BCC Day One

It's probably not right to call this day one as I've now been here for three, but today was my first day in a week of shadowing the centre staff.   Today I was with Jan, who with his wife and two children live in the centre.  Jan (pronounced Yan) has recently become the pastor of the small church which has been planted within Bethlehem Christian Centre.  He is originally from Russia, but trained in Theology in Romania and married here.  Following a short time back in Siberia, he felt called to return here and lead the centre's church.  Centre Director Cornelui who I'll be working with tomorrow will no doubt be relieved at this appointment as in addition to running the centre is co-pastor of the 400 strong Baptist church in the city.  The centre church is currently around 30-40 people each Sunday afternoon, which I think is a great start, but they consider this very small.  I know of churches in the UK with around that number of a congregation period. 

Jans's role is to grow the church, take care of it's members and facilitate outreach into the local community around the centre.  We began the day with prayer, followed by a discussion about some of the differences and similarities between Romanian and British culture (if there is such a thing as British culture, perhaps it's more just western culture).  We talked about things like social conditions, expectations, what gainss or loses respect, and of course politics.  We also touched on how Communism's legacy still affects the attitudes of people today and I hope to take this up again with Cornelui tomorrow.  The conversation was actually sparked by my observation that there is a lot of street activity, loads of kids playing, adults milling around and chatting, people sitting enjoying the sun etc.  I shared how this was so different to my experience of community where you rarely see people out engaging with eachother these days, and kids are most likely insidie playing the computer or watching tv, and that might well be the difference, but community spirit seems to be much more alive in this area.  I also explained that people haning around the streets may well be interpreted as a dangerous situation to go into in the UK, but here there seems to be a sense of safety and friendliness. 

As I spent the day with Jan, I was able to go with him on a couple of visits.  The first was to a family who live on the outskirts of the district where there are only a few smaller houses compared to the tower blocks near the centre.  The man cannot work because he hasn't had enough schooling, and at times when he has worked it has been temporary and off the record because of this.  As a result he won't have any kind of pension and for the most part no income.  His wife has a college diploma and works twelve hours a day for around the equivelent of £200 per month.  The man stays at home and looks after the children and is trying to cook for the family too.  He's currently trying to extend their tiny one room house, building it by himself.  The purpose of our visit was to deliver some clothes for the children.

We later visited an elderly lady living in a highrise flat.  She became a Christian only earlier this year and has suffered terribly since then.  She has broken her leg, but far worse, her daughter died of cancer and she now has to raise her two grandchildren with no husband and very little pension income.  Her faith and spirit of endurance through suffering really encouraged me.  She continues to pray and praise God for what little she has.  It was during this visit that I realised something significant about our previous visit.  The lady laughing because her grandaughter needed instructions on how to cook the food she was preparing, told me that it is considered shameful in Romanian culture if a woman cannot cook and look after her home, the same is true of a man who DOES cook (pay attention Laura!!).  Whilst I'm happy that isn't my culture because I enjoy cooking sometimes, it struck me that this must only intensify the humiliation of the man we met earlier, in his situation.

We ended the afternoon with a trip to the supermarket with one of the centre cooks to stock up on groceries for the people living and working in the centre this week.