MOLDOVA

Posted by Leona Bergstrom

In just a few weeks I’ll be standing again on the pot-holed streets of Chisinau, Moldova! I’ll see the dear elderly ladies eating their watered down soup and thanking me for providing food that, in actuality, came as gifts from others. I’ll get swallowed up in doubled cheeked kisses and strong Russian bear hugs. I’ll hold children’s hands that leave behind a dirty, sticky imprint in my palm. I’m going back to a land that God has branded onto my heart- Moldova!

And this time we are taking along six leaders who will experience a country devastated by corrupt government, empty promises, and abundant scarcity. Our prayer is that our team will develop relationships with the pastors and officials of the Christian church and will partner in their outreach to their communities. I do not know what God will do, but I know he will do far more than I can imagine!

A friend recently wrote to me about an article in September’s issue of National Geographic. The article is about the most failing countries in the world and Moldova heads the list in Europe. The article states, "When a nation is failing, you see it in the eyes of its people.”

I can’t escape that line. Indeed, the eyes of the elderly, the children, the teenage girls-- are eyes full of emptiness, darkened by hopelessness. I’ve looked into those eyes and I believe that God wants me to tell them that there is hope. There are people on the opposite side of the world that love, care and pray for them. Their hope is in the One who sends us.

Moldova Still Calls

Posted by Leona Bergstrom

I love how God is challenging both Terry and me to look at His world through His eyes. Terry heads to El Salvador to bring love, music and hope to a village—and to renew relationships that have grown to fill her heart. I continue to work on behalf of the elderly in Chisinau, Moldova and Bethany Church’s feeding program. We both are facing the cruel realities of poverty and looking into the desperate eyes of those who are both physically and spiritually hungry.

This week I am deeply moved (as usual) by the depth of the friendships we have in Moldova. I am rejoicing in recent news that the people of Bethany Church in Chisinau are now worshipping in their new building! I am rejoicing in news of elderly people being fed in the nearly finished basement, and how street children were given a party there on Christmas Day and were told of the love of Christ. I am happy to know that God is working there through His people. I also groan in my spirit knowing that these are desperate days for the people of Moldova. It is very cold, food is scarce and life is hard. The Russians threaten to withhold natural gas which could reduce even more the availability of heat in their homes.

Recently, we had the opportunity to visit Elena, Pastor Dima’s daughter. One of our Moldova mission team members brought her to Edmonds for a week after Christmas. What a wonderful opportunity for Elena to visit the U.S and for us to renew relationship with her! Hearing her voice and her Moldovan accented English made me long to go back. Maybe in 2009?? We’ll hope.

Pictured: Dick and Leona visit Elena in Anne’s home.
Recent baptism service at Bethany Church.

El Salvador revisited - Terry

Where do I start to write about my recent trip to El Salvador to visit the village of San Diego de Tenango? So many memories. I find it difficult to process at this point in my journey. I felt the same after a visit to the same village last year. My brain and heart fills to capacity, and I need some time to let the joys and sorrows sink in. Our main purpose in visiting is to build relationships with the people. We do some physical labor, working with the people, but mostly we are challenged to work on relationships. Our village has had an ongoing relationship with Agros and UPC for 6 years now. But it has been the last 3 teams (July 07, January 08, and July 08) that have seen an opening up of the villagers to us. Many of our team members were now on their second visit to the village. We have one member who has visited this same village 5 times now. The villagers are beginning to trust us and seek us out during our visit. And we find commonality in the hopes, dreams, worries that we all share as humans.

I have always noticed that returning missionaries show slide after slide of people. I confess I have often found myself slightly bored, waiting for the pictures of scenery, houses, animals, flowers. But anyone with a heart for missions soon realizes that the faces of the people are the pull on the heartstrings of the caring. I give you faces from San Diego de Tenango .

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Sharing the Burden - Leona

On April 17, 2008, eleven of us boarded the plane to travel to Chisinau, Moldova! We were a team assembled to minister alongside of the pastors and people of Bethany Baptist Church. It was amazing to see how this group had come together – eight from Seattle, one from Bellingham, and two from Chicago. Our ages ranged from 47-82 and we were on a mission to minister to the older people whose needs had gripped our hearts.

I was excited to see how God was going to use us. I knew that the elderly in Moldova would feel loved and valued by this team. I also knew that the individuals traveling with us would never be the same. I had no idea what would become of this, but I knew it was the beginning of something revolutionary!

We took money, soup mix, new clothes, books and tons of art supplies. We wanted to share life and color in this gray land. We had the privilege of feeding old people, holding hands with infirmed, playing with street children, sharing communion with former communists, and best of all, listening to the stories of grace and survival.

We have returned determined to continue developing a relationship with these incredible people. Residents at two different retirement communities (Seattle and Chicago) are raising funds to help supply food for the hot lunch program. Our team members are sharing the story of their experiences. A small group is praying for direction for next steps.

We are looking at the calendar to see when we can go again.

Meanwhile the situation in Moldova is only growing worse for the elderly. News reports from June 17 indicate a growing desperation and hopelessness.
We must not quit.

