I've finally got round to writing something for the website, hurray!
(If you'd like to hear more frequent news and day-to-day happenings at Dorcas Childrens home then please let me know and I'll add you to the email list.)
Here's some some photos so you can see the children! |
Emma & Helen |
Christmas went really well,
and we managed to celebrate it 3 times: once with the children, with a family and finally on our own - English style!
We even managed to cook a chicken and make bread sauce, which was a significant improvement on the Hungarian version - stuffed cabbage, we felt!
The school holidays have just finished so we're back into the flow of things again. After nearly three months, I'm feeling the benefit of all the frustration that's behind and looking forward to the next three months now that I know the children, the area and we've found our niches a bit more here.
We've been pretty much doing a bit of everything: playing football (you have to avoid the ice on the tarmac now though!), trips to the dentist and speech therapist, lots of craft activities, trips to parks and generally mucking about with the kids. There's always something going on, some problem with the children or their parents, so never a dull moment really.
Half way through my time in Romania, and I'm still grappling with the challenges that this experience is throwing my way. In many ways, life here seems to be the complete opposite of life in the Cambridge pressure-cooker. On the other hand, it's amazing how a bit of reverse psychology can teach you a thing or two about where you've come from.
So, what happens when you dump a cockney and a Cambridge graduate from CLC in a reformist childrens' home in Transylvania with no language skills, no community and no personal space??!
Number one: you begin to realise the value of effective team, of vibrant community and of freedom to express culturally relevant worship. It might sound obvious, but once you've experienced this in reality, somehow the whole thing becomes much more vital. There is something so God-intended about community. It's not a matter of simple equations adding up; to me it's a mystery. When we live the way God intended, something outside of our comprehension takes place, the 'me' inside of us is a different 'me' and suddenly God is able to be so much more present and alive in our environment. He's no longer stuck inside one or two individuals, he's free to move and create.
This is one of the on-going struggles out here for me - to try and live in community without getting sucked into British cliques or gossiping (an unbelievable amount goes on!). The churches we've seen so far consist of people walking in, doing lots of sitting down and standing up and walking out without talking to anyone, so that's a bit different too! (ok, so a bit more happens but it's all in Hungarian so we don't really understand anything else.)
It's the same with worship. It's so important that somehow we find a way of expressing our thanks to God in the place that we find ourselves. It's like water for dry and thirsty souls.
God doesn't bless us because we worship him, but without worship our souls lose their purpose. Something is missing. This isn't disheartening (although it's tough!) - it's exciting because when you see an empty space you can see the potential.
I love just walking around this place and dreaming about what it might take for the spiritual climate to shift, for God to move mightily. I almost certainly won't be here when it happens, but one day someone will be and it's an exciting thought that in some way perhaps my feeble hopes and wonderings aimed at God could be a part of that happening.
Perhaps the most obvious difference between life in Cambridge and life here in this situation is the total lack of expectation and pressure here.
To a final year medical student I can imagine that sounds like heaven! But it's amazing how much you can learn to depend on being achievement-focussed, on getting visible results, and to thrive on the expectations that other people place on you. Even social groups and (dare I say it) Christian communities seem to operate this way in Cambridge. Coming to a place where no-one really told me how to spend my life or gave me any structure has been a shock. It made me question what was achieved through all that busy-ness. And I've found myself craving something to fill my time at the same time as questioning what the purpose of that would be. On the other hand there's so much more freedom to be creative when there's such a lack of boundaries.
As far as living in Romania goes, before I arrived here I expected that during my time here I would be confronted with the issues of poverty. I wanted to be challenged by being stretched emotionally and mentally through seeing how poor people live. Strangely, the challenge has not been this confrontation, but the total lack of it. Romania is a poor country, with many people living in extreme poverty. The vast majority of the rest struggle to keep a job that pays the rent and buys food. But to a naive Westerner, the signs are not so apparent at first sight.
It's only when you really search and listen to people that you see how terrible life could be here.
For months I've been walking up and down our street, but it's only just recently that I've realised that it is brimming with prostitutes. When I closed my curtain the other night, there was a girl stood just outside it. It's only after having my eyes opened that I know the kind of life she is living. Similarly, I had no idea which of the gypsies here were the rich ones and which were the poor ones until people pointed it out to me. All this makes me wonder how much I miss in Britain. So much pain and poverty takes place in hidden places and it takes a conscious effort to notice it and be affected by it.
Enough random meanderings! In case any of you are wondering what to pray for, these are some of the issues going on at the moment ...
The eldest, Hunor (16), left yesterday very suddenly to return to live in one room with his mother, her boyfriend and two other children. Until just before Christmas he had had no contact at all with his mother since she chucked him and his little brother onto the street when they were aout 4 and 11. She was an alcoholic then. They are hoping to go through the legal process of adopting Hunor and the younger brother, Kicsi (little!) Attila (11), in the summer. This is really distressing for the staff and other children - if it takes place then it will be the 6th child to leave in just over a year. The government policy favours 'family re-integration' due to pressure to join the EU, politics etc. etc. so it's likely to continue. Although the deciding comittee takes into acount the decision of the child, it's difficult for an 11 year old to make a decision in this situation as I'm sure you can imagine!
You can pray for Helen and myself as we continue to try and use our time as best as possible here. Sometimes it's difficult to see what we are really achieving as there aren't many visible signs and we don't have any fixed programme here or anything so we basically take each day as it comes. We also lack spiritual input from other places, although we pray together every day.
Thankyou so much for all your emails, letters and packages - you're all wonderful! Can't wait to come back very soon!
Love Emma xx
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