SURROUNDED by members of his family, the visitors prayed for the man with a weak arm. He was glad to receive prayer - but the visitors weren't local priests, just a local couple.

What was remarkable was that the praying couple themselves were brand new converts. Martin, 20, a burly chap who spoke with a soft but authoritative voice, and his 18 year-old wife, Libusa, had come to true faith in Jesus just two nights previously. They had only been baptised in the nearby river the previous day!

This was the beginning of a new church among a rootless people. The young couple shared their testimonies and gave away clothes to the extended family that lived in the tidy but sparsely furnished, living-room-sized shack. Accommodation was quite typical of the leaking, uncarpeted, wooden huts that surrounded them on a muddy hillside.

The man, as it happened, was not healed - but the next day Libusa was. Her bones had been cracked as her hand was trapped in a car door. She was instantaneously healed as Martin prayed. His faith was growing quickly. It certainly needed to, as, in little over a year, this young man would be leading the church and baptising dozens of new converts in the same river he was baptised in.

This remarkable story started two years previously, in the UK in November 2004 when my wife Sharron and I, members of the Jesus Fellowship in Sheffield, were introduced to a Slovakian family. My knowledge of Polish helped form a friendship and many similar families started to gather.

Some weeks later, the families "confessed" to being Romany, a people who have experienced deep rejection. 120,000 members of the Romany community in Slovakia live in slums, lacking basics such as water and electricity.

In 2007 Slovakia was heavily criticised by the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions for the persistent discrimination faced by Romanies.

In Sheffield, the awesome tearfilled reconciliation that followed this family's "confession" was the start of a deep bonding with many newly arrived Romany- Slovakian migrants in Sheffield. Here were a people finding themselves loved and chosen by God. Where once they had no land to call their own they now counted themselves worthy members of the kingdom of God. The church in Sheffield quickly swelled.

Among the scores that were baptised over the following 18 months, was relatively well-educated Cyril and working class Janu (the first to be baptised). They were from neighbouring Slovakian Romany settlements, historically divided by suspicion and prejudice.

In June 2006, Cyril and Janu, with myself and others, visited one of the Romany villages in Slovakia, Bystrany, where some 85 per cent of the new members had come from.

The team was very warmly welcomed indeed. Church was growing here, too: where once, there was gambling, drinking and violence men were pleading for forgiveness from their communities as they got baptised. The greatest surprise was on the last day of the trip, when Cyril took them to his "rival" town, Zehra, a settlement of 1,600 Romanies some five miles away.

We'll never forget that day. We moved from one council-built home to another. The rooms were quickly packed out, as people gathered spontaneously. Nothing happens in private there. These people heard the good news gladly and many received new faith in Jesus.

Many were healed. Among them was a young lad who was healed of deafness. One woman asked for prayer to give birth the next day, two weeks before the due date. And so it happened- according to her simple faith.

We rejoiced also that we had birthed a movement among the Romany and the beginnings of a new church. But the church couldn't be fully established. Men constantly had to leave the community in search of work, there was no stability.

Bonds of brotherhood deepened during several trips that followed. There were powerful gospel meetings with many conversions, some healings and unforgettable baptisms in the summers of 2006 and 2007. Martin and Libusa were baptised along with the many others in 2006. They experienced much persecution after their baptism but began to show the strength of leadership.

Then, last summer, a mob tried (in vain) to destroy the Jesus Army minibus and the police took me away for questioning while the mission team and local believers prayed powerfully.

The attempt to prevent the baptisms failed and a small church of about a dozen was commissioned. Martin and other leaders went on to baptise a further 34 people in the six weeks after the UK team had left.

Most of the new Christians are from the poor shacks on the hillside. They lack money for food but continue to be hungry for Jesus. Many have been freed from drinking, gambling, violence, stealing, cursing, jealousy and suspicion. Barriers between the two Romany communities are also being broken down as the Christian presence and witness continues to grow in both villages.

"Kostol Noveho Zivota" (Church of New Life) is growing. God clearly blesses the poor in spirit.

---

What's being said