PRAYER AND PASSION

Michael McEntyre, the Associate Pastor for Youth, College & Young Adults, and Missions at First Baptist Church in Columbia, MO, spent a week in Romania, Feb 20-27th working with the Gypsy Smith School, a ministry of Project Ruth (www.project-ruth.org). 

Michael and his fellow team members traveled to three locations to hold day-long conferences on prayer. The groups they worked with consisted of pastors, church planters, lay leaders, church members, and community friends. Many of those who came chose to miss work to attend. 

Michael says, “I am encouraged by the faith and passion of the people and their desire to know more about prayer. It has been a humbling opportunity.”

OUR LANGUAGE IS IMPORTANT

Did you grow up speaking a language that important people used on important occasions? That had big books printed in it and people signing up to learn it? 
Radko Kratsov, a Roma Christian leader in Bulgaria, issued a challenge to advocate for the development of Romani*:
“We (Roma, who are 'always under someone's feet', who 'come from a shame-based culture') need someone to lift our hands to show the world that our language is important. Someone to blow the trumpet to raise the status of the Roma language."

SIL Roma team member working with Roma in Moldova

He shared how he had witnessed at a Bible study in Ivaylo, Bulgaria, how people's faces changed from mirroring shame to expressing happiness when they truly understood and participated in the study and were able to express themselves in their own language.

(CBF partners with the SIL Roma Service Group. SIL members in Bulgaria are stimulating the use of Romani in engaging with the Bible in ways that include all people present.)

*Romani is a term often used to refer to Roma languages. 

ENTERPRISE

Keith sat on the train from Arnhem to Amsterdam. The ride takes a bit more than an hour. He had a horrible cold. A Roma man, probably from Bulgaria or possibly Romania, walked through the car, laying this note on the little table between the seats. Keith gave him a 50 cent coin and got a welcomed packet of tissues in return.

A month before, Mary sat on the train from Arnhem to Amsterdam. A Roma woman, also probably from Bulgaria, walked through the car, laying a xeroxed copy of this same note on the little table between the seats. When she walked back through, picking up the cards, Mary bought a packet of tissues.

Two months later, Mary sat on the same train. A much younger Roma woman walked through the car, laying a copy of this note on the little table between the seats. Mary smiled at her and pocketed the note. The young woman smiled back.

What would you call this practice? I call it enterprising.

P.S. These folks probably didn't "have a job at the moment." Unemployment rates in some Roma villages and neighborhoods run as high as 98%. Want to do something about that? Let us know!