November 11, 2008: Laughter in Chaos and Life Lessons Learned

Dear Friend,

The Internet wasn’t available today. The Internet people don’t do house calls during the day, and it’s likely they won’t be showing up in the evening either. It’s not the Internet connection coming to the office, but rather our router. There’s always something.

I managed to call Mom today, something I didn’t think I could do with my cell phone. I originally thought I wasn’t able to make international calls with the phone I was provided, but wanted that option for my eventual trip to Kosice. To my great surprise, I found out I could call outside Romania, so I called Mom. I ended up running out of minutes or credit or whatever you call them. The things you put into your phone so you can call people. See, I don’t even know what I’m talking about. Thankfully, someone else in the office, Roxana, offered her phone so I could finish my call.

As I was out of minutes, I needed to go buy more. Roxana had to run a couple of errands for the office, so she invited me to see if we could find a Vodafone shop (Vodafone is the company that made my phone.) We went to a nearby market and bought the things needed for the office – toilet paper and the like – but didn’t manage to find a Vodafone shop. As I had already finished my call with Mom, it didn’t really matter to me if I got the minutes today or later. I ended up just going along to carry the groceries, which was fine by me.

I did quite a bit of laughing during our shopping, as many people were honking their horns. It was around five o’clock that we had set out and everyone was heading home, which meant the streets were once again packed with idling vehicles. As I had mentioned about Lupeni, people seem to think that laying on the horn during rush hour will somehow make the cars move or move faster. As there were no cars that were moving, this meant the everyone was becoming impatient and taking their turns in honking their horns, almost as if someone was invisibly conducting a symphony of beeps, each with its own unique pitch. This had to have been the case, as there was no one, visible or invisible, conducting traffic. Roxana commented that she was glad I was entertained by the chaos. It comes with the life, I guess.

On our way home, Diana and I had a conversation which entailed some of our recent thoughts and experiences. I confessed once again how sorry I was that forming relationships with the volunteers had been so difficult to accomplish. Only three weeks were left and I was just beginning to warm up to them, as they were to me. Diana told me that many had commented on how I was beginning to open up. This discussion led into one about the challenges and sacrifices one makes when he or she considers what it means to truly be a Christian, what it means to truly live for Christ, what it means to truly pick up your cross. I confessed I was afraid by many of those thoughts, afraid of the answers to the questions I was asking about true service. True service meant the need for true faith, which was really scary to me.

I am indeed becoming much more comfortable with people, Diana especially. I’m able to share just about anything with her and she’s able to put things into perspective for me. Tonight she commented on how she sometimes has arguments with others when her own faith is weak, yet how arguments are normal. She told me that: arguments are normal. That’s true. We’re human. It was, in my mind, another allowance for me to be human and also for others to be human: fallible and imperfect. I’ve been learning a lot about grace and Diana’s comments about arguing, among other comments she made, began to take root in my mind. Grace is so important if we ever hope to provide true service. I realized that night that we could all afford to give each other more grace and thereby be able to achieve something closer to understanding, closer to service, and closer to shalom.

Blessings.
Kailen