Mini update

So, just a little update here. Life's had its ups and downs this week. After my great day on Monday, Tuesday was nasty...yesterday kinda was blah too. weird how that happens. I think it's cool being in a place like this where life is a bit more simple, cause then I'm able to identify more quickly why sometimes I feel bad and what things often contribute to me feeling good. I've found that a quick game of chess really relaxes and invigorates me to engage in the world. That's a good thing. I've also found that time spent on my knees meeting with God is a key to feeling stable in life and a key to feel like I actually have a relationship with my creator, Savior, Sustainer.

Even here it's a battle to not let my life become a list of chores - to make time for people - to make time for God to use us in relationship - to allow time for the unexpected - to not care more about efficiency than about relationships. it's hard.

There isn't anything super noteworthy on my mind right now. I'm going to send out another update this weekend...i hope. My back is still hurting a bit, so that makes it hard to interact with the kids - play and run with them etc... since my language isn't good enough to really hold a long conversation with them. I'm doing some back stretches right now and I think that is helping. I would still appreciate prayer for that.

I'm also still seeing some selfishness in my interaction with others here. I hate that.

We watched a really tough documentary about some street kids in Bucharest (capital of romania) yesterday. It shed a lot of light on the lives that some of the kids we work with live. Horrible families - that's basically why thy leave - often poverty is at the root of it...but typically the lack of money just accentuates the already existing family problems. Often drunk and abusive parents (verbally as well as physically) cause the kids to run away. Then these children grow up without love - totally in fear - no one to show them how to live life. They just have to survive. No maturity - they often end up addicted to sniffing glue/paint...whatever will get them high or they become alcoholics. It's awful. Someone literally has to commit their life to helping a child like this get off the streets. It's not a quick fix by any means. A relationship has to be formed for that child to be helped. Jesus says that anyone who welcomes a child in His name welcomes Him... Also, I was reading this morning an article in WMF's magazine "the Cry" about intimacy with the poor. the author reminded us of this verse in Jeremiah:
"He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?" declares the LORD.

The Lord so strongly identifies Himself with those who are hurting and need help. Why isn't defending the cause of the poor and needy a trademark of our lives, supposedly being Christ's body???

We're also reading this book about Jesus that is making me think alot and look at some of Scripture a bit differently. It's called "the challenge of Jesus" by NT Wright. It tries to look at Jesus through a more historical lens - trying hard to understand the 1st century Jewish culture in which He became flesh and announced the Kingdom of God. It's great, and makes me more aware of my lack of knowledge of Jewish History. It's maybe a bit presumptuous to think I can fully understand a Jewish 1st century messiah, living in Palestine, when I don't have a good grasp on Judaism...or the 1st century...or Palestine. yikes. :-)


I'm not sick anymore! cool. Thank you God.

Ok. We're going to have a football game with some of the boys from the street and then have a bbq with the guys going back to England tomorrow. They have been such a blessing! It's so cool to have friends from England who just come and help us build stuff and encourage this community for two weeks. God's family is big. :-)
May the Lord bless you with knowledge of Himself and a heart after His own!

Joy

I cried today.

And it was because I was laughing so hard. It felt great. Awesome in fact.
I'm not sure if I've ever laughed as hard as I did this morning. Maybe the stress of these circumstances brought that out. We were having our monday morning book discussion time where the servant team, John and Josh and Robin (our leaders) gather in the chapel and discuss whatever we read for that day. Since it's a monday, we discuss our weekends as well, because we don't always see eachother and it's great to catch up. So we went around the room telling about our weekends. I had a great weekend, especially considering that I was sick for most of it... and I re-aggravated my back injurybending over to put my pj's on :-). I went to the Orthodox Cathedral (the big pretty one we visited the first time) and stayed for the whole liturgy and then I just read the rest of the day and prayed and did language stuff. Anyway. We came around to Josh. He hasn't been feeling well at all. In fact they think he might have girardia again. That's this intestinal worm thing...not good. But he's had that before and thinks this is different - he jokingly said maybe it's colon cancer. For obviously reasons that prompted me to ask if he was going to have a colonoscopy done. I'm not exactly sure what all goes into one of the those, but I'm quite confident they're a good time. Talking about colonoscopies and such made me think of the physical I had in order to come with WMF to Romania. Because...I had to have a rectal exam!! So I wanted to reminisce with the others about the rectal exam that i assume all of us had to take. Well, it turns out I was the only stinkin person who had to have a rectal exam. What! apparently everyone else's doctor scoffed at the WMF sheet that told them to do a rectal exam - they were like, "what? who wrote this? that's ridiculous...you don't need that." Not my doctor. Nope. You know why? cause he was NEW. Fresh from the doctor incubator (no offense to any medical proffessionals reading this). I vividly remember his expression and tone of voice when, from the WMF physical exam sheet he was perusing, he looked up with a start and said, I'm going to have to do a rectal exam. He looked shaken. I was thinking "ok...not a big deal right? I mean, happens all the time...right?". I was so young. so so .. naive.
For the sake of this audience I'll stop there. That's actually all I shared with the group this morning too, but maybe it was more funny to leave the rest to imagination. So, that, and a few other timely and choice comments from the group led to intense laughter for the next 5 minutes. I was weeping. I was whinny-ing if that makes any sense. People were having a hard time breathing. it was that kind of laughter. Red faces. Hands slapping the ground. People rolling over. And I'm crying and whimpering.

