Pictures to tell the stories...

Our first family sleepover in the barn.  

On cold winter nights, we would crank up the soba (wood burning stove), make it so warm you want to strip down to your skivvies and watch movies on the big screen with the projector. One night we blew up mattresses, cooked dinner on the soba, ate, played Speed Scrabble (Daniel won for the first time), read a Flannery O'Connor short story out loud, and woke up to a breakfast of biscuits and eggs cooked on the soba...after we sweated like we were in a sauna all night!  

Katy and our friend Anushka have birthdays within a few days of eachother. (March 10th and 8th) We celebrated their birthdays together.

Abi, Elena, Anushka, Katy, Adriana, and Felicia all slept in the barn after dinner. I decided that I'm too old to stay up all night. Plus, I always prefer sleeping with my husband!

Abi is such a wonderful hostess. She invited the Ebbers kids over to dye Easter eggs last week. Romanians have a tradition of banging the eggs together to see whose cracks first. The kids enjoyed cracking the eggs more than eating them, littering the yard with shells. Blitz and Luther feasted on eggs Sunday, though our neighbor, who's a dog lover, said to only give them the yolks and only one a day. We didn't really listen.  

I've still got a basket of Easter eggs in the kitchen, including one, that our friends dyed naturally. They taped parsley on the egg, wrapped it in pantyhose and dyed with onion.  It's really pretty--kind of puts ours to shame. I always think about my daddy and those pickled eggs he used to eat. 

Easter tears

This weekend marked the pinnacle of celebration and tradition in Romania. Easter.  It's as big a deal as Christmas for most people, with much of the holiday spent around the table, eating more food than the body was intended to intake over a short period of time.  And along with a big meal always come long afternoons and evenings of unhurried story-telling, passionate discussions (the Latin influence that often can be mistaken for yelling), and engaging conversation among family and friends, all the more enjoyable after several exhausting days of cleaning and cooking in preparation for the festivities.  It's a joyful time for most.  It was for us, this year, especially as we spent time with those whom God has graciously given to us as friends.   Yet at the same time, I felt on the verge of tears throughout much of the weekend.  Let me explain...

We joined our neighbors at the midnight Easter service in the cemetery surrounding the Orthodox church just down the hill from our house.  Under a clear sky sprinkled with stars, we stood at the back of the cemetery waiting for the service to begin.  On our way in we greeted several neighbors, one of whom is the guy who lives a few houses down and is always standing in front of his house, blue work coat on and a big, genuine smile plastered on his face.  He lives right next door to the house where the cute yappy dog sits on top of the roof, a sight that always makes us smile.  Domnul Neighbor was proudly standing and guarding the tombstone that he proceeded to tell us cost him several thousand dollars.  It was pretty, as tombstones go. Black, shiny, clean.  He had even paved the path beside the grave with the same black granite. As we looked more carefully, we saw that there were "born in " dates but nothing that followed, and then realized that it was his tombstone.  He was prepared for his death... with a beautiful grave.  And maybe his heart is prepared, as well. I don't know him well enough to know. However, if he's like most people in this extremely religious culture, the candles are lit, the icons are hung, the big religious celebrations are attended (A survey was done recently that shows that most Romanians attend baptisms, weddings, Christmas and Easter in the church and that's it.), the prayers are said, and the graves are polished, but the heart is unchanged and unprepared to stand before the throne of God.  It made me really sad to think of how his preparations will ultimately leave him empty, unless he has "a strong and perfect plea.  A great high priest whose name is love, who ever lives and pleads for me".  Domnul Neighbor usually makes me smile. This time, I wanted to cry.

The service began with bells ringing, silencing the chatter of the few thousand people filling  the graveyard. It was a beautiful sight as the priest brought in the single candle that shared it's light with a few more, who passed the light to those behind them until the entire cemetery glowed. We agreed that a cemetery is the best place to begin an Easter celebration, truly reminding us of Christ's defeat over death.  And yet as I listened to the priest sing the Easter story, crying out to Christ for mercy, and praying for the people, it made me want to weep.  How many people with "the light of Christ" flickering in their hands and the words of Christ echoing in their ears understood their need for mercy, why Christ died, and what he's made of us, His people? If they only knew...

