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Roma to Roma: The effect of evangelism within a people group
Boyd Hatchel, IMB missionary and strategy coordinator for the Romany people of the Central Europe Field, has worked with Roma for years and knows he can never have the level of influence within this people group as another Roma can.
Three years ago Boyd partnered with Betty Easter, IMB missionary to the Roma of South Europe, to send Romany believers across the continent for the first time to share Christ with members of their people group in a different country. Boyd and 10 Romany church planters, pastors and community leaders from Romania went to work with a national pastor in Greece to reach the Roma of five villages.
While the Romany language differs with geographic location, Boyd had discovered during a previous trip that 70 percent of the language in both countries is the same, allowing communication of the Gospel. After the trip with the other men Boyd said he was amazed at the effectiveness of a Romany connecting with another Roma and speaking to them about Christ.
“When I went down there … (the local Roma) were a little bit skeptical,” he said. “When our guys got down there, within 15 minutes after they got off the van they were sitting inside people’s homes, having spiritual conversations and drinking coffee. They were like long-lost friends and family. I asked one of the guys who went with us, ‘When I came down here there wasn’t this openness. When I came down here I was polite, I spoke the language, but what is different?’ And he said, ‘Boyd, you were the key to Greece, but we were the key to their hearts.’”
Boyd said that experience has stuck with him and helped him realize the value of ministry within a people group.
“Romany believers will reach Roma faster than any American or outsider can,” he said.
Since, Boyd has helped organize Far and Away Romany Missions (FARM), which has the goal of sending Christian Romany students to minister to members of their people group in different European countries. Last summer another 10 shared Christ’s love with Roma in Romania, Moldova and the Czech Republic.
Boyd said the students were able to gain access to areas like never before.
“We saw amazing openness once again, where we had been developing relationships in Brno for over a year,” he said. “(The students) were able to come in and an immediate connection was made with Roma from Romania to Roma here in the Czech Republic.”
Roma are also making an impact within their country’s borders as believers in the Czech Republic help gain access into new communities for American teams to do ministry projects.
“If we didn’t have the Roma there we would be outsiders,” Boyd said. “When we had Roma with us we were considered their guests and they wanted us to share what we were doing and why we were there.”
In the midst of Roma-to-Roma outreach, Boyd hopes to cast the vision of Roma within responsive areas ministering to less responsive areas, which typically occurs along family instead of geographic lines.
Boyd said that while the location of outreach “may not be the closest-proximity place, but where we have an openness and an invite is where we’re going to go first.”