the heaven and the earth

Cerul şi Pământul sung by Adi Gliga.  Beautiful.
 My favorite Moldovan Christmas song so far.

love,

annie

learning

I don't know what to tell you.  Not doing very well with this blog thing.  I am sorry.

• I've fallen in love with a 6 year old boy.  He's emotional and gets upset easily, but he carefully painted a picture for one of our volunteers and showed it to me today.  He even wrote her name on the page.  Last Thursday, the day of our Christmas program, he walked up to me in the midst of the kids-waiting-for-guests chaos and said, "How do I look?" as he sported his best clothes.  He's part of a group staying at the orphanage that is being sponsored by an outside sports organization.  He goes to school like everyone else, has free time in the afternoon, and then has "training" in the evening.  Evidently, it's a group of "hocheişti".  Monday their trainer (2 other little boys in our group attend this "training".) came to get them because we lost track of time.  This little boy waited until his tough trainer/coach was gone, and then gave me a big hug goodbye.

• I start crying every time I hear the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah.  

• We took 4 older kids into the city last night.  We made a camera scavenger hunt in the center of the city, ate cake and hot cocoa/cappuccino, and then strolled down Strada Ştefan cel Mare şi Şfânt to see the lights...and the enormous and overly decorated Christmas tree in front of Parliament.  The kids were glowing.  Magda, Rachel, and I were glowing because they were glowing.  For one of the girls, it was her first cup of hot chocolate.

• It is painful to see so much hurt in these kids

• Today I talked with Rachel for probably 30 minutes about retirement plans...after I'd spent probably 30 minutes on the IRS website.  After 5 years with Principal I can't get it out of my head.  :)

• Last week I went to a Christmas party for the women of our church.  We all really enjoyed the time together.  I am so grateful to be welcomed into the community of this church.  

I have been so overwhelmed with love and support from friends and family.  Packages.  Email and facebook messages.  Random Skyping.  Prayers.  Encouragement to keep going.  Learning about being known and being loved.  Amazing and giving teammates.  Children who have nothing yet share every single package of sweets.

becoming...

Recent thoughts from a prayer letter...

The kingdom of this world

Is become

The kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ

Today I cried at this phrase in Handel’s Messiah.  These words, powerfully sung, strike me this year.  Instead of uniformly robed choirs, images of the whitewashed concrete dorms dusted with snow come to mind.  I think of walks with kids from their dorm to the cafeteria: a hurried, loud, and chaotic place to eat.  Pictures of upturned faces wanting love and haunted eyes with so many questions flood my memory.  I hear sound bytes of little girls exclaiming over painted nails and lip gloss while wearing coats that no longer zip or button correctly.  The discrepancy over what is now and what is to be is overwhelming.

Last week our kids stood in front of a group of 9th grade students visiting from a different school.  After introductions, our group of 18 kids sang and handed out greeting cards they made for the guests.  The visiting students brought a movie to watch, and then played with our kids for at least an hour.  The most wonderful part of the whole evening was watching these 9th graders from comfortable families in Chişinău play UNO and color pictures with our kids from the orphanage.  As connections were made, walls and assumptions began to crumble.  The visiting students brought gifts for our kids, but the best part of their evening was definitely playing together.  It was beautiful.  Some of the young women from the visiting class even came back this week to volunteer.

With all the chaos and the stress that comes with the unknown, I am reminded today that these words put to music by George Handel are as much a promise of what is to come as they are an invitation to live as though the words are reality now.  An encouragement to continue to be present with the kids at the orphanage, because although their reality seems to be anything but the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ – He has not abandoned them and has promised to bring redemption.

Thank you so much for your prayers for the children of the orphanage and for our team.  Please especially keep John and his new wife Rachel in your prayers as they begin married life together in the States!  Whoo hoo!  We look forward to welcoming them back to Moldova in April!
Much love,
Annie

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ,

and he will reign for ever and ever.” (Revelation 11:15).

Updates?

Want to know what is going on lately in the work?  Check out my update/prayer letters here.  Or you can even check out The Cry...Word Made Flesh's great quarterly journal...

Much love,

annie

treasure

Four days until I board a plane for a visit home...

I can barely concentrate.

