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.
