been mayor of Lupeni for 10 years.  I remember walking to school with my host sister and host mom as a student here in the fall of 2010 and passing the construction of a beautiful house on Straja Road.  I was a bit puzzled by the situation, as I hadn't seen many other construction projects in Lupeni moving along very quickly, so I asked my host mom about it.  "Oh, it's the mayor's," she said, sighing.  "He steals material from some of the public construction projects of apartment buildings to speed up the process."  I was askance.  "It's his fifth house," she added, shaking her head and walking on, while I scraped my jaw off the floor.

Whether or not that anecdote is true (admittedly, I haven't fact-checked it), there are plenty of other stories which seem to corroborate it.  An IMPACT project to sterilize Lupeni's street dogs, taken over and ended by the mayor.  Bags of food given to poor people in exchange for a vote at election time.  Free barbeques and concerts in the park by national artists, conveniently timed for only once every few years during his re-election campaign or the campaigns of other members of his party.  A bankrupt city hall, while the mayor and his cronies go on a weekend "retreat" to London.  The stories go on and on and on.

And yet, last Monday, we came to the office and heard the news -- he'd been taken into custody by the DNA.  They stormed his house in riot gear, searched it for incriminating documents, and put Resmeriţa in a van headed for Bucharest.  Apparently it's part of a nation-wide sting based on a huge corruption scandal going all the way up to the Ministry of Tourism; Resmeriţa's part has something to do with preferential contracts for the electrification of the Straja ski village.  He's since been released to house arrest and is back in Lupeni awaiting trial, but the trial is coming.

And hopefully after that, some change for a community that really needs it.

Thanks be to God.

A punch in the face.

Last week Monday was our first night back at IMPACT.  Jack and I were nervous to return, as our club's community service-learning project was approaching its expected deadline, and we hadn't heard much from our junior leaders about what they'd been able to get done over the holidays.  But we were excited, too -- excited to get back to these kids who have wiggled a way into our hearts.  

 But it didn't get off to a great start.

 As we were walking there, we saw two of the kids -- Bumb and one of the girls. Simona -- take off running down the street in hot pursuit of each other, sprinting headlong into traffic.  There wasn't much we could do about it, and the meeting wasn't scheduled to start for 25 minutes, so we just kept walking towards the building, wondering what was going on.  We soon found out, when Bumb came back and said nonchalantly that he had punched Simona, and she came back crying with her hand over her now-puffy cheek.

Darn.

We took Bumb downstairs for some questioning while Simona's girlfriends comforted her in the bathroom.  Apparently, what had started as an innocent snowball fight turned into anger when a snowball hit her face and another hit her smartphone, and in the chase-down she kicked him, he punched her... things quickly escalated.  Jack and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised, and then proceeded to ask Bumb where he thought he made a mistake.  "I probably shouldn't throw snowballs at her," he admitted, abashed.  "Right," we agreed.  "And the second mistake?"  He was stumped.  Which led to a discussion of how punching people -- especially girls -- is not ever, ever acceptable.  He seemed to get it, eventually.

 But then this relatively uninspiring You're In Trouble Discussion turned into something more beautiful, when we went and got Simona.  She was hesitant, and Bumb's first apology didn't really stick, since he wasn't looking her in the eye -- but as he got more and more embarrassed, he started to really mean it.  And her first response, the common "nu e nimic" (it's nothing) of Romanian, turned into a real "I forgive you," after she saw that he was really sorry.  As Bumb and Jack went off for some more conversation, I stayed and talked to Simona about Bumb.  Why does she think he acts the way he does?  What makes her so mad about him?  Slowly, slowly, she let down her angry guard and admitted that the mean things he had said about her parents were probably out of jealousy for her own happy family.  Even more slowly, she admitted that she could consider possibly praying for him next week in church.  "Not for his sake, though," she said.  "Only for yours.  You guys are so nice to him and to me that I will try it if you want to."  Jack smiled and told her that she might not notice any change in Bumb, but that he was pretty sure praying for him would change her.  Simona looked incredulous, but nodded.  Okay.

 Then we offered her the chance to send Bumb home for the night, and she did.  But twenty minutes later, as we sat with the rest of the club at the meeting, we could hear Bumb outside the building, humming to himself, occasionally pounding on the door, sad to be left out.  And when we looked at Simona, she sighed.  "Let him back in," she said.  "He needs IMPACT."

And he does. She does, too. The rest of the night, they worked together and behaved, planning a project against violence in their school.  (Ironic, we know.)  But there were these precious, teachable moments in the first 20 minutes before the meeting started, in which we talked about forgiveness, and violence, and self-control, and anger, and what it means to pray for our enemies and to still be a family, or at least a club, even with people who sometimes hurt us.  And it was really beautiful.

Even if it took a punch in the face to get there.

Home sweet home.

Well, hello, blog folks.  It's been a while.

Jack and I are settled back into life in Lupeni, after a 5-week jaunt back to the U.S. for Christmas, New Year's, and a lot of catching up with family and friends.  I always wish I was more alert during these trips, that I would write more and spend more time reflecting, staring out windows, praying.  It never happens.  My journal lies neglected in the bottom of my suitcase, its paltry 18 ounces a waste of space in my always-overstuffed baggage.  My brain goes on vacation whenever I am alone, along with the rest of my body, which uses jet lag as a convenient excuse to take naps whenever and wherever I am.  And my heart?  I don't even know how to answer that one.  It gets filled to bursting by long, funny, honest, open talks with friends that last late into the night.  It gets squeezed and encouraged and buoyed by good sermons and concerts and all the riches that feed it in our crowd of smart, engaged, middle-class, English-speaking, Jesus-loving friends.  And then it gets crushed, with little ragged pieces pulled off the edges, when we say our last goodbyes to so many people, yet another time.  Clenching back tears as we hug on the sidewalk, mind already racing ahead to something else because this heart of mine simply can't take saying goodbye to so many people it loves, so many times.

I wouldn't trade it, of course.  It's not even an option to not try to do this -- to not try to still love so many people in Iowa and Michigan and Ohio (and other places too, that's where they're concentrated), even while we spend 11 months of the year trying to love so many people here in Lupeni.  It's worth it, infinitely worth it.  I will chew on these conversations with friends for the next six months, still contemplating the wonder of knowing and being known so deeply and so kindly.  Still sucking out the marrow of the wisdom in our friends' words.  I will miss you all horribly, when I take the time to sit and reflect, stare out windows, and pray.  (And that does happen here, somehow.)

But even so, it feels right to be here.  It feels Good to be back, even if the friendships are fewer and our ability to connect deeply in Romanian is so much more stifled than it is in English.  Oddly enough, I don't feel lonely here.  We have friends here, people we love and who love us, and we're delighted to be back to them, too.  And we are buoyed by this great cloud of witnesses who hugged us on snowy sidewalks, kissed our frozen cheeks, and sent us back here for another year.