Mountain Gloria

Within my first week of being here, I joined a trip into the mountains with Tibi (an FNO staff person and Regional IMPACT Coordinator) and IMPACT kids from the Jiu Valley. I was in a fog of jet-lag and cultural re-entry, but since I came back to Romania with a heart for IMPACT and building relationships with IMPACT kids, I decided to pull out my hiking boots and leave the rest of my luggage unpacked. It was the best thing I could have done.

Picture this: climbing mountains with 12 Romanian kids ranging from age 11 to 22, only one of whom could speak English; prodigious amounts of white bread; exhaustive use of non-verbal communication; sleeping in a tent with the youngest darling of the group, Isabela, who wondered anxiously if my “snoring” would keep her awake; afternoon downpours; a highly sketchy outhouse; the same pants for three days; thinking the trip was just overnight but discovering it was actually 2 nights and 3 days; talking to myself in English just for the sake of hearing English; being so clearly determined to learn Romanian that Tibi proclaimed I would be fluent in two days; the complete absence of hand sanitizer; Isabela wearing my Chacos down the mountain after her shoes were partially burned in the campfire; hordes of wild mushrooms; carefully styled mullets; avocado on homemade wheat waffles; walking through thigh-high blueberry fields and eating as many as our hands could grab; hiking off a mountain top in thick fog and rain; earnest conversation translated over the campfire; standing in the wind looking across the Transylvanian Alps from Straja, a view I thought I might never see again; and so many other moments.

Of all these moments, one especially touched my heart. As we were hiking through the forest, Busu, an 18-year-old young man who seemed very self-assured, came alongside me and offered me one of the ear buds from his music player. Surprised at this gesture, I took it…and was completely astonished. It was Gloria – the song I did sign language to two years ago at one of the last IMPACT meetings. I looked at Busu in amazement, and he showed me on his music player the title he had for the song – “Lindsay.” Through translation, I learned that he had been quite new to IMPACT that day two years ago but had been one of the several who recorded my signing to the song. (Busu had looked familiar to me but had grown up so much that I couldn't quite place him.) He told me that he and his friends really liked the song and listened to it often. What?!

As we walked alongside each other through the forest wishing we could crash like the waves or turn like the autumn leaves, I deeply felt the presence and faithfulness of God, that so small a gift laid at the altar would be so remembered, that worship then would still be worship now...

...and for those minutes on that forest trail, all I knew was joy.