Catholic vs. Orthodox

This week was an interesting one. I ended up getting a stomach bug from George and oh man. It was so bad. I was like REALLY sick for like 24 hours. But, finally, it passed. Fr. Remus and Iulia took good care of me. So, with that going on, I didn't get to go to the orphanage until Saturday. Nothing really any different happened than usual, so I'm going to write about what I've spent a lot of time thinking about...

So...Catholicism vs. Orthodoxy...I really don't know much about the beliefs of Orthodox Christians, but living in a country where 95% of the people consider themselves Orthodox Christians, I figured I probably should start learning. I know the break happened in 1054 with the Great Schism. I'm not going to go into all that because then this post will be the longest blog post ever. If you want to know what that is, Google it.

Living in a country that used to be part of the Eastern Block and under Communism until 1989 means that pretty much what happened was people were told to convert to Orthodox Christianity or die. Most people did so. Some did not and were killed. Some remained Catholic and went to underground churches and still others converted back to Catholicism after the fall of Communism.

My first question was about the liturgy of the Orthodox. It's called the Divine Liturgy just like it is in the Byzantine rite of Catholicism and Fr. Remus told me that because I don't speak too much Romanian yet, I wouldn't know the difference between the Byzantine liturgy and the Orthodox liturgy. There are VERY minor differences in some of the words of the liturgy and that's about it.

Something I have noticed though...I have been in Romania 6 weeks now and I have yet to see the Orthodox priests. Yes, I work with the Catholic priest, so I see him every day, but I asked him about it and he said that the Orthodox priests say the liturgy and then go back to their house and that's pretty much it. The Orthodox people will actually ask Fr. Remus questions because they don't see their own priests as much. Fr. Remus makes a conscious decision to walk to and from Liturgy in his cassock. He wants people to be able to approach him and they do. I've seen is countless times.

Fr. Remus said that each week, fewer and fewer people are going to the Orthodox Liturgy and they are going to the Pentecostal church. A few of them have come to the Catholic church and some have continued to come. But, here's where the hatred comes in. People in this town talk. Everyone knows everyone's business, even what you buy at the store. It's crazy. It's happened on multiple occasions where someone has come to our church and is seen by someone else. The Orthodox priests then get word and reprimand the person. It's not a physical reprimand like it used to be, but it's some very harsh words.

This is just something that I have been thinking about since I got here. The difference is so little and yet so much.

Today, we went to Mariapocs, Hungary to a Byzantine church with a miraculous icon held within it. It was a long day...I was up at 5:15am (ughhhhhhhh...) and we drove 3 hours with a bus full of Romanians to a humble little town of about 2,800 people. The church is BEAUTIFUL!

The Generosity and Beauty of Romania

As I said last week, I had a flat tire up in the mountains, so on Monday, Fr. Remus and a mechanic from town went up to fix the tire. It took a grand total of 4 1/2 hours to fix. Turt-Bai is about 6 miles from where I live, so it's not all that far, but the roads are the epitome of the word "awful." I've been on the dirt roads in Haiti which are horrible themselves, but these roads...oh my gosh. They can't even be compared. Fr. Remus bought his brother's Land Rover, so it was a lot easier to get up into the mountains in that than my little Volkswagon Passat. So, after we got there, it was a combination of the effort of 5 grown men to fix it. On Sunday when we were there and Fr. Remus came to my rescue, as we were trying to change the tire, we found that one of the bolts on the tire was an anti-theft bolt. Well, imagine 3 men with hammers and chisels trying to break it off. Well, they only messed it up, so on Monday, it took welding 2 bolts onto the anti-theft one to get it off (Can I just say THANK GOD for the generous spirit of Romanians. A guy who lived further up the mountain brought his welding machine down to where we were). Once we got it off, we had to drive back down the mountain to get the right size tire. Then, we went back up and put the new one on. I was so relieved.

Since we were most of the way up the mountain, Fr. Remus wanted to take me the rest of the way up the mountain where there is a monestary. At the top, you can see the town we live in at the bottom. The sun was beginning to set and I can honestly say that I have never in my entire life seen a sunset like that. Being in the fresh mountain air, looking over Turt, and seeing the sun set, I was left speechless. It was amazing. I took some pictures, but I was reminded of the lesson God taught me when I was studying in Austria: no picutres can ever catch the true beauty of things like that. The pictures are good, but they don't even begin to show the beauty. It was amazing.

