Where the Palm Tree Flourishes

Are there palm trees where you live? There weren’t where I grew up in Wethersfield, Connecticut. But over the last several years, God has brought me to three different places where the palm tree flourishes. The first was Seville, where this journey began (pictured above). The second was Santa Barbara, California, where my marriage and family began. And the third was Puerto Rico, where my life with Christ began.

He also brought my brothers in faith, the Gypsy families of Dios Con Nosotros, to a land where the palm tree thrives. Why? What did that mean? With God, nothing is a coincidence.

This weekend I was at a retreat with my church in Rincón, Puerto Rico. We stayed at an ocean-front hotel lined with palm trees. Every morning, I walked on the beach, along a grove of stately palms. As I walked, I reflected upon a Bible verse that stayed with me after one of the workshops: “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree. They will grow like a cedar of Lebanon, planted in the house of God. They will flourish in the courts of our Lord. They will still bear fruit in old age. They will stay fresh and green.” (Psalm 92:12-14). Curious, I searched the internet.

Here are some of the special qualities of this particular tree:

1. UPRIGHTNESS. The palm tree stretches itself straight up into the air. It is a tall tree, erect, stately, and strong.

2. USEFULNESS. The palm-tree is valued for its many practical uses. It bears edible fruit and is cultivated for medicinal purposes. Camels feed upon the date stone. Its fronds are woven into baskets and a variety of other items suitable for domestic use. From the fibres of the trunk, thread, rope, and rigging are manufactured. From the sap, spirituous liquor is prepared. And the body of the tree furnishes fuel.

3. BEAUTY. The palm tree is often seen as an emblem of beauty (Song 7:7-8) and used as decoration in the temple (1 King 6:29,32,35; 2 Chronicles 3:5).

4. POWER. Palm-branches were carried as tokens of victory or joy (Leviticus 23:40, John 12:13; Revelation 7:9)

5. FRUITFULNESS. The palm tree bears fruit (either date or coconut). It arrives at full maturity in about thirty years, and continues to bear fruit for about seventy years. The palm tree is the staff of life to the peoples amongst whom it is found. (John 15:1–8).

6. GUIDANCE. It is the sure sign of the presence of water (Exodus 15:27). Across the burning sands the caravan, parched with thirst, makes for the cluster of palms they see far off, for they know that water is there.

7. PERMANENCE. The palm tree is tough. It survives in a harsh environment. Choking sand surrounds it. Burning heat scorches it. It is battered and bent by fierce winds and desert storms. But despite the elements, man, the beasts of the desert, all combining to injure it, the stately palm survives.

And so do the Gypsies. After centuries of persecution (religious and otherwise) they still stand tall. As will you. And I. We may get battered. And bent. But despite the tumultuous winds that blow our way, we will survive. And more importantly. We will thrive.

If you are walking through the desert now, look for the grove of palm trees in the distance. When you reach the grove, you will find fresh water. Your body will find rest. And your strength will be restored.

The Burden of Trust

On May 12, 2010, I had penciled into my agenda: post “The Burden of Trust” on White Tent blog. Over four months later, I am finally posting that title. I guess I didn’t carry my burden well—until I got a wake up call from a fellow Christian from London. Thomas “Mash” Herbert was God’s instrument and answer to prayer. For several months, I have felt rudderless, distracted. Last week, I prayed to God for direction, asking Him where He wanted me to use the talent He had given me. I was a writer, and I was writing a lot, but what did He really want me to be saying with all those words? A few days ago, I received my answer. Thomas wrote to me saying (and I quote) “You don't know me, but I came across your blog "the white tent" a few months ago and checked back today to see if you had any updates. It seems not.” Wow, God, could you be any more direct?! Thanks, “Mash,” for being God’s messenger and gently nudging me back to where God wants me to be.

Before I sat down to write this entry, I looked back at the journal I had kept during my time with the Gypsies, and found myself reading my own words, But I have to ask you, Lord, what do you want from me? What is the story you want me to tell? What are the truths you want me to reveal?

