Romania 2003

Back to 2003 index

Newsletter Three

Date: Monday 30 June 2003.

Question: Would you open the window for this kid?

What if you knew he was soaking wet, had a full bottle of water, and still wanted to "play"?

Opening our hearts to these kids is actually quite easy. Perhaps they just know how to work us.

They're also very streetsmart... or something. For example, the government has a policy of rounding up streetkids and returning them to the county/district they originally came from. A couple of the kids turned up to the Day Centre recently with official letters giving them free train travel back to their home city of Constanta, all the way across the country on the coast of the Black Sea. It's a very popular tourist destination in the summer. So the kids got fitted out at the Day Centre with clean shirts and spares, some food for the journey, etc (they'd get it anyway if they stayed here) and off they went to Constanta. Just one thing... Their parents actually live here in Timisoara.

Hope they have a nice holiday.

When they've had enough maybe they can get another free trip back again by getting more official letters to return to their parents on this side of the country.

Frustratingly, the same policy means that the short-list for boys to live at the home in Jimbolia is presently very short, since most of the boys on the streets here come from other counties. The government says boys from other counties are not allowed to live in this county, which means they can't live at the home in Jimbolia. This is OK for the moment, since it'll be several months before the home can be lived in, and the plan has always been to start off with only a few boys.

One kid who is on the short-list (no pun intended) and has been voluntarily working at the site shows here how deep the basement hole is (a couple of weeks ago when I was last had time to go out there):

The latest news is that the architect made a boo-boo when she drew the plan. The house (and basement) will now be three metres longer than was originally planned, which means that the old cow shed (at the right of the pic above) has had to be demolished before the foundations can be finished. Just the long drop toilet is left.

The work is long and tiring, and having to wait for trains while driving home just makes the day even longer. There seems a compulsory minimum wait of five minutes from when the barriers come down to when the train trundles past. It's more than enough to be able to take a photo of the above worker with a young British friend...

On the subject of driving, a week ago I had the priviledge of being chauffer to half a dozen Romanians as we went to check out a possible camp site (read "reasonably flat meadow by a stream in the middle of nowhere") for the next streetkid camp, on the other side of Baile Herculane (if you have a map handy), about three hours south of here. (Out the door at 8:15am, back after 11pm. Have I mentioned I'm not a fan of Romanian roads? Or rather Romanian potholes.)

The site is quite a nice one but not particularly private. This may be a problem for various reasons, such as the streetkids (of all ages) constantly trying to scrounge cigarettes off other campers.

On a side detour we went a little further down the main road to Orsova to see the Danube River near one of the main escape points in communist days, where people would swim across the river to Yugoslavia. Any enterprising Romanians want to make this building a restaurant?

Apart from trying to keep up with my web work, a significant chunk of my time in the last week or so has also been taken up with getting some video stuff together for Steve (one of the local International Teams missionaries) to take to Britain where he will be for two weeks. It's great to be able to do this sort of thing while I'm here as it's going to be a big help for him to show what happens at the Day Centre.

At the Day Centre yesterday (Sunday) we found out quite late that the person who was supposed to be doing the Bible lesson with the streetkids was sick. (We were told he had been painting and had got a bad stomach bug from it.) I suggested I do something with balloons, with someone translating for me.

In a nutshell, I explained that we were created perfect but since Adam and Eve sinned everyone has been separated from the completely holy God because of our sin. Then I took a black balloon, representing our sinful selves, and subjected it to judgement under my pocketknife. The balloon popped (understandably).

I then took another black balloon and explained that Jesus died on the cross for us. If we accept him as our saviour, something different happens at the final judgement. Once again I sliced the balloon with my pocketknife, but this time when it popped it suddenly changed into a red balloon (inside the black balloon), representing the blood of Jesus. When he died on the cross he paid the penalty of death that we should have to pay. I sliced the balloon again, and again it popped, leaving a white balloon in its place, representing the pure state that God sees us in, IF we have accepted Jesus as our saviour. The kids were strangely quiet during the talk. Amen. Pray that they really understand and are convicted of their need for a saviour.

What's also good is that we figured out how to do the trick in December at Casa de Fete ("Girl's House"), a home for former street girls. Even though our first (many) attempts failed, the girls helping me wouldn't quit until we had sorted it out, sacrificing their own balloons to the learning process. (The trick is to leave the triple balloon inflated for 5-10 minutes before trying to slice it - otherwise all three pop at once. But knowing that, it even works with water balloons.)

All this talk of tri-colour balloons reminds me of something else. Happy birthday Duncan. Welcome to double digits.

--

Ian.
8 )
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/ianman/

In Romanian:

Ian: "How old are you?" (Literally "How many years have you?")
Romanian kid: "Seven years. And a half. Eight years! And a half."

He was still having trouble after the 3rd or 4th time I asked him (a few days apart each time).

Previous | Back to 2003 index | Next

Contact:
Return to ianman HOME | Return to top