sarmale – this is a Moldovan dish that is basically tiny cabbage rolls. They can also be made with grape leaves. In Romania, they are usually made with meat but in Moldova, they generally are filled mainly with rice and vegetables. We went to a Moldovan cultural event and they had a variety of Moldovan foods. At one table they had what looked like very large cabbage rolls but when you pulled back the cabbage leaf, it was in fact filled with many very tiny sarmale, like a little surprise package!
gospodina – some would translate the word as ‘housewife’ but I am told that it has a much richer meaning than that – a woman that is good and competent and frugal, wise, capable and hard-working. Probably the closest English translation would be ‘homemaker’ but it is along the lines of Proverbs 31.
So, during the time that Marah was here, sporting her new diamond ring and looking forward to her June wedding, one of our Moldovan friends offered to teach her how to make sarmale. Marah was delighted to have such an opportunity. She and Brandy, one of the American young women on my team, had their first lesson together.
(As you may remember, new team members are required to live in a Moldovan home for the first three months of their time here. Brandy is living in the same town where I was living, Ialoveni, but with another family. Sora (sister) Sveta is her host and it was Sora Sveta who taught Brandy and Marah how to make sarmale.)
So yesterday when I put Marah on the plane to send her back to her fiancé, Daniel, in Vancouver, it was with the confidence that she is well on the road to being the best ‘gospodina’ ever. Not only does she know how to make ‘sarmale’, but she also knows how to make apple pie, which her very own mother taught her how to do. Daniel, you are a very lucky man!
I feel a need to add a bit of a postscript to this. It is a wonderful thing for a woman to know how to cook and manage a household, and it is no small skill. Keeping house, raising children, cooking meals takes a great deal of wisdom, planning, patience, love and ability. But there are some who believe (and this is a common assumption in Moldova) that this alone is what women are meant to do and this alone should be their goal and their purpose in life. For some, I’m sure this is what God calls them to and equips them for. For some, God calls them to home-making for a season, but that is not to say that they are not capable or deserving of having other dreams, hopes and plans for their lives. Some never marry but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t something amazing that they can do with their lives.
Each of us is given one life to live, talents and abilities to develop and use, and love to share. I want my daughter to be competent and able to be a loving wife and mother, and a competent home-maker – but I want her also to develop all the talents and abilities that God has given her in whatever realm of life she can use them. I want her to be constantly reading and learning about the world we live in. I want her to be aware of the needs of her community and the gifts she has to offer beyond her own home. I want her to be confident that she is capable not only of raising a family, but of taking responsibility together with her husband, for the support of her family and the decisions that need to be made and the situations that need to be addressed day by day and year by year. I want her and Dan both to know that each has a great deal to offer to the other and that marriage is an opportunity for them to help each other become all that God has created them to be. I want them to know that individually and as a family, they have a responsibility to give of themselves to make this world a better place, and to show the love of Christ in whatever way He directs them. By God’s grace, may it be so.
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