Orphanage

I want to tell you about the orphanage because I've already been there four days this summer, and I haven't told you anything about it. The first time I went there was two years ago.

So much has changed since that day. My entire life has changed as well as the atmosphere of the orphanage. I believe this is the direct result ot Lili's prayers, and then later, other volunteers who cried out to God for help. God, who loves these children more than us, has answered.

I saw Adriana in her wheelchair when I first went up the stairs of the orphanage six days ago. Because she can not walk, she did not get to go to camp with the other kids. She screamed with emotion for a bit and then started crying. I hugged her and kissed her. She asked how long I would stay and if I could take a walk. "Taking a walk" means I push her around the hall and living room upstairs in the orphanage. She loves to see people in the hall and greet them. Besides greeting people her and I talk. She is never ready to be wheeled back in the living room to stay by herself.

"... but there are other kids I want to stay with, too..." I try to tell her.

The orphanage director was very kind to me and chatted with me in her office, asking how camp was with the kids and how my studies were going in the U.S. She told me I could make a schedule to chose the children I wanted to work with. I told her I wasn't certain I was properly equipped to practice speech therapy with the kids, because I still had three years (at least) of school left and she said she was sure I could practice and do good with what I had learned so far. I told her I wanted to work with Bogdan, teaching him basic math and reading, more than speech therapy. Bogdan's a discipline problem. He's an eleven-year-old who was dropped off at the orphanage by his parents who had no idea how to handle him. He has ADHD and can be very agressive. Well, I've tutored him the past three days and I LOVE it! When I taught third grade, it was boys like him that I loved to teach the most. I feel so happy with what feels like success, but I know I can't be too quick to determine how things are really going.

With Bianca and especially Ana Maria, I need some help with Speech Therapy and discipline. I can only hold their attention for about 30 seconds to the sounds I want them to attempt before they are distracted. I need to adjust my methods so that I can hold their attention or else I must do the "play therapy" that is so popular in the U.S. Both girls scream and throw tantrums when I tell them our session is over and they must go back to the other children. I talked to two Dutch volunteers about their tantrums and Diana recommended a sticker chart for the girls that will culminate in a reward every three days that they walk away from therapy calmly instead of being dragged away. I'd like to do it, and think I'll start tomorrow, though I don't have stickers yet or a chart. Paper and pen will do until then.

Lili showed me a book with American Sign Language over the weekend and encouraged me to use it with Cosmin, a deaf boy at the orphanage, who appears developmentally normal. Cosmin speaks Romanian Sign Language, and I've been intimidated by that, but today we sat down and worked on some sign. Mostly he taught me Romanian sign, and I showed him the pictures of how to count on one hand to nineteen in American Sign from Lili's book. We both learned this counting together. However, just being with him and listening to him is maybe more what he needs than anything else. After our session I caught him smiling in the hall to himself for "no apparent reason." I'd like to think it was because it felt good to him to get the full attention of an adult for more than a half hour. Teaching me sign may be some kind of therapy to him. I hope it is, because I don't know how else to start.

There's more I could write, but not enough time and energy. Suffice it to say, when I was coming home on the tram I felt so happy and satisfied with life. It feels so full with dreams of what I could do in the future and total happiness with what I'm doing right now. I love the adventure of Romania, the dirty tram, the walk to the apartment, and that I used the correctly gendered adjectives in a converstation I had with Lili on the phone about a book.

And thank YOU ... for listening to me. :)

Nite

6/20/09

This evening had a great ending. After all the kids took showers, I said a prayer with some boys in their room as they lay in their beds. The prayer I've memorized is the Lord's prayer, so we prayed that as we did last night. Unfortunately, when we come to the part right after "give us this day our daily bread," I forget the rest of the phrasing in Romanian so I just said "Forgive us!" ("Iarta-ne!") and continued with, "Amen," and said, as we crossed ourselves, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." All the boys seem to have a desire to participate in this prayer and show some kids of respect for God.

