Hopefulness

Reading Eva Hoffmann's account of her travels in Eastern Europe shortly after the fall of communism makes me realize how much things have changed. In 1991, it was often difficult for Hoffmann to find a basic meal or a clean hotel room. Making a train reservation or telephone call was the kind of impossible experience that the term "Kafkaesque" was coined to describe. Some countries, notably Romania, seemed to be on the verge of social collapse. And this was after the soul-destroying repressions of communism itself.

How different our experience has been. Yes, train travel can be a challenge and most places do not take credit cards. We have heard about the struggles of ordinary people to make a decent living as consumerism takes hold. And, the farther south we go, the more obvious are the deprivations of the Roma, the Gypsies, whose ragged children interrupt virtually every cafe meal, every stop at a traffic light, every stroll through a public place with carefully rehearsed appeals for money.

But these are countries that basically work. What has amazed me is that the people we have met, at least, are so together. It astonishes me that they are not more scarred -- at least not visibly -- by the legacies of war, revolution, want and communism.

But there is a kind of pessimism that hangs in the air. "We used to have a beautiful country," a lovely young woman we met on the train, said wistfully. "But you do have a beatiful country!" we protested. The scenery of the Carpathian mountains of Transylvania is truly magnificent. "Look at that village. It's like something from a postcard." "Yes," but then there is this -- pointing to the remains of an abandoned factory, crumbling from disuse. "Maybe you'll come to visit Canada some day," we said. "I very much doubt it," she laughed. Newly married, she and her husband are finding it difficult to make ends meet. She has a mid-level government job that does not pay well and she seems to have few of the dreams of the young. I understand why. But she is young, educated, fluent in English and I long for her to believe that the future can be full of wonder and excitement.

Eva Hoffmann remarked on this gloominess:

The moment we find ourselves on the Romanian side, our passengers begin apologizing. They apologize for the road, the landscape, the poverty. Neither Peter nor I see anything so out of the ordinary, but the habit of national self-deprecation is something I've encountered all through these travels. It's as if the citizens of these countries, in addition to the real humiliation they may feel from having been reduced to second-class conditions, wanted to ward off the immediate humiliation of a foreigner's judgment. At least, they want to indicate, they're not so provincial as not to understand that their country is a poor province.

In my short time in Eastern Europe, I've come to believe that what the people here need is not western consumer goods but what all people everywhere need -- a sense of hope in the future. For me, at least, that hope is secured by one thing -- the fact that God has come among us in Jesus Christ. Those we have visited with have all been called to share this same conviction--not imperialistically in order to build a religious institution; but lovingly and hopefully.