Visiting Moldova - Leona

In May 2007 I made my first journey to Chisinau, Moldova. Accompanied by my husband and son, I saw for the first time what Leila had described to me. We found a once beautiful city marred by the effects of a corrupt government and a collapsed economy. We met a still beautiful people who loved their homeland but were beaten down by the daily struggle to find food and stay warm.

This former Soviet Union country is notably now the poorest country in Europe. Moldova’s children and elderly are oppressed and the middle aged and young are fleeing to other countries to find work. Young beautiful women are prime targets for human trafficking.

Amidst the overwhelming struggle for survival is a growing Christian movement. Churches are springing up all around the city and surrounding villages as people find love, hope and strength through a new relationship with Christ. One of these churches is Bethany Baptist in the Ciocano district of Chisinau. The pastors and people of this church have a heart for the people of its community, including the elderly.

While we were there the church held a special luncheon for the elderly in the community. It was like the ones they had done regularly before losing the funding. The grateful attendees were anxious to share their stories with us. We met women who showed us their bankbooks that once calculated a simple but growing retirement fund. Now the accounts were completely empty. They had lost everything in 1991 when the USSR collapsed. Their current pensions of $30-50 per month barely covered the cost of utilities, much less food and certainly not medicines or sufficient health care.

We vowed to bring their story back to the U.S. We promised that we would return and that somehow we would help feed the older people of Moldova. It was a calling we could not ignore.

An insight from El Salvador - Terry

This post was scheduled by me prior to my trip as I will have no internet access during this week (how will I survive?) As the leader of this year's trip, I have been immersed in information about our village, Agros, and El Salvador. On my first trip to the village, I noticed the quality of the houses. There is another Agros village nearby and that village has houses that were built by Habitat for Humanity. I wondered why our village hadn't gotten new houses and was hopeful that they would someday have that opportunity. Recently I heard that our village leaders chose to build their houses themselves out of bamboo and adobe for the following reasons:

1. Payback on Habitat homes begins immediately and they wanted to pay off their land first.
2. Wooden houses are hotter than mud and bamboo.
3. Wooden houses don't stop bullets. In an adobe house, the bullets gets lodged in the walls.

This is a huge lesson regarding our inability to totally comprehend what is needed and helpful when we come in as outsiders for a short "mission" trip. We who have never had to worry about war within our own boundaries have no idea what that would be like. I am humbled by my own naivity and open to learning more.

The Least, the Lost, the Left Behind - Leona

“Someday I will come and help you feed the old people in your country.”

They were words that flowed out of a heart deeply touched during a conversation with a young woman from the country of Moldova in Eastern Europe. Surprisingly, they were MY words! The moment they were uttered I knew my life would never be the same.

I had been asked to meet a young woman from Moldova named Leila. She was studying for a year at the University of Washington through the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program. She had expressed interest in understanding the systems of care for elderly persons in the U.S. and so a friend suggested she meet me. Of course, I was delighted to wax eloquent about the abundant options for eldercare and how I had been privileged to work in many of them.

Leila listened to me with interest and then her dancing eyes suddenly clouded with intense sadness. She began to tell me of the old people in Moldova who were starving because they do not have the money to buy food. Her church had offered a hot lunch program where they served soup and bread to some of the most vulnerable elders in their community. The church no longer had the funds to offer this and Leila felt sure that many were suffering as a result.

I have never felt such searing pain in my soul as I did during those moments. I have spent my life developing services and programs to meet the emotional, physical and spiritual needs of older people. The thought of elders starving to death was completely reprehensible.

I knew I needed to do something. And thus began my relationship with a tiny country called Moldova and the hungry grandmas and grandpas who needed food. That meeting with Leila was in February 2006. Little did I know where this conviction toward compassion would lead me. Read more in the days ahead.

Missions and Poverty - Terry

Lest you begin to think that we will only be writing about our aging bodies and the woes thereof, I wanted to start a new thread. This is about our shared interest in the area of poverty and what we as Christians can do in the world -- something we can do that will only be a small bandaid, but will at least be a step in the right direction.

If you watched Leona & Dick's film, you would have noticed that one of the doors that their seniors open is the door of missions. Both Leona and I have become deeply involved in a couple of mission endeavors. You will be hearing about them from us along the way. But I am about to leave for 8 days to visit a village in El Salvador. This is a village brought into being by Agros International. If you are interested in the work of Agros, please check out their website. I have been involved with Agros for several years now, first as a volunteer in the office and now as a person who cares deeply about a group of people in a small village in El Salvador called San Diego de Tenango. I visited this village last July and am co-leading a group that will return to the village this July. I am posting this on the day after my departure and can't wait to give updates of what we learned in the village on this trip.

What I learned last summer, however, is that there are people in many parts of the world who have so much less than we have, yet have more contentment than many of us ever achieve. Agros tells the story of a woman who suffered through many of the ravages of Civil War and lives a very simple life with no amenities as we define them. Yet, she stated that she had need of nothing and was happy and contented with what she had. That is the lesson for me.

I took this picture as we walked behind Rosalio, returning from planting cashew trees, in the hopes of getting the villagers beyond subsistence crops so that they could begin to pay back the loan from Agros for their land. In the end, they will own their land. I love this picture, mostly for what it brings to my mind. Please pray for our team of 14 members and for our experience in El Salvador.

Coming Monday!

Beginning Monday, please join us for a 5-day series on missions.