For the past several years, the word ‘community’ has become ketchy – a buzz word.  To me, it has become annoying.  Let me explain.  First of all, I’ll give two dictionary definitions of ‘community’ –

The following is taken from a page in my journal – July 24, 2018, to be exact:

“Struggling, Lord!  REALLY struggling!!  I’ve seen the plaques/signs at various shops saying – “I can’t do adult today.”  Well, Lord – went through most of my morning saying – “I can’t do ‘Christian’ today; I can’t do ‘life’ today!”  I feel as though my life is being choked out of me.  I feel as though I am held down on my back with hands around my neck trying to choke me to death spiritually and emotionally.  I sense the ‘enemy’ Heimlich maneuvering me until he squeezes every bit of life – every bit of the Holy Spirit out of me – spewed out on the ground.”

Remember the words ‘feed me till I want no more’ from the old hymn, Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah?  Even though I haven’t heard that hymn in years, it has been playing and playing through my head this morning!  So, as I was thinking of returning to my beloved Romania, the reality of my not receiving the ‘feeding’ in the very ‘dark’ culture of Romania that I do in the States reminded me of the steps I have to take to protect myself, spiritually.

Recently, I had the most wonderful experience of gathering together my whole family for my youngest son’s 40^th birthday.  Several years ago, all my sons and two of their wives, at the time, and one fiancée were all together in my home for a holiday.  But since all have married and given me six grandchildren, we had never been together as a family.  Some of the grandchildren had never even seen each other before.  We got to spend three glorious days in a beach house right on the beach in Destin, FL.  When Liam, my four year-old grandson who had never even seen his Georgia-cousins before, saw us all hauling our suitcases into the same place, and realized that all fourteen of us would be staying together in the same house, he was overwhelmed.  He looked around, and filled with excitement and joy he exclaimed, “Look Mammie, we are all going to sleep together!  Isn’t that crazy?!”  And I answered him, “Crazy – wonderful!”  He squealed, “Yes!” – and ran to give me a hug.

It is common knowledge that one out of every three children in Romania is born with a birth defect.  There are at least three main reasons for this.  First of all, the mothers’ lack of nutrition.  It would be extremely improbable for any woman to birth a healthy baby if she subsisted on a piece of bread every other day, or a potato every other day.  Many of the babies that we see come into our ‘baby’ orphanage, have a disease called opisthotonos (spasm of the muscles causing backward arching of the head, neck, and spine).  There are many causes of opisthotonos, but lack of Vitamin B is one.  There are many babies brought to the orphanage severely underweight and struggling just to live from the mother’s long-term lack of nutrition.