This month, I am living within an Albanian Roma district, neighboring some of the nation’s most impoverished souls. The people are poorly educated, the homes are all half constructed, and the streets are lined with burning trash and screaming, filthy children. Men with nicotine stained beards sit around and play dominoes atop cardboard boxes beside the neighborhood dumpster, women spend their time hanging what seems like infinite amounts of laundry from the vacant half of their unfinished homes, and little boys throw rat carcasses at one another in play, while little girls walk around with babies on their hips. Music beams from radios at all hours of the day and night, stray dogs, loose donkeys and mangy chickens roam the roads, and every now and then, a fist fight breaks out between disgruntled neighbors. The people are neglected by their government and ostracized by the rest of the city. I’ve walked through the hopelessness of places like this before; it’s staggering. Let me introduce you to a few of the community’s members…
(Left: Photo by: Jami Williams. Right:Photo by: MS)
Mosa welcomes us into her humble home. She scurries around quickly as she offers her apologies for the “mess,” straightens a tattered carpet that covers the concrete floor and drapes an old tapestry over the sofa that also serves as her bed. At her insistence, the five of us sit on her small place of rest, opposite her and our translator. The house is spotless. Everything is in its place and my eye doesn’t rest on even one speck of dirt. She has pride in her home. Her daughter runs in and out of the room to meet Mosa’s firm, quiet demands; first dragging in a propane tank with a small burner attached to the top, then cautiously serving a tray of empty, clinking espresso cups. Mosa lifts her floor length skirt, digs into her knee high socks, and throws out a few coins to the younger children of the household, shooing them away to buy themselves some treats. The children’s squeals of excitement fade with them as they run down the street, and the house grows quite.
She drags the propane tank across the floor, fires it up, arranges it between her knees, and begins to prepare coffee for her guests. Without any prompting, she starts into her testimony of how she came to know Christ. We sit in silence as she casually tells her life story: an arranged marriage by age 12, a divorce by sixteen, resulting in a shunning from her Roma community, a second arranged marriage by 18, followed by a series of complicated child births. She doesn’t mention how she came to own the vicious scars that tatter her kind face. She does, however, graciously answer all our invasive questions about arranged youth marriages, heinous Roma wedding traditions, and how she’s hiding her own daughter indoors until she’s at least eighteen in an effort to save her from a forced child marriage. As we talk, and listen, and sip on our disgustingly thick Turkish coffee, I realize that while Mosa lives in poverty, she’s rich with hospitality and kindness…
(Right: A Roma woman and her grandchild. By:MS. Left:Our sweet neighbors, Irvan and Christian. By: Jami Williams)
Raxhi smiles ear to ear each time I pass him on the dirt streets of his community. Any time the church doors are open, he’s there, with both his young daughter, and his young wife.When he was a boy, Raxhi, now twenty, was introduced to Christ by the long term missionaries that founded the church in his Roma community. He absorbed a new way of thinking and grew to desire more than the slums his neighborhood had to offer. He took his school studies more seriously, poured himself into his new-found faith, and taught himself English.
When Raxhi was just 16, he was forced to take a 14 year old girl as his wife. Against his will, Raxhi succumbed to the traditions of his culture that he could not escape. Despite the heartbreak of his arranged marriage, he continued on in determination. Today, Raxhi volunteers teaching English to the youth in his community, takes college courses, and raises his two year old daughter with the wife he has chosen to love. He and his young bride plan to have a legal, Christian wedding in just a few weeks when she turns 18. When I see Raxhi holding his sweet daughter by her tiny hand, I realize that while he lives in poverty, he’s rich with joy, resilience, and peace…
(Left: Photo by: Jami Williams. Right: Photo by: MS.)
This evening, as I step into Nexhi’s home, I’m immediately offered a “Fanta Exotic” (the most delicious soda you’ll ever consume, I swear) and a seat on her sagging sofa. I glance at the rectangular window sized holes in her half finished home, and quickly shrug off the sharp pain I feel in my gut when I think about her sitting in this room during the approaching winter. She and the translator chat a bit, catching up on their days, and I sit quietly, watching all Nexhi’s relatives stroll in and out of the room. Things finally settle a bit and the translator tells me Nexhi and her daughter-in-law are ready to begin. My purpose in being in Nexhi’s home is to lead a Bible study.
I’ve decided we’ll talk about hope. I flip to Romans 5:1-5, mark the page with my finger, and begin the conversation, asking them provoking questions about faith, hope, and trust. I am almost immediately humbled by their responses. Nexhi’s daughter-in-law tells me of how her toddler son was born a twin but his brother died during her labor. She tells me that as she buried her baby boy, she praised God for the one she got to keep (Romans 5:3). I shift uncomfortably in my place, unsure of how to react to what she’s just shared with me. Ignoring my silence, Nexhi tells me about how life is hard and sometimes money is tight, but she knows she doesn’t need to worry, because God will continue to provide for them (Romans 5:1). My furrowed brow tightens as she continues to speak. She explains to me that we must ride these things out in life, for that is where we find hope, in our fight to overcome (Romans 5:4).
The study hasn’t even begun and I’m left speechless. These newly converted women just taught me the entire lesson I had prepared, before I even shared the scripture verses with them. I swallow hard, (taking down both my Fanta, and my pride) and then open my Bible so we can read the passage together. The rest of the evening I sit back, listen, and learn from these “impoverished” women’s stories, overwhelmed by their richness in faith, wisdom, and the very thing I came to tell them about, hope…
“1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” -Romans 5:1-5
(Left: The girls showing off their freshly painted nails. By:MS. Right: Mosa’s grandson. By:MS.)
As I slowly walk home, I count each burnt out street light, “one. two….six.seven.” I pass under a single, flickering beam of brightness, that ends my count. In that moment, it becomes abundantly clear to me that this neighborhood is nothing like the impoverished communities I’ve walked through before, there’s light here. I’m not living amongst poverty at all, not in the greater sense. I came into this neighborhood with pity for the entrapment of its residents. In reality, some of them, had already found freedom.
Through the work of the long term missionaries here, these people are slowly coming to know God and the wonders of walking through life with Him. That’s what Yahweh does-He brings hope to the hopeless, joy to the sorrowful, and provides light in the darkness. The people of this Albanian Roma community are basking in faith, wisdom, and hope. They’re overflowing with joy, resilience, and peace. Even with nothing, they’re offering up hospitality and kindness. This month, I’m living amongst some of the wealthiest people I’ve ever known. I’m living amongst true children of The Kingdom.
(Photo by:MS)