I wrote those words the first night I entered Pastor Pepe’s church in Tres Mil Viviendas. The pastor had announced to the congregation why I was among them, that I was a writer doing research for a book, and then he turned to me and said—with total candor and sincerity—that the Gypsies as a people do not usually reveal the secrets of their culture to anyone outside of it—often telling lies before they would speak the truth about themselves. “But,” added the pastor’s wife, Pura, “We will tell you the truth, because you are one of us in Spirit.”

Wow, what an incredible honor. And a burden. I was entrusted with the responsibility of honoring the truth that they were handing over to me. But what greater truth is there than unity in the Spirit? Immediately as I entered Pastor Pepe’s humble church, I felt as if I belonged there. I was offered a seat with the women on the left side of the church, and the connection I felt with the ladies to my side was instantaneous and intimate. There were no suspicious stares. No feeling of what was this paya doing in our church. In fact quite the opposite. They embraced me. At first I couldn’t follow the cánticos—lively praise and worship songs with their distinctly flamenco beat. But even though I didn’t know the lyrics, I clapped along in joyful alabanza. And even though I was not a charismatic Christian, I was not afraid of all the noise and “confusion” that characterized this first Pentecostal encounter. Instead, I was enveloped by the contagious enthusiasm of these passionate people. God knew exactly what He was doing. He was shaking me up.

And then just to prove to me that we are one people united in Him, the congregation started to sing a song that brought me back home to my church in Puerto Rico. They started singing Dame fe, o Señor, dame fe. Dame fe, o Señor yo te lo pido. Give me faith, oh Lord, give me faith. Give me faith, oh Lord, I implore you. I recognized that song. And I could sing to it! What an awesome God I served, was all I could think at the time. In the middle of a foreign country, in a Gypsy ghetto, I felt at one with His people.

When I returned to my rented flat, I wrote in my journal, Lord, I feel the burden of their trust. I still feel that burden today.

Do you?

What part of you is struggling with God? Are you, like I was, trying to find God’s purpose in the talents and passions he has given to you?

Share your story. Put it out there. And then give up your talents to God. Rest assured, if you get distracted, he’ll send someone to set you right.

Thanks, “Mash,” for bringing me back to the spirit of God’s truth.

The Prejudice of Assumption

I was always proud in my belief that I was not a prejudiced person. The word prejudice, according to the definition provided in Merriam-Webster’s, is “an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics.” Well, I was proud to say that I had never held such a negative attitude toward any group of people. My attitude was, in fact, just the opposite. I embraced people’s differences. After all, I had married a brown-skinned Hindu. Nobody could call me prejudiced, right?

Wrong. I stand guilty as defined by the second definition found in Merriam-Webster’s. The second entry says that prejudice is a “preconceived, adverse opinion made without adequate basis or sufficient knowledge.” Okay. All right. Yes, it was true. I had formed a negative assumption—not about the Gypsies —but about how they lived. As I told you in an earlier posting, the church I was to visit in Seville was in a sector of the city known as Tres Mil Viviendas. Anybody who has ever lived in Seville, or has read anything about the area, knows that this barriada is a dangerous, undesirable place—infamous for its criminal activity and known for its drug points, general misery, and decay. Let’s put it this way, Las Tres Mil was not a place I felt safe to visit alone.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to. One of God’s servants, Antonio Piquera Duque—a Spanish evangelical pastor who became my bridge to another world—drove me into Tres Mil Viviendas. Quietly I observed the neighborhood from behind the car window. Some of what I expected to see, I saw. Dilapidated buildings. Piles of rotting garbage. An inebriated man urinating on the street. All classic views of ghetto life. But what I saw when I entered the Gypsy church Dios Con Nosotros was nothing like what I thought I would see. I expected to see my image of poverty: a few rusted metal chairs set up behind a makeshift altar. But instead of a run-down, worn out place, Pastor Pepe’s humble church was clean and fresh. Smooth red and white tiles that resembled marble lined the floor. Simple but elegant wooden benches were placed to either side of the room, separated by a central aisle. The altar area was raised about a foot above the floor and two large floral arrangements adorned the sides. A large wooden cross hung on the wall behind a pine wood pulpit. It was a small, intimate space that was clean and well cared for. And inside this beautiful space, there was a body of believers who taught me a valuable lesson: to guard my heart from the prejudice of assumption.

