Fân fest: on humility.

Last week, I (Kelly) took a couple days off of work to go visit Roșia Montana, a beautiful little town in the Apușeni Mountains made famous by a gold-mining controversy (we have written more about it here and here).  Every year some of the anti-mining activists in the community host a big festival called Fân Fest ("fân" means hay, but you pronounce it like "fun").  A couple of friends from the Fundația were going, and Jack was up at camp for another week, so I decided to go too.

Roșia Montana is gorgeous.  My camera was dead, but here are a few photos of the village for you from the wonderful worldwide web:

It's a tiny little town nestled in the mountains, and the festival takes you up and down its hills and valleys, into glens and pastures, to visit various tents where there are discussion forums, concerts, film premiers, arts and crafts, food... it's an activism-focused festival, so the majority of the activities are somehow related to mining, social responsibility, and grassroots activism (though there is plenty of just plain fun, too -- hammocks in trees, paragliding and horseback riding, musical workshops, etc.)

I attended a few really interesting discussion forums, and one of them has stuck with me.  It was led by a British guy who works for a London-based advocacy group that is working to help speak up on behalf of indigenous people affected by British mining corporations.  Their approach to advocacy is really interesting and wise -- it's not based on their own opinions or outrage, these British men sitting in London.  Instead, it's always based on the voice of the local community, whoever they may be, and whatever they may be saying.  This group sees themselves as a catalyst, an amplifier, for groups of people who would otherwise never have any voice in the British political system or media.  When they are contacted by people whose homes, livelihoods, sacred spaces, or environments are being affected by mining, this group goes there to learn about the situation and listen to the voices of all the affected parties, trying to help find common ground where possible.  But when not possible, they consider it their responsibility to speak up for those who otherwise have no one speaking up for them.  And so they return to Britain, often with people from the local community, and do everything they can to get the story told and put pressure on British mining corporations, holding them accountable to the British public for any abuse they are causing in other distant corners of the world.

I think I was especially struck by this man's presentation because of its contrast to some of the other people I met at Fân Fest.  The festival was a strange thing, as it takes a very strong stand on one side of a complicated issue -- and then hundreds, if not thousands, of outsiders come in and join in that protest, without much room for dialogue.  It's quite obvious that not everyone in Roșia Montana likes Fân Fest: from the graffiti at the entrance of the valley pointing people in the wrong direction, to the men in Gold Corporation SUVs roaring intimidatingly down the street, to posters decrying the anti-mining protesters as naive and anti-jobs, to the signs proclaiming the renovation and restoration of historic parts of the village thanks to the Gold Corporation's investment.  The retired gold miner who we stayed with refused to even give his opinion on this topic (which I can't blame him for; I'd be sick of talking about it too!)  Much of the village has been "bought out" and have moved away, as the company needs to empty all the houses before it can begin its surface-mining operations -- but a good number of people have stayed, for a whole variety of reasons.  And it leaves the town with a really interesting feel, like something half-finished.  I don't know what it is like during the rest of the year, but during Fân Fest it feels like everyone is just very wary... and then in come all these hippy twenty-somethings with opinions, who are sure they're right about what's best for this community, and spend a few days broadcasting that with their t-shirts and concerts and films.  It has to feel a bit insensitive.  At least, it did to me.

I still think there is plenty of room for outsiders to care about what's happening in Roșia Montana.  The fact that the planned method for mining includes blowing up part of the mountains and creating a lake of cyanide?  That affects people far beyond the citizens of this town, and so it seems right to me that others should be able to say, "This affects us too, and this seems wrong."  But there are other parts of the story that are a little less simple, and that I am not sure as an outsider what to think about them.  And I guess what I found challenging about Fân Fest was that there wasn't much room for real dialogue about these areas that are gray -- the other side was ignored, often cast as ignorant, immoral, and sell-outs.  And I don't think that's fair.  When all is said and done, I still fall in the anti-mining camp.  I still think that the plan for mining in Roșia Montana is disastrous and tragic.  But I also think there needs to be much more humility from those of us who don't live there.  It's not our home, and that changes things.

