Updates from Romania keep getting more and more difficult to write. The more time I have here, the more I experience. The more I experience, the harder it becomes to convey the reality of life in the valley to those so far outside of it. It is becoming almost scary to try to share my life “here” with all of you over “there” because I fear that I won’t explain things in a way that preserves the value of what we are doing and learning.
What I can tell you is that our lives are changing forever. We are being introduced to ideas and information that compels us to live differently. I don’t quite know how to translate what we have learned into my world back home…but I am determined to figure it out. I want to spend my life living in a way that is sustainable. I want to encourage those around me to do the same. I want to continuing thinking in terms of human flourishing and not in terms of dollars and cents. I want my friendships back home to have the same measure of reality and intentionality that my friendships with our group here in Romania have. I want to live out what I truly believe the gospel to be rather than go along with what some of the folks back home seem to think it should look like. I am having a sort of worldview crisis in that my life back home represents a way of thinking about people and the world that in a lot of ways is unacceptable. The way I see the world is changing and that change will be meaningless if I do not change the way I live when I return to the states.
Romania is real. My experience here is real. But I think the true test of the reality of this experience is not in the completion of the semester, but in how the experience of the semester here in Romania influences the way I live for the rest of my life. The memories will stay with me, but will the lessons? Will I continue studying these things I have been introduced to? Will I share my heart with those in my sphere of influence? Coming to the end of our time here, it is wonderful to realize that none of this ends with Romania. I will be headed home soon, and the experience will be fresh…will I find the meaning(s)?
1 comment:
Cannot wait for you to come back to Iowa Heather... That's probably not what you want, but it's what I want! :) I commented on Michelle's post that you and your classmates/friends/fellow learners will have to come over so we can experience Romania vicariously through you.
Andrea and Abhi
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