Life and Light: A Gypsy Revival

 

Most of us would have given up long ago but the Gypsy and non-Gypsy

evangelists from France kept going. They kept going for twenty years and they saw

no result. They toured the south and into Wales. They had a stall at Epsom for the

Derby. Other evangelists concentrated on Kent. There was still no result. With these

teams was Clement Le Cossec, a non-Gypsy. He wrote his story in My Adventures

Among the Gypsies.

In the meanwhile, two people, Les and Irene Lamb were witnessing to their

Gypsy friends.

And, more importantly God was quietly and unnoticed at work

preparing Gypsy hearts to receive Christ. This was in the North of England.

David Jones and His wife Nora liked and respected the Lambs. They did not

understand what they talked about but they knew it was something to do with God

and that they were good people. They called them, “the Holy People” because they

respected their sincerity and because they were special in their relationship with

God.

A Mysterious Nomadic People

 

Though the Roma have been with us since, probably the end of the

fourteenth century, little is known about them by the majority of the non-Gypsy

population. They are not over secretive but they keep to themselves and they are

nomads. Once was the time, up until the sixties, when they traveled all over the land.

Now it is too dangerous to take a horse drawn wagon on most roads and even a

modern trailer caravan is not quite the same. No longer do gypsy ladies go round the

doors hawking clothes pegs made from hazel or willow. Sometimes you may see a

Gypsy lady at a fair telling fortunes. More often than not they merge into the

population, their motto being “integration but not assimilation.”

Mostly they have lost their traveling lifestyle and they are either on a site or in

a house. It is hard for me, a gauja, to explain the loss felt by the true Romani

for not being able to travel. Gypsy friends have told me about this and I can see the

hurt in their eyes and hear it in their voices. They are a true nomadic people, have

been for centuries, and now things are changing. They are changing for us all but for

the Roma it is a hard and difficult change, but one they are coping with as they have

always coped.

In comparison with the numbers of their populations, in proportion, there were

more Gypsies killed in Auschwitz than there were Jews. Hitler was having them

rounded up as early as 1936. Nor was Germany the only country where they have

been mistrusted and persecuted. Yet they are a proud and honourable people with a

strong sense of humour, often against themselves. Most of all they are highly

intelligent and emotionally strong, they have had to be to survive.

In Ireland

 

But let us get back to David and Nora. David’s family were Roman Catholic

though he was not an observant one. Nora told fortunes, “dukkering,” in Romanes. At

the time when the French evangelists seemed to be failing in their mission David and

Nora decided to go to Ireland. They stayed there for three years. David bought a

Bible. It was a Good News Bible and he bought it from the Francis of Assissi

Bookshop in Dublin.

David did what lots of other people who own a Bible do not do. He read it. He

read it, during the three years they were in Ireland, from cover to cover. Nora saw

him change and thought he was becoming a fanatic. Being a Gypsy lady she

probably made it known what she thought. Looking back she insists that it was then,

as he read that Bible, that David became a Christian.

David does not think so, though he does speak with some wonder in his

voice, that there were things that, “leapt out of the page at me.” God was certainly at

work in the life of that family.

The French Come To England Again

Again events miraculously came together. In France there was a Christian

man called Tallis Sabas. He was sure that God wanted him to go to England. Other

French Gypsy evangelists were not keen. Anyway, they pointed out, Tallis could not

speak English, and the English certainly did not speak French. Tallis insisted and

went, along with John Le Cossec, Clement’s son to translate.

In London they were directed to meet Les and Irene Lamb. At the same time

David and Nora were paying what was to be a short visit to England before returning

to Ireland. They all met up and the miracles began to occur. As soon as David

arrived they met up on the only day possible since the visit was a short one.

This is It

Meeting at the Lamb’s house Tallis said to John Le Cossec. “This is it! This is

the beginning.” David remembered a meeting with a French Gypsy, not a

Christian, in Ireland who had told him about the French and how, as he put it,

“thousands of our people have gone, Hallelujah!” He meant they had turned to the

Lord Jesus Christ and their lives were turned to lives of praise. Now he found the

reality of what “going Hallelujah!” meant. “Swap your religion for Jesus Christ,” he

was told. And he did.

Shortly afterward, in a meeting in the trailer (caravan) belonging to a Billy

Welsh, in Honeypot Lane. Nora gave her heart to the Lord. At first she had been

skeptical but she now stepped out in a new life for the Lord Jesus. For a Gypsy lady

to give up what her mother grandmother and female ancestors since time

immemorial have done is a very big step. She took it, nearly thirty years ago,

and she has followed the Lord Jesus, together with her husband ever since.

Serving God

David and Nora now serve the Lord in the Gypsy Light and Life movement.

From that visit of Tallis Sabas with John Le Cossec, to interpret for him, has come,

over the last twenty-eight years or so, the setting up of Gypsy churches all over the

country. The Word was taken, in true Romani fashion, from small family group to

small family group. There were get togethers at the big horse fairs. Now they have

conventions where large marquees are set up and hundreds of trailers converge for

the families who live in them to hear the Word of the Lord.

Many also keep up their traveling life and the English Gypsies now travel to

help the Romanian Gypsies and they even go as far as India where their tribes

originated. People like David and his friend Jackie Boyd give all their free time in

serving the Lord. That does not mean they do not work, they do, but they give their

time freely and are not paid, they work for a living as do all Gypsy pastors and

evangelists in the Life and Light movement. They are an example to us all who are

in Christian work.

Gypsy family life is very strong and moral values are still close to those of the

Bible. When I meet Romani men and women at events I tell them that God has

raised up a witness to Himself among their people to rebuke the gaujas, the Anglo-

Saxons, for their rejection of Him and for their depraved moral standards. I really

believe this and do my best to support and to pray for the Gypsy Christians and for

all my friends among the Roma.

The Light and Life Gypsy Movement is related to a similar one in France,

the Vie et Lumiere. Hubert Clee is the Treasurer of the Movement and a trustee as

are Jackie Boyd, Henry Ward and Joey Mitchell. I am grateful to these and to David

Jones for their approval of this article. In particular I am grateful to Jackie Boyd,

Hubert Clee and David Jones for the corrections they made and for giving their

time in answering my questions.