Soccer, Kebabs, and the
Injil:
A Short-Termer Builds Bridges to
Muslims in the East
by Stephen Jordan (pseudonym)
2
OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet . . .
Rudyard Kipling, “The Battle of East and West”, 1889
3
Preface
Many books dealing with a Christian view of Islam approach the
subject from a doctrinal or apologetic point of view. These are
indispensable helps to our understanding, but there is perhaps another
genre of literature on the subject which is equally helpful, and that is
the record of what God is doing in the world of Islam. Like the Old
Testament stories, which were “written for our instruction” (1 Cor.
10:9), the experiences of God’s people today can both encourage—
because we too often think that Muslims cannot be reached with the
Gospel—and warn us—because the motives of those who do make
some kind of commitment to Christ are often very mixed.
Stephen Jordan (pseudonym) made a commitment to serve for one
year in a staunchly Muslim country. He went out prepared for the task
at hand. What he was not prepared for was the very positive response
he, and others like him, received. The following pages relate a shortterm experience that, in the meantime, has led Stephen to embark
upon what may well become a longer, life-long journey to some of the
most neglected people groups on earth.
Workers who have long experience in Muslim countries may call into
question some of the approaches that Stephen and his colleagues
used, or at least wonder if they should have been more cautious.
Critique is generally warranted and helpful, but it should be kept in
mind that most of Stephen’s colleagues were non-Western, and these
had as much influence on the team’s methodology as Stephen did.
And as far as the new believers are concerned, their enthusiasm
appears to be very genuine. True, the majority are young men in their
late teens and twenties, and are still in the process of finding their
identity. Time will tell if their faith is genuine. However, most are still
“walking” with the Lord today, and many have paid a price for doing
so.
As a mission leader, I am greatly encouraged by the evident call of
God upon Stephen’s life. As an American Christian, I am enlightened
in many ways by Stephen’s experience, because it helps me not only
to understand what Muslims believe, but why they believe it. And as a
father, well, I fear sometimes for what Stephen’s calling may mean for
him and his young wife and (future) children, for Stephen is my son.
But my wife and I have been immeasurably enriched by seeing the
fruit of our prayers, and much more those of Stephen’s grandparents,
as well as those of his wife’s parents and grandparents. And we
continue to pray that God’s Word may go forth to those who have had
so little chance to hear it.
4
Map from The World of Islam: Resources for Understanding, Copyright © 2006
Global Mapping International. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
5
Introduction
In whatever role, function, job, or place in life we find ourselves
today, we are called by Jesus to take part in the Great Commission,
making disciples of all nations, or people groups. While we are excited
about how God is moving in different parts of the world, there is one
group of people that seems to especially intimidate us, namely
Muslims. They seem to have proven especially resistant to the Gospel
in the past decades and even centuries. Why? Perhaps the violent and
scary image we have of them frightens us away? Maybe we haven’t
devoted enough energy and resources to Muslim people groups? For
whatever reasons, Islam and Muslims often remain an enigma to us.
In the wake of September 11th, heightened terrorist activities,
Western troops active in the Middle East, and an ever increasing
number of immigrants from the Islamic world in the West, we have
heard much about the faith founded by Muhammad from the national
media and prominent political and religious figures. We have heard
Islam being called everything from a wicked and evil religion founded
by a pedophile, to a religion of tolerance and peace in the tradition of
Abraham. It has been labeled an oppressive system that curtails the
rights of women and minorities. On the other hand, it is described by
some as a community of faith that promotes values and achievement
for young people set adrift in a relativist cut-throat world devoid of any
moral anchor.
Myriads of books have been written on the subject, from many
different points of view. These books usually attempt to answer the
following two questions: What is Islam? What do Muslims believe?
Recently, many books from a Christian missions perspective have been
authored as well. They ask the same questions, but with the added
challenge of explaining how to carry out the Great Commission among
Muslims. Most of these books take a text-book approach. They talk
about the origins of Islam and Muhammad. They discuss the impact of
the increasing Muslim presence in the West. They analyze the violent
fundamentalist Islamist movements and Western policies in the Middle
East. Some also talk about the belief structure of ordinary Muslims,
and different sects and movements, ranging from the mystical Sufis to
the strict Wahhabis and the liberal Western intellectual Muslims. There
are good books that dissect the traditional folk beliefs of most
uneducated people versus the orthodox faith of the trained religious
leaders.
6
All of these writings are very informative and important. We need to
read and understand them if we are going to reach Muslims for Christ.
This book, however, will not make another attempt to define beliefs, or
to present “how to do missions with Muslims” steps in an orderly way.
Good books have already been written on those subjects by much
more knowledgeable people than myself. Rather, this is a book of
reflections on my year of living among Muslims. It seeks to show how
Muslims live, and most importantly, that they do live quite normally,
for they are people, just like us. And it seeks to show how a young
novice like myself attempted to work out Christ’s commands to make
disciples, to do justice, and above all, to love in a new culture with a
different language and vastly different standard of living.
This book is not full of success stories. It doesn’t pretend to give
easy answers. At the most basic level, it is designed as an introduction
to Islam and Muslims. Hopefully, whoever picks up this book will walk
away somewhat more knowledgeable on the subject than before.
Most of all, I pray that it will start to soften readers’ hearts for people
without Jesus. Perhaps God might even speak through these words to
motivate some to go into missions.
Scripture: Matthew 28: 16-20, Acts 1:8,9
Middle Eastern Children
7
Questions for thought:
What comes to mind when you think of Muslims? Is your picture of
them different from other “lost” people?
What groups and individuals do you find especially intimidating? Are
there places you are afraid of going to?
Recommended Reading:
A Muslim and a Christian in dialogue, Badru Kateregga and David
Shenk
Too often, discussions between Christians and Muslims can turn
antagonistic. The authors take a different approach: that of authentic
dialogue.
Ishmael My Brother: A Christian Introduction to Islam, Anne Cooper
and Elsie Maxwell
One of the mistakes that Christians often make in informing
themselves about Islam is to fail to differentiate between Islam as an
all-encompassing system of beliefs and practices, and Muslims as
people. Reading works written by missionaries to the world of Islam
(such as this volume, and the next one by Bill Musk) can help remedy
this.
Touching the Soul of Islam, Bill Musk
Christians might be surprised how close the Biblical worldview and that
of Muslims are to each other. Musk explains how Christians can reach
out to seekers by being sensitive and avoiding cultural mistakes.
8
Chapter One
The arrival
Exhausted from the long journey but giddy with excitement, I
dragged myself and my luggage across a mile-long bridge, the last
obstacle between us and our target country. I had been looking
forward to this moment for a long time, knowing what lay before us
just across the river: the “Wild East”, a conservative and traditional
society with a long history of violence caused from within and without.
As a kid brought up on Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” and Lewis’
“Narnia”, safety and comfort were not on the forefront of my mind, but
rather a sense of a thrilling adventure right around the bend.
Any leftover fear and apprehension that had managed to hold on
disappeared as soon as my feet crossed the border. Friendly military
and customs officers stepped forward signaling a whole-hearted
welcome into their country with broad smiles and, to me as of yet, an
unintelligible language. No doubt several offers to drink tea with them
were given as well. On the drive south from the border to our target
city, my five senses were drinking in the sights and sounds of this
utterly original Eastern culture. Men with turbans and long flowing
traditional clothing were riding their donkeys, or leading a long train of
camels down the side of the road. White, flat-roofed houses, designed
for optimum temperature during the hot summer months, greeted my
eyes. The desert landscape, dust coming in from the open windows,
even old tanks and weaponry from by-gone wars, beckoned me, so
that I spent most of the ride down with my head hanging out the
window.
Many different ethnic groups with various religious allegiances had
called this country their home during its long and tumultuous history.
Even a sizable Christian community long survived here, before
dwindling away many centuries ago. As I lay on my mattress in the
early hours of the morning, awakened by the call to prayer, I realized
concretely what I had known in my mind long before: this society had
been firmly entrenched in the Islamic faith for over a thousand years
and, at least outwardly speaking, it still remained so to this day.
Hundreds of Muslim social centers and places of worship, the masjid
(or as we say, mosque), were scattered throughout this large city. No
churches, no synagogues, no Buddhist or Hindu temples were to be
found, although all of these faiths had been visibly present in the
distant past.
9
How did it come to be that this society had been so thoroughly
altered centuries ago? How could a group of uneducated and
unsophisticated Bedouin people from the Arabian desert so rapidly
change the face of the Middle East, North Africa, and even parts of
Europe, within just the timeframe of a hundred years? How was it that
a predominantly, and at least nominally, Christian area would in a very
short time period be comprehensively converted to Islam? These
questions inadvertently lead to the story of one man, Muhammad, the
prophet of Islam, and how his life coincided with one of the darkest
periods in the history of the Church.
There are no clear-cut answers to these questions. Some Christians
would see the work of Satan behind Muhammad, who started a
monotheistic faith so close to the Christian one, yet deadly misleading
at the same time. There is certainly also a sense that the lukewarm
spiritual state of the Byzantine church contributed to its own demise in
the Middle East. It was more interested in wresting political power
from the archrival Zoroastrian Persia, than it was in its own revival.
Some would also say that the Nestorians, the single biggest group of
Christians in the Middle East and Central Asia at the time, were not
interested in reaching unevangelized people groups with the Message
of Jesus, and failed to translate the scriptures into local languages.
They lost their spiritual vibrancy, and very few Nestorian communities
survived the arrival of the Muslim faith. What was left of them was
utterly destroyed by the rampaging hordes of Genghis Khan centuries
later.
