Learning Generosity in Moldova

I have been moved to tears more times in the last few days than in a long time. We have been in Moldova for several days, and I have been overwhelmed by kindness time after time since the moment that we arrived. The kindness that I have experienced here reminds me of the story Jesus told about the widows mite. Most of you probably know the story of the poor widow that gave a very small coin and Jesus recognized her as giving everything she had. His emphasis was not on the amount she gave but on the amount she gave compared to what she had to give and her apparent motives in doing so.

We arrived in Moldova completely exhausted, hungry and smelling rather "stinky." We had started out from Budapest, Hungary on Thursday morning and started out for Romania. We travelled all day to Romania by way of a detour to Serbia (and that's another long story about how we ended up in Serbia) and arrived at our church service there. Immediately after Rick spoke, we got something to eat and found out that instead of going to bed we were going to have so start our trip for Moldova that night without sleepiis any. It didn't look that far on the map, but we had adequate warning that it was going to be some tough travelling roadwise and that we needed to start right away if we were going to get there in time for our service the next evening. I must say that I reluctantly got back in the car because by this time we just wanted to go to bed.

Anyway, to make a long long long story short, we drove all night and all the next day until about 5 in the evening to get to Moldova stopping only to have a picnic and get gas. Rick slept a little bit while the rest of us ate. Not only was the trip grueling in terms of hours in a vehicle, but the roads were well, we'll say it nicely,--they were not good roads. They were either winding through the mountains or Rick spent his time dodging huge pot holes. Not only that, but our air contitioner decided to become very anemic on a baking hot day.

There were so many little kindnesses the people showed toward us every day, and we were so touched by how well they treated us especially when you consider how little they have. Moldova is the poorest country in Europe and the average wage in 250-300 dollars a month. That's the average wage. A lot of the common people make 30 a month. After we spent three days doing seminars for them, they secretly took up an offering for us. The pastor came to the back of the church and handed us this wad of bills. This was the first time there in Moldova that I just felt like crying. We insisted that we did not want the money, but he would not hear it. They insisted and we went away feeling like they had just taught us what generosity was. The amount of money they gave us was not large at all by our standards, but it was a huge amount to them, and we were very humbled by their sacrifice.

Yesterday was another case where I felt very humbled. We were invited to speak for staff devotions at the local medical clinic. There were about 15 doctors and medical personnel there. The building was very clean and pleasant, but it was very simple and bore no exterior resemblance to the hospitals in the United States. It was painted concrete or plaster, and there were no comforts at all visible--just hard beds and stark walls. Inside, though, the people were so glad to have us come and listened attentively while Rick spoke. When he was finished, the director of the clinic called me forward and said he wanted to give us a gift of appreciation. He very movingly presented a beautiful wall hanging to us. Again, I was moved to tears because of their desire to be generous, and they were the ones that needed so much. On the way out of the building, one of the doctors came to me and asked us if they could give us any medicines (like ibuprofen) for the children. This time, I flatly refused because there was no way I was going to take their limited supplies of medicine when in a few months, I can just walk into Walmart and buy ours. In the end, we compromised ,and I walked out with two boxes of Rolaids which I will leave with a missionary in Romania.

However, the most touching incident of generosity came later that same day. We were about to leave Moldova, so we wanted to buy a few souvenirs. All along the trip we have bought little things, but when we got to the open air market with a lot of older people selling little hand made items, I told the kids to go ahead and buy what they wanted because it was obvious these people needed the money that our purchases would bring. There was one lady that told us that she would give us good prices, so we decided to buy several of our souvenirs from her. While we stood there looking at her items, she was watching us and smiling and Paul was happily sitting in his stroller. One of the main items that she was selling was little stackable Russian dolls that are popular in this part of the world. She had very inexpensive ones and mid priced ones, and then she had large ones.

I wasn't paying a lot of attention to Paul so when we were about finished buying, I looked at him in his stroller and there he was, holding one of these large doll sets--the largest set she had. I didn't know what had happened so I asked through the translator. He said, "No, she wants to give this to Paul." Right then, I lost my composure. Here we were coming from the richest country of the world buying souvenirs of our time in one of the poorest countries of the world. There she was sitting on the side of the road selling little hand made items that kept her from starving, and she chose to give it to a little baby who smiled at the whole situation. When we realized that she ws not going to take it back, I looked over and realized I wasn't the only one touched. Rick was looking away from her and was sniffling too.This was another big lesson to me in what real generosity is.

Rick spoke at a church on Sunday night, and the people were so appreciative and wanted to talk for a long time after the service. One elderly man came up at the end and spoke eight words in English very movingly. He could not communicate much in our language, but he stood in front of us and with tears in his eyes, said, "You are my brothers, and I love you." I can tell you that we have spent a lot of money and energy going a lot of places where people just quickly file out afterwards, and often there didn't seem to be a lot of appreciation, but this elderly gentleman made up for it all. It seems like the least among us often can teach us the most and set the example for us all.

These are just a few of the most poignant memories that I carry with me of our time in Moldova. I'll blog a little later about some of our day to day experiences there.