sweet blisters on my palms

Last week I saw the cows come home. I’ve played ‘til the cows come home, worked ‘til the cows come home, and even argued ‘til the cows come home, but until last week I’d never actually seen it.

School finished a week ago Friday (see my last post), and Saturday morning I took off for a week in Ozd, Romania. This village of about 200 or 250 people, tucked into a little valley in the rolling Transylvanian hills, is about as idyllic as you can imagine. I went there to visit my friends Ryan and Shannon and to join a work team from their home church in Michigan (River Terrace Church). I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, though.

The story really begins with Ryan and the Calvin College Band. When I joined that esteemed musical ensemble as a freshman I quickly befriended him (it helped we were both 3^rd Schultze men, of course). That friendship has blessed me in countless ways, from the simple (having somebody to go to church with) to the profound (having somebody to listen to me venting my existential angst), but one bond that has proved especially significant is our love of Eastern Europe. It started when we spent three weeks here touring with the band in the spring of 2002. We were tour roommates sharing in the remarkable hospitality of the Hungarian families who took us in both for that first tour and a second in the spring of 2004.

That second tour came after Ryan’s graduation, so at its end he jumped on a train back to Romania instead of a plane to America. Through our denomination's relief agency he has found a position at Bonus Pastor, a Transylvanian ministry connected to the Hungarian Reformed Church. He spent six months in Ozd while Shannon, then just his girlfriend, volunteered in Kolosvar.

In the return of seized property that had followed the Romanian government change in the early nineties the land and castle of a noble family had been returned to them. They in turn donated the property to Bonus Pastor. The ministry has big plans for the various parts of the property, and they’ve been slowly but steadily implementing them. When Ryan was there in 2004 he worked on the first phase, turning the old granary into a rehabilitation center. That work is now complete and in our visit we met the 14 guys who are currently clients there. There are also plans to turn the castle into a conference center and school of sorts. For now it’s where we got to sleep.

Being students again, Ryan and Shannon decided to spend their summer back in Romania (though it means medical and graduate school will take even longer), and part of that time in Ozd working again with Bonus Pastor. I’m so blessed to have friends who share my love for this part of the world and especially the Hungarian culture (while Ozd is in Romania all but one family in the village are ethnic Hungarians).

I headed to Ozd, not really knowing what I was going to be doing there, but having vague ideas of light construction. If you ever agree to help out with a service project, listen carefully to what you’re actually agreeing to do. When I arrived I learned our goal was to pour a little less than 275 square meters of concrete in the barnyard of the dairy farm Bonus Pastor runs. This farm is there to support the rehab center financially, to give the guys some productive work to do, and to demonstrate some modern dairy farming techniques in the hope they will rub off on local villagers.

For five days we worked hard, and it was a joy. The nightly ache of my woefully underused muscles was rewarding (and bearable, thanks to lots of ibuprofen). There were far too many highlights and funny moments to relay them all, but I will say I’m so thankful for every member of the team. I was blessed by seeing each of them contribute mightily in the ways their gifts dictated. How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!

And, as I mentioned, I got to see the cows come home. Every morning the families open their gates and the cow herder drives the village cows out into the pasture. And then, every night at about 8:00, they come trundling home, each cow knowing exactly which gate to go into. It’s remarkable to turn the corner and see these gigantic beasts heading straight for their own home. Ok, maybe it’s not that remarkable for some of you, but for this city kid it was a sight I won’t forget (which is good because I forgot to take a photo of it).