For this reason, we might want to interpret the rise of Islam as the
work of Satan, and perhaps as the punishment of God upon a
decadent church. At the least, we should understand how the
weakness of the church contributed to the ascendancy of the Prophet
and his teachings. If a spiritually searching Muhammad had been able
to read a copy of the Bible in his own language early on, history might
have looked very different. There are several books that I would
recommend reading on the subject. This is not the space, however, to
delve deeper into history. Rather, the concern is on how a particular
people live now, what their values and needs are, and how the people
of Jesus can effectively show them the love of Jesus in word and deed.
Scripture: Revelation 2:1- 3:22
10
Questions for thought:
What have you been told about Muhammad? How does your picture of
him hold up to some of the historical sources?
How focused on reaching the lost do you think the church is today?
What about your own church?
Recommended Reading:
Muhammad and the Origins of Islam, F.E.Peters
An analysis of the origins of Islam by a reputable scholar (Peters is
professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University). His
essay, “The Quest for the Historical Muhammad,” is well known and
often referenced.
23 years; A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad, Ali Dashti
A valuable, critical look at Muhammad from the point of view of a
Shi’ite Muslim. Dashti paid for his critique with his life; he was
imprisoned and tortured as an old man by the security forces of the
Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran.
Mohammed: The Man and His Faith, Tor Andrae
Also a classic, balanced work by a reputable historical scholar.
Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman, Montgomery Watt
Watt, an ecumenical Christian scholar on Islamics, often seems to be
more sympathetic to the Muslim cause than he is to Christ.
Nevertheless, his work is valuable as an overview of the events and
significance of Muhammad’s life.
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Chapter Two
Of Shrines and Folk Religion
The whole city was planned and built around this big beautiful
shrine, which contained the tomb of an important historical figure.
Many people did come regularly to go through their daily prayer
rituals. More importantly, however, they came to receive some kind of
blessing from God through the intercession of this deceased holy man:
students wanted to ensure success on their exams, young men and
women desired to catch the spouse of their dreams, young wives
prayed against infertility, and the sick and crippled sought healing.
The power of the buried saint, not unlike the bones of Elisha (2 Kings
13:21), was thought to be capable of achieving all of these things.
One might ask how this practice of saint veneration fits in with official,
orthodox Islam? Doesn’t the Qur’an clearly state that there is no
intercession between God and man?1 City dwellers always paid their
respect to the shrine, saying a little prayer when coming in sight of the
shrine. If asked about this, they would see no discrepancy. They did
carry out their official religious duties, more or less. They practiced
their unofficial traditional customs zealously, however. They saw their
eternal fate in the hands of God, seeking to carry out His will as far as
they knew it, yes. But for life here and now, immediate remedies and
a more tangible way of connecting with the divine were called for.
One missionary suggested that the shrine area previously had been
the site of worship to a river goddess. When Islam became
established, pious Muslims found a way to channel this place of power
into the mainstream beliefs – not entirely unlike the way Christianity
was spread in pagan Europe. We had reason to believe that a spiritual
power was resident in this location for a long time, maybe thousands
of years, keeping the people in bondage, one way or another.
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims flock to the site annually to
celebrate the New Year. Perhaps people were being kept from
choosing the path of freedom because of this dark force?
Our team decided to Jericho-walk around the shrine area, a good
half a mile in circumference, the last week of the Muslim month of
fasting, Ramadan. Every morning, we got up before the break of
dawn, praying as we walked around with some local brothers in tow.
1
See Qur’an 2:254 and 6:51 as examples.
12
On the last day, we walked around it seven times! We even had a little
cow’s horn with us to blow at the end! I’m not sure what we were
Procession to a shrine. Photo by J. Dudley Woodberry.
From The World of Islam: Resources for Understanding,
Copyright © 2006 Global Mapping International. Used by
permission. All Rights Reserved
expecting –we certainly weren’t hoping that the buildings would
collapse. We could be in big trouble! We were definitely looking for a
breakdown of spiritual walls. We got quite a bit of attention on that
last day. Some of the soldiers standing on guard really started
wondering what these foreigners were up to by the fourth time
around! I suppose not unlike the inhabitants of Jericho staring down at
the people of Israel!
The spiritual impact of this walk still seems a little unclear. But walls
certainly came down, and it took us by surprise! Some of the fledgling
group of local believers had taken part in the walk. It was a great
source of encouragement for them, especially as we gathered for a
good breakfast and fellowship after the last seven times around.
However, things fell apart shortly thereafter. One brother started
spreading rumors about two other brothers: they were supposed to
have stolen large amounts of money some time before, and might be
13
trying to do the same thing again. They were not who they
represented themselves to be. The rumors turned out to be not
entirely true or false – we are not sure to this day! But the damage
was done.
Some of the brothers were wary of meeting with others, and ceased
doing so. Our little fellowship fell apart, although the seeds would later
be resurrected in different ways. The brother who first came forth
with the allegation has since turned his back on the faith, so it seems.
Some believers became luke-warm, while others remained strong, and
became even stronger. But other events soon followed as well. The
husband of our local librarian, who was our most influential staff
member and a new believer, died of a heart-attack. This was a
devastating blow to her in this male-dominated society. Not long
after, our landlord started coming around, talking about raising the
rent as soon as our lease was over. His were not idle words: he
wanted to triple it on us! A couple months later, we moved into a new
place with a new landlord!
What is the conclusion here? Were all these events connected?
Maybe, maybe not. However, it is certain that one should not enter
into active spiritual warfare unprepared for counter-attacks! The
balance lies in distinguishing between the real spiritual powers at work
that keep people in bondage, and mere superstition founded on lack of
knowledge. It’s not always easy to differentiate – and maybe
sometimes those two are one and the same! One thing is for certain,
however: belief in the everyday impact of the spiritual world on the
material world was widespread in this country.
Our local staff were afraid to walk into the basement at night,
particularly when we had a well in the basement in the new place.
Basements are widely regarded as high activity zones for spirits, or
jinn, and wells even more so! Our driver told us not to whistle one day
as we were driving along in the car, for this would be a signal for these
jinni to come pay a visit. The same driver had a little amulet hanging
on the rear-view mirror. He kissed it every time he went on a journey,
and then would proceed to drive like a mad-man. This amulet was a
little pouch in which a tiny Qur’an had been stuffed. Undoubtedly, it
had been blessed by a mullah of the more unorthodox kind. When we
took it out of the car, we told him not to replace it with another one.
Jesus was Lord of the car, not some funky talisman. His faith in Jesus
wasn’t all that confident, however, as he drove quite carefully ever
after!
14
Do these customs and traditions have any basis in the official, or even
historical Islamic beliefs? Perhaps, perhaps not. One thing is certain,
however. These animistic beliefs and practices are and have been
widespread in the Islamic world for a long time, whether they existed
before the arrival of Islam, or came afterwards. And to be honest,
these beliefs can be found in most cultures of the world, even in
dominant so-called Christian ones. When God is felt to be distant and
life’s events seem dangerously threatening, we humans resort to any
means necessary to feel even a semblance of control.
Scripture: 1. Samuel 28:4-24; Acts 19:1-20:1
Questions for thought:
How would you define Folk Religion, or animism, after reading this
chapter?
How does this fit in with your previous picture of how Islam is
practiced?
In comparison, Western Christians do not spend much time thinking
about the supernatural world. What do you think about that?
How can Christianity meet the needs of ordinary Muslims unsatisfied
by “orthodox” Islam?
Where do you see specific evidence of “animistic” practices in your
culture?
Suggested reading:
Missionaries to the world of Islam are usually confronted by a massive
belief system that is little understood in the Western world.
Understanding Folk Islam is probably more important for ministering
among Muslims than even understanding the Qur’an itself. The
following works, all written by experienced missionaries, give a good
introduction to the topic:
Muslims, Magic and the Kingdom of God, Rick Love
The Unseen Face of Islam, Bill Musk
Bridges to Islam: A Christian Perspective on Folk Islam, Phil Parshall
15
Chapter Three
Hospitality
Adam’s son Michael had accepted Christ several months before, and
was struggling mightily in his relationship with his father. Adam
resented any Christian influences on his son, and was not happy that
he was hanging out with foreigners on a regular basis. I don’t think he
knew Michael was a follower of Jesus, but he had told him to get rid of
the English Bible he kept in his room. Although I had never met Adam
before, I had the impression that he would not be overly friendly
should we actually meet. Surprisingly, Adam had worked for several
foreign organizations in the past, and had many friends in the foreign
community.
One day, a group of us foreigners decided to go visit an ancient
historical site nearby, and who turned out to be our guide but Adam
himself, around sixty years of age, and in considerable good health at
that. He was a good friend of one of the foreigners in the group. We
struck up several conversations during the day, and built up a good
rapport. Towards the end, he insisted that we visit his gardens at the
other end of town. After living in dry and dusty surroundings for
months on end, this sounded like an awesome idea, although perhaps
too good to be true. Our expectations were put to shame – I had not
seen such an array of fruits and flowers in a very long time. It almost
felt like we were getting a taste of paradise. He then insisted that we
return at some point in time, and then come to his house for a meal.
Following local custom, we agreed whole-heartedly, for to do
otherwise would have been quite rude and off-putting, even though we
did not have any definite plan to visit him again as of yet.