Turt from the top of the mountain

On Wednesday I went to Satu Mare with Fr. Remus to pick up a van donated by a German foundation and to pick up the projector donated to us by the wonderful Newman family. On Thursday, we went to Baia Mare to do some shopping for George. Living out in the boonies of Romania means you can get all that much stuff out here. It's a pretty big city and I was definitely glad to get back out to the country after a long day there. Cities are too busy for me. I don't really like them. I enjoy my little country town where you can hear cows moo-ing in the distance.

I had been so busy that I hadn't been able to get to the orphanage until Friday and then, I ended up not even getting there. Long story. Haha.On Friday, I met a woman who during the time of Communism here was injured and ended up with a horrible infection in her leg and because of the strictness of the Communists, couldn't get the simple medicine that would have kept her out of the hell she went through. The infection got so bad that she had to have 4 surgeries to save her leg. Today, she walks normally, but she showed me the scars. Insane. Through her tears, she said "Isus este motivul pentru care sunt inca aici" which means "Jesus is why I am still here." Her faith was amazing and inspiring.

I FINALLY got to the orphanage yesterday and it was SO wonderful to be back. I pulled in and the kids came sprinting at the car. It was so good to hear the kids screaming "KATE!!" trying to get my attention. I absolutely love the sound of their laughter. It brings so much joy to my heart. I can't help but smile when they laugh. I think that the sound of their laughter is my favorite thing in the entire world right now.

Whenever I go to the orphanage, I take a few of the teens from the church with me. I love taking them with me and they must love going because they always want me to take them. One of them is 15-year-old Ioana. Vasile, the guy who is always trying to get me to help him kill animals, is her dad. I am so grateful for their family. Whenever I bring Ioana home, they feed me dinner and we just hang out for a little while. They always send me home with fruit they've grown. Right now, there are 2 huge shopping bags full of grapes and 1 full of apples on my counter. SO MUCH FRUIT!! Hahaha. But they are wonderful. They always want to take me to do things and they have made me feel so welcome and so loved here. Just another example of the Romanian spirit that I am so fond of.

Last night, I went outside and looked up and could see so many stars. It reminded me of laying on the roof of the orphanage in Haiti this past March when I was there on a mission trip. I couldn't see nearly that many stars, but I could see a lot more than in Cincinnati. It was amazing. I love this country so much and being here just feels so right :)

Missionary problems of the week:
-Seeing someone wearing a shirt with a completely inappropriate phrase in English on it and you're pretty sure they don't actually know what it says because no one who could read it would actually EVER wear it in public. Hahaha
-Being pulled over by the police for no apparent reason and the cop thinks your from England because that's your last name...(long story. expired license plates. no ticket)

Because They Were Happy

While growing up, I was that kid who LOVED new school supplies. Going "back-to-school" shopping was one of my favorite things to do. So when Gina (13), Flavio (11), Beni (9), and Codrut (6) were excited to show me their new school supplies, I knew where they were coming from. These 4 are siblings, and from what I was able to gather from Gina in the little bit of English that she knows, they have a mother, but not a father. I don't know the whole story, and honestly, I don't want to know it because I would be willing to bet everything I have that they were abandoned, which is the most common way kids end up in an orpahanage in Romania. The new school supplies were sent by their mom, and I can't even express how excited they were to show me. We were in the middle of playing a game when Beni turns to me and goes, "Kate, sus!" meaning that he wanted me to go up to the kids' bedrooms with him. When we got there, he and Flavio VERY excitedly showed me their new backpacks and they started pulling things out of their backpacks like crazy, getting more and more excited as they pulled out the next thing. It was adorable. Then we went to Gina's room, where her and Codrut's backpacks were (Gina had to keep Codrut's because he kept trying to use the stuff he needed to save for school. Typical Codrut. Hahaha). As she and Codrut were showing me their new things, Gina explained to me in her broken English that this was the first time they have had new school supplies. My heart broke. Every year before school started, my mom would take me to Target to get new school stuff and whenever I needed something new, I could easily get it. But, to see the joy that they had over their new things for school made me happy too just because THEY were happy. 

I spent most of my time at the orphanage on Wednesday with 15-year-old Larisa. I first met her 2 weeks ago. She and I have really clicked. She speaks a decent amount of English, so it works. We spent some time watching MTV (which over here, there is actually music on it. Hahaha). It was then that she tapped me on the shoulder and said "Friends." I was confused and she said "you and me. Friends?" I said "Absolutely" and she smiled bigger than I've ever seen. I see a lot of my 15-year-old self in Larisa. From what she's shared with me, she's been through some rough stuff, but knows that there is a reason for it. Larisa struggles with the same kind of stuff I did when i was 15. I ended up being just fine, but that came through the help of the Lord. She's struggling with how she feels about God, so i'm hoping to help her. I pray that in time, she can see the Lord the way I see Him. 