Been trying to write a bio for the WMF website for, oh, 3 weeks.  Three paragraphs.  Not brain surgery.  Who even really spends time studying bios?  But I am having a difficult time choosing words and phrases.  Too prideful?  What am i afraid of?  Silliness...and yet, here i am writing this.  and my sister, who writes bios for people all the time, even gave me a template...

After a week at a different location, we started going again to the camp for the kids from the internat/boarding school we've been working with this spring.  

T, a 14-year old girl and friend of mine, asked me today if I had visited my family yet.  She's taught me a short poem in romanian, a few games, and some moldovan folk dancing - in short, taken me under her wing, so to speak.  She is at this camp all summer.  She was at the internat/boarding school all week during Easter.  T has no one to go home to.  She has no parents or family to visit.  This beautiful, young woman with long brown hair is pretty much on her own.

looking her in the eyes, i forced out the words, "no, i leave friday for a month.  but i'll be back in august."

suddenly, my planning and anxiety and worry is pretty empty.  i get to go home.  for a whole month.  and into the encouraging and loving arms of friends and family who are amazing beyond what i can express.

and suddenly i kind of don't want to go.  i just want to stay next to her and try to converse and listen to her laugh.  wanting to sit in the presence of Jesus together.  i've always pondered that "treasure" that the guy in the parable found when he sold everything and bought the land where it was buried.  Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is like that treasure.  Matthew 13.

Today, i wonder if treasure is T and her peers at the camp. 

Being together with them in the presence of Jesus while making bracelets, playing chinese checkers, and chatting - that is the field purchased.  

it's been...

This week has been crazy. It started with chapel on Monday with just Rach and I in the house in Centru, and ended with sharing a meal with Adriana at the Autobuz.

Here's the in-between:

• Kids have 3 major tests here in the school system. A set in 4th grade, a set in 9th grade, and then the big one to complete 12th grade. Our 4th graders had their tests this week. We haven't seem them since Tuesday (see below for explanation), but I can't wait to see them Monday. The kids get dressed up in white shirts, boys get haircuts, and everyone brings a flower to their teacher on the big day. Kids were pretty anxious about it. From what I understand, the tests were Wednesday through Friday. Think of them as the annual Iowa Test of Basic Skills, but on serious steroids and without scan tron answer sheets (or whatever they are using these days). Since some of our kids may not know how to read, I was even stressed out for them. I have nightmares about showing up unprepared for exams and essay tests, I can't imagine the frustration and terror and stress of having to take an exam without being able to understand the words.

• Last week I made this "play dough" kind of concoction and they made butterflies. (okay, it was mostly sticky dough. a few times the kids would just look up at me with their hands covered in gobby mess and say, "can i just color a picture?") Tuesday they painted the butterflies with watercolors, as well as their own scenes on a blank piece of paper. I LOVED watching them create and seeing what their hearts and minds produced. I don't think they get a lot of opportunity to paint and color...there's just not the time or the resources, mostly. But some of them are really talented and thinking outside the box.

• J, a bright and seemingly self-motivated girl with long brown hair, and I had a brief conversation about talent that day. She asked as we painted, "Do you like to paint? Do you have talent?" Looking down at the table where a kindergarten-rate pink and red butterfly was beginning to take shape on the paper before me, I answered, "I like to paint but I don't have the talent. I like it, I don't have talent, but I do it anyway." Tilting her head to the side and pausing to look at me with paintbrush in hand, she responded something like "Well, God gives people talents. And some people have the talent to paint, and some people have the talent to [insert here some other activities she mentioned], but God gives us the talents and that's that." Well, okay, that's what I got from the convo, but i was actually buzzed a little from the thought, "hey! we just talked a bit together! that's great!"

• Magda came back from Romania on Sunday and joined us Monday afternoon at the internat.

• Adriana returned from her trip to Romania and spent a HECK of a lot of time and effort finding us a new office/apartment.

• John finally made it back from his visit to the States...only to have to move out of his home/office almost immediately.

• And it was so nice, and a bit weird at first, to have everyone on the team back and in one place.

• Yes, the house we were renting was sold (so good for the owners), and we were frantically looking and praying for a new place. Thanks for the prayers out there, because Wednesday, John, Adriana, and Magda all found a great place for us in Botanica - the same section of the city where the internat is.