The Nature and Spirit of the Gypsy

The Gypsies have always been simple people, travelers who moved from place to place in search of work and food. They lived close to the land, many of them with nothing more than a wheeled caravan and a horse to pull it. Perhaps the picture above sums up the Gypsy spirit better than any words could do. It is an old black and white drawing of a Gypsy family stopped on the side of the road. Their horse is dead. The question written on the picture asks, “What are we supposed to do now? The answer below reads: Esperemos en un Dibel. Simple. Just wait on God. God is not named, and some will criticize that the answer literally reads, “on a God,” but the point is that the Gypsy has never had any trouble accepting that there is a God. Remember, the Gypsies are believed to have traveled to Europe from India, where they most likely worshiped many gods. They come from a mystical people, and have always been connected to Nature—which for them proves the existence of God. And according to the oral history of their people, the Gypsy has always believed in a divine being called Dibel—who brings blessings and faith to their people.

History of the Gypsy Pentecostal Movement in Spain

At the beginning of the 1950’s, a French pastor named Clement Le Cossec—a former Catholic priest who later converted to the church of the Assemblies of God—began a small ministry in Brest (Normandy). At that time in France there was a clear, carefully-guarded separation between the French, and other marginal groups who came to the country in search of work. Le Cossec ministered to the French, not to the Gypsies or any other ethnic group. His interest in ministering to the Gypsies began unexpectedly when one day a Gypsy couple entered his church. They were not turned away. They heard the Word, and at the end of the service when Le Cossec called forth all those who wanted to accept Christ as their Savior, the Gypsy couple walked together to the altar and accepted the call. After that day, they continued to come to the church—even though their relationship with the French congregation was strained by the ethnocentric attitudes of the time. Then one day, the couple approached Le Cossec and offered him money in exchange for receiving the same treatment as other members of the church—meaning pastoral visits, counseling, and support during the difficult moments of their lives. Their petition moved Le Cossec, who then decided to bring the Word not only to this couple, but to all Gypsies who had come to France to work the grape harvest. Among those temporary workers were many Spanish Gypsies. These first converts eventually returned to their native country and, having been touched by the Spirit, began to share their experiences with their family and friends.

Seeing the success of these first conversions, in the year 1957 Le Cossec founded what he called the Evangelical Gypsy Mission. The purpose of this mission was primarily to offer training to Gypsy converts to become evangelical pastors. In 1965, the first seven Gypsy pastors arrived in Spain. These seven men founded what is known today as La Iglesia Evangélica de Filadelfia, an Evangelical, Pentecostal Church which is completely governed by, financed by, and lead by Gypsies for a predominantly Gypsy population.

The expansion of Pentecostalism among the Spanish Gypsies was rapid, despite the difficult political conditions of Franco’s Spain. During Franco’s dictatorship (from 1939 to his death in 1975), Catholicism was declared the state religion and non Catholics, especially Evangelicals, were objects of persecution and discrimination. After Franco’s death, however, the newly-adopted Constitution of 1978 guaranteed equal rights for all ideologies and religions and so the 1980’s and 1990’s saw especially accelerated growth for Gypsy Pentecostalism. In the year 1980, there were 30 churches in Andalucía. By the end of 1995 there were 78 congregations, and at the end of 1998 (the last year for which statistics were available) La Iglesia Filadelfia counted 700-800 churches dispersed throughout Spain—comprising a total of approximately 150,000 to 200,000 members.

The question then arises: why this rapid spread of Pentecostalism among the Gypsies, but not among the native Spaniards? Follow me to the next entry for some exciting answers to this provocative question.

The Gypsy Image

What image comes to mind when you hear the words Spanish Gypsy? I think if you were to be honest, you would see certain images fairly clearly. Perhaps you would see the iconic Gypsy seductress, or the sensual dancer, or the handsome bull fighter. Those are the more positive, romanticized stereotypes that Spanish tourism loves to promote. But if you actually travel to Spain, you will see other images that are not so positive. You will see the beggar sitting in front of a church, or the fortune teller stalking the outside of the Cathedral for unsuspecting foreigners ready to part with their money for a Tarot spread or palm reading. And if you live in Spain, you may even have learned to fear the Gypsies.