It reminded me of some of my favorite childhood memories when Dad use to laugh like that. Sometimes the jokes wouldn't even be that funny, but when dad started laughing like that - the hard-time-breating, whimpering, whinnying, crying kind of laugh - who could help but laugh themselves - before you knew it you were crying...gasping for breath...making hilarious noises in the process, Slapping the table. Those moments are so precious to me. In those moments everything is well. A family is formed. For that moment there is sheer joy.

I think that was quite a gift from the Lord to us this morning. Today I'm pretty convinced that God made laughter. :-)

Adventures with Tom

I think this is really cool. So two night ago I just finished writing the previous post about Tom - telling about our Chess games and asking for prayer for him etc... Well, that same night Kate and I were heading home on the 22 (that's our bus cause we live in the same area) and guess who got on? yup. Tomitsa (that's long for Tom). Crazyness. Neither of us had seen Tom outside of the chess park before, so it was just super cool that God had us meet on the bus. I was really happy to see him because I had accidentally double-booked for this saturday and couldn't make it to the Chess park. Plus I had somehow invited the servant team over to Tom's house that saturday, so it was really important that I could see Tom before in order to reschedule for next week. Anyway, I communicated that we were going hiking this saturday so I couldn't make it over to his house. He seemed skeptical, but then invited Kate and I over right then to watch a soccer match between Bucharest Stau and a team from slovakia. How could we say no to that... :-) So to make a long story short, Kate and I watched the whole soccer game with Tom and his wife at his place. It was awesome. Awkward at times, but yet awesome. Some highlights: We got to see lots of pictures of tom's two girls and two grandkids. Tom showed off some of his awards from chess tournaments. We had a few shots of nesscafe espresso - always makes the day better. We got to see Tom's cats michi and jojo - they exist! I was pretty happy about that. We got to talk to Tom for like 3 hours (in romanian) and keep building this relationship.
One thing about Romanians - they aren't afraid to ask personal questions about guy-girl relationships...marriage...making babies etc... So Tom is on a personal journey trying to hook Kate and I up with eachother. Here's a taste of some of the questions (my translation): So..Ryan, do you love Kate? No?! Why? She's nice and pretty and has a good heart - why not? I think you're lying. What would you say if another guy came along and Kate went off with him? (I said.."I would say Bravo!" to which he replied...I don't believe you :-)
This was actually incredibly funny. He probably grilled us for like 45 minutes on this. I kept saying things like "Tom, I think we really need more time...we've only known eachother for like 1 month." or in response to Tom's question of why I don't love Kate... "Tom, God knows....only He knows..." Tom and I were talking mostly because I can speak a little better romanian than Kate. This is really funny. Kate can understand most of what's being said, but at one point she didn't understand something and turned to me and asked "what's he saying?" I calmly replied "He wants to know if you love me..." That was an awesome moment.
I'm sure this will continue to come up, but at least it gives me a great chance to practice romanian...and I think shows Tom's genuine interest in our lives. or possibly it shows boredom with the rest of life...I'll assume the best :-)
So i think that's pretty awesome. I think in that moment, spending that time with Tom and talking with him and watching the game was a way to be God's love. God has answered several prayers like that with such grace and immediacy during my time here. wow. I'm excited to continue to know Tom and pray for him. Please continue to pray for him and for a true heart of love in all our relationships here, living out of a knowledge of our existence as God's beloved child.