(A note on crossing myself: As a protestant, I don't have any qualms about doing this. I've given it some thought, and I love what it symbolizes, so I do it. For me the act does not hold supperstition, but faith.)

Then I kissed the boys once on both cheeks before I left, wishing them goodnight as they lay in their beds and I turned out the light as I went. Tonight Mihai said he didn't want to be kissed. "I will kiss you right here on your cheek," I said, pointing to the spot on my own cheek.

"No," he said again.

"Perhaps you want to kiss ME, instead?" I questioned.

"No," Mihai said. Bogdan giggled.

"Okay," I said pleasantly, "perhaps tomorrow?" and I left it at that.

When I went to kiss Mitica, who suffers from mental retardation, he was so eager to participate in the goodnight kiss that he just kept kissing my cheek reapeatedly and didn't seem reflect that it was I who had kissed the other other boys before him and not them who had kissed me. :-)

Mitica's giving act shows how the disabled are like missionaries to us who are not disabled. They bring us joy and show us what love is. The are messangers of a love that doesn't think of itself and a joy that won't be corrupted even when it is thrown in an orphanage and yelled at by non-disabled co-workers everyday. Unselfish love and joy is a gift that God has granted many of them, and of which we can be the unworthy recipiants.

After turning off the lights, I somehow found my way to the workers. They talked about sex and who was interested in who, but not understanding some made the chat made it more bareable to me, and I couldn't say I was invested completely in the conversation. I was partially invested in the fire that a young man was attending and the bosses eight-year-old son who was eager to douse any ember that fell on the ground from the fire, screaming "Pompierii, Pompierii, Pompierii!" as he did so (Pompierii = fire department).

At one point, when I was standing with the ladies around the firepit, the eight-year-old pretended to call me on a pretend phone.

"Hello?" I said, because I took the call, ofcourse.

"Hello," he said, "You've called the emergency number."

"Good," I said, "We need some firemen over here - quick!"

"When?"

"In five minutes," I approximated.

I drank just a sip of tuica, Romanian country alchoholic drink that is served warm. The closest thing I've tasted to it is the Japanize drink you drink with sushi. It was very sweet, but enjoyable.

When I said goodnight and wished all the ladies a pleasant evening, it felt so good.

The sun had gone down and it was getting dark. The boss's husband teased me that there wreen't any bears to be afraid of, as I began the short walk to my cabin. "Good. I'm glad," I giggled.

Random Compilation of Camp Thoughts

6/20/09

So I'm sharing things with the staff. Yesterday, for example, when the kids were in bed, I joined them at the table and ate mici (sounds like "Mitch"). Then tonight I hung out with the younger crowd in front of the television. Earlier today, I stayed with them on the lawn while the children "napped."

It was so nice tucking the boys in. Adi wanted badly to get out of bed, but wouldn't do it when we told him not to. I "lead" us in the Lord's prayer and gave the boys a kiss (on both cheeks, or course. Romanian style) before turning out the lights.

I'm worried about judgement day and standing before God, because it seems there are times when I consider my own comfort and take the easy road rather than helping the kids or thinking of them first. For example, today something disgusting was on my hand (mucus from someone's cough, maybe), and I instictively wiped it on Vasilie's shirt. Selfishness seems so natural to me, while really putting the lowly ahead of myself takes effort.

There were time of difficulty today, and I felt certain that I would never return again.

I figured out that Ana Maria can't produce the /s/ or /z/ sounds. Alexandra walked around saying /ks/ all afternoon, which are sounds in her name I taught her. This gave me great pleasure. My first chance to encooperate what I learned at school with the orphanage children.

Florin, the staff worker, called me a prostitute because I wouldn't sit near him while we watched a film this evening on the TV upstairs. The only reason I moved away was because I wanted to make it clear to him I'm not interested. He's not married, but he has six children which I've never seen. Florin, the mostly deaf orphan, tried several times to put his arms around me while we watched the film, until I got up and left.

We danced tonight before dinner, the children and staff, and this seemed something of a small success. The children were enjoying themselves, as well as the staff.