In the meanwhile, Michael did come to visit off and on, and the
relationship with his father seemed to have improved. At one point he
was on the verge of getting kicked out of the house, but now things
were smoothening out. Michael’s unexpected but well-paying new job,
that brought cash flowing into his father’s purse, certainly did not hurt
to this end. Maybe he had started to act more respectfully and
responsibly toward Adam as well. Who knows? I certainly did not
know everything that had transpired in this father-son relationship,
beyond the beginnings in Michael’s life of faith in Jesus. The situation
was certainly fascinating: we were closely related to Adam’s son
through his faith, as he would come more or less regularly for
encouragement and support. It was this faith that seemed to be the
main point of friction in Adam’s relationship with Michael. And now we
16
were getting quite close to Adam himself, who seemed to go even
beyond local cultural politeness in the extent of his hospitality towards
us.
Before my time was up, we visited Adam for a meal at his house,
and we did not find the host wanting in anything either. Ten of us were
fed all kinds of main dishes, and the quantity of it all would have been
more than enough for double our group. Nothing dishonors a host
more than lack of food. And nothing delights a host more than pointing
out that a local would have been able to eat three times as much as us
foreigners could – notwithstanding the fact that I had so far
successfully kept up a reputation as a hefty eater. We had hardly
eaten half of what was offered to us, however delicious it had been.
And for this our host was reproaching us. I knew full
well that this was no unusual occurrence. In this country, large dishes
of various kinds of foods are prepared for parties or official events,
with the expectation that much will be left over. Afterwards, a family
might subsist on just those left-overs for days and even weeks. The
unwritten code of hospitality, ingrained in people’s hearts and minds,
demands that the host offer all he has.
In a place where the standard of living was well below anything I
had faced before, and hunger was certainly not unknown among its
people, the principle of hospitality trumped all these concerns for
meeting daily needs. For what does a man have, if he has lost his
reputation and standing in society? All the food and money in the
world would not be able to even remotely serve as an adequate
substitute for the honor a family could lose by displaying less-than
enthusiastic hospitality. This is a lesson that should be well learned by
anyone considering spending all or a part of their life in the Muslim
world. We must be prepared to sacrifice our personal convenience,
which is perhaps the most important value of our Western culture, in
order to effectively reach Muslim people groups for Christ. For how can
they begin to understand and accept a message from people who do
not meet even the minimum standards of kindness and righteousness?
Scripture: Genesis 18:1-8; John 10:38-41; 1 Timothy 5:10; 1 Peter
4:9
Questions for thought:
How do we treat new acquaintances in the West? Do we have an
attitude of hospitality towards strangers?
17
How do you usually show hospitality to guests and friends?
How could you be a hospitable host to a Muslim friend? What could
you do to make them feel comfortable and at home?
Recommended Reading:
Honor and Shame, Roland Muller
We in the West live in a guilt-based culture that is far removed from
the shame-based cultures of the world. It is important that we
understand the difference.
Kebabs, naan (round, flat bread made with wheat flour) and fresh salad at a
restaurant in Central Asia.
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Chapter Four
Weddings
In trying to understand the local culture, we have to examine the core
worldviews of people. This is no easy task, for what people believe is
not necessarily what they say they believe. Traditional folk practices
among Muslims are widespread, but certainly not part of the official
orthodox faith. If a Muslim is interviewed about his beliefs, he will
state what he was taught in his religious education. When a crisis
confronts his life, however, he will most probably resort, if desperate
enough, to animistic rituals practiced from generation to generation.
This phenomenon is certainly not restricted to the Islamic world –
crisis events often bring out core beliefs that might otherwise seem
irrational in a controlled setting.
Not only negative crises bring these core cultural standards to light.
Rituals or celebrations signifying different life-cycle events reveal much
about a people’s worldview. Weddings, funerals, religious festivals, and
birthdays, all of these occasions can tell us much about a culture. I
was able to experience several of these events, at times sad, and
other times celebratory. As a foreigner, people often wanted to invite
me to these occasions, particularly as this would boost their standing
in the eyes of their friends and acquaintances. While many resented
the presence of foreigners in the country in general, they were very
honored and quite happy to host them individually as guests.
I soon came to find out that weddings were rather boring. Men
would usually be invited to come to one of the many wedding halls in
the city at around seven in the morning. Of course, this type of
celebration was strictly gender separated, and the women would arrive
around noon, long after the last male guests had disappeared. Usually
a meal of the local rice dish with lamb or chicken would be served, as
well as the local formal wedding drinks, Fanta or Coca-Cola! For most
weddings that I attended, our group would simply sit down at a table,
and eat silently, while watching the surrounding tables to catch
familiar faces of people who would probably be sitting silently
themselves, either eating or looking around to see who had been
seated in a more privileged section than themselves.
The entertainment centered around a television screen up front with
Indian Bollywood music videos playing. While local women adhere to
strictly conservative clothing standards, local men love to watch the
19
suggestive dancing of Indian movie actresses. While our Western TV
shows and movies are saturated with skin, these fairly modestly
dressed film stars represent the most risqué TV fare locals would dare
to watch in public. Usually a local music band would play as well, with
one or two younger men standing up to dance in the local style, arms
and hips swaying to the music and to each other. At one wedding,
dancers went around after their turn trying to get other attendees to
try as well. These were my most excruciating moments, as I was
hoping and praying that they would ignore me. I have no talent
whatsoever for the more structured Western dancing, how much less
so in this spontaneous and improvised Eastern style.
I soon learned to arrive at the wedding hall an hour later than
invited. The food would not be served until then, anyway, and there
was no program or meaningful conversation to fill the void. The
ceremony in this culture is typically held at home with a small group of
family. Unrelated men never get to see the bride. After my late
arrival, I would be able to eat, greet the groom and perhaps his father,
honor their family, say hello to people I know, and then leave within
half an hour. This describes most of my wedding experiences, although
one wedding in particular proved to be the great exception. It was a
truly remarkable event to witness:
On a visit to the capital, our team attended a wedding of a fellow
foreign worker in the country. This event really got me excited and
inspired, it was like seeing a vision for the future. Two Westerners
were getting married here, a remarkable decision in and of itself! Both
of them had been in the country for a considerable amount of time,
having become very familiar with the language and culture. Since we
had received an invitation, and happened to be in the capital for a
conference, we naturally decided to come. Upon arriving at the
wedding hotel (the customary place to celebrate such events), the
women were ushered in one entrance, while we men went in the
other. A big hall awaited us, with a divider in the middle to ensure
appropriate gender separation. Normally, men and women do not
jointly appear at weddings, so this already represented a somewhat
progressive occasion.
To our amazement, around 500 people showed up, a full two-thirds
of them locals! We found our seats in the hall, and were fed a large
amount of food of many varieties, a feast even according to local
standards! The waiters ran up and down the aisles, attempting to
satisfy the crowd, and perhaps more accurately, racing with each other
while balancing large trays of rice and meat dishes! A music band was
20
playing seated according to local standards, equipped with indigenous
instruments, and singing in the local language and style. Interestingly
enough, the band members were all foreigners! A podium had been
erected to the side of the divider, so that both men and women would
be able to see the bride and bridegroom seated next to each other.
An MC led through the ceremony, mostly in the local language, with a
little bit of translation into English here and there. Amazingly, verses
from the Word were read, prayers prayed, and songs were sung, all in
the heart language of this country, providing the atmosphere more of
a church meeting than a wedding. Or perhaps this is the way a
wedding should be—focused on God, to the point that one would
perhaps have forgotten that two people would be getting married
soon! A man from a neighboring country gave the message, quoting
plenty from the Word, and speaking in a direct manner to the
audience. Who would have ever imagined something like this
happening in a strict Islamic country! While there, I asked, and
learned that perhaps at least half of the locals attending were followers
of Jesus. Unbelievable! In the middle of the capital, with hundreds of
His children, here we were, having a fellowship meeting! In the
exchange of their vows in the local language, the bride and groom had
packed a whole creed, including their own calls of commitment to God,
as well as a less than veiled call for those around to participate in this
commitment.
It was here that it all seemed like a vision to me. In this restricted
country, where persecution of any other faith besides Islam is a given,
God’s children were gathered together festively. This was multicultural yes, but also within a local framework. Here there was reading
of the Word and praying, singing and dancing, community and
outreach all at the same time. In the end, gifts were given out to all
attendees, consisting of copies of the Word and of fellowship songs.
Everyone was crowding around the boxes attempting to make sure
they wouldn’t return home empty handed. This was like a picture of
future possibilities. In a land where Christians are too distrustful and
scared to even meet with a local brother, where Muslim religious
leaders still have strong influence over society, where family fathers
threaten wayward children with ostracism, and friends and siblings
might even be moved to physical violence, here was a vision of a
strong, vibrant fellowship, united even across ethnic barriers, with to
reach those around them.
As I contemplated these events, there was one more image that
flashed across my mind. The bridegroom, of a very friendly and
21
charismatic personality, sat expectantly on his chair on the podium, in
local dress, waiting for his bride to walk in the room,← while the band
started up the tune to “This is the day, this is the day that the Lord
has made . . . .” Then, in she came, all in white and a veil, slowly
making her way through the doorway and starting across the hall in a
somewhat shy manner. She could have easily passed for a bride at
any other wedding in town, with a hair-do that must have taken a
week to prepare and enough make-up applied to satisfy even the most
skeptical local. At this point, the groom could no longer suppress his
excitement. Leaping up and out of his chair, he started hopping back
and forth to the rhythm, clapping his hands, and yelling out to the
male crowd for cheers! It was plain for all to see that he loved her,
and cherished her beyond measure. And here it was that I stopped
and thought. I thought of Jesus, waiting expectantly for the moment,
excitement brimming in His every feature, ready to jump up at the
right time. For whom? For what? For His bride, the body of Christ
made perfect. This was a thought hard to fathom, when looking at my
past life, and my current state of being. Who am I? Who are we that
we should deserve such? And there He is, jumping out of His chair,
calling to His heavenly hosts, as we step into His presence . . . .