Sunday morning came early.  We sang English Easter hymns on the way to church and wondered why we only sing those once a year.   The church was packed and Ed was squashed by this chubby Romanian woman who was determined to fit on our row.  The service began with our voices singing together the traditional Orthodox Easter hymn that was sung throughout the service the night before in the cemetery.  I was grateful they included that in the service, connecting the truth found in the words that were proclaimed at the Orthodox service with the truth that would be proclaimed, and hopefully, applied, in the service that followed.  For 1/2 hours the choir sang, and it was absolutely beautiful.  I could have listened for longer had my sciatic nerve not been shooting pain up my leg and hip.  Corin, the pastor and our friend, then preached a great sermon on why Christ had to be raised from the dead if it was His death that paid for our sins.  He began the service by reading where Christ wept over Jerusalem. My thoughts went back to the night before, imagining Christ weeping over Codlea, Brasov, Romania.  I wanted to cry for joy at the beauty of the music, the truth of the gospel and the life that is mine in Christ, and at the same time cry for those who I know and love around me who are lost.

Sunday afternoon we hosted our team, the Ebbers' guests (a couple who came from Canada to help them put an addition on their house), the Berrioses (our friends from El Salvador), Domnul Nicolae (the clay guy whose wife just died), and his neighbor Elena for lunch. It was fun to decorate the barn with vases filled with tulips from the yard, candles with light from the church the night before, real plates (usually we do throw-away up there), wine glasses, and china tea cups that we NEVER use here.  We ate sarmale that Angela and I made together, green bean bundles, mashed potatoes, grilled chicken (on the green egg, of course!), beer bread and fruit salad. Abi made cookies for dessert. We, like our Romanian friends, sat around the table for hours laughing, telling stories, discussing life and lessons learned...we just did it without the Latin flair.  Then many played football, caught and played with chickens (see later blog), and tried to work off some of our lunch.  Later that evening we walked to Monica and Danezu's (our friends from Bible Study) with Angela, Traian, and their dog Lucky, and visited til almost midnight!

By Monday night, Ed and I were wiped. We'd spent almost the whole day with Angela and Traian (Monday is the 2nd day of Easter, and just as much a holiday as Sunday) and were ready for some English, some mindless movie watching, and some alone time. We sent ourselves to bed early and left the kids to entertain themselves and watched a movie recommended by Nicholas, Into the Wild.  It is both an excellent and disturbing film, one that I've not been able to quit thinking about it. As Ed and I ran together on Tuesday, I was crying over this movie. It's a true story about a college grad, searching for peace and truth, escaping to Alaska to survive alone, and seeking to find happiness and rest in what he finds along the way.  Without going into the movie (this blog is way too long anyway), I'll just say that it broke my heart and made me realize the state of the people around me who are escaping, searching, and coming up with emptiness. I cried on and off for a day. 

I realize in writing and thinking about tears, that most of my tears, most of the time are shed for myself. I'm hurt. I'm tired. I'm lonely. I'm wishing something in my life were different. I'm angry.  I'm blue....

How I pray that God will make me cry for what He cries for:  the lost, the hurting around me, His glory being shrugged at....

At the Ambassador's conference where we went in March, Steve Brown spoke about tears. He said, "When we speak truth without tears, it’s just condemnation and judgment. When we grant grace and mercy without tears, it’s just self-righteousness. When we give compassion without tears, it’s just moralistic “do-goodism.”

So, I'm asking God to keep me crying, but crying for the right things. I want a life marked out by the love of Christ that moves me to tears and a love for others that leads me to weep for them.

 

Catching up...again

Darin, Isaac, Aaron, Daniel and Abigail on a beautiful 6 hour hike we took as a team last Saturday.  The "Greening of Magura" was how we described it, with trees budding, flowers blooming and green grass contrasting with the leftover grey of winter.

Just as we rounded the bend, we could see 3 different mountains, and below them lonely houses perched on the hilltops.  What a view these people wake up to each morning!  Ed ran into a lady on the top of a cliff that he and the kids climbed who apparently had escaped to find a quiet place to read.  Needless to say, it was no longer quiet with our arrival!  This lady was probably in her 60s and nimbly managed to traverse the same path some of us were struggling down. I guess when you live in the middle of nowhere and live off the land, you tend to be a bit more fit than we city dwellers.

My favorite touch of Spring is the splash of color that the tulips bring to the front of our house. I smile each time we drive in the driveway.

The hikers, which included teammates, Elena and Anushka, our Romanian friends, and Rebecca, who is a potential teacher for next year.

So, it's been a really long time since I've written anything...again, and after reading Katy's college application essays, I'm wondering why I'm writing at all. I should really turn this over to her, except that it probably gives her pleasure to know that she can out-write her mom.  So...my feeble attempts at telling the tales of the last month are as follows...

