Moldovan Sex Symbol......Perhaps

Today was eventful.

This morning we got up early and headed to the orphanage to hand out more coats. A lot of this week has been spent doing that. We've also been measuring the kids and entering into a spreadsheet to help as we provide clothing for them. When we passed out all the coats it was time to wrangle them into a group picture. We went outside and lined the kids up on some steps. It was a little overwhelming to see all of the kids in their coats and to see how many lives have been touched by a simple gift.

From there it was on to lunch. We ate at a traditional Moldovan restaurant where I enjoyed "roast beef in a pot." It was just like it sounds. They brought out a little pot with roast beef, potatoes and this sort of tomato/carrot sauce (it wasn't quite a stew). We also had these really amazing pie things with cottage cheese, cabbage and this dill tasting stuff in it. All delicious, but going right to my thighs. It's okay though, I drank coke light.

After lunch we had a meeting with the contractor who we'll be working with on our transitional living house. The meeting was very productive and I think he really understands what we are looking for in this house. He also talks about doing things the right way, which is comforting to hear.

Then it was on to have a meeting with the Vice Mayor of the city the orphanage is in. This was a good meeting and encouraging since we now have a relationship with somebody in the government. About halfway through the meeting, the Vice Mayor decided that I should date her daughter since she speaks English and I am a single male. She brought it up several times and kept motioning for me to call her. She must have done that four or five times. Just before we left she busted out some pictures so I could check her out for myself. It didn't stop there. She began to tell me about her daughter's skills in chess. Apparently she is the back to back to back Moldovan junior chess champion. At least she speaks English. This kind of thing has happened a few times since I've been here. Perhaps my child-bearing hips and chubby cheeks are a desired male trait here. That's exciting. Also, the director of the orphanage, Galina, grabbed my ear in a very gentle way. That's something of which I don't know what to think.

We left the mayor's office and came to our last meetings of the day. I was meeting the guys we employ to discuss salary and the next year of their jobs. The meetings went well and almost all of the guys felt good about the system. Ivan, decided that he would try to talk us into paying more.

He felt like he should be making more money than we were offering. He told me that he could get a job that was easier and paid better. I told him that he should take the job then. After all, he was in a transitional living program. The point was to get him to a place in life where he could be independent. If he could find a job that would pay better then that is what we wanted. He just kept telling us that we should pay him more because he could get a job that would be similar and pay better. I kept telling him that he should take the job. It was fun to watch him give it a shot. I hope he does find a job that pays like he says we should. That will be a part of him becoming independent but he needs so much more. Money isn't enough, for any of us. I hope Ivan will stay with us a while before he starts making the big dollars.

Like I said, it was an eventful day. I distributed coats, ate some meat in a pot, met the vice mayor, got a potential date with an English-speaking Moldovan chess champion, was told I was a cheap employer and even had my ear caressed by the director of the orphanage.

Drunk Monkey?

Here is some info that some of you have asked for:

1. If you would like to give to sweet sleep, click on the link to its website on the upper right on this blog or here http://www.sweetsleep.org/. If there is an specific area you would like your funds to go, such as English classes for the boys, you can specify that on the memo line on your check. Also, if you got money eating a hole in your pocket, consider sponsoring a child or donating to the house budget.
2. If you want to email me, you can do so at twbedi@samford.edu Please have patience on the reply. I've not taught my pet monkey to type yet. He can dance and makes fun little hats out of old newspapers. We're working on the typing.
3. If you are sponsoring a child, it will be very difficult for me to check up on him or her. There are a whole lot of kids here and I am not working much with the kids who are still in the orphanage. I'll be working more with the guys who are already out. Although I wish I could provide you with that information (I do know how precious they are to you), it will be very difficult for me to do. However, if somebody out there would like to take that role on, move here to Moldova and raise his/her support, we should talk.
4. Yes, it is freezing cold here. I've heard it is abnormally cold this winter. I've also heard that in a zoo somewhere in Russia they are giving wine to the monkeys so they will stay warm. It sounds highly entertaining to me. There is no telling what kind of trouble a pack of drunk monkeys would get into. (note: I've not given any alcohol, of any kind, to my monkey although he does get cold at night)
5. I don't have a pet monkey. It is just quite late. When it gets late, I get stupid and you get a pretty lame post. Sorry. But hey, you can complain about it in an email.

It's time for dinner now let's go eat

Church today.

3.75 hours, seriously.

Just the service.

Entirely in Romanian.

I'm proud to say, I didn't fall asleep once.

Afterwords, we took Vasille and Ivan out to eat. Guess where? That's right, McDonalds. I am about McSick of the Golden Arches. The good news is we made some great contacts with people at the church. It is amazing how suffering brings people together. We'll be able to get our guys some English classes. It will cost around $100 each month for six of them to have two classes a week. Anybody interested in helping some boys learn English?

This week the guys will be showing me the bed-making process and we will be putting together some wardrobes that were donated to the orphanage by a relief organization. It will be our first time to do physical work together. I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully, I'll look like I know what I'm doing.

