Memories

When I returned to the States in December, the packing experience was rather traumatic for me. I had to reduce everything that I owned to two suitcases. Mom and Dad took back some things in their suitcases after their visit, I was allowed to bring one suitcase on my flight, and I paid for the second. But that was it. I had figured out a way to send most of my books back to the States through training center teachers, but there was just no way to get the other stuff home, due to the high expenses. So I had to make decisions. I gave away shoes, jewelry, craft supplies, clothes, books, makeup, body lotions, purses, plants, picture frames, suitcases, etc. So. Much. Stuff. I packed and unpacked. Weighed and reassessed, whittling it down to two 50 pd. suitcases. There were a few things that were absolute priority to me. Clothes could be bought again, but I didn't feel that these things could:

a Hungarian vase, Polish and Ukrainian pottery, Ukrainian and Polish jewelry, and some Ukrainian paintings that I had bought in the markets of Lviv and Odessa. So I carefully wrapped and packed them, leaving other things behind that were of less value to me.

And when I show people the pottery, jewelry, or a painting like this one of an Orthodox church in Odessa:

Or this street scene from Lviv:

......they ooh and ahh. And I too love the beauty of those things and these paintings. And I loved going into cathedrals and witnessing the splendor of the grand old architecture first hand. But today, today I found a painting that stopped me cold and grabbed me. I was walking through a local art festival with a friend, and we stopped to look at the paintings in one vendor's booth. And I kept staring at this one painting and told my friend, "That's Eastern Europe. I know it. It has to be." I started to talk to the artist and found out that I was right- it was from Romania. It turns out that she had been in Romania with none other than the World Race, a group I've written about several times on here. So now, friends, take a look at the painting that stopped me in my tracks:

Yeah, hmm, Not so beautiful as the first two, is it? Here's the thing, though. While the others are beautiful and I do love them, they weren't my life in Ukraine. I didn't wake up looking out the window at the beauty of an Orthodox church; you really don't see them in the average neighborhood. What I looked out my window at was the painting you see above. Every day of my time in Ukraine, I looked out the window at the monumental concrete ugliness of Communist bloc apartments. Everywhere I went and everywhere I looked, they were there- in their imposing, boxy, grey rigidness. I confess, I hated them.

So why, you might ask, did I buy this painting today? Why couldn't I just walk away? Because those ugly, ugly buildings have come to speak more to me of Ukraine than the magnificent ones in the top two paintings. Whereas when you enter the gorgeous orthodox churches of Ukraine you might see a few people praying to the saints, here is where the people are. They're inside those giant hulking block buildings; being born, growing up, living their lives, and dying. And I want to remember those people, the millions who are lost and aren't likely to find the answers in the splendor of the orthodox church. Inside, those buildings that I dreaded so much are teeming with people who don't know Jesus, and who have no hope for a better life. And I don't ever want to forget that sight- a view that I dreaded so much, that came to symbolize something so different for me. It's not the most beautiful picture on my walls, but it's one I want to look at everyday- to be reminded of a people that deeply touched my life and who are in desperate need of a relationship with the only One who can truly give them hope.