Little Girls

The last two days have been a totally different experience than anything I have gone through so far. For one thing, I have an entire floor of the mission house to myself, and my own bathroom too. That's kind of fun, although I don't have a problem sharing space anymore - hostels kind of wipe that out of you, especially crowded ones like the Mountain Hostel in Gimmelwald (plus there we were sharing one 3 stall, 3 shower bathroom with guys and girls). Also, here I have a full five days before I have to go anywhere - and that is cool. Packing and moving is getting a little old - I'm glad I stood still for a while in Switzerland - plus it was the perfect place to be. Plus, I am being served here; someone makes us every meal, does the dishes, even cleans the rooms (though not mine because I'm on the fourth floor). :)

Ana and Peter (the couple who run the mission) are awesome, and hilarious - I just watched them get into a water fight that Peter started and Ana and their daughter Andrea got him back for - it seriously made me laugh for minutes because they were both wearing nice outfits and fighting over a hose. :) The Canadians left this morning, but they were really awesome people as well. The group included two sets of parents, with three daughters each ranging in age from 9 to 17. They were completely welcoming - from playing cards the first night I got here to leaving me with one of their memory sticks for my pictures. The two guys, Jackson and Lou, are really cool too - I spend most of my time following them and Michael, the 16 year old translator and all around gentleman, around. Yesterday after spending the morning at a gypsy church in a field outside their village, we had a waterfight with the girls and then went and got authentic Italian gelato from a store down the street. May I just say, gelato is amazing! They give you really small scoops, but you have to savor it anyway. Its been over 90 every day, but there is a cloud cover today which is nice. Yesterday evening we went over to the orphanage, and the Canadians led a VBS thing for the girls. It was about Jesus as the shepherd, and they made a picture frame to hold a picture of themselves that Fabio (one of the dads) printed out.

I should explain about the orphanage: It is a big building (complex really) and could hold over twenty kids, but at the moment there are only 8 - six-seven year old girls, two who are twins and two who are sisters. The mission oversees a few others who are in foster care, but they don't have enough funding to take care of any others at the moment. The women who care for the children and the rest who are involved in the mission are all amazing, giving, loving, wonderful people - and if they had the funding they would be able and so willing to care for more kids. In April they had to send 13 kids back into state care because of lack of funding - and you can just see that it broke their hearts. The state wants to give them more to take care of because they do such a good job, but won't give them money to do it - so they are just praying and praying that God would open the door for more Romanians to fund them, for the international adoptions to open again (because most of the girls at the orphanage have American families to go home to when it does), and for the state to support them.

This morning I spent 3 hours just playing with the girls - they have so much energy and are so crazy! When I first got there, after playing a little soccer (and they are better than most guys a couple years older than them - they can KICK!), they dragged me off to this area beyond the court and playground that looked a little like a run-down shack but opened into an overgrown courtyard of sorts (still with prickly bushes and broken cement) to a cement wall underneath a tree with some kind of yellow plum. The twins, who are crazier than the rest, and a girl named Delia who is by far the most athletic of them all, just climbed right up to a height higher than my head to get to the plums. I spent the next half hour worrying about someone falling and lifting the less crazy ones to a height where they too could get some plums (which were not ripe, by the way, and very sour). Then I became a horse and goalie, "IT" and sandbox playmate; and they decided to open my bag and take out all my chapstick, camera, money (which I did get back - it was only 7 lei (3 bucks) but still - I had to chase them!) and visor, which I'm pretty sure one of them thought was now hers. They are adorable, happy, jealous, whiny, funny, carefree, wonderful, normal girls - although there are quite a few fights to put out since they are all the same age and fighting over the same resources of people, time, and toys. But it is obvious that they are doing really well - a testament to the awesome people who take care of them and love them. I found myself (obviously) loving them too - even though those three hours tired me out completely.

I don't know if we are doing anything this afternoon or not - its pretty easygoing around here, which fits me perfectly. Things happen when and if they happen. But I am loving the card games, the prayers, the welcome, and the time spent trying to communicate to little girls who only speak Romanian and call me both "Michela" and "Americano."

More to come!