I spent time at the orphanage every day this week and it was great :)

So here is where I begin my new thing. I'm going to call them missionary problems. They're actually quite hilarious. It all began on Friday when I was asked by Vasile to help kill a bull on Saturday morning. I refused. I was like "Not a chance!" Needless to say, I wasn't there yesterday when they killed it. So, then after Divine Liturgy today, I went to Vasile's house to hang out with his daughter, Ioana. About halfway through lunch, I (VERY STUPIDLY) asked Ioana what we were eating. It turns out I was eating the brain of the bull they killed yesterday. I didn't have much of an appetite after that. After lunch, I took Ioana and her mom up into the mountains to see a relative and a rock punctured one of my tires and it is completely flat. So, my car is at that relative's house sitting there until we can get a new tire tomorrow. And those are my missionary problems of this week. Hahaha. 

My biggest struggle at this point is trying to remain in the moment. I've been here for a month, but for some reason, I keep thinking about when I'm leaving. I plan on coming back after a little "Christmas vacation" at home in Cincinnati, but I find myself having to remind myself that I have 3 more months here and A LOT can happen (and knowing how God likes to do crazy things in my life, I'm sure a lot will happen).

I am so in love with this country. It is SO beautiful and I am so blessed to be here. Everyday, I wake up and I think to myself "You are in Romania!" I waited for over a year to come back to Romania. Since the day our mission trip ended in April 2011, I knew I had to get back here. This place changed me as a person. When I was back in Austria, my friends said that they could actually see a change. They said I was smiling a lot more and I was a different person. I'm not going to lie when I say it was ridiculously hard to wait to get here. There were days I wanted to just quit school and come here and be a missionary. There were quite a few of those days this past year, but now that I am here, I know it's the perfect time for me to be here. I came here not in my time, but in God's time.

The Joy of a Child and the Lamb of God

This week has been much better than last week. Thank you for your prayers.

On Moday, Fr. Remus and I went to the house of one of the parishoners to get some water from the well (best water I've ever had, by the way). Up until 4 years ago, everyone in town had to go to this well or the one on the other side of town for water. Can you believe that? This town didn't have running water until 2008! But after we got the water from the well, we sat outside and talked with the family. It was an elderly couple and their 50-year-old son, Aurel, who takes care of them. Aurel speaks some English, so that helped a lot. But as we sat there and talked, I looked over the hill and I could see the fields on the outskirts of town and the mountains in the background. The beauty of this country just constantly leaves me speechless. I never could really find God in nature until I studied in Austria and to now be surrounded by the beauty of the mountains that are the border between Romania and the Ukraine, oh man. It just leaves me speechless. So, after I took in the beauty I was seeing from the hill, I closed my eyes and all I could say was "Thank You, Lord." 

On Tuesday, I went to the orphanage and took 3 soccer balls which were a HIT! The joy on their faces when I pulled the rainbow soccer balls out of my trunk just made my heart explode with happiness. It was so great. For about an hour, we played with the balls, everything from the kids seeing how high they could kick it to just regular old soccer. A window actually got broken by Iourri, who is 9. It was kinda funny. I had to try so hard not to laugh. But do you want to know what made me the most happy? The little kids wanted me to color with them, so I sat down and before I knew it, I had 7 pictures colored for me with my name written on them and things like flowers drawn on them. My favorite one? The one drawn by 5-year-old Joseph. It's literally just a bunch of scribbles. It's so cute. I will treasure those pictures forever.

On Wednesday, a group of 4 people came from the "Churches in Need" Foundation based in Germany. The Foundation donated a lot of money to the building of Fr. Remus' new house. One of the people that came was a Jesuit brother who works under the bishop of the diocese here in Romania. He told me that he was so glad I am here and just the fact that I am here is a witness to the live of God. It was an encouraging word that came at the right moment. 

Later in the week, I took 3 of the teens from the church to the orphanage with me. We spent 3 hours just hanging out with the kids. I taught the little kids some English and they taught me some Romanian. It's a good system. Hahaha. I have been asked to teach a few of the parishioners English, so that should start up in the next couple weeks. 