We were in the States for a couple of weeks over Easter (American Easter, that is. Romanian Easter is the 26th).  Ed and I spoke at the MTW Ambassador's Weekend in Palm Coast, FL.  It was one of those places where we really suffered for Jesus.  Four days of visiting with really interesting people who shared a passion for missions, staying in a pretty lush place, eating more than enough gourmet meals, (My favorite was the bacon. It's funny what you miss and indulge in when you get it!) soaking up the much longed for sunshine, and worshipping in English.  It was a sheer delight for all of us. I think our kids enjoyed it as much as we did. Katy's comment as we left was, "You know, this was a great time, but not just because of where it was. I think I enjoyed meeting different people more than anything."  It didn't hurt that there were 5 or 6 pools, a beach nearby, and the warmth of summer in Romania!!

Michael was gracious enough to share his spring break with us the following week, unfortunately we shared more than that. We gathered in Destin for what was to be a relaxing week, only Ed spent about 1/2 of it handling mini-crises in Romania via Skype, communicating with potential recruits, and planning a vision trip for this summer.  So much for rest!  Another huge portion of our time was spent hugging toilets. A stomach bug from hell attacked 9 out of 13 of the people who were crammed into Mom and Dad's beach house, way too many people to be sharing a 3 bedroom/3 bathroom house.  Over the few hours when people started dropping like flies, it was proven that 3 bathrooms weren't nearly enough.  The worst part was that we were in Destin, where many of our memories are tied with the meals we've eaten, and none of us felt like eating for 4 days.  Even those who didn't get sick didn't want to eat, for fear of just "renting it", as Ed put it.  Nonetheless, it was a nice time, an unplanned and unexpected visit that we were most grateful for.  

We returned home, from the Florida sunshine to snow covered dreary Romania.  But now, even that has passed. We've got green grass, blooming trees, and have had some warm, sunshiny days over the last few weeks. I find that I value Spring much more now that winters are so long and cold.  Maybe how we view God is sort of the same way. When we see the bleakness, coldness, and dreariness of our hearts left to ourselves, we value much more the new life, brightness, and color that Christ brings when he restores and renews us.  I await with expectation the final restoration and the Spring that we've not yet begun to imagine, after the "winter" of life in a fallen world.  I'm thankful for the taste of it that we enjoy each year.  

So, in between our return home from the US and now, Ed officiated his first Romanian wedding...in Romanian. That deserves a blog entry of it's own!  He went to Spain for a Team Leader's meeting.  Katy decided on college: she'll be attending Ole Miss, enrolled in the Croft Institute for International Studies.  (Maybe I can get her to fill in the details later.) We hosted the first of what we hope to be monthly meetings with the Romanian pastors with whom we work.  Our teammates from Timisoara came for a visit.  Katy went to Germany to visit her best friend from Romania, Miriana, who moved back to Germany last year.  It gave us a taste of what life will be like next year without Katy.  I don't like it!  (I'll see if she'll write something about that, too.)  And we hosted a prospective teacher for Kingstone Academy next year.   

A lot going on that makes us tired most of the time.  It also tends to make me anxious.  All of the unknown. Who's going to teach our kids next year?  How will we transition to a family of 4 at home?  How can we encourage the Romanian pastors?  How do we maintain our relationships here when we've got so much going on that pulls us away from them?  When will we have a pastor for a church plant here?  And that's just the beginning...  

Easter is this weekend. It's the pinnacle of celebrations in Romania. Eggs are dyed red, symbolizing the blood of Christ; houses are cleaned and even remodeled, pointing us to the renewal that should take place in our lives; candles will be lit at midnight in the church cemetery on Easter morning and then taken back home, reminding us of the light that comes to us from Christ and should flow from every part of our lives illuminating the darkness around us; lamb is eaten (Only in Romania, they eat ALL of it: boiling parts to make salads and loafs and dips.  Also, my friend Angela, said she couldn't eat a lamb after watching them scamper across the hillside behind our house. I have to agree.), reminding us of the Lamb who was slain; and people will be greeted with, "Hristos a inviat!" and the response will be, "Adevarat, a inviat!"  (Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed.)  The sad part is, for most people around us, it's all empty. Tradition. Habit. Frumos. A nice thing to do.   When I look at my own fears and anxieties, I realize, that I, too, lose sight of what Christ's death and resurrection means.  Daily. It means, "He who spared not his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also will him graciously give us all things?"  Therefore, I have nothing to fear.