Romania Adventure Part 2

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Dreams and Copii

*This post was not easy to write and may not make sense. There's not words that fit the things I felt/feel.

TODAY I SAW THE KIDS. MY KIDS. (OK, they aren't exactly "mine," but that's how it feels)

I don't know if there is a way to express with words the way I felt today. For the past 6 months, I have been dreaming of this day and of this time I could be back with the kids I fell in love with this past summer. I walked inside the orphanage and memories came flooding back. It took all my willpower to not jolt up the stairs and see the kids right then. I waited (im)patiently to meet with the director of the orphanage, Teo (the psychologist, and my personal hero), and Mario (our in-country facilitator) to go over some things before we toured the orphanage and started working with the kids. I was so happy to see Teo! She is incredible. I wish everyone could meet her and know how great she is, but take my word for it.

Changing into my scrubs felt so normal and routine and it made me relax because I knew I would finally see my kids. We toured the orphanage. We walked in each room of kids. Teo introduced the girls to the educators/workers in each room.

I barely noticed. All I felt was pure joy. Pure happiness and comfort. All the anxiety I've been feeling left. There were my kids. Their smiles and laughter and cute little voices. I can't count how many times I teared up. Tears of joy. I kept thinking I would lose it, but I reminded myself that crying would only confuse people and smiling worked just as well or better. Each room held a special surprise for me. In each room there was a familiar face - one or two of the kids that had been in the hospital or clinic, sitting alone in cribs all day, were there in the orphanage! A place where they would be taken care of and could always have other kids to be around and play with/near.

My favorite little boy from the clinic was in the first room we went into and I had no idea he'd be there. My heart almost burst. Then we went to another room and I saw four more kids from the hospital and clinic - playing and smiling and looking much healthier than when I last saw them. The time that really got me was when we visited the last room. Anyone that has heard me talk about "Puflet" (the name is a long story, it's not his name, and as soon as I found out his name I used it, but I won't write it here), knows that he had my heart from the first time I picked him up in the hospital. I spent a lot of time worrying about him when I left, wondering where he would go or who would play with him or take care of him. Teo asked me if I knew him and we turned the corner and there he was, sitting on a chair, cute as a button and I really had to hold back tears. I got to hold my little Puflet. I can die happy.

Going into my old room in the orphanage, the one I worked in last time, there's really no words. I don't think I can overstate my happiness at seeing my kids. I don't know if they remembered me or if they just wanted to play with someone, but they all rushed over and hugged my legs and reached up for me to pick them up. One of my favorite boys melted my heart when he said, "Ziua, Kelsey, Ziua!" Last time, Kelsey Fraser and I (Chelsea) had practically the same name so everyone just called us both Kelsey because it's easier to say. Everyday we would say "Buna ziua!" and he would reply, "Ziua, Kelsey, Ziua!" (I just tried to write how this made me feel but after ten different adjectives/sentences - no words really express it.)

This may seem unimportant or irrelevant or somehow not that big of a deal to many of you. And I get that completely. It's hard to be excited about or love people you don't know. But I know that most of you understand how much these kids and people mean to me, so hopefully you can think about someone you really love and about how it would feel to think you wouldn't see them again, find out you would get to see them again, anxiously wait to see them, and then finally reunite, and maybe you can see how this was an incredibly special day for me.

I wish that I could end with that and write about how excited and happy I am to be spending the next three months with my kids, but I guess I have been feeling for a long time that this time around wouldn't be exactly how I imagined it to be. Now nothing is for sure yet, but there is a strong chance that I can't work in the room I did last time. I'm not sure about why not. I've tried to act like it's not a big deal to everyone here but if I'm being honest - I'm heartbroken. I'm mature enough to understand that the orphanage knows what's best and will have us work where we are needed most. And I know I possess a strong love for ALL the kids there and will love whichever kids I am blessed to work with everyday. But I can't ignore the fact that being with "my kids" again has been a dream I have built up and looked forward to for 6 months. Only getting to say hi to them as I pass their room or see them in the halls... it'd be incredibly difficult. This probably sounds dramatic. I'm sorry. Actually I'm not. I'm not sorry that I have/had hopes and love those kids so much that not getting to be with them and continue those bonds is incredibly painful for me. That is the truth. That is my reality. Take it how you will. I will love the kids I work with, and I will always love the kids I worked with last time. It's simple. But I have dreamed of this semester and of all the time I would get to be with my kids. But I guess sometimes you have to face disappointments and rise to accept and make the best of what life hands you.

I will hopefully blog about how things are going in a week or two. I just need a period to adjust and reopen my heart... I can be pretty slow about that sometimes.

Monday, January 21, 2013

First days back in Iasi

Well I have lots of time to write today. I have been sick since yesterday, so I’m taking a second day of rest to make sure I feel better for the orphanage on Wednesday. I GET TO SEE MY KIDS ON WEDNESDAY!!! It’s all I’ve wanted to do since I left in July, and I can’t believe it’s less than 48 hours away now. I’m so happy to be back in Romania, even with the snow and slush and cold.