• We boxed up and moved all our stuff to the new place on Friday. Three of Magda's friends helped us - Yea God! They had a truck and muscles to help us get the stuff to the 4th floor of the new apartment building. I was again thankful for all the friends who helped me move in sub-zero temperatures AT NIGHT in January last year, and again in August...and January this year...you know who you are.

• Attended Magda's prayer group on Thursday night. Was interesting...well, what I understood anyway. (I know, enough with the disclaimers already. By now you know that everything is absorbed through the fog of an unknown language...)

• Went to a great FREE philharmonic concert last night sponsored by the Norwegian Embassy. The music was beautiful and the cellist was amazing. Also, they handed out these brochure/magazine things to encourage people to visit Norway. I must be a sucker for advertising, because it worked. I think I might plan a vacation there...it looks so beautiful...will probably have to wiki "fjord" before i go...

• My sister, Laura, graduated from George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs with a Masters in Security Policy Studies this week. She is awesome and an inspiration to me. Can't wait to visit her next time in DC.

• My cousin, Rachel, is graduating from high school in Collierville, TN today, and will have a senior trumpet recital tomorrow. My family is gathered there this weekend. I am so excited they are together.

• This week, this feeling of missing friends and family is so thick it can't be spread on bread without ripping up the piece of bread apart...like really super thick (and chilled) peanut butter. That's just how it goes sometimes.

• I am hooked on past episodes of NCIS. That is my sad little secret these last two weeks. I can't even get started on LOST - afraid I'll lose all sense of reality and just become a complete junkie. I am, after all, two full seasons behind.

This is a really long post. Sorry about that. Thanks for listening to the babble.

much love,

amk

"Do you have rap?"

Monday Adriana and I planned to do manicures with the girls. Everyone was pretty restless and loud that day, and it seemed like we spent most of the time getting the kids to quiet down and not aggravate each other. Therefore, time for nails went out the window. Adriana, however, lead a great activity about dolphins with an art project the kids liked. So, after a discussion cu fetele (with the girls) about being patient with each other, we said tomorrow could work for nails depending on their ability to be quiet and more patient with everyone.

Today the girls (and guys) did really well. The kids from Galati had made each child a card (please. this was amazing. our kids loved them), and a short video. Rachel passed out the cards and showed the kids the video and pictures on a computer. Some kids responded excitedly, "Hey! Can I write them a note?!" So, maybe we'll have some pen-pal-ish action going on between here and Galati...how great would that be?

After the presentation, the boys headed outside and two nail stations were set. Each girl got a bit of a manicure: nail soak, cuticle treatment, trimming and shaping, hand massage with lotion, a nail buff (to shine up the nail), and a coat of pink or clear polish.

We had music in the background - my iTunes account. They found the "Teach Yourself Romanian" tracks and thought it was pretty funny to hear the recorded Romanian lessons.

The manicure was a precious bit of individual time with each girl. The last young lady and I actually had a conversation. It went something like this:

I was like, "So, what are you doing after this?"
(Imagine the head tilting side to side. We were getting nails done, after all.)
And she was like, "I'm going to do homework and eat dinner and then read."
I was like, "And what did you do this weekend?"
And she was like "I played games and made food and..."
I interrupted, "What kind of food? Because I don't cook and need to learn. What's your favorite food to make?"
And she was like, "Well, macaroni with cheese."
I was like, "How do you cook it?"
And she was like, "Well, you boil the water and put salt and oil in it. Then when the water's boiling you put in the pasta - "
"How much?"
"Well, however much you want to eat."
"Oh."
"Then when the pasta is done, not to hard and not too soft - "
"How do you like it?"
"Ah, normal." (Head tilt and shoulders shrug.)
"Oh, sure."
"Then drain the pasta and add cheese and mix it together." (During this section I had to get clarification...which means using hand gestures and sound effects.)
"That's all?"
"That's all."
"Do you add salt?"
"I already did to the water."
"Oh, and oil?"
"Da." (I must have missed that step, although at the time I most certainly affirmed that I understood.)
Then I hear:
"Eini, do you have rap?" "Hey - what did you do to the music?!" "Hey! Leave it alone!" "Eini, Eini, Eini, Eini, can i use this please?"...and thus ends our cooking lesson.

Each of the girls seemed to glow just a little bit afterwards. Not so much from the manicure itself - which, by the way, wasn't too shabby, please - but from the one on one interaction. It was a small thing to brighten their day. It was a huge gift to me.