Did you know that you can pickle watermelon? Yes, yes, you can and I have eaten it. At first pickled watermelon looks kind of squishy and rotten but then you taste it and yum! Surprisingly good. Now imagine pickled watermelon and some mystery meat in gravy and a grainy mashed potato-esque substance and this is the surprise meal I found myself eating at Straceni orphanage near Chisinau, Moldova. Magda Clopotel and I were sitting together at a table with 6 and 7 year old girls, in a room with maybe a hundred fifty other children, the first of two meals in this large room that are served three times a day.
“My dad would come home drunk, he would beat mom and then he would hold a knife at her throat, threatening her. We couldn’t take this anymore and we ran from home: my mom, my brother and I.”
“Dad left us when I was very little and Mom died when I was seven.”
“I never met my birth parents and my step mom brought me here because she was too old to care for me.”
“Mom brought me here because she didn’t have enough money. We didn’t even have a place to live.”
These are snippets of the stories that Magda translated for me as these girls starting talking while we sat with them. I was shocked that in the few short minutes we had with them they were willing to share. It makes my heart joyful to think of Magda, John, Annie, and Adriana going back week after week to spend time with these same children. I am hopeful, I have seen changed lives of children in Romania and I am hopeful for these girls.
You notice strange things in a new place; I noticed that Romania and Moldova have graffiti everywhere. In front of the grafitti in Moldova the women somehow seem to be gliding across snowy sidewalks in stiletto boots while I am almost falling in my more practical (yet freezing) brown Converse sneakers. I notice the sound of Romanian in Romania and in Moldova and the different accent when they say “Thank you.” We eat bread every day, LOTS of bread. I notice the three pounds I put on because of said bread. I notice the hospitality of the Romanian and Moldovan staff. I loved the way that they invited us into their work through this trip to Straceni and time at the center in Galati, Romania. I notice the way the staff in Romania really know and love the kids. I see them eat together, learn in art room and I see that the same way I once made a paper mache pumpkin at church they have made globes and memorized the names of the continents. I notice that I beat some of the older girls and staff member Vali Archip at the game Settlers of Catan, haha.
I wrote in my journal on our last day in Moldova “I love this. I LOVE this. I believe in this. I want to be part of this work.”
Thank you for being part of this work with me, and making sacrifices to support the work that WMF does around the globe. I have started 2010 with a positive support account balance. Thank you so much for your generosity; it is a huge blessing to me and to all of us here at Word Made Flesh.
On another positive note, Calvin Smothers and I just got engaged! We are planning to get married this fall and so that will be a big life change for both of us. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers as we start to plan and prepare for a life together here in Omaha, our (h)Omaha.
Love,
Liz