There definitely are signs of hope and people who are acting with amazing wisdom and integrity in this whole issue -- particularly local people whose story this really is.  My friend Smara told me about some of them, as she has been visiting Roșia Montana for years and has become close friends with many of the people in the community.  Her opinion carries weight, I think, and so it was good to hear her say that behind-the-scenes are a lot of local people who are in dialogue, and who are working hard to find mutually-agreeable solutions and do advocacy in honest ways.  Maybe a festival that wants to "grow the revolutionary spirit" can never be so nuanced.  But I think that us festival-goers need to try.  We need to try to care without becoming blind to those whose priorities are different.  We need to learn to hold strongly to an opinion, and fight for a cause, without demonizing or ignoring the other side.  We need to learn the humility that comes from recognizing that we almost never have the whole picture.

A lesson in humility, learned once again (will I ever stop needing reminders?) for this activist-minded expat who is searching for home...

Oh church.

Most of you who read this regularly probably know that Jack and I attend a small Pentecostal church on the far edge of Lupeni.  Neither of us had ever attended a Pentecostal church in the United States -- Jack grew up Presbyterian; I was the daughter of Reformed-turned-evangelical-Covenant-church-planters; we both graduated from Calvin College.  Although the church we attended there for almost four years was a pretty charismatic one, its connections to both the CRC and RCA kept us in mostly-familiar theological territory.  And although the racial diversity of that congregation, and the eccentric and lovable personality of its pastor (Biker Gang Sunday, for instance, or Super Bowl parties in the sanctuary) often brought us new experiences and questions to grapple with, this transition in our ecclesiastical experience has been... a leap of faith, I guess.

Let's start with last Sunday.  We were attending the evening service, as we often do (true confession, lest my CRC relatives admire our devoutness -- we don't go to both morning and evening services, as they are both at least 2 or 3 hours long and that's a lot for me on a day of rest.  We also almost never attend the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Saturday services.  Err.)  Anyway.  After the service ended, someone mentioned that a "sister" had died, and that her wake was that evening.  The funeral parlor is just a five-minute walk from our church, and it's on our way home, so we were sort-of swept into the crowd as everyone herded across the street and into the funeral parlor.  And there we stayed for the next hour, filling the lily-scented room with its cracked blue tile floor, arranged in a semicircle around the foot of the coffin where this sister lay in her Sunday best.  I had never met the woman, and I don't think many of the others had either, as she was apparently a recent convert.  But yet we sang from tattered songbooks that somehow emerged out of pockets and purses, and then listened as a few of the church's elders preached, impromptu, about the importance of being prepared to meet our Creator.  Honestly, it didn't seem like a particularly comforting experience for the grieving family members who stood there listening silently, occasionally wiping away tears or brushing away flies from bouquets.  But afterwards we were gladly served sugary pastries and Fanta, poured into plastic cups in that persistent way of Romanian hospitality, and I just wasn't sure what to make of it all.

Or then there was last Thursday, when Jack and I decided to attend the prayer service so that we could meet with a youth afterwards to practice some music for the following Sunday.  We were late, and walked in just in time to hear a preacher on a video announcing that anyone who wanted to be baptized in the gift of tongues could come forward to receive the Holy Spirit's anointing -- and then there people went, for the next 45 minutes, praying fervently and wildly and loudly, clapping and singing and yelling.  And again, I just wasn't sure what to make of it all.

I'm really thankful for this church, and for the ways it is stretching me and making me wonder, opening me up to new experiences, and forcing me to take seriously parts of the Christian tradition that I'd always sort-of ignored.  I'm not at all able to wrap up this blog post tidily with some sort of conclusion about "making progress" or "coming to peace" or anything.  I still am skeptical much of the time.  I still have lots and lots of questions and reservations about all sorts of things that happen at Betel.  But I also find myself caring more and more for the people there, and finding them more and more inspiring, and becoming more and more curious about the ways the Holy Spirit works in ways unfamiliar to me -- and open to it, even if it's only one grudging centimeter at a time.  I'm not about to take off my thinking cap any time soon, and the Biblical teachings that were so ingrained in me in my childhood are still present and always, always bumping around in my head.  But the questions of culture and different Christian traditions and poverty and language, plus the wild workings of the Spirit... and I'm just not sure what to make of it all.

