Travel Diary - Romania Home Makeover

kitchen

This is a short article I wrote for an e-magazine after returning from a trip to Romania in 2005. I led a team of nine  people from the Boston area to do a home makeover for a needy family of twelve. 

"Luxury is a warm blanket, a soft pillow and comfy bed," said Mark Biech, Director of Hope for the Nations Romania, quoting a friend who comforted him during a time of stress and frustration. "If I can have a warm bath and climb into a nice bed, even after a hard day, I can remind myself that compared to most of the world, I live in luxury." 

Our team of nine was from the Boston area in the United States, and we were in Brasov, Romania, on a mission to do a home makeover for a needy family of twelve. 

I recalled Mark's words the day we picked up the mama and one of her ten kids when they needed a ride to the hospital. At first glance she looked like the grandmother, only four and a half feet tall, with a shiny red and white scarf tied around black hair, and several front teeth missing. She wore a yellow knitted vest over a winter green blouse and a clashing long red, blue and white striped skirt. In her arms, a young toddler, with a knitted cap, whose chubby hands grabbed at his mother's breast. 

moi

On the day we picked up the mama and I figured, after ten kids in quick concession, she deserved the title "the mama" she handed over the infant to her eleven-year-old daughter, and in rapid Romanian gave her and the other six remaining kids final instructions. She placed the injured child in the middle of the backseat beside Deborah and got in. I sat in the front while Mark drove. As we pulled away, I looked back at the pack of small children, led by a girl the same age as my own daughter, with an infant in her arms. They walked alone to the shelter. I was moved. 

"Christina let me use her bath," the mama said, as Mark translated. "It was so wonderful, beautiful." Her face was childlike as she recalled it. She went on to say how she couldn't remember the last time she had a bath. I found that unbelievable. 

Deborah and moi

Mark said, "Oh, yeah, they just sponge bath in the kitchen. With cold water."

We had just left their small two-room apartment. Deborah and I had spent the day scrapping mold off the walls and ceilings; the infestation was unimaginable, completely discoloring large areas of the room. The apartment wasn't fit for habitation, and yet ten children were being raised there. The three men on our team stayed behind with plenty to do. I have to mention that the bathroom was down the hall, shared by all the tenants on the second floor. There were two stalls with stained toilet bowls filled with brownish water, and no toilet seats. The floors were broken cement, and damp. The place was foul smelling, and I tried to imagine toilet training kids there. 

The mama was still talking. "Thank you so much! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" My head swiveled from the backseat to the front as she spoke and Mark translated. "You are an answer to prayer," she said. "My children are such a blessing, and they need help." (Wait a minute, did she just say ten children are a blessing?)

"I try to clean the mold, but it just comes back," she explained. "The children are always sick. My husband is so often sick and it is hard for him to work. I can't believe that this is happening. It is so wonderful." 

My neck was getting stiff, but her flood of gratefulness continued to pour out. Her little son, squished in the middle seat, was drifting off to sleep, the shock of his injury wearing off. On the mama’s face there were tears. Two streams trickled down surprisingly youthful cheeks. With toffee-colored hands clasped together as if in prayer she said, "I am so thankful to God. Jesus has visited my home through you."

In that instant, it was all worth it. The effort and work of gathering a team together, raising finances, dealing with jetlag, and staying at a one-star hotel. Our team labored hard, and at the end of four-and-a-half incredible days, the family arrived. Just like the TV show, "Extreme Home Makeover" we worked right until the end. I was still scrubbing the new wood floor as I backed out the front door, while Mark was "Swiffer-ing" behind me. Then the family arrived. (Can somebody say, "Bus driver, move that bus!") 

The Mama

It was a moment we will never forget. The mama and her brood entered in amazed silence, then spontaneously broke out with applause. Soon there were smiles and tears, and exclamations of unbelief. No more mold, no more sickness because of mold. New walls, floors, a refrigerator filled with food. And three brand new sofa-beds, with new soft, comfy blankets and pillows. 

Ahh, luxury.