Dear Friends,
The title of this blog post is a question that swims around my head, and I want to talk to you about it but first, a little update on what has been happening lately.
I’ve been spending most of my time at home or in bed with headaches which I think are connected to my new progressive glasses (or bifocals it’s hard to say as it got lost in translation - either way, glasses for old people!). I’ve read it can take 2 weeks to adjust to them which is a long time to have headaches and slightly blurred vision but I do feel like my vision is a little clearer with each passing day so I’m hopeful that I will adjust to them eventually. It’s possible the reading lens is too high which is causing the blurred vision, yet I leave for Montenegro in two weeks so it’s not great timing to be getting new glasses it turns out!
You may remember my connections with Rob Rowe from Love, Light Romania and also Pastor Michael and his wife Mihaela. They put me in touch with a few people who I have met with this week.
Anca and Nathan
The first is Anca and Nathan from the ‘Finding Hope Foundation’ in Cisnidie which is about 20km away from the city of Sibiu. Anca picked me up from Sibiu and took me to their three family homes (called ‘foster homes’ but unlikely these children will be fostered as they are mostly Roma teenage boys - the youngest is nine I think.) All the kids there call Anca “Mama” which I think is beautiful. Between these three homes, Anca and Nathan have about 32 children and they are considering opening a fourth home. Nathan told me that their charity was well supported by churches in the United States (I think Anca said they were from North Carolina) and they also have orphanages in America and Brazil. Therefore, they often receive volunteers from the USA and Brazil to help at the orphanages. Not only do they have the three homes in Cisnidie, but they also have a church for the Roma village near Cisnidie and they have “worship nights” on a Saturday that all kinds of people come to, Nathan said. He said that it was a little like a commune there in Cisnidie with all the volunteers and staff and so on living in the village. People were forever dropping in at the homes and just hanging out or helping out like a little community.
Dana and Rhea
Yesterday, I sat down with Dana from ARFO (the Alliance of Romania Fara Orfani or Romania without Orphans). Their goal is to have every social orphan (a child that has been given up voluntarily by their parent or uplifted due to abuse) adopted, or if not adopted, fostered. Following that meeting, I then sat down with Rob and his friend Rhea who is a social worker in Sibiu, working in a building just minutes away from where I live. Through these meetings I get a better understanding of the overall situation in Romania but also more specifically, the situation in the county of Sibiu where I’ve chosen to live. Here’s what I learned:
The placement centres (that used to be called state orphanages) are meant to be closed down and each year that passes where they are not as it’s just impossible for them to do this quickly, the Government extends the deadline. Some of these placement centres have 80 or more children - some have around 30. Either way, it is institutionalised children who are experiencing all of the damage from that situation no matter how good the staff might be.
In Sibiu there are two placement centres - one had 100 children and this has now dropped to about 80 because the Government has said that they are not to accept any new orphans. Most of the children are in their teenage years and Sibiu is behind other counties in terms of building family homes for these children to go into, but they are currently being built. Rhea interviewed the staff that will manage these foster homes and feels confident that they are good people, which is reassuring to hear. The homes will usually take no more than 12 children and the feeling is that the placement centre will be closed by the end of the year.
Each family home has a social worker and a psychologist attached to it. The children can see the psychologist for individual counselling and the social worker’s main job seems to be oodles of paperwork to apply for Government funding, ensure they meet the criteria and file reports etc. (sounds like my worst nightmare)
Rhea’s job as a social worker with child protection is to monitor children in foster homes and foster families. Her caseload is 65. Compare this to a New Zealand care and protection social worker’s caseload of 30 or a community social worker’s caseload of 16! Psychologists have a caseload of 300 in the community!
Needs in Romania
Through all of the people I have met who are doing humanitarian work in Romania, I have been able to understand the overall needs in Romania that I could respond to, and these are the needs that I am praying about at the moment. I could:
Become a foster parent of a foster home/s
Offer professional development training of staff at foster homes
Provide support and training to foster/adoptive parents experiencing behavioural issues with their children
Provide a safe house for women experiencing abuse from their partner
Provide group therapy for orphaned children/young people in a foster home
Work with the poor Roma villages and their complex needs
In the long term, I get the sense that children will not be in placement centres for much longer but in foster homes, staffed by people who will do a good job and will be supported by amazing social workers like Rhea. There is already a safe house for women in Sibiu wanting to leave family violence, but many of them return to their abuser without their children even though they have a lot of support in this centre including counselling with psychologists. There is also an emergency home for teenagers who have fallen pregnant.
The vast majority of children that are uplifted due to abuse, abandoned by their parent, or born to teenage mothers are from the poor Roma communities. These communities are incredibly complex but as Romania begins their final shift out of state orphanages, I feel that they will finally be able to look at the underlying issues.
I have to admit, my first reaction to hearing about these Roma communities is that it sounds too hard. You can’t just walk into a Roma village - you have to have a reason for being there, and there is a hierarchy within the village - structures of power. I’m told there is a lot of violence and substance use and poverty as I’ve previously explained. Children are “given in marriage” as young as 8 years old (even though the Government doesn’t recognise marriage until 18 years old) and a girl will go to live with her “husband’s” family. Teenage pregnancies are common and they will have a lot of children - big families of around 9 children. They won’t send their children to school - especially not the girls - and if they do, they drop out at a young age. Nathan and Anca started working with neighbouring Roma villages in Cisnadie and found that every time they would purchase something to help them, within days it had been sold (anything from nappies to a house). It is hard and complex and even paid Government social workers assigned to these villages are afraid to uphold the law and uplift children that are experiencing abuse. Three months into living here, it is way beyond me.
