Yesterday was our last day of teaching in Reghin - we enjoyed it so much! Plus getting some one-on-one tutoring in our languages was such an unexpected blessing! We decided to invite our older students to come over to the apartment to play Ligretto, which might just be the greatest card game ever(save UNO of course). I thought it would be fun to make them some cookies, and I figured since I wasn't used to Attila's oven, maybe a fool-proof recipe would be the best. Katie and I decided on Fudgy No-Bakes, because you don't even have to cook them...how could anyone mess that up right? Well, I'm very sorry to say that they did not turn out as I hoped. However, it wasn't necessarily my fault. Apparently, the oats here are not quite like our oats at home - and they never actually cooked. They just stayed REALLY hard. So, if you ignored the consistency; it was similar to little rocks - the cookies were very good haha, but we threw them out. We bought some pretzels and cookies instead. It was a really fun night - but in order to prove to myself that I wasn't a failure at cooking, Katie and I bought some pasta and made it for our dinner. :D
Today, boys from Zolie and Zozo's villages(unfortunately, I cannot remember the village names to save my life), Gornesti, and Apalina got together to play a soccer tournament of sorts. Two teams played, and then the other two played, then the two teams that lost played each other, and the two winning teams played each other. I'm not sure if that sentence made sense or not, but I'll move on. Here is a picture of our boys from Apalina...aren't they precious? They're so serious. :)
The overall winners of the day were Zozo's boys - which Attila informed us, is usually the case in these tournaments. Katie and I were, as we should be, pulling for Apalina, but unfortunately we came in last. Our boys played very well. All of these boys can PLAY. WOW. I don't even want to talk about the comparison of American middle school soccer to the soccer over here. It was incredible. All of the boys were so serious about playing and they all played their hearts out. Some of course were much better than others, but they are all so passionate; it was a blast to watch them play. Because these boys know each other so well and play together all the time, it helps with their communication. More often than not, it was flawless, and I'm sure that comes with being able to practice together every day.
I started reading a book by Henri Nouwen called In the Name of Jesus, and one of the passages just jumped out at me yesterday. I was watching all of the boys during the soccer games, and noticing how the ones from Apalina were so much worse behaved than everyone else :). After the games we went to Apalina to take them home and have the children's Bible meeting, and I couldn't help thinking, as bad as they are, they're my favorite kids in the entire world. And I would rather spend an afternoon with them than anyone else. I came across this passage in my book: " I discover that I am learning many new things, not just about the pains and struggles of wounded people, but also about their unique gifts and graces. They teach me about joy and peace, love and care and prayer - what I could never have learned in any academy. They also teach me what nobody else could have taught me, about grief and violence, fear and indifference. Most of all, they give me a glimpse of God's first love."
I couldn't have put it better into words if I tried. These children are teaching me - I came here to teach, and I am being taught. I have learned more about prayer after listening to them pray, more about joy after playing with them for an hour, and more about peace every minute that I spend in their presence. Every day that I am with them, I love them all a little bit more.
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