We also get to do some pretty fun stuff tomorrow. We'll be distributing the rest of the new winter coats provided by EMI CMG to about 475 kids (we will have provided over 1000 new coats this Christmas). Handing those coats out is a pretty awesome experience. Cheers to EMI for doing some good in this world.

rachel ray on 40 lei a day

Action shopper. Oh how I love grocery stores. Look at the determination on my blurred face. Yes, I will find my sustenance and you will not stop me. You will stop me with neither your fancy four spinning wheeled carts nor your languages, however foriegn to me they are. Contain me, perhaps. Stop me, never.

I will eat your Russian cereals, I will complete the maze on the back and pretend to understand the nutritional facts on the side as I determine whether or not they should be a part of my new healthy lifestyle complete with delicious European chocolates. I am happy that I am receiving 10 BNTAMNHOB N MNHEPAROB with every loving bowlfull (the 'N's are supposed to be backwords, if you're having trouble with the pronunciation). They will serve me well this day, I know this thing to be true.

Hide your eggs, I will find them.

A Fixer-Upper

See this picture here to the left? Notice the blue skies, rolling green hills and the overall beauty. Right now all that is white and gray, covered in snow and ice. This picture looks like the most glorious place in the world to me right now.

This is a view from the future transitional living house that about a dozen guys and I will eventually be living in. Lives will change here, mine included.

This house is a house that we will work on together. American construction teams will be coming in the summer to work alongside Moldovans, including the guys from the orphanage.

I was told I needed to write about the meetings we have been having with those four guys I mentioned a few posts ago. So here goes.

When we sat to meet the first night with the four sweet sleep employees (Dima, Ivan, Artur and Vasille), they didn't really know why we were meeting. They were terrified that their jobs were about to end. They have been building beds for Internat (the orphanage they all grew up in), and had only 16 beds left. Needless to say, they had been taking their sweet time on those last few beds. Ivan, with fear in his eyes, would not stop asking us what they would be doing next.

So after a few hours of going over their finances and eating pizza topped with mayonaise, corn and God knows what else, we showed them what was next. It was this house.

Joy ensues and these guys get excited. We tell them we want it to be done by September. Joy changes to terror. They think they will be the only people working on it.

As you can see, it has a ways to go. Those two buildings will be connected and a roof will be added. We tell them we will have other people working on it besides them. Relief.

Also, we have 50 bunkbeds to build for this house and the girls transitional house. They have more work then they know what to do with and they are excited. They are excited about their futures for one of the few times in their lives. It is an amazing thing to see.

I am grateful to have been there.

A few nights later, we have another meeting. We have new contracts for them. These contracts are not just about work. They ecompass their whole lives. We are asking them to be Godly men. We are asking them to believe they can become what they wish they could. We are telling them we are going to do whatever we can to help them have lives they are proud to have.

They are terrified. What we are asking has never been expected from them, it has just been assumed they were a lost cause. We sign the contracts, the guys and me, together. This house will change their lives, my life as well. It is a house full of hope (and a bunch of homeless guys trying to stay warm during the winter).

McConversations

These past few days have been fairly surreal. I have been meeting with some of the guys I'll be working with and trying to get settled down here in Chisinau. Both things are going to be a challenge.
Out of the five guys I've sat and talked with, four of them were really excited. However, the conversation with the fifth guy was probably one of the hardest conversations I've ever had in my life. It was hard for a whole lot of reasons. I'll list some of them for you:

1. "I didn't know what life was like outside of the orphanage and now I've lost all my hope and all my trust."

2. "How am I supposed to do anything? I don't have a family."

3. "Friendship isn't enough. Maybe if you were my real brother, maybe that would be enough."

4. "You're just going to leave someday too."

5. "I had no choice in losing my family. You had a choice and you chose to leave your family. Why should I listen to someone who would leave their family?"

That is just a taste of a conversation that lasted over three hours. Those statements stick with you. They came from Ruslan, a guy I had been told was sensitive, very vulnerable, who longs to be close to someone, nurturing to the other kids and who had been orphaned twice. You could taste the hurt he had been through. You could feel the weight he carries around.

I don't want to pretend like I had great answers to those questions. I didn't. He hit me in the gut and it hurt at times. Maybe I could have said a bunch of cliche things to try and comfort him but that would have felt wrong to me, cheap on a fundamental level.

We both know I don't know what it is like to be him or to have gone through what he has. I didn't know what to say when it was done. So I thanked him. He said what he said probably wasn't what I wanted to hear. That is why I thanked him. What he said during that long afternoon was what I needed to hear. It was his heart and it was honest. The conversation was hard, but it needed to be.

All that to say, the conversation was in a strange way encouraging. Our relationship will be built over hard times and struggles. Those kind of relationships seem to be the strongest. My relationship with Ruslan will take time, and it should. I am grateful it started how it did. I love him for it- for being vulnerable, for being honest and saying the hard things.

By the way, today was his birthday, he just turned seventeen and has already "lost hope." So here is where we start. I'm curious as to where it goes from here.