The compassion that I show my neighbor seems small and weak. Help me, God, to rise up against the wicked. If it is not for your help, I will slip and fall. I do slip and fall. Father, Son, Spirit, I need you. (Psalm 94)

Every moment of these children's lives they live with disadvantages that we don't know, like walking and speaking ... but one of their secrets seems to be that they have advantanges that we'll never know.

They smile at the simplist things that make me wonder who really has the better lot?

But honestly, my ability to walk and communicate are a source of so much pleasure and life for me, and I'm using it all to myself, primarily. But I don't want to. It doesn't seem right if I have the gift of walking, then hasn't it been given to me to share? So that those who normally couldn't, can walk?

Cluj

Toward the Kids

(Actually written 18 June 2009 in my journal)

Picking up where I left off, I spent a day of rest in the Children to Love International apartment in the heart of Bucharest after my long night at the airport. The following day I caught a train to Cluj. I lived in Cluj before I ever came across the orphanage I love. It’s where I learned to speak my first Romanian sentences. My Romanian friends there have grown from acquaintances to kin.

I had an awesome four days in Cluj. I saw babies that had been born who were only a twinkle in their father’s eye two years before. I found childless friends were now pregnant. I listened to great conversations, fertile ground for Romanian language growth. Overall, I felt genuinely spoiled by Livia and Coco who escorted me everywhere I went, let me sleep in their bed, cooked great food for me, let me wear their clothes, and gave me a cell phone to borrow.

While visiting Cluj I got word that the orphanage children would be gone when I returned to Bucharest. They would leave to summer camp in the mountains before I’d return to Bucharest. I had gone with the children to camp the past two years. Summer camp is a week of being with the kids 24/7. My comfort zone is totaled and my patience is pushed to the limit, but somehow I look forward to the challenge. Even with the support of American teammates and Children to Love International Staff, the camp can be quite intimidating because the special needs of the children require patient care and lots of attention. Also, unlike many American camps, there’s not always a schedule of activities, and finally, the bathroom/shower conditions can be “unfamiliar” (dirty squatty potties and … what is that I just stepped in on the floor of the bathroom? I hope it’s just thick mud … we ran out of toilet paper with five days left of camp. There’s no soap either, just water … and you were hoping to wash your hand after you held the hand of the girl who had her finger in her nose).

Anyway, when I discovered this mountain camp was nearer to Cluj than Bucharest, I aimed to go straight from my small trip to Cluj to the mountain camp. I took the train from Cluj to Sibiu, a city near the mountain camp. I was so nervous because I was traveling through the country by myself to a place I had never been. I looked out the train widow all the way there while the travelers in my compartment slept, and made a switch to a different train for the second half of the journey. I waited at a bus deport for over an hour, again – not investing the time by reading, but just waiting, so that I could be sure I caught my bus. The bus took me way, way up in the very green and very silent Romanian mountains, past a German town, now occupied by Romanians, I imagine, and then on to windy mountain roads. Finally the bus driver’s daughter pointed down the road we stopped at.

“See that road?” she said. “Go straight, straight, straight ahead for a long, long time. Don’t switch to another road and then you’ll see the camp you’re looking for on the right.”

So I walked to the road and got two phone calls on my borrowed cell phone along the way, Lili wondering if I was there yet. It’s amazing to me that a girl who has no sense of direction and still doesn’t know the streets in her own city can follow directions Lili sent her on-line to a small children’s camp on a lofty Romanian mountain peak.

I saw a group of people on the left-hand side of the road. It was the kids and the orphanage workers I had traveled thousands of miles to see. They were sitting and mulling around by the side of the road.

As I walked into the group, I wished I could slowly look each child in the eye one by one and let them know they were so special, but the atmosphere somehow didn’t allow for that. Kids came up to me just as though I had never left and continued their conversations as thought I was returning from a brief trip from the bathroom and not a ten-month absence in the U.S. I would stop them in the middle of what they were doing/saying, look them in the eye and say their name slowly. Then they would smile, as though maybe they realized that they had been missed, and I had been gone.

