11 April 2007

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Christos Voskres! Christ is risen!

We really thought that spring had come early to Moscow this year, after a winter nearly bereft of snow. By the first week or so in March, we were beginning to lose what little snow we got in February, and by the end of the month we were beginning to see motorcycles in the streets. Then we left on a visa trip, and when we returned on Good Friday, snow was falling at the airport. Since then we have had several days of intermittent snow squalls, some of them so intense that we couldn’t see across the street in broad daylight. The forecasters now promise us several days of relatively warm rain, which is probably an improvement.

Over the last weekend of March, our Russian colleague Pyotr Romme and I (Al) traveled to Ryazan (200 kilometers south of Moscow) to participate in a weekend evangelization with a Roma (Gypsy) community there. Our hosts in Ryazan were Andrei and Nastya, a young Russian couple who have chosen to serve as Baptist missionaries to this community. Both Andrei and Nastya participated in our Roma Network meeting in November and were anxious to have an evangelization team that included Roma Christians come to Ryazan.

Besides Pyotr and I, the team consisted of seven people, of whom six were Roma: Andrei, a Roma pastor working in the Kursk area; two young women from his church; and three Roma women who traveled from Kirov (15 hours by train northwest of Moscow). The seventh member of the team was another Pyotr, a Baptist pastor who works with Roma near Belgorod, on the Ukrainian border.

Pyotr Romme and I drove from Moscow Saturday morning and met Andrei on a designated street corner in Ryazan. We waited only a few minutes before the second Pyotr and the group from Kursk drove in from the other direction, having traveled for nine hours from Belgorod. We had to wait until evening for the Kirov group to arrive by train. We then headed out to the remote neighborhood where Andrei and Nastya’s group lives and meets. The route backtracked along the main road from Moscow before we took a turn to the left and back about 60 years in time. We arrived in a neighborhood of wooden houses in various states of disrepair, houses with electricity, but for the most part without running water or indoor plumbing. Although technically within the city limits, the street was just a dirt track, and with spring weather only barely passable in our Kia.

Our arrival was eagerly anticipated. A large group of children was waiting along the street as we drove up, and they thronged around Andrei and Nastya as soon as they stepped out of the car. We walked a few yards down the street to the house where the meeting was to take place and were ceremoniously ushered to the few chairs. The Roma, as is customary, sat on the floor. There must have been 30 children, plus a number of parents. First the children prayed, then Nastya led different groups of children in several songs, which were flawlessly performed from memory. It was obvious that she has spent a great deal of time with them. We later learned that most of these children are going to school regularly and have a teacher who has many years of experience working with Roma children. That in itself makes them a very fortunate minority among Roma children in Russia, most of whom get very little formal education.

After the children’s performance, Andrei from Kursk and his companions sang a number of songs, some in Russian, some in their own dialect of Romany. It is always interesting to observe the interaction of Roma from different groups; there is no guarantee that their respective dialects will be mutually comprehensible. In particularly difficult cases, the only way they can understand each other is to speak in Russian. Fortunately, Andrei’s group and the local folks understood each other without difficulty. Andrei and his friends sing beautifully, and Andrei can play amazingly intricate guitar accompaniments. Having heard him play before, I was astonished when he asked me to tune the guitar because he didn’t know how. His playing comes from dedication and hard work, without any formal instruction or technique; he does not own a guitar, but borrows them for evangelizations.

There was no formal sermon on the first day, just a number of introductions and preliminary remarks. We were pleasantly surprised at the level of interest and support that the parents displayed for Andrei and Nastya’s work. They have established a level of trust and rapport that is exceptional. As Pyotr R. pointed out, when he started his work in Kostroma, he visited families for a full year before he began to be accepted there. In Ryazan, several of the parents had questions for Andrei from Kursk, but there was no suggestion of distrust or suspicion.

On Sunday morning, we returned with the whole group for a Sunday service. As it happens, it was the morning that the Russian version of daylight-saving time went into effect, and some of the people from Saturday night came in late, as often happens in American churches. This service was more typical in that we had three sermons, by Andreis and Pyotr from Belgorod, as well as a few words of greeting from me. There were a number of Roma songs by the Kursk group, and then we had a roundtable discussion, minus the table and most of the chairs. Although some of the older kids got a bit restless, only a couple took advantage of the opportunity to leave and play outside; the rest chose to sit and listen as we responded to their parents’ questions. As frequently happens, many of the questions concerned the relationship between Protestant-style evangelical Christianity and Orthodoxy; Roma here tend to regard themselves as Orthodox, although very few ever attend Orthodox churches. Thus, we had several questions about the propriety of icons, veneration of the Virgin Mary, etc. Pyotr Romme has years of experience in dealing with these questions in a way that makes the Protestant position clear without casting aspersions on other viewpoints, and his explanations were received with understanding, if not with complete agreement.

After the service, we returned to Andrei and Nastya’s apartment for a quick lunch before heading back to Moscow. The Belgorod-Kursk group had another nine-hour road trip to look forward to, and Pyotr and I had to get back to Moscow ahead of the Sunday evening rush so he could catch his train to Kostroma and I could get some rest before classes on Monday morning. Everyone involved was impressed with Andrei and Nastya’s work with this group and with the long-term prospects for ministry there in light of the amazing relationships they have already developed with these children.

Our work with the Roma continues to develop. Pyotr will be with us again on April 20 en route to visit a Roma group in Astrakhan, and has other groups he plans to visit in May as well. Ellen will be joining Pyotr and me in June to explore twinning with the churches in Belgorod and Michurinsk. We are planning a four-day summer camp for Roma children in early August.

We have experienced and dedicated people who are doing this work, but their financial resources are very limited, as are those of the Roma communities we are trying to reach. If you are interested in contributing to this work, there is an Extra Commitment Opportunity account, number E040061, devoted to ministry to Roma in Europe. If you send donations though, please mark clearly that they are for Roma Ministry in Russia.

May God bless each of you.

Al & Ellen Smith
Moscow, Russia

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 186