I was thrown into Romanian countryside culture pretty harshly yesterday. That makes it sound so much worse than it actually was. Hahaha. But yesterday, I helped Vasile, one of the most active parishioners in the church, kill and skin a sheep. It was an experience to say the least. He asked me if I wanted to cut the sheep's throat. I politely declined. Hahaha. So, I held the sheep's horns while Vasile cut it's throat. It was kinda gross. Okay, it was really gross, but not nearly as gross as when I was here last year and his family killed a pig for us. That was just...ugh. Yuck is the only word I can think of to describe it. Okay. Back to the sheep. After it was dead, Vasilie hung it up on a tree and started skinning it. I watched for a while and then he handed me the knife. I was hesitant, but then I thought about my senior year of high school anatomy class. If I can skin and disect a cat, I can skin a sheep. So, I did it from the sheep's back hips to halfway up its rib cage. I then gladly handed the knife back to Vasile. After it was skinned, he gutted it. Here's where things got really funny. As he is pulling organs out of the sheep, he is teaching me the names for them in Romanian. It was hilarious. When there was an organ I couldn't tell what it was and didn't understand the Romanian, Vasile proceeded to blow air into what turned out to be the sheep's lungs. Yes, he put his mouth on the trachea and blew up the lungs. I was so grossed out by that and a huge chill went down my spine. I shivered, which then caused Vasile to start laughing hysterically. Vasile is this like HUGE 6'5 guy in his late 40s. Imagine him on the ground laughing because he grossed me out so bad. It was great :)

Now to make the whole sheep-killing experience theological. I wouldn't be a Franciscan University alum if I couldn't somehow tie it all into God. Hahaha. So, they call Jesus "The Lamb of God" right? Well, at His crucifixion, Jesus didn't put up a fight. It is said that He was like a lamb for slaughter. For the first time, I truly understood that. When Vasile brought up the sheep, it was quiet and as I held its horns, it didn't put up a fight. It was silent. The pig that they killed for us last year? Not so much. It made so much noise and fought so hard. That's part of what made it so much worse than the sheep. I now totally understand why they said Jesus was like a lamb being led to slaughter. 

I absolutely love it here and at this point, I am seriously considering sticking around Romania for a long time. I'm praying a lot about it and ask that you would keep my decision in your prayers as well. 

Ups and Downs

This past week has been one filled with ups and downs. I knew going into this that mission work wasn't going to be 100% dandy all the time, but I guess I didn't expect the "downs" so quick. The rush of being in a new place is gone and culture shock has hit pretty hard. I'm in a place that is completely different than everything I am used to. Thanks to an e-mail from the ever awesome Fr. Shawn, one of the friars at Franciscan, I was reminded that I must be patient with myself because I am in a new place and no one expects me to be fluent in Romanian or know every single thing about the culture here. I am a 22-year-old who was raised in a Cincinnati, Ohio now living in the countryside of Romania. It's COMPLETELY different.

This week, I spent so much time at the orphanage and it's been great. The kids are just so full of love. They are so funny. They always want me to stay and eat with them. So, I have stayed to eat dinner with them twice this past week. I have decided that next week, I am going to buy some soccer balls because the kids don't have any. I was shocked. We played soccer with a plastic wheel off a kids toy. That not only broke my heart, but also made me a little angry. People all over the world are so materialstic and that frustrates the crap out of me. They won't give up ONE Starbucks coffee to buy a soccer ball for kids who have to play soccer with a plastic wheel. These kids don't have shoes that fit correctly or are broken and play with empty shampoo bottles. Tell me that's fair. It's not. And that makes me SO angry. When I got back to my apartment on Thursday night, I cried because of it. But, what's so amazing about all this is that the kids still have so much joy. They get so excited when they see my car coming down the driveway. So, as frustrated as I get, when I see the smiles of the kids, I know why the Lord has called me back to Romania. There is a quote in the movie "Transsiberian" that says it all: "Is it not in the smiling face of a child that we find the true wonder of God's grace?"

I finding myself really missing the Roman rite of Catholicism. The nearest Roman Catholic church is pretty far away, so realistically, I can't get there without some serious strategic planning. I would do pretty much anything to go to Mass right now. The Byzantine rite is in full communion with the Holy See, so their Eucharist is the same as the Roman rite...if any of that makes any sense? I know what I mean, so that's all that matters. Hahaha. To put it simply, all of the Byzantine Sacraments are valid to the Roman rite of Catholicism. I am having a hard time with knowing really what is going on because I have only ever been to the Divine Liturgy in English once and it was a funeral that was when I was studying in Gaming, Austria. I have tried my best to do my research on the Liturgy, but because it's in Romanian, it makes it that much harder.

Yesterday, there was a party for George. He turned 2 :) Iulia's parents came in from Cluj-Napoca, which is about 4 hours from here. They brought a cake for George in the shape of a soccer ball and when he saw it, his face lit up and he started giggling. It was the cutest thing ever.Needless to say, it was a big party.

I know this post is all over the place, but hey. That's how things are right now.

Please keep praying for me. Your prayers are what's getting me through the hard times.

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!