Week 1: part 2

ROMANIA FACTS

~ Romanians refer to a draft as a current. And they think that every sickness or ailment you have is due to over exposure to the current. If you have a neck ache its because you were in the current, or if you have a cold its because you were in the current. So they rarely have a window open in their house. This is problematic in the orphanages and baby hospitals where you have multiple people piled into a room with no air conditioning, fans or fresh air. 

~People park everywhere. In the middle of the street and yes even on the sidewalks, sometimes they actually park in designated areas too!

~Proper Romanian greeting - kiss on both cheeks.

HOME AWAY FROM HOME

The base home is very beautiful. It is a 3 story home and it has a very large basement. The first floor has a large dining room and living room, a kitchen, a few bathrooms and 2 bed rooms. The second floor is where all the incoming teams stay. There are numerous bedrooms with bunk beds and a few bathrooms. The third floor is reserved for Jim and Jodi Sorrels. They are the founders and directors of Heart to Heart International. The basement has a large garage/storage area, the laundry room, the pantry, another room for teams and an office. The office is where Brandon and I stay. It has a desk, some book shelves and a bed. It is a perfect little room for us. We could have stayed upstairs with the rest of the team members but since teams will be coming in and out all summer they thought it would be best if we stayed in the office. That way we don’t have to move to a different room every time a new team comes in. In the backyard there is a porch with a few different sitting areas and there is a pool. One of my favorite parts about the backyard is the cherry trees. One of the staff members made a yummy cherry cobbler with the cherries from the backyard yesterday and it was delicious! Heart to Heart uses every inch of this house to serve God. It houses all the short term team members through out the summer and they throw all kinds of parts for the kids - in the summer they have pool parties and youth group parties. They also have Christmas and Thanksgiving with all of the kids who graduate through the transition home program. It is really like one big family.

Dining room 

Living room

Kitchen

Backyard and pool

Back of the house

Front of the house

Front Porch

Stairs that lead to the basement

Our cozy room

PERSPECTIVE

This trip has been very different then I thought it would be. I’m not sure exactly what I was preparing for. I guess I thought it would be like all the stories I had read about from the late 80s and early 90s when the world was just finding out about the conditions of the orphanages here. I thought the orphanages would be filled to the brim with kids who very malnourished, dirty and lonely. That the baby hospitals would have hundreds of abandoned babies who need attention and care. And I thought that our new home would in some way reflect these things too. That it would be run down, tiny, and deficient of every day needs. At first I wasn’t sure how to take it all in. Our first visit to the orphanage was kind of confusing.  All of the kids seemed very happy - they were clothed, they seemed very clean and healthy. I noticed that they were much smaller than we are but I wasn’t sure if that was because Romanians are naturally smaller than Americans or because of the food we eat and the food they don’t eat. And there were only about 8 babies that we took care of in the baby hospital. And they had clothes, food and people taking care of them daily. 

Brandon and a few boys from Peris orphanage

Craft time - Brandon & Robi

But God has been giving me a new perspective - He has been showing me that I was only looking at the surface and judging the conditions here by my expectations of what I thought mission trips should be. They should be really dirty, really hard, really sad and it should never feel comfortable. In a way these things I though mission trips should be are right just not in the way I was thinking about it. Emotions, feelings and struggles can get really messy in our lives and even walking through them with someone else. And it is hard to give up the things you are use to and the things you want, to serve someone else. And sometimes it is sad, but we don’t have to be overwhelmed by the sadness and darkness. Because God always provides joy and hope. And in our flesh, we will ALWAYS be uncomfortable with the things of the Spirit. But we don’t have to worry when those things start to feel comfortable - its just a testimony to how God changes us and make us new! And I know you can understand these things because we all experience them whether we have been on a mission trip to a different country or not.

Brandon's twin - a boy from Peris orphanage

God has also given me a new perspective on how I was viewing all the kids in the orphanages and baby hospitals. A major thing I was over looking when I first met all these kids is that they are abandoned. Their parents left them in these places by choice. Some of the parents use the orphanage as a free day care or a boarding school, so some of the kids actually know their parents and they get to see them on weekends. But the conditions of the orphanage are rough. In Peris, there are 80 kids between the ages of 4-20, boys and girls living in the same house. There are limited workers to take care of the kids and most of them simply view it as their job, they do not have compassion for these kids. The rooms are packed with beds for all of the kids and when it rains outside it is raining inside too. I noticed some of the workers placing bucket under some of the leaks but the bedroom floors where still drenched. The conditions of the baby hospitals seem better. The babies have plenty of clothes, toys, diapers and food. The thing that is obviously lacking is parents to take of them. There are about 10 babies that we care for at the hospital. There are nurse who tend to them and a worker from Heart to Heart visits them everyday but nothing can really replace the actual parents. The nurses are rough with the babies and they do not pick each one up for feeding time. They lay the babies on their sides and use a rolled up sheet to prop the bottle in their mouths. 

All these things can be a lot to deal with but I am thankful that we serve a God who is in control all the time! He is continually giving us hope and joy in Him. I hope to write another update soon to explain more about the history of Romania and about the work Heart to Heart does here. Thank you for your support!!

Brandon & Becky

Tour of Bucharest - us in front of the symphony hall