Scriptures: John 2:1-11; Matthew 22:1-14; Revelation 19:7-9
Questions for thought:
In the Muslim world, the wedding symbolizes two families coming
together by joining their children in marriage. What are the prevailing
values in wedding celebrations in your culture?
Does faith in Jesus play a role in weddings today? What role?
As a guest invited to a wedding in a Muslim culture, how would you
turn this into an opportunity to witness for Christ?
Recommended Reading:
Touching the Soul of Islam, Bill Musk
Mentioned already in the introductory chapter, this book deserves
being mentioned again. And again, and again!
22
Chapter Five
Funerals
Life-cycle events such as weddings portray how people generally
celebrate a joyous occasion, a life transition witnessed by family and
friends. In the local culture, great importance is placed on honor and
hospitality, and as many people as possible have to be invited and
provided with a splendid meal, in order to maintain, and even gain,
status in the society. Grooms and their family often accrue massive
amounts of debt in order to accomplish these goals, and this debt is
often not paid off for years, and even decades. The one life-cycle
event that is accompanied mainly by sadness is the funeral, signifying
the passing of a life—the arrival of death.
In the local culture, death is certainly not ignored, and not only the
funeral, but also the forty-day period following it. Each anniversary of
the death date is commemorated and even celebrated as well. In its
specific content, this event differs little even from the wedding: people
are invited, come for a meal, talk very little, and then leave after they
are done. However, one specific funeral day is engraved in my
memory. Perhaps the very core values of the society were portrayed
in this event more than any other.
Our driver had a young wife and a little toddler at home, and his
wife was pregnant with another child. Sadly, there were complications
in the pregnancy, and the child died shortly after birth. On that day,
the local staff at our office, including our office manager, who alone
among them had professed faith in Christ, and I drove over to the
house where our driver’s extended family lived. The driver and his
father were waiting on us. They had wrapped the infant’s body in an
embroidered fabric, and the driver started walking down the road,
cradling the body, with the rest of us following behind. Interestingly,
after a fairly short time frame, the driver’s father took the body from
his son. Shortly after that, someone else took it from the father. This
exchange continued until we reached their local masjid, the mosque,
the place of worship. Rather than representing a profound
individualized feeling, the burden of grief was taken up communally in
this situation.
We arrived at the mosque just in time for the afternoon prayers. All
the usual neighborhood worshippers were present as well. Nervous at
the fact that I wasn’t a Muslim, or maybe that I would object to his
participation in the ritual prayers, our office manager asked if I wanted
23
to wait in the car. However, I declined, and after taking off my shoes,
stood to the side in the corner of the building. While the thirty or so
locals went through their ritual bowing, standing back up, and Arabic
recitals, I stood and prayed silently for the grieving family, asking God
to open their hearts to Himself. After the normal prayer time we
followed the Imam, leader of the mosque, outside. Holding the body
of the baby in his arms, he led us in special prayers for this taken life.
These were not the daily ritual prayers, but they were given more
impromptu.
Then, most of the prayer community, all males, headed over to the
burial site off to the side of the road marked by green flags. Two men
had already done most of the digging, and the Imam laid the child in
the grave. With prayers, heavy bricks were carefully placed over the
body and the rest of the grave was filled back up with dirt. I did not
understand everything that was said, and no doubt much was cited in
Arabic from the Qur’an. All of us were crouching in typical local style,
trying to shield ourselves from the burning sun on this hot summer’s
day. No one was openly grieving—in fact, I had the sense that as soon
as the ceremony was finished everyone would go back to business as
usual.
The driver never again mentioned the death of his infant child. Now I
had seen and heard of women grieving openly, wailing at the loss of a
loved one. Perhaps the difference could be accounted for in different
gender expectations. Perhaps, however, the strong local fatalistic
belief system played a part in this as well. Death comes at the behest
of God alone, and who can argue with Him? Whatever happens is the
Will of God, and there is no use investigating earthly causes or
wondering about the “what ifs.” Life moves on, and so must we. In a
culture that has experienced so much grief, and where life has seemed
unexplainable so many times, this coping strategy has kept people
functioning a little while longer.
Scripture: Job 2:11-13; 2. Samuel 1:11-27; Mark 5:21-43
Questions for thought:
How are you expected to act at funerals in your culture? How would
you be expected to grieve yourself? How does that reflect on your
culture’s beliefs about life after death?
How can we best show support to loved ones that are grieving?
24
In a Muslim context, how could we best show our love and concern
when others are grieving?
Recommended Reading:
Muslims and Christians on the Emmaus Road: Crucial Issues in
Witness Among Muslims, J. Dudley Woodberry, ed.
This is a rich source of information, from various authors, on how to
relate to Muslims; see especially chapter eleven, “Here is How I
Share.”
25
Chapter Six
Women and Grief
As Nancy, my teammate, and I made our way along the side of the
muddy street, trying to hide in our coats from the biting wind and rain,
and attempting to avoid slipping into one of those seemingly
bottomless mud holes disguised as small puddles, profound grief
pressed down upon us with an immense weight. Earlier in the morning
during breakfast, we had heard the news. Sarah, our librarian and
perhaps one of the most influential women in the city, had lost her
husband to a heart attack that night.
Russian
(Dagestan)
Muslim Woman
and Girl.
Photograph by
John Fries.
From The World
of Islam:
Resources for
Understanding,
Copyright ©
2006 Global
Mapping
International.
Used by
permission. All
Rights Reserved
Sarah had worked with our office from the very beginning. With a
seemingly endless network of contacts from her days as an English
teacher, she had played a pivotal role in establishing credibility for us
in the region. She was always greeted respectfully by everyone I saw
her meet, belying the status of women normally associated with this
culture. It sufficed to see her walk towards you to understand she was
a woman of importance and pride. Indeed, pride and grief seemed to
be the defining characteristics of her life.
26
She came from a family of influence. Her father had been governor
of a province decades before, but killed when violence once again
made its ugly reappearance. Her brother was killed years later in a
different conflict. Her eldest son died as well. Her daughter had
recently married, and therefore would probably not be a part of the
household much longer. Her youngest son was born severely
handicapped, and at age seven, lived the life of an infant, only able to
barely communicate with moans and occasional smiles. He was a
source of shame to his father, who did not have a son able to carry on
the family line. But at the same time, he was dearly loved by his
parents.
Sarah had long shown interest in the message of hope through
Jesus. Only recently had she indicated a firm commitment to Christ to
us. She was not willing, however, to let other locals know about this.
Her husband did sense a change in her, and although not happy,
tolerated this new development in his wife’s life. He did not hesitate to
ridicule her, though, particularly when she showed hope that Jesus
would heal their young son. We had just visited their home a few
weeks before, celebrating the end of the month of fasting. Although
the conversation with Sarah’s husband was pleasant, I could see the
bitterness and cynicism just beneath the surface. We did pray for their
son before we left, but the father was nowhere to be seen at that
point.
When Nancy and I arrived at the house, dozens of men were already
standing in front. As was the custom here, only the women came
inside to mourn. However, as a foreigner and a close friend, I was
allowed inside. Nancy entered the room packed with mourning women,
while I sat down in an adjacent room with Sarah’s foster boy, whose
shepherd grandfather had sent him to the city to earn money and get
an education while serving Sarah’s family. All the while, Sarah’s
daughter’s shrill voice filled the house with its plaintive cries, repeating
over and over again: “Oh father, oh father, where are you? Where are
you? Father!” Sarah herself sat in silent grief.
While her relationship with her husband had not been the greatest,
losing him was a devastating blow to a woman already accustomed to
death in her family. He had held an influential job with a government
agency, and brought a steady stream of income to their home. Her
own status as his wife elevated her in the eyes of the townspeople.
Now she was a widow, perhaps expected to go and live with her own
family again, as a single woman does not have much say or status in
27
this Muslim culture. Her strong association with us foreigners was a
good thing for her economically, but also earned her the suspicion of
others, particularly in regard to her faith.
I cannot now say for certain whether her situation has turned out for
the good or the bad. Her first grandchild was born shortly after the
death of her husband. As the maternal grandparents by custom name
the child, she gave him the name Masih, or Christ. Her daughter, who
still lives with her as far as I know, has since given birth to a daughter.
Her name is Mariam, Mary in English. Sarah’s faith has grown
stronger, and she has been bold enough to reveal her faith to other
believers. She has even played a role in training and discipling others.
Her son is still in the same condition. God is faithful, even in the
saddest situations. Especially in those situations.
We met Martha when we were seeking advice from another company
on how to go about building a school for girls in a remote village. A
confident woman in her mid-twenties, she had graduated as one of the
top students in the engineering department at the local university, and
was now working as the top engineer for this important company. She
offered to assist Crystal, one of my teammates, in planning the
construction, and in turn Crystal saw an opportunity to build a deeper
relationship with Martha outside of work.
With time, we came to find out that Martha’s family had previously
lived in a non-Muslim country for a long time, thus explaining her
family’s strong support for her ambitious endeavors. Martha’s father
was an academic, and her mother had been a well-known radio
personality before leaving this increasingly dangerous Muslim country.