The Spanish press is full of reports of Gypsy criminal activity. The Gypsies have come to be associated with vagrancy, truancy, theft, violent family feuding, and drugs.

And there are few who will dispute that reality – even amongst the Gypsies. When I asked one of my Gypsy friends, Silvia, what she disliked most about her culture, she answered without thinking: la venganza (revenge). What Silvia referred to was the feuding among families that often led to ruina – the displacement of a family as the consequence of escalated violence. And violence always makes the headlines.

When I was in Seville, news came of a disturbance in the town of Castellar, home to 3,800 people in the olive oil-producing province of Jaen in southern Spain. It was reported by the press that several Gypsy families had fled their village after a crowd pelted their houses with stones following a fight between several young people. The next day, over 300 people gathered in the village to protest against a crime wave they blamed on the Gypsies. The locals accused the Gypsy community of threatening behavior, theft, and other petty crimes.

From “gypping”someone out of their money, to vagrancy and laziness, to admonishment for being unhygienic, to retaliation and violence, the standard image of the Spanish Gypsy is cloaked in negative stereotyping. The Gypsy has come to symbolize everything that modern-day, industrialized societies reject as immoral and inefficient. But that image is changing from the only place where change is meaningful – from within.

A remarkable phenomenon is occurring that is changing the face of the Spanish Gypsy: Pentecostal evangelism. As thousands convert to Christ, their slogan has become:

Antes los gitanos iban con cuchillos y quimeras.
Ahora llevamos la Biblia, la palabra verdadera.

Before the Gypsies went with knives and quarrels into battle.
Now we take the Bible, God’s True and Holy Word.

Follow me on to the next entry where I’ll tell you about the history of the Gypsy Pentecostal Movement as it began in France and extended throughout Europe.

A Surprising and Awesome God

What image comes to your mind when you hear the word church? For me, it was once a picture postcard of a New England village. An elegant building with a white steeple and chiming bells. Falling autumn leaves and the fruits of an abundant harvest. Hymns and organ music. Reverent, silent prayer. Church for me was tradition—a lovely place to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. It was a safe place where emotions were checked carefully at the old wooden door. No one ever cried, or laughed, or got angry on the inside of that door. At St. Paul’s Lutheran church in Wethersfield, Connecticut, the members did not get unruly, or talk during the service. Instead they sang, read scripture, and recited the Apostles’ Creed. This was the church of my childhood. A church of discipline and order. But God wanted a bit of chaos for me. He wanted me to feel completely displaced, raw, and vulnerable.

From the moment I walked through the railed door of the church Dios Con Nosotros, God made it clear to me that the experience I was about to have had nothing to do with my book and everything to do with my growth and faith. There were no church bells at Dios Con Nosotros. But there was a large hollow box upon which a young man sat, beating out rhythm with his hands. There was no organ and no familiar hymns. But there was a keyboard and flamenco voices raised in song. And there was not for a single moment, reverence or silence. Children played in the aisles. Their parents answered cell phones in the middle of a service. There was shouting, and chaos, and passion like I had never known before. It was crazy. “Why did you bring me here?” I asked my father desperately. “You know me. I’m not comfortable with people screaming, or jumping up and down, or shouting out their prayers.”

And then I heard Him say to me, “Yes, Susan, I do know you. And this is exactly where you need to be.” And He was right. I had never felt so much love, or passion, or longing for God’s spirit as I did in that humble church in the middle of a drug-infested ghetto. I cried when I heard the Lord’s voice that day. In fact, I cried many more times over the weeks to come because I was in God’s presence, and He was healing me. Perhaps he was also preparing me for something I had not planned on. God told me through Pastor Pepe a few nights later that I had come to Seville to research a book, but He had brought me to Dios Con Nosotros for an entirely different purpose. God wanted me to trust Him. Away from all that was familiar, and safe, He wanted me to praise him. And I did—Gypsy style—with my arms raised and my voice lifted in fervent prayer. And finally, I was able to minister to women whose stories I did not know, but whose pain I understood. And as I ministered to them, God ministered to me. Away from New England’s autumn leaves, church steeples, and quiet traditions, I was finally ready for the harvest.