Which maybe, now that I think about it, is just about the right posture to have when it comes to things that are Holy... like church.

On Ukraine.

First of all, just to clarify for those of you who are worried about us, Jack and I don't live near Ukraine.  To even reach the border would require a 10-hour drive north, and then to reach an area where there is active conflict would be another long haul.  Our lives in this small Romanian town in the Carpathians are unaffected by the conflict in Ukraine in almost every way.  I think I am grateful for that -- certainly grateful, at least, for the peace and security we live in, for the lack of fear.  But I don't want to forget -- and I so easily do! -- that only one country away, a revolution is happening.  (Or it happened, and now a war is brewing.  It's hard to tell.)  Either way, I don't want to forget.  Because although this particular country where we currently live has captured most of my attention for the present, this entire region fascinates me, and always has.  In particular, the courage of its people move me to tears.  (Public displays of courageous civic engagement always do.)  And so I don't want to forget Ukraine, or ignore it, simply because I can.

Which is why I wanted to post a prayer letter we just received from some of our colleagues, a CRWM missionary family serving in Kiev.  We haven't met this family, but I feel kinship to them simply because of the fact that they, too, are part of this group of CRWM missionaries serving in Europe and the Middle East -- people we fell in love with in April when we spent Easter weekend together, laughing uproariously and praying honestly and confessing and supporting and encouraging.  So I want to pass on what they wrote so that those of you who hold us oh-so-faithfully in prayer can pray for this region, and in particular for Ukraine.

We were shocked, abhorred, deeply saddened -- what other words can I use -- at the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight 17 by the Russian insurgents fighting against Ukraine in the East.  We’ve watched coverage on TV and online in shock and disbelief.  We’ve been angered by the blatant lies, disrespect for human life and for the victims of this senseless tragedy, and by the unbelievably weak response of the international community to this atrocity and war crime committed by the lawless “Donetsk Peoples’ Republic” and their patron, Vladimir Putin.  The best word I’ve seen used to describe the West’s response is “pusillanious” (had to look that one up!).

While the shooting down of flight MH17 has taken over the headlines, the fighting has not let up in the East.  Key prayer points:

1. for the Evangelical churches in the conflict zone.  A pastor, his two adult sons and a deacon from one church were brutally tortured and murdered by the Russian insurgents.  Part of the philosophy that drives Putin is a belief in the purity of Russian Orthodoxy.  This leads him to promote the persecution of Protestants in the region as they are seen as “Western” by default.  Pray for the church to have wisdom and strength to persevere during this time of terror.

2. for the refugees.  The UN has counted around 110,000 refugees at the current time.  The number continues to grow.  But getting a sense of the exact need is very difficult.  Many have fled the conflict zone to relatives in Ukraine or Russia.  There are around 40,000 or so refugees from the Crimea and the eastern regions that are living in temporary facilities who need help.  Our ministry partners, Russian Ministries and the Association for Spiritual Renewal, are addressing the needs of refugees and also the needs of people who have been recently liberated by Ukrainian forces.  There are many people who have been left with nothing and are struggling to survive.  We are working now with our partners to begin to address these needs. 

3. for the Ukrainian government.  Yesterday the ruling coalition in the Ukrainian parliament (Rada) collapsed.  This has mixed blessings - it forces early elections which was something Ukrainians want.  But it also adds some instability on top of all of the other problems - military conflict, plane crash, brink of economic collapse.  Ukraine needs our prayers and the support of the global community!

4. for global leaders to stand up to Putin and to put an end to his reign of terror in Ukraine.  For anyone who wants to understand this better I would recommend reading the following article:  http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/christophermajka/2014/07/blundering-ukraine-putins-strategic-debacle

Thank you for your care and concern for us and for Ukraine.  We need your prayers and so does this great nation.

 

Please join us in praying for these neighbors.

For homesick days.

From my brother Karl.  For him, and my sister, and my parents, and a missed family vacation this week in my childhood summer home.