Sarahy, Megan, and I left London early Wednesday morning with a flight to Bucharest, the capital of Romania. We get through security and exchange our money and have plenty of time, so my stress level is very low at this point. That lasted about 20 minutes because I looked at the departure gate board and our flight was delayed an hour. Normally I wouldn’t care or be stressed about this, but we only had two hours from when we landed in Bucharest to when our train left the station and we had to get through customs, get our bags, find Katelyn somewhere in the airport, take the 30-45 minute bus ride to the station, and find our train. So I was freaking. The next hour and forty-five minutes brought a host of emotions, people around me probably thought I was schizophrenic. Being the facilitator is so different – you feel responsible for everyone and for how things happen (although most of them are out of your control). Anyways, they finally evacuated the dog from “quarantine” and we finally boarded the plane. And yes, it was frustrating that it took an hour and a half to get people off a plane completely and make a huge fuss about a dog being evacuated from an airplane, BUT who am I to judge, the only info I got was the announcement – “We are deeply sorry for the delay, but we are waiting for the plane to remove the canine from the aircraft, which is being quarantined right now. We will alert you when we are ready for boarding.” Repeated 4 times. Only because of his delightful British accent, did this announcement not elicit full frustration from yours truly.

I tried to relax on the plane, but it was hard to do when I kept getting out my phone to calculate how soon we’d land based on the speed of the plane and the distance left to travel. Nerd alert. I finally changed my prayer from “let us get to our train on time,” to “help us to be comforted if we need to change our plans and be ok with it and to somehow get to where we need to go smoothly and safely.” With that and the acceptance that we definitely weren’t going to make our train and would have to purchase tickets again, I relaxed. Maybe too much.

So we found Katelyn, thank goodness. Then we went outside and of course were bombarded with all the taxi drivers wanting to take us somewhere. In the back of my head, I knew that taking a taxi from the airport would lead to getting ripped-off, but the girls decided they wanted to do it and that maybe our train was delayed a half hour and we could still make it and it might be worth it. Our driver was nice enough, but of course, charged us way too much money. I would have argued, but I was so tired and nervous about what we were going to do when we got to the train station, that I didn’t really try. I feel bad about that.

I know many of you who are reading may have different religious beliefs than I do, and I hope you won’t be turned off of reading my blog even though I will refer to my beliefs quite often. But you know, I believe what happened next was a little miracle in my life and I am amazed at how Heavenly Father answers prayers. I do not believe for one second that it was a mere coincidence that we were there and needed help on mission transfer day, when all the missionaries from Romania/Moldova were gathered at the train station to travel to their new areas. I almost cried. Not that I wasn’t confident that we could figure things out or that I could buy tickets, I was just relieved to see familiar faces and know that if we did have a problem, there were people that I could trust and get help from. They recognized us about the same time and some of them walked over. I was so excited – Elder Slemboski! I had met him last time in Sibiu and there he was, ready to help and remembered me and as it turns out, he and the others who came over to us are the missionaries serving in Iasi! They let us use their phone to call Mario, but she didn’t answer. (I ended up FB messaging Teo from the orphanage asking her to call Mario and that is how Mario knew we would be coming on the night train instead. Teo saves the day as usual!) They were also getting on the night train to Iasi, so they offered to get our tickets when they got ours, which was a relief. Elder Slemboski even tried to get us a refund on our other tickets, but they wouldn’t do it. It was so nice of him though.

We spent about 5.5 hours at the train station. I spent most of my time trying to get in contact with people in charge at BYU and Teo and Mario and my family. But I also got to talk to a lot of the missionaries, ones that I knew from before and also ones I met for the first time there. Sister missionaries rock, by the way. I want to go on a mission so badly (Although, if I don’t end up going, you’ll definitely read more on this blog about how I feel strongly that this time in Romania is my mission in a lot of ways). I got caught up on how all the members are doing from the missionaries and in return, updated the missionaries on people at home and stuff like that. It was a good time.

Elder Eaton

Elder Jones

Mario and her best friend’s husband met us at the train station and got us to our apartment.

Across the street from our apartment - 6am

Since then, we’ve just been exploring and getting settled in. I took the girls to see the orphanage, church building, and other places in the city.

Piața

Their first covrig!

We went to Palas (the big mall) and they really liked it – I forgot how nice and how huge it is… and how it is America in my backyard.

(clitate at Palas)

We also went to kiss St. Parascheva’s hand at the Metropolitan Church. She is considered the protector of this region and people go to kiss her hand (her bones are there in the church supposedly) and offer a prayer. It is such a neat experience to see how people worship here.

I cannot wait to go to the orphanage. I don’t know if I have enough room in my heart for the emotions I’m going to have on Wednesday. I hope I don’t cry the whole day because of happiness. I need to pray for my heart to expand because I want to fully enjoy every moment these next three months!

Friday, January 18, 2013

THE LONDON LIFE

SO, before I start my blog about Romania, I'm taking a slight detour because we stopped in London from Sunday to Wednesday morning. It was a blast and we saw and did so many cool things. Because I don't want to bore anyone with too much writing and I don't want to get behind on blogging (I'm trying to be better about posting than last time), I'll just post pictures with captions for ya'll. More to come about the first days in Romania - which by the way, I'm seriously overjoyed to be back and already so impatient to get started at the orphanage and hospital. I took the girls to see the orphanage and church building today just to help them get a feel for how long it takes and where things are, and it went against all my instincts not to run inside the orphanage and see my kiddos! Anyways, poftiți (here ya go)!