The family seemed to nurture an open-minded and thoughtful
atmosphere, and certainly instilled in Martha a self-confidence that is
uncharacteristic of women in this country. She even drove the
company vehicle herself, something local women almost never dared
to do.
While Crystal and the other women on the team had interesting
conversations with Martha, even sharing their faith in Jesus, she did
not seem extremely open. Shortly thereafter, however, her beloved
mother died after a prolonged illness. Not only was the family
overwhelmed with grief, but Martha now had to take over her mother’s
household duties in taking care of her father and younger brothers, in
addition to keeping up her busy work schedule. During the prescribed
forty days of official grieving she came to rely on her friendship with
28
Crystal even more, her only comfort in this desperate time. Words
previously spoken and scriptures previously read to her now came
together, and within those forty days, she gave her life over to Jesus.
Despite her busy schedule, she was hungry to grow in her newfound faith, and attended some sessions with a special guest speaker
we had been hosting. Her father seemed accepting of this new
development in her life, while her brothers were a bit scared their
friends would find out. I’m not sure how the story of Martha and her
family continued. But the presence of a follower of Jesus during a dark
time in this extraordinary woman’s life made a big difference. We are
to be a light to the darkness of the world, a faithful friend to the
grieving lost.
Scripture: John 4:1-41; John 11; James 1:27
Questions for thought:
What are the expectations in your culture for recently widowed
women? Are widows able to make a living for themselves?
Considering the cultural context of the times, why does the Bible put
such great emphasis on taking care of widows? How does this parallel
the situation of women in the Muslim world?
What kind of career opportunities do young women have in your
culture? What do people expect of them?
How could you reach out to women in a Muslim context?
Recommended Reading:
An Arab proverb says “A man loves first his son, then his camel, and
then his wife.” This is the sobering reality of the woman’s situation in
an Islamic context. The following authors, all with a first-hand and indepth knowledge of the culture, explain some of the “whats and whys”
of women in the Muslim world.
Lifting the Veil: The World of Muslim Women, Phil and Julie Parshall
I Dared to Call Him Father, Bilquis Sheikh
Through Her Eyes: Life and Ministry of Women in the Muslim World,
Marti Smith
29
From Fear to Faith: Muslim and Christian Women, compiled by Mary
Ann Cate and Karol Downey.
Longing to Call them Sisters: Ministering to Muslim Women, compiled
by Fran Love and J. Eckeart.
An Arab proverb says “A man loves first his son, then his camel, and
then his wife.” Still, one should be careful with generalizations, for
many Muslim men do deeply love their wives.
30
Chapter Seven
Witnessing to Muslims:
It had been five months since I arrived in this country, and I had
joined a local high school soccer team the day after my arrival. My
main motive in joining was two-fold: first, to get regular exercise and
stay healthy, and secondly, to continue enjoying my favorite sport.
Sure, I came to this country in order to tell people about Jesus. But in
regard to the team, I didn’t have any particular agenda or strategy. I
was just present. In many ways, my interaction with the young guys
provided the best learning conditions for me, both in language and
culture. Unlike many of the Western-oriented students, I did not feel
like they had ulterior motives in spending time with me. Most spoke
no English, and were just regular guys who expected to live in the city
for the rest of their lives.
I did not share much about my faith in words, mostly because I
wasn’t really able to in the local language, and also because the
conversations centered around subjects like where to pass the ball, or
whether I had scored a goal or not. Now and then people asked me
whether I was a Muslim or not, or what I believed in, or whether I
wanted to become a Muslim, and those were great opportunities to let
loose my expansive vocabulary: “I follow Jesus! He saved me from sin.
He’s Lord.” Probably not enough to author a deep theological treatise.
Now, however, it was Christmas time, and an amazing opportunity
to share Jesus had presented itself. Most locals knew about Christmas,
either from cheesy Western movies with Santa Claus stuck in there
somehow, or in connection with the birth of their prophet Isa, namely
Jesus. For most important events, people send out ornately designed
and written invitations to family, friends, and acquaintances. People
who receive such an invitation have a moral obligation to show up.
Unconvincing excuses for absences never do—the answer “I didn’t feel
up to it” might as well be a slap in the face of offered hospitality.
Knowing this, I bought a large number of invitations, and had a staff
member assist me in writing down the names of each coach and
soccer player that I could think of. This was quite a challenge, because
in some cases I only knew people’s nicknames, and my grasp of the
Arabic script and proper local name-giving was insufficient at best.
31
Somehow though, we managed to write out the invitations and give
one to each person. I still don’t know if all the names were properly
spelled, or if some guys got invitations with entirely different names.
One way or the other, almost all of them felt compelled to come,
including the main coaches. Whether they did not want to slight my
hospitality, or were curious about how the foreigners live, or wanted to
celebrate Christmas, I’m not sure. It was probably a combination of all
of those reasons.
It was quite a surprise when thirty of them showed up, almost all
with a bouquet of flowers. I felt like a popular girl on the night of the
high school prom dance. They all congratulated me on this important
day of mine, for it was the birthday of my prophet! We all sat down for
a traditional local meal. As is custom, I prayed after we had finished
the food. Contrary to custom, I chose my own words however, and not
the Arabic ritual prayer. We then sat down to watch the Jesus film. As
it was getting late, we stopped half way, with many promising to come
back and see the rest at another point. I doubted it would happen.
However, not more than a week later, the core of the team as well as
the two main coaches came back to watch the rest. They even
watched the part at the end which invites the audience to repent of
their sin and put their faith in Christ. I had conveniently disappeared
to run a small errand at that point, not wanting to seem like I was
pushing anything down their throats. I asked one young guy what he
thought about the movie. His response surprised me: “It is book!” In
other words, they accepted the story as it was shown.
This was highly significant! Why? Because Muslims do not believe
that Jesus, a highly respected prophet, would have submitted himself
to the shameful suffering inherent in the crucifixion process.
Therefore, they hold that Jesus either had a look-a-like die in his
place, most probably Judas, or simply swooned on the cross, and
awoke from a coma later on. Little do they know that it is exactly the
shame of Jesus that brings us honor—a powerful concept in a culture
dominated by fear of shame and desire for honor. Jesus was God’s
way of bringing us true life.
So when my soccer comrades fully accepted the story, at least to my
face, they accepted one of the most crucial aspects of God’s saving
work usually denied by most Muslims. I have no idea how soft their
hearts are towards Christ now. I never pressed anyone about the
movie or the evening. The main head coach, however, did ask for a
copy of the New Testament some months later. God works in people in
His own time. He is the one who tugs at the heart. It is not us.
32
On another occasion, Samuel, a fairly new believer, brought his
friend David with him. Now Samuel was a young student, probably 17
years old, Western-oriented, always wearing jeans and a shirt. Samuel
had told me about his friend before. David ran an internet café downtown, and apparently was a seeker of the truth, but not finding it in
the rituals of the mullahs. Knowing this, however, did not prepare me
for the actual encounter with him. David was probably in his thirties
with a friendly disposition, but in contrast to Samuel he wore the
traditional long-flowing outfit, and had a big long bushy beard,
signifying his piety. I might have mistaken him for a religious leader
had I not known about him beforehand.
Our conversation started out pleasantly, but swiftly turned to the
subject of Jesus and the Bible. David was eager to learn, although he
did throw the usual Muslim objections about the authenticity of our
scriptures at me. Now Muslims have great respect for holy scriptures
other than the Qur’an. The Qur’an itself speaks highly of the Taurat,
the Zabur, and the Injil, which we can roughly translate to mean the
five books of Moses, the Psalms of David, and the Gospels. Actually,
the former two refer to the entire Old Testament, and the latter to the
entire New Testament. Due to several discrepancies between the
Qur’an and the Bible, however, Muslims have come to the conclusion
that the Bible must have been changed, for surely Muhammad would
not recommend something that contradicted his own teachings.
Now, when David came to this subject, I respectfully asked him
when such a change in the Bible could have taken place, as we have
reliable manuscripts of the Bible that predate the time of Muhammad,
and that do not differ from our scriptures today. As Muhammad
recommended the Bible for reading, the scriptures could not be
considered faulty before his time for Muslims. And as they certainly
have not changed after his time, one must come to the conclusion, at
least as a Muslim, that the Bible could not have been changed. David
was an open-minded fellow, but still had these typical objections in his
mind.
However, unlike most Muslims, he was not satisfied with the answers
of his own faith either, and despised the hypocrisy and approval of
violence among the mullahs. We continued talking, and I gave him a
New Testament in his own language to leaf through. I don’t remember
which passages we looked at, but at one point, David took my English
Bible from me, and started perusing the pages. I didn’t know what he
was doing, but I did remember that I had a picture of a girl inside, a
33
girl I was corresponding with long distance. David stopped, pointed at
a chapter heading (it happened to be Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew),
and told me to recite it.
Now, in order to be considered a holy and pious man in Islam, one
has to be able to repeat, from memory, long portions of the Qur’an,
and preferably all of it. As Samuel had told David that I was a
practicing Christian and knowledgeable about my faith, David now in
turn expected me to be able to recite the New Testament from
memory. He probably figured that I wasn’t able to do so, and wanted
to show the superiority of Muslims over Christians in this regard. He
was right on this one, but I managed to squeak out of the situation by
telling him this portion was merely a genealogy. Not to be
discouraged, he picked another passage (he couldn’t read English),
and precisely then spotted the girl in my Bible. Apologizing profusely,
he handed me the Bible, and our conversation continued on towards a
different topic I don’t recall anymore.