"There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so.  One must simply hold out and endure it.  At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort.  For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it.  It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness.  God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve -- even in pain -- the authentic relationship.  Furthermore, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation.  But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy.  One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Renovations.

So.  There's this group of old men who sit at the bottom of our apartment bloc stairwell playing backgammon... all day, every day.  They gather at this tiny little kiosk called Te Quiero which sells all sorts of gross processed, packaged snacks, and they watch each other play endless rounds as they sip beers, shirts unbuttoned to let their bellies catch some summer sun.  They're all retired but one (he still works in the mine; I can tell by the ring of coal dust around his eyes, like a thick dark eyeliner).  And they apparently have time to spare.  Lots of it.

They're quite cordial, and I'm somewhat fond of them, really.  Jack and I occasionally stop there to buy mineral water, and they always nod to us and say hello as we head to work in the morning and come home in the evening.  Sometimes their wives sit on the front bench, basking in the sun and nodding regally as we pass by with our "buna dimineata" on the way to work.  I am never sure what they're talking about or if they're really happy or what... but this little graffiti-covered kiosk seems like their center of gravity.  Or something.

So today it really made me laugh to see that they've decided to renovate the kiosk.  I'm not sure what they're doing, but it's adorable to me -- they brought in a little cement mixer, and they're all standing around watching and helping and taking turns smoothing the pavement, widening their little backgammon area or something. 

(Yes, I took a picture from the balcony.)

Anyway, it's cute.  And it made me smile to see renovations, to see people investing in and caring  about something as small and simple as their backgammon space.

So go, old guys, go.  Maybe we'll buy another mineral water soon to help support the project.

La mulți ani, America.

It was the 4th of July yesterday, and I almost forgot -- but our colleague Andra didn't.

We walked into the office yesterday morning to be greeted by, "La mulți ani!" (the traditional Romanian birthday greeting, which literally translated means something like, "Many more years!")  I was a little taken aback by it, so I laughed and asked, "What?"  Andra looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Kelly, it's America's birthday!  La mulți ani!"

Then she handed me a small butterfly pendant and gave Jack a red rope bracelet.  In honor of America's birthday.

Uh.  

And she wasn't the only one!  Other colleagues wished us the same, and also seemed a little surprised that we weren't wearing red, white, & blue, or launching fireworks, or that we hadn't brought  chocolate chip cookies to the office to celebrate.

Oops.

At first it was just kinda funny to me, and really sweet that our Romanian friends knew that it was America's independence day and wanted to recognize it for us.  (Also funny how many stereotypes and assumptions our Romanian friends have about the 4th of July from American movies!  But I digress.)  After the third person congratulated us on our nation's birth, I started thinking about how strange it is after all that we weren't doing anything.  Granted, Jack and I are pretty careful about trying not to bring unnecessary attention to the fact that we're foreigners.  Neither of us have ever been the most patriotic, in the sense of flag-waving, stars-and-stripes-wearing, firework-shooting July 4th celebrants.  And living overseas, as an American in particular, brings with it a fair share of baggage... especially in the fact that most of the youth we know and work with here in the Jiu Valley think that America is something like heaven on earth, that this fertile mountain valley is somewhere close to the opposite, and that success in life would include moving to the United States to live, work, and party.  We spend a fair amount of energy trying to dispel that myth, telling people about the realities of racism, immigrant discrimination, poverty, unemployment, and loneliness that exist in the US too.  (We're such cheery missionaries.)  But it seems important to me that the people we live among know that we didn't sacrifice some perfect life to move into a godforsaken, poverty-stricken valley.  It is important to me to help the kids we work with here see all the beauty that exists here -- in the mountains, in the food, in the people, in the history, in the potential.  I know we'll always be Americans living here, never "locals," but I want to value the richness of this place, even with my outsider eyes.

