“One, two, one, two…Which one is Robi’s?  This one is mute! Give me a chord on the piano too! That one is too quiet, add more volume on it!”  – bustled the musicians around the equipment, when we stepped into the Káposztásmegyer congregation in Budapest. When the rows were filled, the music unfolded too: the choir started, then the synthesizer, three guitars, a drum, a cymbal, and even a tambourine somewhere. “Oh Lord, from my heart flows love and thanksgiving. Because you see everything in me and so great is your power. “Oh Lord, from my heart flows love and thanksgiving, and I sing that you may be blessed Lord!” – rang out the song which the congregation joined in, despite the fact that they came from Drégelypalánk in Nógrád, or Vajdácska in Zemplén, Esztár in Bihar, or Büssü in Somogy - from counties all over Hungary. The participant were clapping and tapping their feet to the unique dynamism of Roma music.

“God is love. We trust in this love!” – emphasized Eszter Dani in her sermon based on John 15,1-11 that also marked the opening of the event. The pastor also added “while God created us for a community of love with Him, sin hinders us from accepting that love. She also said that the absence of unconditional parental love can prevent the acceptance of God’s love as a result of financial difficulties, problems in love relationships, or alcoholic problems can hinder one from accepting God’s love.  “But the love of the Lord is deeper and more certain than our parental love which is full of care, but it is loaded with fallibility of humanity” - explained the leader of the Synod Mission Office. According to whom the reasons which are hindering the reception of God’s love are our disappointments, inferiority complex, and the feeling that we are not good enough and we are cannot be loved by anyone, but also guilt, if we feels that our sins are unforgiveable. Jesus came to overcome this gap. God does not love us because we deserve it, but because he created us, and before creation he had plans for us. This is the reason why he constantly gives us his love, waiting to reunite with him in this community of love.

“For one who gives us this kind of love, we could also go through fire for them. We would do everything for God asks us. Not because it is an order or law but because his love inclines us to obedience” – explained the preacher.  And if we live according to his will – as the word says – we remain in him, then our relationship becomes fruitful, and we will no longer be guided by human fallen logic, nor by our big ego and little truths that lead us towards rivalry, discord, and war.  “Trust in the love of the Lord! Because this is our big opportunity: a point of certainty in our uncertain world” – added the preacher.  

Directly towards the Lord

The recent and former convicts of the prison of Vác and the Roma participants of the Reformed Roma Mission were giving their testimonies on the difficulties of accepting God’s love and trust. One of the members of the Roma Mission, Gyula Rácz from Szernye, Sub-Carpathia, was asked to speak. The sober and smiley man closed his worn-out bible and stepped forward to the microphone.

For him the turning point was a movie based on a gospel. One night he was sitting in front the television, and he watched a movie based on the Life of Jesus. A scene had a great impact on him, where Jesus hugged and healed the leper, who disgusted others and who others feared to touch because of his disease. After which came the Good Friday story and he did not understand why the people crucify a man who was this good to others. He had an unquenchable desire to answer the questions which came up inside him, so he reached for the Bible, and he realized that he did not understand the text. He even woke up his wife in the middle of the night and asked “What does this Jesus want from me?”

Gyula stuttered since his childhood, and he had some difficulties with reading too. But the knowledge about God and the desire to testify about Jesus was growing in him, so he prayed for the ability to talk and read clearly which was given to him by the Lord. “I quit smoking and smuggling cigarettes, I gave up cheating on my wife, and fighting, and I also stopped giving cigarettes and beer to my four year old son” told the man who is particularly ashamed of the sins committed against his child. “I really love my child, I brought him with me everywhere, also to the pub and I boasted that despite his age he already drinks and smokes. However I guided him towards death along with me” said the family man who is now the caring father of four school-going children. Gyula Rácz now pastoring the Roma Congregation of the neighbouring village highlighted that, “We are safe in the hand of God, so you should not lean left or right, but straight towards God!” 

Trust in each other

“As the grapevine cannot produce grape without branches, we have no chance to have blessing in our life without Jesus” - warns Bishop József Steinbach according to John 15,9-14. The Bishop of Transdanubian District in his sermon, talked about the fruits which can be harvested only in Jesus. First he explained the self-sacrificial love of Jesus, highlighting that we list ourselves as the old self but if the love or God touches us, the sequence changes: the Lord will take the first place, other persons take second place, and we ourselves shift to third place. “From the testimonies it is clear that our life can be fulfilled only within this service” emphasised the Church leader.