Had I totally blown this situation? Here was a spiritually interested
and questioning man looking for true answers while conscientiously
practicing the Islamic faith. He came to me for answers, and found
that I wasn’t really good at scripture memorization (in his mind, a sure
sign of piety) and was hiding pictures of cute girls in my holy book.
Had I totally marred his image of Christ? Had I pushed someone away
from the faith through my unintended actions that were not culturally
sensitive? I still don’t know the answer to that question, as I never had
a deep conversation with him again. Possibly I’ve judged myself more
harshly in this case than David did. He left me with the promise that
he would read both books, the Qur’an and the New Testament, and
then follow the teachings of whichever one seemed better to him. One
thing is certain now, however:: the girl in the picture has become my
wife!
Scripture: John 3:1-21; Acts 17:16-34
Questions for thought:
How do you talk about your faith with non-Christian friends and
acquaintances? What are the most effective ways to show your faith?
Would you rather talk to them one-on-one, or bring them to a meeting
with an engaging evangelist as the speaker?
34
What are some of the typical objections to faith in Jesus in your
culture? How do you answer them? What do people expect from you
when they find out you take your faith seriously?
How would you answer a Muslim who objects to the Trinity because it
represents Christian worship of three gods?
How would you attempt to reach out to a Muslim acquaintance or
friend? How would you present Jesus to him or her? Where would you
meet up with the friend?
Recommended Reading:
Website: www.answering-islam.org
This contains a wealth of information and helps on dialoguing with
Muslims, including FAQs, with appropriate responses. It also has links
to Muslim websites, which of course are helpful in understanding how
the other side thinks. Ibn-Warraq, editor of the very helpful volume
Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out (see the recommended reading
at the end of chapter nine), is not a Christian, but nevertheless
recommends this website and describes it as “. . . probably the best
Website of all the Internet devoted to refuting and criticizing Islamic
claims, doctrine, history, and the Koran.”
Sharing Your Faith with a Muslim, A. A. Abdul-Haqq
This book contends that study of Christ , as he is found in both the
Bible and the Qur’an, can be a bridge to the Muslim heart. The
author’s father was a convert from Islam.
Muslim Evangelism: Contemporary Approaches to Contextualization,
Phil Parshall
This volume will challenge one to think about what is really essential to
the core of Christianity, and to put aside the non-essential, with the
goal of making Christians more effective in reaching out to Muslims.
35
Chapter Eight
Stories of Believers
Why had I come to this country? For the excitement and adventure,
surely. In order to experience a new culture and learn a new language
as well. Perhaps so that I would not be caught up in a routine,
comfortable Western job. But at the core of the matter, the most
profound desire of my heart was to work out my faith, and to live out
my purpose on this earth. As a broken and fallen vessel, I hoped God
would use me and show His love to the people of this country. The
meat and potatoes of my time in the country were spent with
individuals hungry for hope, longing to come into a right relationship
with God. They longed for Jesus.
I had no great expectations to begin with, really. Thus far in my life,
I had not been bestowed with a great gift of evangelism—at least not
how I understood the term. Knowing this—and that work among
Muslims usually takes years and decades before bearing fruit, I
thought that perhaps a few very close friendships, along with many
“salty” conversations, would be all I could hope for. I hoped to help
build a groundwork by showing the love of Jesus in deeds, so that
others coming after me could take part in the actual harvest.
Furthermore, I knew that one or two young men had professed faith in
Jesus, and needed someone to help support them. As the only guy on
my team, I figured this would be a big part of my job.
36
Central Asian Pumpkin Express!
But God is able to do immeasurably more than we could ask or hope
for. Upon my arrival, I discovered that He had set in motion a steady
trickle of young men who were accepting Jesus into their lives. One
young man, a brave and impetuous one, had come to faith and was
bringing all his friends to hear the message. During my first month in
the country, we must have had at least ten guys come to us ready to
accept Jesus. I became acquainted with over three dozen local
believers, most of them newly so, before I left a year later. This was
truly an amazing occurrence in this conservative, traditional, and so
far quite unreached Muslim country. God was at work, and this had
absolutely very little, if anything at all, to do with my presence there.
Each of these young men had their own tale to tell. Each of them was
at a unique point in his life, and had arrived there differently. Paul,
the brave one, with a colorful and violent past, experienced a quick
dramatic life change from womanizer to committed follower of Christ.
His friend Frank took his time. I think Frank’s main motive for
accepting Jesus, other than pushy Paul, was his unwillingness to
continue practicing the stringent Muslim ritual requirements. The lazy
fellow figured that the message of forgiveness gave him just the
37
excuse he needed! He remained scared to death, however, to tell
anyone about his new allegiance. Over a period of twelve months, God
continued to work in his life. Towards the end of my time, he took a
trove full of Christian materials into his home village, a day’s drive
away. A bold move, considering the fact that villages tend to be much
more strictly governed by religious authorities, and his entire family
and social structure resided there. He ran into trouble later on, but I
do not exactly know how he is doing now.
Early on, Frank brought his friend Ben to us, who in turn brought his
friend Walter. Walter was an intelligent and well-read young man in his
mid-twenties who had lived most his life outside his native country,
before returning home a few years previously. Ben had professed faith
in Christ, and when I asked Walter about his own faith, it seemed to
me that he had done the same. He always had a rather melancholic
look and air about him, evident to my other teammates as well. We
interacted regularly throughout my time in the country, but often he
would not show up for months and at other times he would come to
seek me out several times a week.
With time, I realized that Walter was a very different fellow than
most of the other guys. He asked unusual questions. Whereas others
were hungry to know how their new faith could be practically applied
in every day life, and asked basic questions, Walter seemed to always
arrive with questions about obscure theological concepts or wanted to
talk about esoteric philosophic themes. One of his favorite topics to
discuss was his interesting notion of evolution. I don’t think I ever fully
wrapped my mind around exactly what he meant by it, as he didn’t
seem to refer to Darwin’s biological theory. Part of the problem could
have been his imperfect knowledge of English and my inadequate
command of the local language. While he liked to study the Bible with
me, he seemed somewhat uninterested in studying at home. This was
due partly to his rather inordinate fear of discovery. He usually was
not willing to meet with other believers, much less discuss his opinions
with them.
During one talk, I was enlightened as to where Walter stood in his
faith. We were talking about the authenticity of the Bible, the value of
the Qur’anic message, and the exclusive nature of Jesus’ claims, when
he continued to claim truth in all religions. While I was, and still am,
willing to agree that all faiths have redeemable qualities, his position
seemed to me to be universalist. I had assumed him to be a follower
of Jesus, although obviously at a different point in life than others. He
was, however, in his own words, just as committed to the Qur’an and
38
its teachings as to the Bible. This new revelation shocked me a little
bit, and I must say that I lost my cool with him, something that has
perhaps happened too many times in my life. Arguments I have been
involved in have often gotten quite heated.
Afterwards, I realized - one among many insights - I had a true freethinker on my hands. I also realized that losing my cool was a big
mistake, particularly in a culture that values politeness and saving face
above anything else, including speaking one’s opinions. Walter had
been coming to meet with me because he was searching for the truth
and wanted to interact and converse with an open-minded fellow that
was moderately well-educated about the workings and intricacies of
this world. As a member of a highly influential family among his ethnic
group, he was most probably obligated to adhere strictly to the Islamic
faith. He undoubtedly had his fill of speaking to mullahs who generally
aren’t too interested in taking a broad view of this world. They would
not be very happy about the questions Walter was asking, or the
inquisitive nature of his mind.
I had enjoyed my conversations with Walter to this point, and I
imagine he had as well. However, when I so vocally expressed my
displeasure with his current beliefs, I basically played the same role as
the narrow-minded mullahs, who would get agitated with people not
towing the party line. I was in danger of discarding the main reason
Walter was coming to talk with me. And in truth, he did not come to
visit me for some time, although that could have very well been due to
his own personal reasons. He remained paranoid of discovery till the
time I left. Thankfully, he came to visit me several more times, and we
exchanged books to read.
I continue to receive e-mails from Walter infrequently, and he is still
searching, and still afraid. He is on a journey, although I’m not sure
where he’s at. He does not live in a society that looks kindly on his
intellectual wanderings. And to tell the truth, many missionaries would
not have the patience to interact with him. Or they would not think it
worth their while to spend time with someone who might not show
much “evangelistic” potential.
However, from Walter’s and other people’s stories, I have realized that
walking towards God is a journey, often a long-drawn out process.
This is not only true of this Muslim country, but perhaps more and
more so of our post-modern Western societies. I believe God has
called us to accompany people on their journeys, as we seek to
continue on our own.
39
I have mentioned Samuel previously, the one who brought bushybearded David to talk to me. Samuel had spent time at our office
several times during my year, mostly because of the English classes
we offered for two weeks every month or so. Marcus happened to be
in the same English class as Samuel, and whether they became friends
while in class or were so well before, I don’t know. During these
English classes, their interest in Jesus was piqued, particularly after
viewing the Jesus film during a voluntary session at the end of the two
weeks. A few days later, they both decided to follow Jesus together.
For us this was a remarkable event, as they had each other to rely on
in their new-found journey, and not just us foreigners. Muslim
background believers are usually quite distrustful of other local
professing believers, but Samuel and Marcus already had a small little
fellowship together.
