The End. And Now Our Story Begins…

Beautiful. Awe-inspiring. Wonderful. Great. It’s just a wonderful, beautiful life. You see hard times, you see good times. You see problems and you see blessings. You see failures and you see victories. Even with people, you see their good side and their bad. You see your good qualities and have a gignormous spotlight pointed at all of your shortcomings. I don’t even know what to say about it, to express how I feel and how it was. I’m just very satisfied, really joyful, thankful, content, at peace about it all. It was all really good. And that’s how it should have been. I loved it for the bad times as much as the good times. I learned a lot about balance in life and I feel like I have matured a lot on this trip, become a lot more discerning on this trip, hopefull become wiser on this trip. I didn’t feel like a different person when I arrived, while I was there, when I left, when I arrived again in Tennessee. Same ole’ me. But I do think that I might have learned some stuff and done some good along the way, and that is just so so valuable, my having living for others and for God just made it all so worth it. And as I look at the sky tonight, and see the clouds, I remember the beauty that I witnessed there. And as I spend time with my people here again, I remember the relationships formed and the lives touched, including my own. Because of this trip, I have felt more pain and more joy than I even could have without it: and it was all worth it. And it wasn’t that the joy was worth it because of the pain: both were worth it, in and of themselves. They are both beautiful, in their time. And it’s satisfying because the end is better than the beginning. And it’s full because I not only enjoyed my life, but I also gave of my joy. And it’s purposeful because it is not for me, it’s for others, because it is for God. I’m just really amazed at it all. Thanks Lumos for all of it. It was stupefyingly super-duper.

Well, I suppose that I should tell you how it all ended and how everything went down. There were tears. There were lots of hugs. There were well-wishes and exchanges of contact information. There was closure. And there were a few more events that were out of the ordinary.

The first of which was another camp! Yay camps! This one was with Caminul Felix at Barajul Lesu. I went together with their family and it was a splendid time!

We had the wonderful experience of enjoying Nature’s bounty by picking wild berries every day...

Went on nature hikes...

Saw a local waterfall...

Had campfires every night where we told stories, sang songs, played games and looked at the extremely large number of visible stars...

Ate scrumpdiliumpcious food...

Searched for the local fresh-water lobsters in the streams and swam in the crystal mountain rivers...

Played games with the kids like soccer, volleyball, Frisbee, lacrosse, Catan, chess, and the list goes on...

(The fellas actually really liked chess, which, of course, brought great joy to my heart, hahaha. 🙂 )

And enjoyed the full beauty of my wondrous homeland...

One of the kids had even brought an English assignment that he wanted me to help him with. As a nerd, it touched my heart. As a teacher, it brought me joy. As a mentor, it encouraged me. As a friend, it again touched my heart, because I know why he brought it. It’s in the little things that you sometimes notice a lot. We definitely had a wonderful time together, just being silly and having a lot of fun together, but what I think that I loved the most was the conversations that I was able to have with them, talking about who they are, what is going on in their lives, what happened in their past, and how they see themselves and their future. A lot of these kids don’t really have someone that they open up to, someone who pours into their lives who wants what is best for them. I remember when I first started to open up to people: it was huge. It completely changed the course of my life and brought about several of the most marked changes that have ever happened in my life. To think that I might be able to be that for these kids is just really humbling. It’s kind of interesting and kind of weird at the same time: that with all that I’ve invested, I have no idea what kind or how great of an impact I had on them, and will never know. But hey, that’s relationships. That’s life. And it’s good. But saying goodbye was still really hard.

Here we are all together one last time before I left, right after I gave them their presents.

Whew. Get emotional thinking about it. Huzzah for picture overload! But hey, this is kind of my last post, so why not!

Then I had to say goodbye to my Tileagd kids, which wasn’t any easier at all. But it was a great last session! We sang tons of songs, English and Romanian, I heard each of them play what they had learned on the mandolin, and then I gave them each their presents: tons of candy and gum and books! In fact, I built them a mini-library! So, I looked around the country for good bilingual story books in English and Romanian(really hard to find and really expensive when you do), to help them learn to read better, even if I’m not there, creating a whole system of leveling up in difficulties, using books with tons of pictures, explanations, especially Disney themed ones or classic stories. Not all the children were at that last session, so I organized a way for each of them to get their candy and gum, even if they weren’t there, but with the books, it was a different story. I wanted all of the children to benefit from these books. They were receiving these as a group. And all of the children were totally fine with that. We set up a system of checking the books out and have all of the books in the classroom where we held our lessons every session. As I mentioned, I bought the books in such a way for them to be stories that interested them, both when it comes to age, but also as a progression, that as they read through them, they steadily gain a better understanding of the English language, so much so as to be able to read even at a more advanced level. I gave them the books, and then we had STORY TIME!!!! I love story time! 🙂 I showed them how they could go and work through these together, and helped them read it out loud in English and Romanian, pointing out important concepts, rules of pronunciation, and so on. It was wonderful. We read a couple of them. Then, of course, we went outside and played some soccer, because not-America. It was a great end to a great time. After that and some other assorted games, it was done. I said my goodbyes and I straddled off to hitchhike my way back to Oradea. Oh yeah, by the way, did I mention that in Romania, hitchhiking is not only legal, but a large portion of the population’s main method of travel (outside of the ole OnFoote)? Yeah. I did it many times. And I didn’t even need a hitchhiker’s thumb. Skill. It was exciting. In fact, some people give hitchhikers rides as a job. That is the extensiveness of this mode of transportation. It’s great. Hitchhiked off into the sunset. Modern Eastern European Western. Yes. Funness is wonderful. But anyways, pictures!!!

(Yep, that road is our soccer field! And we are playing in flip-flops, because the intensity of the champion life is even greater that way.)

And then of course, I can’t forget my last visit to the Charis Center, the ole hallowed home base.

I looked over some of our final work there before I left, and as the grapes began to ripen in the vineyard I said goodbye to my peeps from the hood...

Especially my man Daniel: it was wonderful getting to know him, getting to pour into each other’s lives, working along him, teaching him, and having him teach me. I loved it and I’m going to miss that guy.