Monday in Romania

Today we headed to our first Bible School/medical mission location. Pastor George met us there. He pastors a small congregation of about 30-40 members. We were told to hold the Bible School in the schoolyard across the street, but we had to clean away the pile of construction boards first. The children were arriving a few at a time. In the end, we had almost 30 children and 2 teenage interpreters. Gail, Sue, and the Holmes children led the activities with the Wordless book, which has a color and no words on each page. With each page, they talked about what each color means and related the colors to the scriptures (Gold=heaven, Black=Sin, Red= Blood of Jesus, White=Cleansing/forgiveness of sin, Green=growth as a Christian)

Across the street at the medical clinic, Keith, Elizabeth, Nathan, and Elisa worked very hard seeing many patients, dispensing medications, and working through the interpreters to understand the patient’s illnesses and complaints. They checked blood sugar, blood pressure, and talked to them about their symptoms and pains. Pastor George and I made another run to Beius to bring back more Ibuprofen, gloves, gauze, headache powder, dry eye drops, etc. The patients were extremely patient in waiting their turn to see Dr. Holmes and for their medications. And they were so very grateful for whatever they received. Someday in heaven, I hope we are just this patient waiting at the pearly gates!

We broke for lunch and Pastor George took us down the street to eat with a wonderful Romanian family. The ladies of the church had cooked us a meal and the team ate with the pastor, his wife, and the interpreters who helped us today. What a wonderful meal and such a generous spirit they had! They shared all they had with us, even bought us Coke and Sprite and bottled water. They were so very generous and welcomed us so openly!

It was time to go, so we walked back to the church and boarded the van with Seani, our driver. In Beius, Sue, Nathan, Emily, Amy, and Claire, and Karen boarded another vehicle for our afternoon agape runs. Pastor Daniel, a local pastor of the Remedea, Tarcaita, and other churches in the area, was our guide and responsible for bringing the food and clothing to the families on our list. With his help, REMM identified the needy widows and families; he knew where they lived and escorted us to their homes.

First we visited Mary, who is old and has been very ill with lung disease. Her husband was in the fields. Though very poor and living in a home with dirt floors and conditions we cannot even imagine, she was so loving and hugged us, so glad to have visitors to her home. We told her our names. She loved the children. Next we visited Katerina in Matiu. She was a widow and very elderly and again, we were welcomed with open arms and hugged. She was a tiny woman, a widow, and had no children to look after her. She could not see us very well, but we introduced ourselves and told her the children’s ages, which made her happy. Next, we traveled across a wooden bridge to see Catita and her 3 children. Catita has been very ill; her children were so beautiful. They went with us to see their church at Maziad, right down the road from their home. Catita brought us apples from her yard. Lastly, we visited Varvara in Maziad. Though elderly and alone with no children and no husband for over 40 years, she was quite spry and fell in love with Claire. She asked if Claire would come live with her. Pastor Daniel told her that Claire would decide and write her a letter. Varvara had begun her fire for the night and we asked her if she cooked each night and she replied yes, she did.

I felt so stunned by the abject poverty. This week we have had a full stomach every second of the day. We have had a good bed with no flies in the room. We have had clean sheets and a warm shower. We have had clean clothing, a floor instead of dirt to walk on, walls that were not crumbling around us, medicine for a headache, TV to see the news, and a computer to communicate with. My heart could not really fathom what my eyes were seeing and what my head was processing. Could it be that there are still people in this much poverty in the world today? We were seeing it first hand and yet each person we visited warmly greeted us and told us God Bless You! Yet we did so very little today…a few loaves of bread and other food made them so happy. We went to bless them and yet we came away amazed at how they knew God loved them!