When I’m not traveling to Romania (I’m a “veteran” of the Romania trip) I’m involved with an AWESOME ministry called Scarlet Hope that brings the hope and love of Christ into the adult entertainment industry. In the last month, God has blessed myself and one of the women (who has since left the industry and recommitted her life to Jesus!!!), with a great friendship. I’ve grown very close to this sister of mine (for her privacy I'll keep her name out of this blog) and in an early conversation between us about nationality she told me that she wasn’t sure where her family was from but that when she was little her father would tell her that they were 'gypsy Jews' because they moved around a lot. Her father was not a Christian so called himself a Jew. So what do you get? A gypsy Jew. Upon meeting her I knew that in a month I’d be coming to Romania to work with the gypsies, when she told me she considered herself a gypsy I thought that of all the girls on the team to get close to it was such a “God thing” that she and I became friends.
On this trip I’ve been keeping up with my wonderful new friend through emails that a friend of ours is printing off and giving to her for me. Before I left America I told her about the twin girls who stole my heart on last years trip. So far I hadn’t seen the girls at VBS and although I am more than happy to love on all the other kids all day long my heart was aching for “my girls” from last year. I just wanted to hug them! When I still hadn’t seen them yesterday I was a little bummed. But today, as I already shared with my American Jew in an email this afternoon, I got to see “my girls.” The following is from that email.
“Today in the village my girls from last year showed up : ) actually at first I just saw one of them and I was SUPER happy that she remembered me and wouldn’t let me put her down from holding her! I grabbed an interpreter and had him ask her where her twin sister was. She told us that her sister was in France. I was shaking when I got this news because typically the gypsies will travel to France for prostitution to make money or to sell their beautiful children into the sex trade…heartbreaking stuff. Anyway I was upset but tried to hold it together. I turned around and started walking to the group of children assembling for VBS and there she was, the other twin! The gypsies speak their own sort of Romanian language so clearly something had been lost in the translation. Either way I was ecstatic to see her! She ran over for a hug and tears were welling up in my eyes. I know they think I’m nuts when I cry in front of them (it happened when I left them last year) but I couldn’t help it…I was so happy she was in Romania and not in France.”
It was so cool to see the girls again this year. You better believe they will continue being on my heart throughout the year when I go home to the States and I will just keep praying for them that one day they will grow up and know Christ. I also pray that one day my new friend and I can travel to Romania together and she can meet "her people" the gypsies...I know she'd just fall in love as I have :D
Ciao,
Kassie (pronounced with a long a sound here in Romania)