Roma Ministry
The Roma, with their colourful clothes and fine looks, constitute one of the most enigmatic and exotic people groups in Europe today.
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Their origins are subject to question, but it is claimed that they departed from India approximately a thousand years ago. Their skin colour and the linguistic overlap with Sanskrit would suggest this.
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The intervening years, however, have been far from kind.
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Enslaved in Romania until the 1850’s, horror stories abound of Roma families being sold as estate chattels. The second world war saw them targeted by the Nazi regime, and – with the exception of those deemed to be of pure Roma origin – ruthlessly terminated, with estimates varying from 300,000 to 1.5 million deaths.
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A tour through gypsy villages today is a study in contrasting fortunes. On the one hand, palatial villas with every gaudy finish line the streets, often built through deception and ill-gotten gain.
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But such people are in the minority. Most Roma live in appalling poverty. Decrepit shacks of rickety poles and plastic sheeting or earthen-walled, one-room dwellings are the norm.
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Often a television will be squeezed in somehow, electricity being tapped illegally from an overhanging cable.
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But perhaps the most revealing statistic we’ve encountered is that the majority of Roma children are hungry all the time, with 40% of Roma families living in conditions below those deemed minimal for human survival.
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Unquestionably habits of crime and horrendous iniquity are found in Roma communities. A millennium of vice is no small thing, and not easily overcome.
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But we hear the Saviour’s call for faithful men to go and make disciples of these people, and it has been a joy to sponsor two of them.
