I would give anything for a normal meal. A Whopper sounds like a delicacy. Nick is being wonderful, but I still worry....The serenity prayer, eh? Great men are not born, they become. They struggle. I have never had my success handed to me. Lately, I have worked little and seen little success..... I think that missionaries come here and they see hunger, deprivation, pain an they see that they can help. Here, one can see immediate results; the feedback is constant. It makes them feel good- like they are making a difference. An they are. So why try to help kids in America? They are a selfish people I suppose. But I guess I do it because I can...
I am tired of being asked to explain my feelings. I am tired of feeling less than worthy to be here. I want a magic wand to fix all this. Of course, I also want my apartment. What I would give for a basic sandwich, an American sitcom, a real bed, a clean bathroom...

Looking back now, it all seems so silly. But it makes me think of my friend Larry, who recently quit smoking. Smoking is a hard-to-kick habit. So is eating Wonderbread or having soft toilet paper or driving your car. But I quit it all cold turkey. One day I’m a manager of a retail store in a posh mall, the next week I’m squatting over a Turkish hole-in-the-ground toilet in Sighisoara Romania, praying that I will have one moment of peace in my day. It wasn’t the material things; I was hungry and tired!

The hardest part was not having anyone around who understood. I had gotten into the country through the Nazarene church. Unfortunately, I had none of the training that is usually required. I had sort of slipped through the cracks of the system, mainly because I was with Nick and my visit was planned on realtively short notice. In fact, part of my stress was that I had entrusted my safety, including living arrangements to people that I didn’t know. Even if the Scott’s were longtime missionaries and friends of the Swansons, they were complete strangers to me. Anyone, who knows me, knows I’m not a trusting person to begin with. As much as I appeared to be rebellious, they appeared to be unorganized and uncaring. (emphasis on the word ‘appeared’.

The best thing the Scott’s did was send us to Sighisoara for a week. Sighisoara is a small Greman founded town north of Bucharest. (4-5 hours by train) There, one night at Miriam’s (a Dutch missionary) house Nick and I met Daniella and Carmen.

Two little girls. 9 and 12. It’s hard to say who needed each other more. They were from a large family in extreme poverty. We called them street kids because they mainly roamed the streets, taking up with tourists as they had taken to Miriam and become friends. They were unkept, at times, unruly and the shop keepers hated them. Bad for business, I suppose. That first night they taught us the Romanian alphabet from our lesson books. In the weeks that followed, they, along with 2 other sisters Genica and Camellia and a host of wandering friends, taught us where to shop, where the post office was, how to get a free lunch of walnuts with a scenic view, and how to stay out of trouble. We fed them (mainly pizza and ice cream) held hands as we walked, told the shopkeepers they were with us, and told them how wonderful they were.

These children became our children. In writing this now, I must admit it boils down to Carmen. Maybe it was the way she laughed (outloud, no holding back) or maybe it was her quiet politeness, that came from nowhere. Or maybe it was that she loved me first. I would like to say that I took her and her sisters in, changed their lives. But in the months that followed, it was really them teaching us. They took us under their wing, and I truly believe I, personally, would not have made it without Carmen. (But I’ll talk more about that later.)

That same 2 weeks we were introduced to the Spital. Being a poor country, there is much lacking in the area of birth control. Many children, as you may have seen on TV, end up in one of the country’s many orphanages. However, because of desperate living conditions, as many children are born with birth defects or become ill due to neglect and end up at the hospital or “spital” where they spend the remainder of their short lives. Miriam was a volunteer in the spital and she took us with her to help.

That morning we woke early and walked the several blocks to the facility. Something you may not know is that I grew up having a phobia of hospitals. I become dizzy and panicked if I had to endure one for very long. I sincerely believe this may be what cured me. The first thing that hits you as the door opens is the smell. The distinct, overpowering smell of urine, vomit and bleach......