Our Story

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Southeast Europe Area Director Sherry Sabella surveyed the horrible conditions before her. She was overwhelmed and perplexed, struggling to reconcile her geographic location with its appearance. Her eyes told her she was in a third-world country, but her head knew she was in a Roma village located in Eastern Slovakia in Southeast Europe. The living conditions, however, contrasted with her perceptions of European living. Children without clothes and riddled with diseases and open sores continually approached her. Ghettos and crime, families living out of garbage dumps, and old communist buildings with no electricity or running water surrounded her.

“The government wanted no part of [the Roma]. The church barely touched them,” said Sabella. “There was no ministry, no outreach to them; they were just lost people. ”These lost, broken, and impoverished people, with no hope of a Savior, drew in Sherry and her husband, Jim.

One night, while in a Roma village, God spoke to Jim in a dream. The Lord led him to a field full of gorgeous, bright yellow flowers and green rolling hills. On the outskirts of the field were the most beautiful, vivid red poppies he had ever seen. As Jim admired these vivid red poppies, he heard plows, tractors, combines, and other heavy machinery approaching. Jim continued to watch in horror as farm machinery came rolling across the field, squashing and destroying the beautiful red poppies so they could harvest the yellow flowers. The Lord spoke to him, “You see these yellow flowers? These are the people of the societies with whom you work in Europe. They are the Slovaks and the Czechs. The red flowers on the fringes of society are the marginalized of societies, and no one cares. People are destroying them and there’s no one to help them. That’s what I’m sending you to do.”

After the Lord spoke to Jim through this dream, the Sabellas answered God’s call to care for and advocate for the Roma people who are on the fringes of society. Europe’s Heart, a ministry founded by the Sabellas, brings the gospel to Roma communities. Europe’s Heart raises funds to plant and build churches, ministry centers, and community centers. The ministry helps the Roma people experience God’s love, as well as receive the care society has denied them for generations.