Salahora: My Gypsy Encounter Wish Come True.
So as I was walking down the dirt roads of Sistrova village in Romania, my first team leader Brandon, I came across a woman hanging out on her porch. She yelled at me as I passed and said “Something, something in romania, Jesus (Yesus)!”. Then she pointed towards the church across from her. I had just visited the church on Sunday with another teammate of mine & didn’t remember her being there out of the small 8 members that showed up. I found out later on from our contact, Mahai, that she was saying “Peace of Jesus Be with You”…I found out that this indeed was the gypsy woman that I had been hoping to cross paths with!
Earlier this month I had discussed with our contact that I wanted to befriend a gypsy woman this month & although they are considered outcasts of society I wanted to make a friend & I felt that this something that the Lord had for me. After many strange looks for what I wanted to do I decided, O well I still want to do this.
Salahora asked me for prayer and although we really had no commonality in language we were able to communicate that she wanted me to pray for her. So I prayed out loud and asked God to heal her and be with her. Her smile was warm & inviting yet sneaky.
The next day I decided to go on a walk with teammates to the store & told my teammates that I wanted to see if my new found friend was outside. She was outside…and to my surprise 2 little boys who were about 6 years old were throwing rocks at Salahora and I told them to stop. Salahora laughed and played along a little with them but also yelled at them. It seemed like a common occurance for these little ones to bother her. They were even going inside of her vehicle and she was chasing them out. Then I saw Salahora throw sticks towards the boys. It was quite the scene. I had never really seen anything like it before. I think these boys were treating her this way because they knew she was a gypsy. I told the boys to stop throwing rocks and that it wasn’t nice…then I chased them away. I think the boys were partially just playing as children do but they needed to hear what they were doing was not right. Anyhow I got to be Jesus in the situation and I also tried to understand what was happening but still am not completely sure since when I asked Salahora she spoke absolutely no English.
I still wish I could’ve worked more with gypsies this month but I suppose God had other plans (- =
What I can say is I think I be-friended a gypsy woman. It was sweet. Oh and to end the night I got a big kiss from God with the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen.
