A Gift for a Gypsy Girl (#335 of 365+)

“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering” (Isaiah 53:3)

At a recent wheelchair distribution in Romania, Joni’s team saw officials turn
away a gypsy man and his disabled daughter who came to their door. The gypsies—or the Roma as they prefer to be called—weren’t allowed to enter the building because they were societal outcasts. Fortunately, her team was able to run and catch up with the pair down the street and replace the girl’s dilapidated old wheelchair with a shiny new one. They also gave her a pretty blue Romanian language Bible and the gift of hope in Jesus Christ.

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37)

Roma people live in camps and wander from place to place because they don’t have a permanent home. It’s a topic of debate whether they do it by choice or because they’re discriminated against and have no choice but to live that way. In the news today France is being harshly criticized for a mass deportation of gypsies back to Romania even though the law clearly allows EU citizens the freedom to travel into and across other EU nations as much as they want. French officials say the Roma are welcome to return and live in France when they have paperwork proving they can financially support themselves—but that sentiment completely contradicts the country’s law that won’t grant the Roma the right to work there until 2014.

os•tra•cize
   to exclude, by general consent, from society, friendship, conversation, privileges, etc.

I read somewhere online that the Roma were hunted for extermination by the Nazis during the Holocaust even though they were considered a part of the Aryan race. Those who were married to a German or had a German parent were allowed to live but they were forcibly sterilized. Some of the objections to their existence were because they were considered “nonpersons… foreign… labor-shy.” There aren’t any official figures available but it’s estimated that somewhere between 200,000 - 400,000 gypsy men, women, and children in the 1930’s died because of gas chambers, shooting squads, starvation or disease during imprisonment, or medical experimentation.

I found the following descriptive—and sometimes cruel—terms as I researched the Roma. Do any of these words remind me of someone in my church, at my workplace, or in my neighborhood? How can I be Christ to that person today?

Outcast
Rejected
Excluded
Unwanted
Undesired
Not accepted
Unwelcome
Unacceptable
Shunned
Snubbed
Blacklisted
Lazy
Unemployed
Homeless
Wanderer
Adventurer
Felon
Immigrant
Exile
Refugee
Banished
Expatriate
Foreign
Nonperson
Leper
Pariah

“Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God” (Romans 15:7)

Lord, help me to love, accept, and bless the “personae non grata” in my life as if they have always been in my family... The same way the prodigal’s father welcomed him back... The same way you showed me grace... Amen.