BondServant News
April 2003
A Newsletter by the Anton Osoinach Family...

Hopes for Others            Arad, România        osoinach@xnet.ro         

“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD,
choose you this day whom ye will serve…”
Joshua 24:15

Choices

The choices we make are so important. Sometimes we cannot see the long-term results of the decisions we make until many years have passed. We are seeing some of the bad choices in people’s lives as they come to the end or find themselves in despair. But each situation begins with a choice.

 We have been seeing an example of this for a year and a half in the lives of Samuel and Alexandra
whom we first saw while walking on the street one day. They did not seem to be begging, but just hanging around. Alexandra was nine and Samuel was seven. They lived in a village about thirty-eight kilometers away called Pâncota and are two of the children in a family of six. The parents had no money nor did they have the potential for work, so they sent Samuel and Alexandra to town to beg. After a half-day of school, these two children would catch the train to Arad where they would beg in the streets, play, and catch the train back home at eight in the evening. It was a long day, but they seemed to look forward to the excitement of coming to the big city and being all on their own. They did not always stay together. Some- times we would see Samuel alone and ask where Alexandra was and hear, “She is working somewhere else in town.”

Over the first year we gave them many things: warmer clothes, a bag to carry their books to school, food, stuffed animals and school supplies. But this new year brought new CHOICES into their lives. Just a few months ago, in the middle of December 2002, the train schedule changed and there was no longer a train right after school to Arad from their village. The after-school train did not come for many hours and they did not get to Arad until after 5 p.m. and then departed again at 8 p.m. Rather than having from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. to work, they only had from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.  

They and their parents made a Choice: “Just skip school and go to ‘work’.” So now, despite the fact that neither can read, they have dropped out of school to come to Arad most days to “work” for their family. Seems like a real bad Choice for their future and for their family.

Along with this Choice came other choices in their lives. Another Choice was to not go home every night, but some nights to just stay in town and sleep in a park or at the train station. They have begun to do this also! They have begun to get themselves treats and meals out. On one level buying toys and food for themselves makes sense because they are the ones working, but if what we have seen with others holds true, this is part of a pattern.

First, they work a bit on the street begging, but still have a fairly typical home life. Over the months/years they go to school less and less and then they go home less and less. They begin to get more possessive with the money and stop wanting to share with their families. They want to keep it for themselves. They stop going home and start staying in the street longer and longer until they get to a point that they seldom go home. Sadly, it is a quick slide downhill. As these children grow and are not so cute or so small, they have more trouble making a living by begging and they begin to venture out into other more dangerous means of surviving.

It all begins with a Choice and each day each of us makes many Choices. Sometimes it is easier to see the mistakes someone else is making, but each of us should take the time to examine the Choices we make and consider the long-term consequences.

 "…what does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the LORD'S commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good?”      Deuteronomy 10:12-13 

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