But yesterday I was reminded that the place we come from is worth celebrating too.  Jack and I have talked about this a lot -- how at the beginning we tried to "blend in," and when that didn't work, it took us a while to settle into this skin of being outsiders in a small community, and owning our Americanness.  In the last 9 months or so, we've started to invite people over for American-style meals, delighting in introducing people to the flavors and tastes of the place we come from.  We have started to talk more about our hometowns and our families, not shying away from the fact that we miss them, ache for them sometimes.  And yesterday I was reminded, once again, that there's a lot to celebrate about the United States of America (even as the social justice-international development-foreign policy parts of me sometimes wince).  Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion.  Civic engagement and volunteerism.  Democratic elections (okay, even if they're corrupted by money) and remarkable levels of access to publicly elected officials.  Civil rights (slowly, slowly, but still) and public dialogue.  Brownies and Chicago-style pizza and Iowa corn on the cob.  I love living in Romania -- but I loved living in the US, too.

So la mulți ani, America.  To many years ahead.

Airports and paradoxes.

I have been in a lot of airports this year.  Chicago-Frankfurt-Bucureşti, on our way back to Romania after Christmas.  Bucureşti-London-Boston-Miami-Managua-Miami-Port au Prince-New York-London-Bucureşti (whew!), for IMPACT trainings this spring in Nicaragua and Haiti.  Bucureşti-Istanbul at Easter.  Bucureşti-Vienna-Tirana and back to Bucureşti again on Friday.

(Speaking of which, after that list, I would like to take a moment to thank the Vienna International Airport for having enormous couches around all the gates, for inventing a place called the "relaxing room," for decorating the terminals with World Cup-themed paintings and playing live matches on a giant projector in Terminal E, and for having a make-your-own musli bar.  I was really, really grateful.)

Anyway. Moving on from my newfound love for Vienna (and hatred for Miami, but that's another story)...

I am currently in Tirana, Albania, helping facilitate a mini-training on SKYE -- basically, a slightly more "grown up" and condensed version of IMPACT international, focused on meeting the specific learning needs of youth age 18-25, with emphasis on job skills preparation and business creation.  It is a little surreal to be part of the process of crafting a program whose target group are me and my peers, but it's also remarkably encouraging.  I am really excited and optimistic about this project, and I feel like I'm in my sweet spot in my work here.

Yet, every time I travel for IMPACT International, I feel torn, like there are two versions of myself that aren't quite sure how to coexist.  On the one hand, I love this part of my job.  I love meeting brilliant people from other countries, listening to their expertise, asking about their context, tasting the insights and wisdom and uniqueness of each country as it applies to this beautiful work of youth development.  (And the new food.  Tasting that part is pretty great too.)  I can even get myself excited for the travel bit, for the weird sterile bustle of airports and the curious fact of so many different people, with so many stories, all passing through the same bit of ground.  It makes me feel the same sort of gleeful possibility and opportunity that inspired me for so many years when, as a kid, I dreamed of traveling the world.  And I thrive in this space, in this grueling, intense, lots-of-work-and-constant-thinking-and-little-sleep world of work.  Training and teaching and discussing and planning.  Shutting off my brain and pausing to reflect, in these periods of time, takes effort.

On the other hand, there is this part of me that dreads this.  The part of me that thinks, "I moved to Romania to live in Romania.  As a missionary. What am I doing here?"  The part of me that wants to be settled and simple, that wants time to read novels and plant gardens and invite people over for dinner and go running in the mountains.  The part of me that wants time and mental space for reflection and imagination and prayer and music and exercise and peace.  The part of me that wonders what my work-loving side means for my future, as a wife and mother and sister and friend -- things that I also want oh so badly, oh so deeply.

I know it's not like the two can't coexist, and I try to live in a balance.  I really do.  But these airports, these weeks of time away from home, away from Jack, away from the places where I have established rhythms and patterns of work & rest... they make me wonder how far that balancing act can go.  Will it ever give? Will the scales ever tip?  How will I notice?

I do believe God gives us gifts, that He makes us complex and whole people, that He calls us to different things in different times and different places.  Okay, yes.  And the balancing of that is hard and beautiful, and probably just as it is supposed to be.  It means all of those things are alive in our life, and that they all matter, and that's Good stuff.  I just wonder every now and then, when it feels like a paradox.  I guess that's why we keep listening.  God seems to be a God of paradoxes anyway -- judgment & grace, love & truth, three in one, holy & personal -- so maybe this is the way it's supposed to be.