They started coming to the office regularly to meet with me. We
would read passages of scripture together, where I preferred to start
them out in the beginning, namely the creation of the earth and man
in Genesis. They would ask all sorts of questions as well, usually very
non-theological and practical, and often quite distracting to my own
purposes! They were young guys in their late teens, and, in a way,
were clinging to me for nurture. What an unaccustomed position this
was for me, the youngest child and only boy out of four children. In
typical local fashion, they came regularly, but certainly not always at
the most convenient of times, and quite often unscheduled. Unlike in
the West, people, not time, are given the highest priority in this
culture.
As both continued to come to me together, I began to notice several
behavioral patterns in them, and particularly in Marcus. While I had
given both a copy of the New Testament in their own language, they
almost never read the suggested portion of scripture I had assigned
them the previous time. They said they could not keep the Injil, as it is
called, in their homes for lack of privacy. This was typical behavior, as
believers are at great risk of being found out by their families,
particularly if they are still under the authority of their fathers.
However, Marcus also began to ask me if he could borrow certain
electronic items I had. He showed particular interest in my digital
camera. Upon his request, I let him borrow the battery charger for my
camera.
One day, Marcus came to the office alone to see me. He was
obviously in distress. He gazed at me intensely before popping the
question. Would I be able to give him a computer from our office? This
40
was shocking, and disillusioning. Had Marcus befriended us and
feigned interest in the faith only for material gain? I clearly told him
that I could do no such thing. With a resigned and defeated look on his
face, he told me that his father had suspected him of becoming a
Christian. Why was he spending so much time with the foreigners?
Apparently, Marcus denied this, and told his father that he was
actually buying a computer from us. That’s why he had asked for the
computer, as a cover-up to pacify his father. He obviously didn’t have
money to buy one. Showing disappointment that I was not aiding him
in this instance, he told me he would no longer be able to see me. He
would no longer be able to be a Christian. He would support the cause
privately, but never again would he profess to follow Jesus.
While saddened at this development, I wondered at the strange tale
he told me. Some of my team-members actually showed relief that
Marcus was no longer coming. They had been suspicious of him from
the beginning. One way or another, it seemed like we would not get
the opportunity to get to the bottom of the story. Marcus was gone.
However, after a month of self-imposed exile, he showed up again for
one of our English classes. And he started meeting with me again,
usually together with Samuel, who had continued coming even after
Marcus no longer did.
I did not ask Marcus why he had decided to return, or at least I don’t
remember doing so, but his strange behavior became even stranger.
We would find him wandering around the office on his own, a no-no in
local etiquette and a trespass of our own rules. Coincidentally, my
digital camera got lost around the same time, never to be recovered.
Marcus had never returned the battery charger I had lent him earlier.
When I confronted him about his wanderings without mentioning
possible theft, he accused me of spying on him, recording our
conversations to use them as blackmail, and other strange
conspiracies. After calming down his fears and assuring him of my
good intentions towards him, he returned a tape-recorder I had been
using for language practice and hadn’t noticed was gone.
Was inordinate fear of discovery the source of his strange behavior?
It certainly seemed plausible in the climate of the local culture. And
why would he return my tape-recorder if he was a thief? Perhaps
someone else had stolen my camera. Shortly afterwards, however,
other expensive pocket-sized electronic items, this time not my own,
got lost. While I wanted to show as much grace as possible to a
brother, other team-members were bent on exposing Marcus and
banning him from our premises. We compromised and decided to
41
confront him on the issue. Interestingly enough, instead of giving us a
straight answer, he turned the tables on us, expressing outrage that
we would throw around accusations like this. He never admitted to any
kind of theft. Our patience, however, had run out. Too much damage
had already been caused by the lost items. We had even suspected
some of our own staff, and caused relational damage because of that.
Eventually, we told Marcus to stay away from the office for a while,
at least several months. In another strange twist, he had started
spreading rumors about another believer and friend of ours who we did
not know was connected to Marcus. Apparently they attended the
same school. I never saw Marcus again, nor have I stayed in contact
with him. I did receive e-mails from good-hearted Samuel who was
having troubles of his own. But I do not know how he is doing these
days.
Scripture: Acts 5:1-10; Acts 8:9-24; Acts 6:8 – 8:3
Questions for thought:
Who should be involved in spreading the Gospel? What does it mean to
have the gift of evangelism?
Have you encountered young believers (perhaps yourself) who have
asked uncomfortable questions that were difficult to answer?
What are some of the big needs young believers from a Muslim
background would have? How can we help feed them spiritually?
What were your motives when you accepted Christ? What kind of
motives would you expect young believers in a developing country to
have?
Recommended Reading:
Church Planting Movements: How God is Redeeming a Lost World,
David Garrison
It seems an impossible dream: church planting movements. Yet God
may be beginning exactly that, even in the Muslim world. We need to
remember that ultimately, as difficult as it may seem, God’s desire is
to make disciples, fellowships of Jesus-followers, who in turn are able
to reach and teach others.
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Chapter Nine
Stories of Believers continued …
What follows here is perhaps the strangest and most heart-breaking
tale of my time in this Muslim country. When I first arrived in the
country, I was told that one of our local staff members, Nathan, had
decided to follow Jesus through the testimony of the foreign ladies on
my team. As the only guy on the team, I expected to be of some help
in encouraging him along on his walk. He was a very intelligent and
very ambitious fellow, but it soon became clear that we would not be
the best of friends. Our personalities clashed rather strongly. In any
case, he was not much interested in meeting with other local believers,
and was already regularly discipled by another fellow in town. With
time, however, he did become a member of the very first group we
brought together to meet.
Young Men in the Middle East – Until they can afford to marry and have children, they
have little influence in society
Not long after, Nathan handed in his resignation with our office, as he
had been offered employment elsewhere – a natural vertical move for
this career-oriented, promising young man. Upon Nathan’s
recommendation we interviewed several candidates and decided to
hire Simon. While perhaps not as skilled and quick as Nathan, his was
a very pleasant personality, and we very much enjoyed having him
43
around. He remains on staff till this day. Soon after we hired Simon,
another fresh face started coming around quite often: his brother
Alvin. Both of them were cheerful and rather quirky. We started calling
them Ernie and Bert, as Simon was rather tall with bushy hair, and
Alvin was quite short. We could tell they were very close. Alvin didn’t
have a steady job, so he helped out at the office regularly to avoid
boredom.
Alvin was a talkative young fellow, and soon showed interest in
spiritual matters. He spent quite a bit of time in particular with my
team-mate Nancy, who developed a kind of mother-son relationship
with him. Apparently, he had heard of Jesus some time before, and
now had unexpectedly run into Christians again. It didn’t take long
before he gave his life to Jesus. He was baptized, and became part of
the fledgling group of young believers, of which Nathan was also still a
part. After much prodding by and many conversations with his brother,
Simon decided to profess faith in Christ also. For several months we
had a group of five or six guys meeting once a week for prayer, Bible
study, and conversation. We celebrated birthday parties together,
played soccer together, and generally had fun together.
Then everything seemed to fall apart. It happened after we
completed our seven-day prayer-walk around the big shrine in our
town. Through Nathan, we heard that Simon and Alvin were not who
they professed to be. Apparently, Alvin had stolen a large amount of
money from a previous employer in another part of the country before
coming back to live with his brother. Furthermore, Alvin and Simon
were supposedly not really brothers, but only pretended to be so to
cover up the crime. They never did seem to have any resemblance to
each other, now that we thought about it. They were potentially
planning a new heist at our office. And if Simon were not involved in
Alvin’s plans, a homosexual liaison was perhaps the best explanation
for their strange relationship. Why was Alvin living with Simon’s
family? He seemed to control everything Simon did.
We were all shell-shocked. We decided to confront them each
individually, and Simon first. Would he admit that they were not
brothers? He adamantly persisted that they were indeed brothers.
After talking to Alvin, however, we found out that they were not
brothers. At least not by birth. A new twist emerged in the tale:
apparently, Alvin had been adopted by Simon’s family as a young
toddler, and this explained why they looked so different. They were
not even of the same ethnic group. Simon’s loyalty to Alvin as a
brother was so great that he was at first not willing to admit to us that
44
Alvin had different birth parents. As to the charges of theft, Alvin
maintained his innocence. He knew about the money, but informed us
that his former co-worker had stolen it and then framed him.
For some time, these answers satisfied us. Their behavior towards us
so far had been exemplary. We did not tell Simon or Alvin that Nathan
was our main source of information, but seeds of suspicion had been
sown in their minds. One big problem still remained: Nathan’s version
of the story was corroborated by Alvin’s former employer, whom we
had contacted in the meantime. We arranged a meeting between him
and Alvin in order to get everything cleared up. The young fellowship
of brothers had been established and developed so amazingly by the
grace of God, and we did not want a hint of any kind of negative
rumors staining the relationships of these young brothers. All the
while, however, Nathan still insisted on his version of events.
On the very day Alvin was to meet the employer, he inexplicably left
town. We did not know what to think anymore. He knew this was an
important meeting, which could potentially get the issue behind him.
The former employer had been quite helpful to this point, vowing not
to get the police involved. Upon his return, Alvin informed us that he
had traveled to another town in order to find the man who had framed
him in the first place. Our suspicions grew again. While Alvin had
unofficially been doing some work for us before, we decided to no
longer give him these jobs. Since Simon was not involved in the
controversy as far as we could tell, we let him stay on. He continued to
prove very trustworthy, albeit quite slow at times.