In other news: I hurt my back today. I didn't lift with my legs. shoot! :-) So I kinda feel like an old man and, well...my back hurts and I can't run right now or really even play with the kids. I hope tomorrow it will be better - maybe it's just a pulled muscle. I would appreciate prayer for healing and more-so God's will and His grace in my reaction and the results of having a hurt back. Thanks sooo much.

We also have a group of 5 from england here. Frank, Allen, Erik, Rachel and Neil. They are great and have really sweet accents and love the Lord and this community. They are here to build stuff and fix things and do electrical work around the center here. It's such a blessing that they give up their time and money to do this. You can pray for Frank and Neil too - they are decided whether or not God wants them to join the WMF romanian team - so they need wisdom and peace.

One more thing: A girl named Gabrielal from Brazil has been working with our community drawing up some business plans for this job-creation program we're trying to start. She is a wonderful girl. Pray that God would work in her heart and reveal Himself to her. I would love to see her come to know Jesus as know His love.

Recapp: Pray for Tom. Praise God for working and answering prayer. My Back. The English friends. Gabriella.

Chess in the Park anyone?

I want you all to meet Tom. He's the guy I'm playing chess with.
We've played Chess with Tom every Saturday since we've been here in Galati. I think that's one of the coolest things I've experienced about this culture so far - they love chess and guys play it in the park all the time. They actually have a couple parks that are totally dedicated to the game - they have concrete tables with chess boards painted on them surrounded by concrete chairs. how cool is that. I guess chess is something that the communist mindset really enjoys? apparently in russia they taught chess as a part of the school curriculum. whoa. So these guys are much much better than I am, but it's super fun. The first Saturday Kate and I went to the park we were kinda wandering around trying to quietly observe some games...trying not to let on that we were american and couldn't speak romanian. That lasted until someone tried to talk with me...it was Tom! I roughly understood that he wanted to know if I wanted to play. I don't know why he asked me...cause it turns out that Tom is one of the best players around and so yeah...anyway. I said...uh..da (yes) lol. And thus begins our relationship. Tom is such a sweet guy. He has taught Kate and I alot about how to play etc... and been very patient even though he could easily beat us at chess whenever he wants. The first time we played it was really funny because word got around that we were foreigners and couldn't speak romanian...so this huge crowd gathers around our chess board (which happens frequently in these parks...big crowds around good games) and it's fun cause the old men surrounding your table all point out and try to tell you what move to make and then as soon as they do that other guys tell say "nu!" and say what you should really do... and they go back and forth arguing and it's super fun.
Somehow last week I invited our group over to Tom's place for some coffee. I'm still not totally sure how...or why that happened :-). Anyway I would appreciate prayer for that - it's this Saturday. I really want to be the love of Christ to Tom however that can happen.
Tom smokes alllllll the time. And he's somewhat crippled...so he can't walk well or work. I think he' doesn't have much money. He plays for money alot. And then he asks for money so that he can feed his two cats. Jojo and michi (micky).
Playing chess with Tom has been one of the sweet spots for me in here in Galati.
I'm praying that Tom can come to know Jesus - His creator who was crucified that he might have life.

Romanian Blogger

So, I've sold out to the world of blogging. That's ok.
As Kate (far left), one of the girls on the servant team, always says,
"That's ok. It'll all work out" :-)
We laugh at her and she laughs too so that's good.

I want to be able to communicate more frequently than
a mass email every other week...plus notes on facebook
felt too much like publishing a paper. I didn't like what I
was writing either...so maybe that effected this decision
too... lol. (i love the lol. such a great tool)

So we're going to give this a shot...maybe it'll be great, maybe not.
I think I'm so much of a verbal processor that this will be good. I
think. We shall see!

I also really really want to communicate and share this experience with you
and do that well, so I hope this will get us further down that road.

Please comment and interact with these!! Otherwise this is just like online
sneezing or something. Alot of junk flies out into the air and..well the analogy
ends there. :-)

I really hope that God will use this for His glory.
ryan

ps. this is the team except the first guy on the left (David, he is working with WMF in Argentina)
From left to right: Kate, (david), John, Nate, Me, Elizabeth

Orthodoxy?

The Eastern Orthodox Church. Turns out this is a part of the Christian Church that actually exists! I've read about it, but I don't think I actually realized it existed and millions of people are a part of it.