Secondly the preacher spoke about the fruit of friendship, and that brotherhood is not enough, but we must become friends and comrades. Because we hold on to a friend in trouble, we can be human in front of to him/her, we can be honest, we can lay aside our sins and confess our weaknesses to him/her.

Thirdly Bishop József Steinbach mentioned the fruit of joy, whoever receives joy from God, that is not dependent on circumstances of life, is never ending joy, because it is not fed by out every day circumstances, but fed by the eternal love of Jesus towards us. The Bishop in charge of Mission of the Reformed Church told the Roma participants “We can learn from you, because if you are in Christ, then you are really there, and we were warned how dangerous lukewarm Christianity is.

Prayer for the Roma people

The Reformed Church in Hungary called the colleagues of the Roma Mission to not only participate in the meeting in the Káposztásmegyer church, but to join the Prayer Day that is in connection with International Roma Day of 8^th April as a response to the request of American Presbyterians. Roma participants read the prayers at the Lord’s Table. They expressed their gratitude for Roma people and for being born Roma, and for the possibility to walk along with other brothers and sisters in the way of Christ. They condemned discrimination, social exclusion and persecution asking for God to spread kindness in other communities too. They prayed for Roma women, for the end of human trafficking, and furthermore for those Roma who are the captives of their addictions and their sins. They raised their voice for the leaders of minorities that they may help their people to elevate and not only make living from them. They also prayed for the leaders of the European countries asking for wisdom and selfless service for them.

God’s trust in us

“We did not choose the Lord, He chose us” – emphasized Tóth József in his closing sermon based on John 15:15-17. He expressed that: it is not our merit that we are Christians because God has chosen us, he searched for us and sent us out to service. “If we understand this with faith tranquillity and peace fills us, and we can face every trail of the life with courage and without anxiety” - explained the Pastor for the Hungarian congregation of Gáborján and Szentpéterszeg (Bihar County) who is of Roma decent.  According to him, if we only rely on ourselves we break, but if we rely on Jesus he heals us and raises us, he strengthens our hearts and sends us to service. “Without him we would be grains of sand spreading across the seashore, but Jesus is searching for us, gathers us and mixing us with lime to make mortar, then he builds strong walls from us” – explained the preacher asking the participants to, despite the fact that following God’s path can be difficult and painful, return home knowing that He sends believers to somebody, to an orphan soul, who is in need of His wonderful and unconditional love.

The state appreciates the efforts of the Church.

Katalin Victor Langerné, Deputy Secretary of State for Social Inclusion greeted the participants of the Roma Mission Meeting, and appreciated the efforts of the Church in social Inclusion. She emphasized that: if local communities carry out the programs from National and EU sources, which are feasible, their practice and operation can be guaranteed in the long run. Furthermore the letter of the Deputy Secretary of State detailed that the recognition of new social problems and bringing them to national level are often initiated by the Church. She also explained that apart from the work carried out in Roma communities, awareness has to be raised among the majority in the society and whose interest, the Churches create serious measures.

Fragments from the prayer for the good school result of the Roma children

“Our God,

we are praying for those children who never saw anybody in their family read or write

and that is why is makes no sense for them,  

those who never saw anybody going to work and never heard anybody

talking about the work lovingly,

whose family is illiterate and do not understand why school is important;

those who are sent to the streets to beg instead of school;

those who have to take care of their siblings instead of school;

those who are humiliated in school and called stupid and mocked

because of their Roma origin; those who are ashamed because

they do not have proper clothes and shoes;

those who have nothing to eat while everybody around them is having lunch;

those whose elder brothers finished school and learnt a profession,

but returned home and they say that there is no point of learning

because they are not employed due of their Roma origin;

those who are living in a house so small that they do not have place to do their homework; those who are turning to sins in their despair.

Please give us freedom form the resentment and sins!

Give us compassion, patience and peace!

Give us diligence and persistence in learning!

Give us strength, wisdom and humility to work honestly!”

 

Original text: Kiss Sándor

Originally published in Reformátusok Lapja 

Photos Vargosz

Translated by Dalma Kalácska, Njeri Wagana Hughes