As I celebrate the last few weeks of this year with family and friends, I can't help but look back at the past year in amazement. Life has been such a roller coaster of events, excitement, loneliness, adventure, joy, challenges, gratitude, love and much, much more- but most of all growth. Through it all the thought that my identity is found in something greater than myself has been my anchor. My prayer is that my need for control, order, and sense will never take away from the work God delights in doing in each and every one of us.

With that said, here is an excerpt by C.S. Lewis I recently came across:

"Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, a man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else will be thrown in." CSL

Letter from Student

I showed a student his test results and after explaining to him why he failed he wrote me this note:

"Dear Ms. Blidar,

I am so sorry for going to sleep in your class. I just be up so late getting work done that it really is hard for me to stay up. But when I don't get any sleep my head hurt and I can't focus right. But for you and every other teacher I will stay up. I will turn in my homework. I will stay focused. I will come to study hall to get extra help from you and I will ditch lunch time as well. Ms. Blidar I am so sorry that I nodded off in class alot I want to make it up to you and show you the scholar that I am. I promise you won't regret how I'm changing. My grade will go up and I will be one of your best students.

Thank you for taking time to read this."

And this is why I do what I do.

Finale!

Today is Wednesday, the middle of my last full week in Romania. Where has the time flown? I apologize for not having been on top of blogging. But nonetheless, I began this experience blogging, so I must end it with a post. J

As this season comes to an end, I’ve been asked questions such as what are my most precious memories, what I am going to take back, what have I learned… and to be honest, it’s been hard attempting to answer those questions. But I’ve been taking time to really evaluate them. I have been looking back at how the different decisions and circumstances in life led me here, and I can’t help but acknowledge that there was a reason why I was brought here. So I now ask myself, why?

The summer of 2009 when I wrote the first draft for my application I knew I wanted to include one of my favorite quotes by Desmond Tutu, “my humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.” Fulbright was an opportunity for me, and thousands of others, to leave their homes, their comfort, their loved ones, their jobs- their everything- and move in a foreign country for the purpose of research/teaching and cultural exchange. It was an opportunity for us to be placed in communities around the world so that we could be “human” with those around us. It’s easy for me to romanticize and simplify this and say, “it wasn’t a simple task, but it was worth it” and leave it at that. But I feel like that would be an injustice to what this experience has been.

So with all of that said, what are my answers to those questions? I would say the most valuable aspect of my experience has been the relationships. Be it:

-          The gentleman at the corner 24-hour minimarket I talked to every other day when I would buy my water- who didn’t believe me when I told him I was born in the States because my accent wasn’t strong enough (yup, I admit, I was pretty proud J).

-          The dedicated students who demonstrated an ardent interest in learning and excelled beyond my highest expectations. The students who expressed their desire to do something worthwhile with their lives. 

-          My church family who welcomed me into their church and homes with open arms.

-          The generous friends of friends who took time out of their day to befriend me and welcomed me into their lives.

-          The family friends who drove hours and hundreds of miles to pick me up and bring me to their home.

-          The new friends I met from other cities who hosted me when I would visit.

-          The people I would have coffee-breaks-turned-into-half-day-lunches in Unirii Square.

-          The thoughtful colleagues who took care of any work-related challenges in order to make sure I had a smooth and successful experience.

It was these experiences with the local, everyday people that I treasure most.

Of course there were challenges that at times made me feel overwhelmed. There were times when I didn’t always feel embraced and accepted. I longed for normalcy, organization, and a better understanding of the cultural context. Yes my independent self missed the convenience of a car. Or simply the convenience of being comfortable with friends whom you know have already seen you at your best and worst.  There wasn’t always a smile on my face and a skip in my step. But nonetheless, this was all eventually overshadowed by the people who made this experience worth it!

I look at life and the world around us and my heart breaks. It breaks at the injustice, at the circumstances that limit people and humanity from achieving the potential that God placed in each and everyone of us. I look at the people around me as they long to find the answer to the void in their lives. I see them struggling to achieve something great but failing since circumstances seem to always be against them. It’s easy to see these things and feel hopeless. But I then look at the fact that I had the opportunity to come back to the country my mother was a refugee from. She fled because the government at the time limited her from achieving her potential due to her religious background and other factors. Yet, here I am, decades later, teaching courses like “Human Rights” and “Religion and Politics,” in the same country she once left. This full circle story is something I deeply treasure because it illustrates the struggle mankind continues to fight for- for good, for something better, for justice, for hope.

As we go through life, it is easy to lose focus of what truly matters. So I encourage you to look at life as a whole. Who are you? Why are you where you are right now in life? What talents were you given? What are you doing with them? As I look back at the decisions I made along the years, I see how God led each step in this direction. And now that I am here, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for this opportunity. The opportunity to have been “human” amidst the communities He placed me in. The opportunity to have returned to the country of my ancestors and hopefully have been the blessing others have been for me.