CEE Pray for Hope
Fruit evidenced after decades of seed planting
“The greatest triumph is seeing the changed lives of new believers,” said International Mission Board missionary Brenda Goss.
Brenda and her husband, Jerry, have had the privilege of seeing 48 changed lives in their three years of working with the Roma in Poland. However, those 48 came after years of seed planting by forerunners of the Gosses, as well as 16 months of faithful sharing by Jerry and Brenda.
“The first year was tough. We had to just smile, look dumb and tell them Jesus loves them,” Jerry said with a laugh, “but we shared the Word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.”
God showed favor to Jerry and Brenda and they were accepted by the Roma, unlike others before them. Staszek, a Polish believer, had been going to the villages for four or five years, sharing the Gospel with no response. Before him there was a Finnish man who had come for two years to share the Good News with no visible results. Twenty years before that, a Czech-Polish believer came and told the Roma about Christ, but he was stoned, beaten and forced to flee. Jerry and Brenda are the most recent in a long line of seed planters.
“We were just part of God’s plan,” Jerry said.
When they first came into villages Roma would ask them why they were there.
“Here I was, white guy, no Polish language, no Romany language,” Jerry said, “but I would just tell them, ‘I am here because God told me to come here and share my testimony with you and the greatest news in the world—Jesus.’”
In some villages, their eyes were finally opened—God had a message for them. Sixteen months later the Gosses saw someone come to faith in Christ.
Ondja was the first to become a believer and his family followed. Jerry visited Ondja after his conversion and heard about his extended family in a village two hours away. Ondja was eager to tell them about Jesus.
“So, we got in the van and went,” Jerry said. “God started working in that family and eventually it snowballed … first kids and then Mom and then Dad…. People would tell their friends.… I’d go into the neighborhood and they would say, ‘Hey, Guess what? So-and-so got saved.’”
Now 1,000 Roma in 16 villages and neighborhoods in a 300-kilometer radius of Krakow have heard the Good News. Roma are catching the vision of sharing Christ with their own people. From Ondja’s family, one young man is a music director in the church and another is a home missionary to villages outside of Krakow.
“It’s amazing to see the transformation in the lives of the Roma,” Brenda said. “It’s made it all worthwhile.”