On a lighter note, today I ate at McDonalds (I didn't pick it). Everything on the menu had 'Mc' in front of it. For some reason, I decided to speak with 'Mc' in front of everything.
A sampling:
"It's McFreezing."
"Galina is McGrumpy."
"Where am I going to McLive?"
"There's a McTaxi, maybe we could get a McRide home."
"I'm McLame."
"This apple pie is McAwesome." (fyi- the apple pie here is fried, like they used to be before they started baking them. Delicious)

Man, my McHead is messed up. I think I'll go to McBed.

brian joins the polar bear club

This morning at 4 o'clock I left the comfort and warmth of my bed and rode with the American team to the airport. I said my goodbyes and watched them wrestle their respective ways through a sea of Moldovan travelers, beyond the security checkpoints and towards home.
It was a strange feeling. A small part of me wanted to go with them. This year will be challenging and will stretch me. But, I am ready for it. Standing back, watching the chaos, I became surprisingly happy. I want to be here.
I came home and slept until 11 but stayed in bed for about thirty minutes after I woke. I've forgotten how comforting it is to be completely warm when all around you is cold. After a long hot shower, I sat for a little and was just quiet. I haven't' had time to do that here.
I've always needed that time to sit and let God comfort me. Today will be a quiet day and I am grateful to have it.
Before I forget, I saw one of the stupidest and coolest things I have ever seen in my life yesterday. This guy Brian, one of the people who went home today, received Christ this week (we actually had two Americans do that this week). Well, Brian decided he wanted to be baptized. So we found a lake, broke the ice and he was baptized in the freezing cold middle of nowhere. It was amazing.
It was also hilarious. Tripp Sullivan baptized him and had a little problem getting Brian totally covered. When Brian went back, his head was propped on some ice and wouldn't go down. So Tripp, Benny Hinn style, basically hits him in the face until he is covered. There is video of it somewhere and it is one of the funniest things, and holiest things, I think I have ever seen. It was a blessing.

I'm alive and barely sick

To those of you patiently waiting for consistent blogging, I apologize. Internet has not been widely available this first week and when it has there has been 20 people in a line to use it.
There is no way to sum up or express what it is like to move to a country like Moldova when you have never been there. Most of the time it feels like I'm going to puke.
But there are those amazing moments of grace and assurance. I've experienced those a lot in the last few days.
So I walk into the orphanage and meet some of the guys who I will be living and working with over the course of this year and before I know it I am in a gym holding a basketball. I will be playing a full-court basketball game with them and I am shooting to see if I will pick first.
By the grace of God, I hit a few shots and pick my team and we begin running. They are in a constant full-court press and I am in a constant state of dying.

I am not in shape.

This becomes painfully, painfully, obvious. My state of pudge and boots are not suited for their style of play. But luckily I am a giant compared to them and I used to be an athlete. I use my superior buttocks to dominate the low-post and successfully hide the fact that I am so exhausted that I could collapse at any time. I hold my own and score most of my teams points.

Little did I know that during those first four hours there, over two would be spent playing full-court basketball. I played two more games after that first one.

After the physical torture, we break for lunch. I am sick. I've run more between the hours of 10 and 1 this day than I probably have all last year and have only had half of a bottle of water to drink. I can literally see Jesus.

We get back at 4 and break into groups to have a Bible study. Brian, an awesome guy on this trip, tells me to give the lesson and talk about manhood. Talk? I'm just trying to keep down my lunch (whatever it was).
I go to speak and, to my surprise, my normal voice comes out. I don't cough at all and I don't once feel the severe pain I felt before I stood in front of them. God speaks through me. I am blessed. God's grace is glorious, it is powerful and it is beautiful.
.

What am I doing?

I mean that. What am I doing?

In about two days I will be moving to Moldova, a country in Europe, to work with orphans for at least a year. I shall be attempting to document this coming time through this blog. I'll probably ramble about other stuff too.

If you are wondering about the title of this thing, it comes from a passage in Mark 8. A blind man in the process of being healed says that he sees people and they look like trees walking around. That stuck with me for some reason.

Nick Drake talks about being on the top of the tree and feeling the sweet breezes in one of his songs. I love that feeling. It reminds me of being a kid and climbing trees in my backyard and at my grandparents' house. I found a picture I made when I was but a child, simple and pure and 5, of a boy in a tree. Yes, that boy was me and under that tree was the following:

"My farit place is the big tree in my back yard. I clime up it an I play with my friends. And sometimes I just want be alone."

By the way, 'farit' is 5-year-old tim for favorite. It is amazing that I wrote that a little under 20 years ago and it describes me better than I ever could now. I was a pretty wise person when I was a kid, it would be fun to talk to me. I'd probably tell my-grown-self I was fat. Kids do that kind of stuff, they just say what they want. Then I would tell young-me that he spelled favorite wrong because I'm sensitive about my weight. I would also gloat about being able to reach high things and dress myself and whatnot. And then I'd tell him to go play with his friend Andy and I'd eat some cookies to comfort my wounded self.

Well, that is probably enough. I hope this thing gets better.