A very special meal, with two very special girls

Recently I had the privilege of sharing a meal with two young girls, during which would have been an hour spent wandering around town, just waiting to go to choir rehearsal. The meal was certainly nothing special--it was at McDonald's--but the girls are special.

And they are homeless.

Last week, on an surprisingly warm, lovely day in May I decided, at the advice of a classmate, to spend an hour relaxing before going to choir. My days are usually quite stressed with studies, dropping off or picking up from daycare, etc. So I was relaxing by the river in town when two young girls walked in front of me. I thought I recognized the little girl so I said hello, and sure enough, it was Maria (I am calling her Maria here for her own integrity's sake). A few weeks before I had met Maria, 5 years old, in our church, where she attended Sunday school with her father, even though she does not speak either English or Swedish. Her family, her father had told me, comes from Romania, and they are in Sweden hoping for help.

I waved at Maria and the older girl with her, whom I will call Sabrina, were struggling with plastic bags of what I then saw were recyclable bottles and cans they must had been hunting for in garbages. I noticed that Sabrina was bleeding so I dug into my backpack for a tissue, and as she dabbed at the blood on her hand, certainly from a sharp can or who knows what in the garbage, she sat down and we started talking. I was happy that she could speak a little English so we could understand each other, and she could pass on what I wanted to say to Maria. Sabrina is young--only 16, and in the 7th grade--but her bright eyes told me that she is already wise beyond her years. We spoke for a few minutes, and one of the first things she asked me was, "Are you Christian?" We didn't talk much more about that, except that she said that her family is also Christian. After just a few minutes of matter-of-fact speaking, she mentioned that her mother made her collect the bottles, and that they had not eaten anything yet that day. It was 5 PM.

To meet a two relatively happy, bright-eyed girls, aged 5 and 16, with dusty clothing, collecting bottles and cans in order to make enough money for food, affected me. (As I am sure it would affect anyone). For just a moment I considered to myself, what do I do now? but then I just said, "Come with me." Without any hesitation, they followed along. "Let's go to McDonald's!" I suggested, since it was close by.

When we stood in line it felt perfectly natural, as if we usually go there together. I asked what they would like to eat and Sabrina asked for a cheeseburger for each, and then I also added fries and milk for each, in a Happy Meal for Maria. Then we sat down together and began to eat, smiling at Maria, and listening to Sabrina. And then she began to tell me about their lives.

Sabrina is Maria's cousin and they are from Romania. Sabrina is only in Sweden for a month, and then she will be returning to Romania to go back to school. I understood that her family had taken her out of the 7th grade to come to Sweden to help make money. To this I tried to play my friendly-teacher card and urged her to do her best to finish up her schooling, that if she finishes school she can get a job and make a better life for herself and her family. None of the adults in their family has a job, she said; unemployment is apparently very high and they have a very low education level. She told me that where she comes from women get married at about 18 and then they quit working. Right now they are sleeping in a car. They receive some help from a nonprofit mission in Uppsala, where they can go for showers and other things. But they are sleeping in a car.

Then for a little while I think we both forgot who we were, and soon we were chatting about little nothings--about makeup, hair, and school. We laughed and had fun, and all the while, Maria was playing with the little toy from her Happy Meal box.

After a while we were all finished with our meal. One had not finished their milk so I insisted they bring it with them. I gave them another plastic bag to help redistribute their bottles and cans better, and then it was time to go.

I am not sure, but I think the girls did not say thank you for the meal as we stood outside the restaurant. Instead, Sabrina gave me a big hug, and then Maria did the same. I waved them off, as I went off to choir, and they continued going wherever they were going with their load of cans and bottles, back to their family wherever they were at that time, back to their makeshift home.

Unfortunately I had been coughing during the week so I had to sit and listen at choir rehearsal, and not sing. One of the first songs my choir sang was Mendelssohn's beautiful "Herr, nun lässest du deiner Diener in Frieden fahren." As I sat in the church listening to the music, I couldn't help but think about my own life, and the life of Maria and Sabrina. Why were they sleeping in a car, unable to buy food, while I am not? This a very complicated question, but even though I have met many financially poor people in our travels in Asia, it feels different at home. So close. So young!

Generally when Tomas and I have travelled we have always tried to support organizations who promote sustainable solutions to poverty, such as some wonderful ones we encountered in Hanoi, where a restaurant helped get young people off the streets and educate them through training and service. In Cambodia we were frequently surrounded by groups of little children, who would leave their game of soccer or whatever they were doing as soon as tourists approached, beg for a few moments, and then go back to their game. And I still strongly believe that it is good to support reputable nonprofits who are helping with sustainable solutions.