BELKEYS AND I!!!!! And our long night of conversation at the airport!

BELKEYS AND I!!!!! And our long night of conversation at the airport!

Trying to sleep in airport chairs with arms ... totally unsuccessful

Irish Park. Can't you tell? ;-)

Departures and Arrivals

As I was packing for my flight to Dublin on the 8th of June, Crysta, my good friend and ride to the airport, asked me to check my ininery. I starred at the departure time: 3pm. I must be seeing things. I was certain my flight didn't leave until later that evening. It was 4:30pm. I re-read the ininery, but read the same departure time: 3pm. There must be some mistake. I gave my itinery to Crysta to read. She read 3pm, too. I wasn't seeing things. I had misread my itinery. My flight had already left.

I got on the phone with the airline, Aer Lingus, and listened to their hold music for 20 minutes. We gave up on the phone and Crysta drove me to SFO, an hour drive from where we were.

In vain we sought a human representative of the Irish airline through which I had purchased my ticket in the international terminal. The best efforts of numerous airport personal, other airlines, and calls to the airline could offer me nothing better than the oppurtunity to leave a voicemail with Aer Lingus.

Many tears and much embarassment later, I booked the next flight from SFO to Ireland. The two days I had planned to spend with dear friends in Northern Ireland were instead spent in Cupertino (which isn't such a bad place, afterall). I trust God can use this embarassing mistake for good as only he is skillful enough to do.

I did get to Dublin, and when I got there, I had six hours before my next flight left to Romania. I took a bus to the center of Dublin, walked around downtown, bought some food which I enjoyed on a beautiful park lawn filled with people on a sunny Irish afternoon, managed to send one postard to the U.S. and caught the next flight to Bucharest. Our plane was filled with Romanian people, but I managed to share a row with a skinny, older Irish man with a very chatty and friendly dispositon. We interacted with the three-year-old who hung over the seats infront of us and spoke an interesting English/Romanian, childish sort of babel.

Mr. Irishman insisted on paying for a tea for me and somehow chatted his way to his general view of mankind: good people with good intensions and good hearts. I tried to sympathize, but wondered if he had forotten about genecides, rape, murder and the obvious bloodstained history we shared. Surely he must be aware of these acts. I think what he was saying, that we all have basicly good inside us, would seem like a nice view on the outside (and I'm certain he believed his intentions were good), but to ignore the crimes humanity has commited against inself, seems to me like another great crime itself. I wasn't eager to add this to my list of wrong-doing. I looked at him, but he saw somehow that I wasn't in total agreement with what he was saying.

"You have a different view?" He asked.

"Humankind does do good," I conceeded, "but where does the good come from? It has to come from somewhere."

"Yes!" he joyfully agreed, "and it comes from inside of you!"

I frowned. "Surely," he continued, "you don't think these people are bad," he said, referencing the passengers in the other seats.

"I think they are bad," I answered honestly, "and you and I are in the same boat as them. All people are in need of salvation."

And when he heard me say this last sentence, he seemed to deflate. Of all the people he could have sat next to on the plane, his disappointed sigh seemed to say, he had to sit next to the evangelical Christian. I had seemed young and friendly, so this disappointment was even more unexpected. Honestly, I felt very comfortable and fascinated by the topic on hand and I said a few more things, trying to engage in dialogue, but the Irishman was done. He turned to his left to strike up a conversation with the older Romanian woman on the other side of him.

When I got to Bucharest, no one was waiting for me at the airport as I expected. I realized after about half an hour that Lili forgot to pick me up and then realized I'd never asked her for her phone number or address when we have conversed over the internet about her picking me up. I sat in the airport and waited. I realized that though I had several friends in Bucharest, I didn't have any of their phone numbers on hand. If I had been stuck at the airport during the day, I could have found my friends at work or likely found some American interns at the apartment owned by Children to Love International, but at this hour (10pm) no one was at work and I couldn't be sure someone would open the door for a stronger at the American apartment, even if I did speak English.