Where to from here?
When I was praying over the phone with my friend in New Zealand (Christine) while still in Cyprus, I had a picture of a path and along the path were these people that were kind of lit up almost golden - one connecting to the other. I got the impression at that time that I would meet one person and it would connect me to another person and so on, and this has been my experience. Through Pastor Michael and Mihaela, I have connected in with Nathan and Anca who not only have family homes and a network in Sibiu county but also a connection to the Roma people close by to Cisnadie. They have encouraged me to connect in with them and see where that may lead to. I’m visiting them tonight and intend to offer group therapy to their boys if they think it would be helpful and professional development to their (new and young) staff which they have already mentioned they would welcome.
Rhea has put me in touch with a woman named Jenny who has formed a charity in Sura Mare (also in the county of Sibiu) called ‘Hope and Smile Association.’ I have not yet met Jenny or even messaged her, but already she sounds amazing. 20 years ago she left Germany, came to Romania and started this charity with a few others. They too have a ‘foster home,’ Jenny herself has fostered/adopted a number of children and I think has a family of about 9 (!) and runs an after school programme for the Roma children of Sura Mare and Cisnadie. Some of their projects include Sports, Arts and voluntary programmes for the children.
Rhea said to me yesterday “I think you’d be selling yourself short by simply volunteering. You should start a charity.” While it is true that even though I am so in awe and so supportive of the work that I am seeing people doing here in Romania, I don’t feel drawn to it specifically. Perhaps it is because I see they are doing so well in their work that there is not a need for me? I could offer social work, but they already have a social worker. I could offer counselling but they already have a psychologist. I could offer to be a volunteer in their foster homes but they already have good quality staff and volunteers.
It is unfortunate that I have always been drawn to the gaps. What is not being done? What issue is not being addressed? What need is going unmet? This is what I did in my work with Mothers Helpers, but I know that it is a hard road. They are gaps for a reason. The issues are complex, not well understood, not well resourced, not a priority and so on. I don’t have a “white Messiah” complex - far from it. If anything, I constantly wonder why I’m here and what on earth I can offer that could be of any value. I see a lot of people doing a lot of good work and doing it really well and they can speak fluent Romanian (unlike me). Despite all that, I feel like I’m meant to be here. I’ve always felt like I’m meant to be here, and I have to believe that it’s not just because I love it here but also because I have something to contribute.
I have less than two weeks left in Romania before I have to leave the country and apply for a long-term visa. My plan in that time is to network in with Nathan and Anca at Finding Hope and Jenny at the Hope & Smile Foundation. When I return to Romania, I hope to connect with the Roma villages and families in need while alongside Jenny, Nathan and Anca. I also hope to visit the local Sibiu emergency centre and visit the teenage girls who have young babies staying there, and I hope to attend visits with a woman called Loredana who helps women who have left an abusive relationship to establish an independent life. I believe (hope/pray) that through connecting in with these people and assisting them with their work, that I will come across a need that I want to respond to and that will begin the work that I’m uniquely called to.
My Nathan
Every person that I meet here asks me about my son and I can see how puzzled they are that I am here in Romania wanting to do something about abandoned (or abused) children when it looks like I have abandoned my son. It is hard enough to explain it to my own friends and family let alone a stranger with a traditional idea of mothers as Romanians have. The truth is, I can’t explain it even though I attempt it. The reasons are complex but very, very personal, and I don’t want to share it with most of my friends or even some of my family let alone strangers. My attempts at explaining leave me with that “mum guilt” as I see myself through their eyes as they look at me in silence and don’t understand. I think that to them, I am simply a mother who has left her 13 year old son. I don’t want to tell them the whole story so that I can be relieved from their (and my own) judgment, so I must experience it and make peace with it. I must make peace that many people may judge me for being away from him, many people may think that I am not a good mother for doing that. Many people may feel that I am the last person that should be reaching out to abandoned children here in Romania. I must sit with the pain and loss of not having my son with me every day even though I want him to be, and I must privately allow God to soothe me when I harshly judge myself. The bottom line is that my son lives in Great Barrier Island with his dad - a place where he wants to live and where he is very happy. It’s a place where I’m unable to live. He does not feel abandoned by me, he wants me to be here. He loves me and he knows and feels loved by me. He knows that I am always here for him and I will return to him if he ever needs me to be with him. So as I continue to meet new people here in Romania who ask about him and wonder why I’m here without him, I’ll try not to explain, try to make peace with their not understanding and maybe their judgment, but keep to that bottom line. And just by the way? Nathan is doing so well. He is very, very happy; he is making a lot of friends; he loves his community and they love him; he has a close relationship with his Nana and Dad, and he has discovered on his own a strong Christian faith that gives him a sense of peace and love. His latest interests other than boxing and mixed martial arts is the bible and philosophy (lately he’s been talking to me about stoicism!)
A few practical things
I’m waiting for my last document from IRD before putting in an application for a Digital Nomad Visa for Romania
6 days to go and then (hopefully) I’ll be released from my agreement for the apartment in Auckland
I leave for Montenegro in 10 days as my tourist visa expires
Thank you for your prayers and support,
Kristina
Good work,Thanks for share! God bless and keep the good work 🙂👌