Seeds hidden deep in frozen ground

Yesterday's meeting was especially difficult as so many were off sick or having better things to do.  At times, waves of spiritual apathy can sweep over a community leaving the hungry feeling abandoned.  I awoke this morning with a picture in my mind that seemed to capture something important.  I saw a snow swept scene and imagined the seeds of the Gospel that had been sown on good soil that Jesus spoke of in the parable.  The seeds in my picture were buried deep in the frozen ground, still alive and full of potential, but unable to develop in those conditions.  The bible bears witness to long periods when nothing appears to be happening.  Such a fruitless time was in the 300 year period before the birth of Jesus.  All the Isiaianic messianic prophecies had been given: a Saviour was to come.  But hanging in there generation after generation must have been so hard for the faithful remnant.  It felt like that yesterday. The seeds of the Gospel have been planted in the hearts of the Roma, in "good soil" but the circumstances of their lives have frozen the ground over.  I often come away feeling I have ministered inappropriatly -failing perhaps to understand or respect unredeemed aspects of Roma culture and trying to force change too quickly.  I was brought back to "those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy" [Ps126].  When our sense of hopelessness expresses itself in tears, do those tears fall to the frozen ground, and begin to thaw it out?  The imagery linked into the talk I had tried to give last night:  John 4 ending with the "harvest" being brought in from the town of Sychar that had been transformed through one Samaritan women's encounter with Jesus. Psalm 126 picks this up: "those who go out weeping, bearing the seed will come back with shouts of joy, bearing their sheaves with them."  The imagery deepened further when I remembered to story I had told two weeks earlier of the tears of the sinful woman falling onto Jesus feet.  We had actually enacted this story in the service complete with the feet being dried with a woman's hair.  I discovered later that this had caused a "scandal" amongst some of the Roma for whom the scene was too challenging, too shocking.  The ice froze over.  I had told the story "in memory of her" - and again last night I told the story of the Samaritan woman at the well "in memory of her" - believing that God is trying to raise up the status of women in cultures that still marginalise them.  Yet, last night something did shift.  A tiny crack in the frozen ground appeared.  One lone man, who keeps on coming to LRC, came forward to give his life to Jesus.  There is sufficient power latent in this, to turn round the whole community, to have them all flocking to see who this Jesus is who redeemed the lost sheep of the town.  The harvest is ripe. The ground remains frozen...almost.  

Meanwhile lovely things are happening with the children!  Our little team has moved them from chaos into fun-filled order.  See below...

"God does not want to clean up your life!"

"God wants rather to give you a completely new life! Just like the old tooth is pushed out by the new tooth in a child, so new life in Christ pushes out the old life!"  This was pastor Stevo's message to us last Wednesday evening.  The following morning at the crack of dawn I was returning home on my bike after a  prayer meeting and I saw one of our Roma women on the street corner.  She was beaming.  "Martin I have to tell you!  I went home after the service and could not sleep. God was telling me to stop smoking.  Eventually I got up and threw all my cigarettes out the window.  Then I fell fast asleep."  She is now on the patches and inhalator to help when the craving comes.  But all the signs are that once again God has acted. A completely new life means a radical distancing from the old on every front.  The grace to hack it comes from a God who delights in helping when we are at our very weakest point.  The transformation in this woman has staggered all of us, Roma and Gadjo alike.  She was the toughest cooky in Luton two years ago and now we are in awe as she brings others into the fellowship with such charm.  Staying off fags when you've just moved home and have slept on the floor boards for two nights can't be easy.  But "his power is made perfect in weakness!"

Meanwhile, the Roma women come week by week to our weekly meetings keen to see each other and to receive from God.  The children are more wild than ever but the team have things under control. Just.  We lack Roma men chronically.  However, I've been doing some ethno-musicology.   In a room packed with Roma  with one new guy taught me a couple of Roma songs which we will sing this week. "As the spirit of the Lord is upon me, I'll sing/pray/dance like David..."

Dace duxo le devlesko e andre mande jilabau sar o David.  [x2]

Jilabau, jilabau, jilabau sar o David .  [x2]

Dace duxo le devlesko e andre mande rugi ma sar o David. .  [x2]

Rugi ma, rugi ma, rugi ma, sar O David .  [x2]

Dace duxo le develesko e andre mande me khelau sar o David. .  [x2]

Me khelau, me khelau, me khelau, me khelau sar o David. .  [x2]

***

Hotariselom te tzau ka Jesus  [3x]

Hai palpale, me chi mai tzau [x2]

Khantchi na miskil-a man pa drom[x3]

Hai palpale, me chi mai tzau [x2]

***

Interestingly, I had learnt the second song from the Faith & Life gyspy church in Slough a few months ago.  The first word "hotarieslom" was completely unknown to Pastor Stevo when I showed it to him!  He recommends we use the pan-Romany "alosardem":   "I have decided to follow Jesus! No turning back."   

***

Last night we joined with the black church that meets at Christchurch.  The spiritual fever had everyone dancing by the end, for in Christ there is neither black nor white, roma nor gadge, etc, etc [cf. Gal 3:28].  I think there is a deep affinity between those who have the experience of slavery in their DNA.  Freedom to dance and celebrate, when it comes, is then all the more exhuberant. It is like a foretaste of heaven. And in this life, a hint of what God has in store for multi-ethnic Luton.  

Another Roma lady told me her tragic story the other day.  Her second son had been born in New York.  He came to live in the UK with his mum.  She went to the American Embassy to renew his American passport.  They refused to believe that the boy was her son, forcibly took him off her, and passed him on to social services.  She had to presence of mind to demand a DNA test.  This revealed that she was in truth the true mother.  The boy was restored to his mother with scarcely an apology.  A human rights fiasco.  As the Roma have little access to legal aid, they remain the most vulnerable group in Europe to abuses of this kind.  The boy has yet to be granted a new passport and so I suppose he has become stateless.  

Recently, a Luton Roma guy was arrested by the police and put in prison. After a few days they released him, saying they had got the wrong person.  Just imagine what would happen if the vicar got wrongly arrested.  I'd be on the front page of the paper.  Again.