My own short-term, nonsustainable solution when I met these bright young girls recently was, however, to throw sustainable right out the window and deal with the problems at hand. Hand is bleeding? Tissue: check. Not eaten all day? Supper at McDonald's: check. I realize this was not the best solution, probably, nor do I have any answers to the bigger issues at hand.

But I ask myself, if it were my little daughter who was hungry, what would I want? I cannot even imagine this, as a mother, as a parent, to be unable to provide food for one's own child. I am sure that if we would have been in this situation, I would have said something like forget sustainable! My child is hungry!!

I am saddened to think about the situation that many of our world's young children, and adults, are in: hungry, while at least we have plenty. Recently we have been talking more and more at home about this, trying to always remember to be grateful for the food that we have, and our home, and trying to find some way to help those who do not. What can we do?

I don't have any solutions, only my own thoughts and questions.

Herr, nun lässest du deiner Diener in Frieden fahren...

I'm home... ? Thoughts on "home"

After a long day of studying, cleaning, class, and a train ride, I am finally home. As always, it feels great to come inside from the cold, and make a roaring fire to enjoy as I sit in kitchen with a cup of chai tea. It's good to be home!

But as I caught myself thinking that it is nice to be home, I am once again reminded of the question: What is "home"?  What makes a place a home? Can a person have many homes? Does a home have to be a physical building?

Tomas and I have this little house in the middle of nowhere really, in a tiny village called Hulån, which is in Dala-Järna (slightly larger village) in the province of Dalarna, in Sweden. We love our little house, even though it is probably not especially charming from the outside! But perhaps we like it so much because it is ours; the sense of ownership, both physical and metaphorical, is perhaps what draws us to it. Or perhaps it is the fact that we feel "at home" in these surroundings, in the colors and decor that we have chosen, in the house that we bought cheaply and fixed up all by ourselves. Or does it feel like home since we have spent time here? Or is it that our relatives are just a short distance away?

Our little house in Hulån, Dalarna

But I am American, from a tiny village in Minnesota. That is "home", really. I always say, "We are going home this summer" and I mean, of course, to MN. Minnesota is where I spent 21 years of my life, and it will always be "home" for me as well. I am sure this will never change. I feel at home there in a way that I cannot even describe; I just feel it. I think a major part of feeling at home is certainly feeling at ease and welcome in one's culture.

But we also feel at home in our apartment in Uppsala, in the lovely city where we have lived since we got married (except for the time in China). Uppsala is definitely my Swedish home city. Yaminah even calls our gorgeous Cathedral, Scandinavia's largest, "Mommy's church." :) I think she has picked up on the fact that I feel at home in the church whenever my choir sings there.

Uppsala Domkyrka, Uppsala Cathedral, seen from one of my favorite views of Uppsala

To feel "at home" in one's current house, city, or childhood town seems, however, understandable. But the thing is, when we lived in China, we felt at home there as well! When we moved from northern China after two years, to southern China, the first thing we did was find a flower shop (not always easy) and fill the apartment with green plants, and decorate to make it cozy. Our Chinese students often said later that it was so much fun to visit a western apartment. But then we gently pointed out, um, you are in a Chinese apartment in China, with Chinese things... :)  But they meant of course that it was fun to see what we would do with the place. All that we did was do our best to make it cozy--to make it feel like home.

"Home is where your heart is." "Home is where you hang your hat." "Honey, I'm home..." What does the word "home" make you think of? Is it to be near your relatives? Is it to feel safe? Is it to be in a place where you feel that you can be yourself, or where you can relax?

One thing is certain. To be in the position that I am in, to be able to feel "at home" here, and even in many different places, is certainly to be blessed, and to be privileged. Although I often miss my family who are far away in the States, at least we can keep in touch, and know that we are all okay. There are certainly far too many people in this world today who do not have a place they call "home." Perhaps they are homeless people in our own societies, in the US and Sweden. Or perhaps they are people who live in impoverished conditions or a country torn apart by war. Or perhaps they are people who have a home--but who cannot feel "at home" there anyways, no matter how beautiful it might appear from the outside, because of a feeling of emptiness inside, or even worse: of violence in the home.

My tea has cooled as I have written this; it is time for more, and the fire needs another log. Then my warm, cozy bed awaits me. Yes, it is truly good to be home, but perhaps it would be even better to say, it is blessed to be home.

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