People of every nation are special in their own way. Ukrainians, for example, are very generous and good-hearted people. Russians are open. And Romani, as I imagine you already know, are very emotional and rather unique. From April 30 to May 6 we had the opportunity to serve the Romani. We went to Russia to the town of L'gov, where Viktor Saltykov is pastor of the local church.

God has given this church a surprising ministry to the Romani. We decided to support our brothers and sisters in Christ in the challenging service to these people. So a team of seven people from Salvation Church went to conduct children's day camps for Romani children, and to meet and serve the adults of that community during the evenings. It seems that the idea of serving "gypsies" found favor in God's sight, though for our team this type of ministry was very unusual, as this was the first time we had met these people. But we were grateful for the opportunity to have the experience.

Most Ukrainians have a specific impression of the Romani: impudent, lazy, rude, sly ... But we saw them completely differently. But let's tell the story in order.

When we started the children's camp the Romani were excited that people had come all the way from far off Ukraine to hold a camp for their little ones. Our team divided into two groups. The first group went to visit the Romani in their homes to get to know them over a cup of tea. The second group conducted the camp. As a result we had the wonderful opportunity to spend time with 30 children and get acquainted with 15 Romani families. It is a testament to God's glory that some of the children now go to Sunday School.

The goal of our trip was to tell the Romani about the living God. We also tried to help them solve their everyday problems, in which God blessed us and gave us wisdom. In one case we wanted to help a disabled Romani man with his government assistance. The situation was complicated. The police had taken his passport, and in order to get it back, a large sum of money was required. We were sure that God would provide a way out of this difficult situation. After a while the police returned his passport on their own, without needing to pay anything at all! Isn't that wonderful? And there were many more blessings like that.

In the evenings we had great services that were attended not only by Romani, but by Russians, too. Every day a new musical group came and Frank preached, calling the Romani to repentance. And after every busy day of camp every child went home with loads of impressions, happiness and abounding emotions. Of course! It's no surprise! At camp we had lots of different games, and made interesting handicrafts. Whenever we had a free minute we taught the children how to write their letters, since they couldn't read or write.

The time passed very quickly. We were surprised at how much the values of Romani children differed from those of Ukrainian children. At the end of the day when we asked the children who wanted to pray there were always a lot of hands raised and the prayers were very serious. Ukrainian children don't often pray like that. And the needs of the Romani children are not childish. How often have you heard a 6 or 8 year old pray that God would bless his mommy and daddy so they wouldn't fight at night? Or an 8 year old pray for the health of his eldlerly grand mother? When we heard prayers like this, we really understood that Romani children have a different and grown-up view of the problems in this world. We were very happy that these children are very sincere and laid their cares before God.

After the time we spent together we were able to feel very close to the Romani. One thing is clear: these people need our prayers. I call on all of you to provide prayer and material support to our new Romani friends and Victor, the pastor of the church in L'gov, in his difficult ministry. Don't remain indifferent to God's work outside of Ukraine.

Pavel Pavlenko