At about midnight I realized there was an "American-looking" girl beside me who hadn't left the airport. I had decided to spend the night at the airport by this time and go to the office where my friends would be in the morning by bus and metro. After much hesitation, I turned to the "American-looking" girl and asked if she spoke English. She answered me with an accent, "I do!" and she eagerly left her seat and began a converation with me that lasted all night. She wasn't American, she was from Turkey, living in Milan, a 36-year-old fashion design student who looked much younger. Her friend was getting married in Turkey and she wanted to go back for the wedding, but couldn't buy a ticket for Istanbol because her bank card wasn't working. Her parents had put money in her account in Turkey, but the bank wasn't giving it to her. She tried several machines, and wasn't sure what to do next.

"My situation is worse than yours," she said, refering to my being left at the airport. She was right. Her name was Belkeys and she was so easy to talk to.

We put my camera on Belkeys' baggage cart and set the timer to get some photos together. I showed her the National Geographic I read on the plane and the picture that I thought Jennifer Aniston was in in one of their articles(Mach 2009, Sinai article), and she showed me some of her fashion designs and a journal inwhich she recorded her dreams.

Belkeys planned to call her bank when it opened around 8:30 am, but that would be too late to catch the 8:35 flight to Istanbol. At 6am I encouraged her to go to the ticket counter, show them what little money she had and ask if she could fly standby. She looked doubtful.

I said, "Tell them 'I spent all night in the airport waiting for my card to work, but it hasn't and my friend is getting married in Istanbol. I really want to attend the ceremony."

"But it's not like me to try to get what I want with sympathy," Belkeys said. "I would feel uncomfortable saying that."

"You can tell them that, too," I said. "Say, I feel uncomfortable mentioning this, because it's not like me at all, but I've spent all night in the airport and my friend is getting married today in Turkey."

"Do you think it will work?" She asked.

"I think it probably won't," I said honestly, "but if it did, it'd be worth it to have tried."

I watched our baggage while she went to the ticket counter. "I'm going to pray you'll get the ticket, while you go," I told her. I bowed my head and prayed while she approached the counter. "God, please," I prayed, "do a miracle. Help her to get the ticket. Give the ticket woman compassion on Belkeys. Please. Please. Please." I begged because it seemed so impossible. I continued to pray as I waited.

And ... God opened the ticket woman's heart. She compassionatley listened to Belkeys. She looked at what money Belkeys had. It wasn't enough. "Let me try your ATM card," the woman said, "and see if we can get the remaining amount." Belkeys skeptically gave her the card that she had just tried to use twenty minutes earlier in the airport's ATM without success.

"The card is working," the woman told her. "You can make the flight."

My hands were folded in prayer as I watched Belkeys from a distance. I couldn't hear their words, but I saw Belkeys jump up and down and give a little excited scream. Tears came into my eyes. God had heard me. After Belkeys had her ticket, she walked back to me and we hugged. We were both in shock. I told her I would never forget how she had gotten the flight when it seemed so unlikely. "Maybe this is why my ride forgot me," I told told Belkeys, "So that we could spend the night in the airport together and meet each ohter and I could watch you get the flight and be encouraged that God hears my prayers." We kissed and parted at the same time, her to Istanbol and me to find my friends in Bucharest.

At this time I was very tired and carrying my 25 kilogram bag plus backpack and purse up and down the long metro steps and wheeling my cargo around the streets of Bucharest was no easy feat, but I made it to the office. I heard my friends before I saw them. I left my bags on the porch and ran inside the office.

They stopped their meeting and looked at me with surprise and delight and listened to me (mostly in Romanian) tell about how Lili forgot to pick me up and my night at the airport.

"But what did you eat?" Florina asked. "Didn't you get hungry?"

"I ate some of the presents I brought from America for you." We all laughed. I felt so at home after seeing them. I was loved and definitely cared for and having that makes one feel at home wherever they are.