Roma Gypsy Community in Romania

Picture credit: teammates Jonathan and Micah

 

Days like these are sometimes very hard to digest and heavy on the heart. Seeing people’s living conditions. Seeing deep spiritual, physical, and emotional needs. Knowing each time we bring food, clothes and our love, it helps, but it doesn’t solve every problem..

 

There’s such complexities to the problems in our world. For a girl who loves to solve problems, the weight of the many layers of undoing required to get to a better place is overwhelming. In this community, gypsies live and practice witchcraft, including animal sacrifices, curses and spells, theft, etc.

 

It’s overwhelming to me and I don’t live in it every day. I don’t know the ins and outs. The emotional, mental, and spiritual intricacies of it all. The generational cycles. The aspect of choice. The historical and cultural elements.

 

I personally don’t intimately know every detail. But, I personally know the one who does. The one who knows the ins and outs because He’s there in it. The one who knows every hair on everyone in the community’s head. The one who knit them together in their mothers’ womb. The one who put on flesh to walk this broken earth, knowing and still choosing to be beaten, mocked, tempted, and put to death for our sake. The one who calls each of us worthy because we are valued at his priceless blood and body. The one who made a way for us, tearing any veil between us and our creator, leaving no space for rituals, further sacrifices, good works, etc. to stand between us and intimacy with God. The one who has the ultimate victory over every circumstance, including death. The one who intimately acquaints himself with hardship. The one who doesn’t just carry hope, but IS hope. 

 

I know Him. I want others to know Him. If you’re my past or future coworker, I want you to know Him. If you’re a gypsy child practicing witchcraft who I met while passing out yogurt, I want you to know him. If you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, I want you to know Him. 

 

Knowing Jesus does not mean you go from poor to wealthy. If anyone tells you that, that is a false Gospel. What it means is you get to go from dead in your sins to alive in Him.

 

The simple gospel. It’s the reason we’re alive. It’s the reason the pastors we served under in Romania keep doing what they do, day in and day out, year after year, even when it’s hard, even when it’s thankless, even when there doesn’t seem to be hope – with Jesus, there’s always hope.

 

Romans 5:8

Matthew 25:36-40

John 10:10

Acts 3:19

Philippians 2:5-11

Acts 4:12