Romania is almost entirely Eastern Orthodox. In some ways it's like in America, where most people would say that they are Christian...or that they believe in God...but way more-so in Romania. It has yet to become popular or really even accepted to not believe in God. Not everyone actually goes to a Cathedral on Sunday, but most all will claim Christian Eastern Orthodox belief.
Here's a little background on the Eastern Orthodox Church: If I have my Church History correct the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church split around 1000AD over a few issues...one of them being a detail in the Nicene Creed about whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from just God the Father or BOTH God the Father and God the Son... I think the other issue was that of Icons. The Eastern Orthodox Church uses a ton of icons in their worship...and pretty much everyday life too. (Icons are like pics of Jesus and Mary or of one of the many saints throughout Church History). I believe that's the gist of the reason they split...but I would need to study some more before I took a test on that or something. Dad, do you want to double check that? :-)
So this is very interesting. But the Church's (Capital "C" Church, as in Christ's body) situation here in Romania is also kinda disturbing. The protestant Church here is quite young. And they are viewed as a sect - almost like a cult - by the Orthodox Church. There is tremendous tension between the Orthodox Church and the Protestant Church. They pretty much see eachother as the enemy. Somewhat how Protestants and Catholics stereotypically interact with eachother in the States.

Yesterday the servant team visited an Orthodox Church here in Galati, with Josh and Robin (the servant team leaders) and Joel and Monica (a word made Flesh couple who have become members of the Orthodox Church since coming to Romania 7 years ago...or so). So we went with some pretty who are pretty knowledgeable of the Orthodox Church in order to experience what it was like and understand much more about the Romanian culture etc... It was very different. and cool.
I'll try to paint a little bit of a picture...but I won't cover everything. Part of the problem that leads to much disagreement and fighting between Protestants and Catholics and Orthodox I believe is not so much based on an accurate understanding of their theological differences, but from premature judgments and biases, reacting to that which is different and not understood. Something looks different, so we condemn, often at the expense of legitimate understanding. So, I don't write this so that we can all establish our judgments about the Orthodox Church. I write this to describe my experiences as I BEGIN my understanding of this historic Church and it's carefully crafted theology.

So we walk in to this cathedral at about 9am. We're here for the 2 hours of prayer that precede the actual liturgy. The place is packed with people. There are no seats. Everyone is standing or kneeling or are maybe even closer to lying down face to the ground. The smell of incense is in the air. This amazing choir is singing from a loft 100ft above us. We can't see them at all. The walls of the Church are Completely 100% covered with art - it's pretty much one giant painting. Seems to be of Jesus - different pictures from His life -and of saints and other things from Church History. The Priests and choir are leading the people in prayers. The priests are busy doing things and reading from books near the altar/stage area of the cathedral. I'm sure they wouldn't call it a stage, but that maybe communicates the image better than "altar". We can't understand the romanian, so bummer, but Josh and Robin have a book that gives the liturgy in English, so we'll be able to read about that and actually see what it says for next time. The liturgy that they use today is the liturgy that St. John Chrysostem used back in 400ish AD. Icons of Jesus and Mary and several of saints are placed along several walls and one in the middle of the room. People are pretty much free to do their own thing throughout the worship time. People are crossing themselves, kneeling, kissing icons, singing, looking around, listening and thinking (I'm assuming here lol). It's really interesting. Eastern Orthodox theology believes that worship is a full body experience - thus they try to incorporate all the senses in their worship. I really enjoyed the freedom to kneel and stand up and do whatever with my hands. I felt very free in that regard.
So anyway, there is so much to understand about what they do and why. But apparently in Orthodox theology, there is a reason for everything.
That was exciting. I'm sure understanding Eastern orthodoxy will really help me be a better critic of my own Church experience. This is certainly the hope.
It will be hard though too. There is so much animosity between the protestant and orthodox churches here that I already feel like I'm disappointing and frustrating people that I would even want to look in to understanding orthodoxy.
Please pray for me in that. May God use this to genuinely teach me about Himself - who He is. How He desires to be worshiped. The truth and lies that exist in both orthodoxy and protestantism that I haven't been aware of. Pray for my relationship with my friends here and abroad who might not understand my desire to understand the Orthodox faith.

I'll write more as I know. :-)
I must go eat some of mama lenutsa's good food :-)

ryan