Calvin Synod Herald, 2005 (106. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2005-11-01 / 11-12. szám
10 CALVIN SYNOD HERALD Romanian Mission Trip Laugher. Tears. Frustration. Hope. Empathy. These are a few of the experiences I encountered while on the mission trip to Romania this year for the Transylvania Reformed Assistance Committee (TRAC). I went with a group of 14 total, ranging in age from 16 to mid-40s, and despite the different ages, we gelled together well as a group. There were a lot of wonderful memories made.Today, emotions fade, and the reality of what was and still needs to be accomplished remains. Please join me as I go back in time to visit a special group of people living in the small cities of Bogota and Komlod, Romania. Our group flew into Budapest, Hungary, on June 22, 2005. After a long flight, several layovers, one member being detained in Budapest due to visa problems, and minus the luggage of 10 group members (which had been left in the USA), we arrived at the Emmaus Orphanage in Bogota, Romania, with the aim of helping in the building of a bakery for the orphanage. We were greeted warmly and given a tour of the orphanage, and introduced to the kids. Those of us who still had our luggage, unpacked our bags and we all helped distribute the shoes, medical supplies and gifts for the orphanage staff and kids. The kids were hesitant at first and shyly browsed through the stuff we had brought, thanking us with smiles and happy faces. Soon after, most of the group broke up into informal groups and either spent time hanging out with the kids, trying to learn the language, playing card games and doing crafts with them, or talking with the staff in an effort to learn more about the needs of the orphanage. We were fed three times a day while we stayed there, and each time given several courses of food that we were encouraged and expected to eat. We ate a lot of soup, sausages and different types of homemade bread. During the day we would see the older girls in the house helping to bake that bread. Meals began and ended with some kind of devotions, either prayer, bible reading or singing. Often, Eszrer (the woman who runs the orphanage with her husband) would teach us a song, we would sing it in English and the kids would sing it in Romanian. It was a powerful, visual testimony of the love of God transcending language and cultural barriers, demonstrating to me the unity we’ll experience in heaven someday. We played a lot of games with the kids, did crafts, drawing/ coloring, hair braiding, ping-pong at the house, tag, soccer, or simply trying to learn their language. One day we even got into a water fight with the kids! It was extremely important to Eszrer that we spend time playing with the kids, developing relationships, even above working on the bakery. So the group took turns playing with them as well as working on the bakery building. Because of this emphasis, by the time our team left the Emmaus House, after what was really a very short amount of time, our group had bonded deeply with the kids. As we left that day, there were a lot of tears and hugging, along with promises to write and stay in touch. Already several team members have sent pictures and letters back to some of the kids at Emmaus House and are in contact with Eszter and Karoly (her husband and pastor of the local church). We began the next leg of our journey, wondering what we would find when we got to Komlod. We had heard, among other things, that there would be no running water, and that the effects of Communism had devastated this area. This all proved to be true. When we finally arrived in the village (after making the slow drive from Cluj, where at times we could only travel 5 miles an hour due to poor road conditions) we were again warmly greeted by several villagers, who with smiling faces and arms quick to hug us, insisted on feeding us lunch. David, a seminarian student and our local interpreter, told us later that the women in the village had spent almost 2 months deciding the menu of what they would feed our group. He said that the last group that had come to help in the village had taken pictures with the villagers, and when the seminarian students had returned the developed pictures to the village women, the women had held the pictures in their hands and just sobbed. They don’t get a lot of visitors, and the visits they do get make deep impressions on them. We stayed in this rural village for four days, our goal as a group being to help provide support to the aging community through patching up the building that is used as a medical center and also, during the winter, as the worship center, since there is no heat in the church building itself. We patched the walls inside and out with a type of mortar, and then applied a granular, white surface paint to the outside, and a latex paint to the inside. For lodging, we broke up into groups of two to four and stayed with different villagers. We ate our morning and evening meals with them, and despite language barriers, were able to begin to build relationships with the people we stayed with. For example, I primarily stayed with two team members in the home of Rossi nini (pronounced “Rose ih nee nee”). We were able to learn that her husband had left her years ago and that she had four children. She was a dear old woman, always trying to feed us or help us, even though we were there to help them. I remember the first night I stayed at Rossi nini’s, we had eaten as a group earlier and arrived late to her house (around 9 or 10 pm). But she had a meal prepared, and although she could not speak English, was able to convince three weary girls that we really needed to eat HER meal as well. One custom, we soon learned from our interpreter, is that normally the host will cook the meal for her guests, serve them, and then leave or sit there and watch her guests eat. Rossi nini was no exception, she knew her tradition well, and did her best to serve us. We were treated as guests of honor, and food was a main communicator of that. Another night at Rossi nini’s we spent time singing to her in English, and then she sang to us in Hungarian. It was adorable. Here was this sweet old lady, crooning and tapping her feet to music only she could understand. The last night we were there, Rossi nini was walking around the kitchen, standing over us like a mother hen over her chicks, checking every minute or so to make sure we had enough to eat, but obviously feeling very sad. Nothing we could say, or sing, or do could cheer her up, and as we talked and watched our usually animated hostess, we began to feel strongly that she knew we were leaving soon, and was depressed. We asked (through hand motions) if we could pray with her, and with our arms around her and each other, began to pray with her. Within a minute, we could feel quiet sobs shaking her frail body. As we held her hands, hugging her, tears of
