Reflections
of a Mission trip - Romania 2010
A smile stretches
across a child’s face as her outstretched arms wrap around my damp
neck. Kneeling in the dry dirt on a hot Romanian day, I feel
overwhelming love and concern for a child who doesn’t even know me.
Her long, dark hair
blows and her earrings jingle in the arid wind. She lets go, but
holds my hands, and she stares deeply into my heart with her big,
brown, hopeful eyes. We can only speak a few words to each other,
the ones I know in Romanian.
All around us her
brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, and close friends gather
to celebrate the success of their past year of hard work in gaining
an education never before offered to her heritage.
Another girl, also
beautiful with long, black braids woven with ribbons taps on my
shoulder and offers me her tiny hand, channeled excitement exuding
through her grasp.
Her clothes are lovely, bright and billowing in the hot, dry breeze.
I stand up and take her tiny hand after kissing the little girl’s
soft cheek who stands before me.
She leads me by the
hand, excited to show me something she’s clearly proud of. She
speaks to me with a stunning smile, her happiness radiates, and she
brings me out of the blazing sun into a cool mud house, walls
painted with bright colors subtly chipping here and there. Woven art
decorates the walls, as well, for comfort and cultural style.
They motion for me
and my new friends to sit and get comfortable on the old couches and
chairs that adorn their modest living space. She and two of her
friends line up in the center of the room as feelings of pride and
new hope still radiate even hours after the graduation ceremony.
I wait to see what
is about to happen as I consciously realize that I am in awe of
their budding potential and incredible beauty.
A young man in donated blue jeans, tank top, and plastic sandals
reaches to turn on the only electronic device in their quaint home.
Suddenly, the music starts as we all watch enthusiastically and
curiously, and the three girls perform for us a joyous, traditional
dance reminiscent of scenes one sees in Bollywood films. It is
beautiful and so lively and so much fun, and it’s amazing to me that
they have learned and choreographed it themselves.
At the end we all
cheer and applaud, and when the music continues, they grab our
foreign hands and in the Roma language teach us some of their
culture’s dance moves, and together we dance, friends, families, and
guests, Americans and Brits with the race shunned and feared by all
nations.
The Tileagd Gypsy
village has been known and reputed as one of the most notorious and
dangerous Gypsy communities in the whole of Romania. That was ten
years ago.
Today, I watched the
Gypsy children of Tileagd graduate from their grades, beaming with
pride and with hope to be somebody, someone who is proven
intelligent and bright, someone people cannot excusably discriminate
against. Here in Oradea, with the aid and support of the Smiles
Foundation, these once shunned, avoided, and – sadly – despised
people have been shown love from those outside their community.
Here, I have seen
and learned that love is contagious.
Americans and Brits
have traveled from afar and have given their time and more to
inspire hope and love in this community, giving these Gypsies
something they’ve never fully been offered: a chance.
Never in all my
years in America and around the world have I ever seen such true and
absolute appreciation, even without verbal communication, but solely
through actions, in anyone as these Gypsies showed us for helping
them learn to read and write in their country’s language and in
English, to be well read and computer literate, to do complex
mathematics and to learn biological sciences, and most of all…to
learn to love…all with incredible success and achievement.
They ask and pray
for God to bless us, the God they love since having been introduced.
I was welcomed into a gypsy community – that ten years ago was
feared and avoided by even the country’s police – to dance and
celebrate and to enjoy with them life.
I watched the
Tileagd Gypsies prove the world wrong, to prove everyone wrong who
thinks they’re hopeless and eternally dangerous, dirty, and
thieving. I’ve seen them love with all their hearts those outside
their race, I watched Gypsies up to seventy-eight years old be
baptized, giving themselves entirely to Christianity, I’ve seen them
learn and strive and become reformed from previous mindsets and
ill-reputed habits.
They are a beautiful
people inside and out, collectively and individually, and they
deserve our help. They deserve our love and support, and in me –
which they know – they have it forever.
Never has my heart
been so full, overflowing with love and pride and admiration as it
has since being in Oradea, Romania June 2010, and I will never be
the same. I’ve learned that even the notorious and supposedly
deplorable – given a chance – can change us eternally. God gave them
life and so shall we, as their brothers and sisters of this Earth
and of Heaven, as the privileged and co-inhabiting they deserve our
acceptance and aid to help them continue to grow and improve their
situations.
All I ask is that we
open our eyes and open our hearts and minds. You could – and I
guarantee will – learn a lesson that will change you and amaze you
for life, give you hope in all humanity, and make you experience a
love and admiration you’ve never before imagined.
~God Bless~
Ashley Maida
Any US supporters wanting to get
in touch with Smiles please telephone or e-mail us.
Tel:
423-239-9525
E-mail:
USDA@thesmilesfoundation.org
Previous News from the
USA:
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
