Emmy Grace is the daughter of the couple who was in Romania for about 11 years with our ministry there. Today she is an RN but with a passion for mission work. Anyway, she wrote this story.
Johnny
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EMMY GRACE’S STORY ABOUT GHITA
Hey Mr. Johnny,
My dad asked me to write something about Romania for the newsletter, so I put it to prayer and this was what I got if you’d like to use it for a little but on Romania in the future. Thanks for all you do!
My family moved back from Romania nearly 11 years ago, but many of the lessons I learned and people I met while there are timeless for me. One of those people was a man named Ghita. He lived in the big nursing home in Arad along with 300 other individuals, but his story was quite different from most of the other residents.
His family had a bakery, and at age 2, he had fallen into the brick oven fire and been severely burned. His family was eventually unable to take care of him and had placed him in the care of the state. He had been living in the Arad nursing home for decades. Ghita was cognitively delayed, severely deformed, and covered in scars from the incident. His extremities were curled in, contractures confining each joint, leaving his body twisted and hardly able to move. He was unable to communicate beyond saying his name and a few garbled sounds.
I think of his life, spent in a ward room with 3 other men, the tv constantly blaring manela (a popular Romanian music). I consider how in the summer time irritating mosquitoes would land on him, and he would be unable to wave them away. In the cold winter months, he was unable to pull his blankets up. I think of how slowly the time must have felt ticking by. I think of the summers of swimming and picking berries he missed. I think of the fact that he never got to go to school, ride a bike, drive a car, or own a home. I think of how probably the most difficult thing was that in many ways, his condition had left him isolated from being able to connect to the people around him. He was unable to speak to them, unable to reach out and pat their shoulder or embrace them in a hug. Thinking back on his situation leaves me with a profound gratitude for the simple things I so often take for granted: a healthy body, a job I can perform, the ease of getting to talk to the ones I love.
Ghita’s story doesn’t end there though, because even though Ghita had so many odds stacked against him, he was loved. Loved by a perfect Savior who had died to save him. Loved by the only One whose opinion ultimately matters. Society may largely have considered him worthless; but in the eyes of God, Ghita was an image bearer of our Creator and no less important than anyone else to ever exist. I remember our family getting to spend time with Ghita, getting to bring Ghita little gifts, and most importantly getting to tell him about Jesus and His love for Ghita. I think of how kind of God to move a family all the way across the world to share His love with Ghita and the others around him; but in reality, I think how much more kind of God to let our family be a part of what He is doing. It says in Matthew 25:40 “And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’” Ghita was certianly one of the “least of these”, and in getting to serve Him, we were getting to serve Jesus, what a privilege that is. Though God doesn’t call each of us to go to a foreign country, He does give each of us ample opportunity to show His love to the people around us. He may just be wanting us to truly see the cashier, the janitor, the bus driver or whoever is close to us and be willing to show His care for them. That is every bit as important as finding and loving the Ghitas of the world. As another missionary concisely put it “ministry may be as simple as loving the one in front of you”.