We had no clue how to resolve the issue, but in regards to official
office work, it did not seem to directly affect us. Alvin officially was
none of our concern. In terms of the fellowship of believers, however,
the damage had been done. Nathan and several others refused to
meet with Alvin and Simon, and eventually told us that we had not
proven trustworthy in judging character. They henceforth would meet
on their own terms. Alvin, in turn, was quite angry at Nathan and
foreigners in general. His previous employers were foreign, and they
had, according to him, exhibited terrible behavior. They had used their
local staff to solicit drugs and prostitutes, had misused funds meant
for official business, and now were blaming Alvin for the disappearance
of a large sum of money.
We were the first virtuous foreigners, according to Alvin and his
brother, whom they had interacted with. And now we were throwing
accusations at him like the others. He felt betrayed by us and his
45
spiritual brothers. He no longer wanted to consider himself a believer.
Simon distanced himself from the fellowship accordingly. It was always
hard to tell what was going on in his mind. The two of them did invite
us to visit their family and interact with their mother. This was no
small gesture: by showing their hospitality and letting us into their
home they were making themselves vulnerable. They wanted to
confirm that they had nothing to hide. In the meantime, Alvin still
came around to visit his brother, and I would have some polite
interaction with him regularly. The three of us went to play pool on
several occasions as well.
This arrangement lasted for some time, before we decided that
something had to be done. Money had been stolen, and we had some
considerable responsibility to protect our property. How could we force
Alvin to confront his past? We decided to tell him to stay away from
our office until he had cleared up this issue. Since we did not want him
to lose face by telling him to leave, we decided to let Simon let him
know at their home. Simon, however, in loyalty to his brother, found it
excruciatingly hard to do so. He procrastinated for days. As Alvin kept
coming over to visit, we knew Simon had not followed through. Simon
eventually did tell him one day at the office, and his brother left in a
rage. I only talked with him one more time face-to-face.
As we did not have an internet connection, I regularly visited one of
the cafés in town. Some days after Alvin had left, I saw him across the
room at one café. Not wanting to cause a scene, I wrote him a little
note, assuring him of my love to him as a brother, but also of the need
for him to clear up his past. His written response was hard to decipher
beyond his feelings of intense anger at us. There was no hint of
understanding, much less repentance. I could not understand why he
would not want to clear his name if he was innocent. At the same
time, he was not acting guilty either – he had not skipped town.
Our last conversation was a strange one. Nancy and I had just
visited some friends, and were returning home by way of a little alley.
Suddenly, in front of us Simon and Alvin appeared, walking towards
us. They were arguing. When they saw us, Alvin came right up to me,
and in a loud voice, almost yelling, started hurling accusatory
questions at me. What were we foreigners up to in this country
anyway? Why were we here? Why were we ripping them off?
Embarrassed, Simon managed to pull him away, while apologizing
profusely to us under his breath. The next day he arrived at the office
with a big black eye. The final break had occurred. Simon, who had so
46
long seemed to have been under the sway of his brother, had severed
the relationship with Alvin. That’s what he told us.
Before I left the country, Simon never did seem to actively display
spiritual hunger again. I asked him some questions now and then, and
his answers would betray flickers of light here and there. I also
received one last e-mail from Alvin. In it, he told me of a recent dream
of his, in which he was on the outside of a beautiful garden, looking in.
The gardener was asking him to step inside. Alvin said he wanted to
be a part of Christian fellowship again. I don’t know where either of
them stand at this point in time, but God is in control of their lives, not
you or me. Interestingly, Nathan, the one who had leveled the
accusations against Alvin in the very beginning, has since denounced
his faith, and warned others to stay away from the troublesome
foreign Christians.
I don’t know what lessons to draw from this story. People’s lives are
messy, and we will get messed up too when we are involved with
them. But our involvement is rewarding nonetheless. From the biblical
account it is clear that God delights to use messy characters to pursue
his purposes. I would like to close this chapter with the story of a
young man who has let himself be used by God to fulfill God’s purpose.
Joseph was shy, insecure, sad, depressed, and to be honest, a
somewhat annoying boy when we first met him. He had recently lost
his best friend in a car accident, his mother and brother had been
gone for months to a province three days away, and his father didn’t
have much time to take care of him. He was first in his class, smart
with good perspectives for university, but without much hope in life.
My coworker then started meeting with him for language help, and
after sharing with him several times, he decided to give his life over to
Jesus. The change in his life was incredible: a new light appeared in
his eyes, a new joy in his life, a new motivation for living each day. In
him was a spiritual hunger that I have rarely seen before—he read the
New Testament we gave him several times over. He was already
mentoring other new believers after a month or two!
Then, however, he began to understand the real cost of his
decision—the consequence of his calling. His brother-in-law found out
about Joseph’s change, and in order to gather evidence against him,
started to search out and beat up his friends. One of Joseph’s friends
came to him and told him he could no longer be his friend, as he was
now an unclean pagan. Other friends came to him to pressure him,
and even threatened him with a knife. They said they would tell
47
everyone in his little town what had happened, and hand him over to
the police. Around that time, the governor of the province made it
clear on television that people who forsook the Muslim faith ought to
be shot.
Joseph had imprisonment and death to fear, but the one thing that
bothered him most was the reaction of his father: the latter had
warned him that he would be kicked out of the family if he chose to
follow Jesus. Joseph did not want to bear such shame – he thought of
running away from his parents, so as to avoid it. After much
consultation with us and his heavenly Father, a renewed sense of
peace and determination came to him. He even told us he was glad
that everyone knew about his faith now, as seekers would know where
to go! In the meantime, his mother, who had returned home, decided
to choose Christ as well!
Joseph has remained faithful to Jesus. Or rather, he has continued to
throw all of his trust onto Jesus, who will take care of him. Joseph has
also continued to face struggles. He has had rocks thrown at him.
Many months after I left the country, six men attacked him on the
road, leaving him unconscious. He woke up in the hospital. The local
police chief, who had previously searched his home unsuccessfully for
Christian literature, arrived at his bedside, promising to bring him the
ones responsible for the violence. He kept his promise shortly
thereafter, and came back with the six men responsible. The chief told
him that he would do whatever Joseph wanted done to them. Joseph
looked at each one and forgave them. He has gained the respect and
esteem of many in his community since. God has blessed him in
adversity. Perhaps this is the real tale of the church. Persecution
shows our real colors. It enables God to show his strength in our
weakness. Perhaps it is the road we must go before others will become
attracted to the aroma of Christ.
Scripture: Acts 8:26-40; 2. Corinthians 11:18-33; Hebrews 11:32 –
12:3
Questions for thought:
What kind of controversy have you seen in the church? How have
Christians, in your experience, handled conflict? How have you
handled conflict with other Christians?
48
How would you rate the importance of each of the following values in
relationships with fellow believers (or anyone in general): honesty,
forgiveness, getting to the truth, saving face?
What price have you paid for following Jesus? How are you viewed by
your non-Christian peers?
How would you counsel a believer from a Muslim background, who will
face intense persecution if he/she reveals his/her faith to his/her
friends and family? How would you support him/her?
Recommended Reading:
Planting Churches in Muslim Cities: A Team Approach, Greg
Livingstone
The founder of a well-known mission agency writes out of his own, and
others’ experience in reaching Muslims.
The Messenger, The Message, and The Community, Roland Muller
Incorporating much of the material in one of his other works, Honor
and Shame (mentioned at the end of chapter three), this book
emphasizes “. . . the need for building a sense of community into a
new group of believers” (quote from the publisher’s Website).
Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out, Ibn Warraq, ed.
It is helpful to realize that those who leave Islam, for whatever reason,
are all subject to the same harassment. Ibn Warraq is one of those,
even though he is not a Christian. Nevertheless, he has collected
many stories of other “apostates,” both Christians and non-Christians,
and his work gives a balanced view of this problem.
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Chapter Ten
Issues and Questions
There are over six billion people in this world, and over 1 billion of
those are Muslim. The overwhelming majority of Muslims live in the
developing world. While the number of Muslims in the West, both from
immigrant backgrounds and Western converts, is rising, they still
represent just a tiny minority of all Muslims. There is certainly a big
need to reach these Western Muslims, particularly with the goal of
having Muslim-background believers return to their home or parent
culture. Perhaps they can more effectively reach their own than a
Western, Latino, or even East Asian missionary could. However, there
is still no real excuse for those of us from majority Christian or postChristian cultures for avoiding our responsibility. Like the greatest
missionary the church has ever seen, we too “. . . have a great sense
of obligation to people in our culture, and to people in other cultures,
to the educated and the uneducated alike” (Romans 1:14, The New
Living Translation). The harvest in the Muslim lands is plentiful, but
the workers are still few. We are still called to go. I believe I am.
In the endeavor to live among Muslims in my target country, I have
been confronted by opposition on several fronts, both personally and
on a more general basis. I would like to deal with some of these in this
last chapter.
“Aren’t they too stubborn?”
Historically the most common hindrance to missions among Muslims
has been a reluctance of the church to focus its resources on a part of
the world that does not readily show tangible results. In the last
century it seemed that missionaries to the Muslim world rarely had
much success in terms of raw numbers of converts. While I take issue
with that definition of success, the church mostly ignored Muslims.
They just seemed too strong and stuck in their faith to waste our
efforts on them. Their tight-knit communities did not readily allow for
individuals to easily change their allegiance of faith, and there did not
seem to be a lot of those individuals who were even thinking about
doing so.
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Only in the last few decades has the church started to pay more
attention to reaching Muslims, and even more recently have significant
numbers of Muslims accepted Jesus into their lives. I don’t want to
speculate on the reasons why, beyond the sovereignty of God, but
perhaps over a hundred years of hard labor and prayers of a few
faithful
Pakistani Muslim keeping salat, or ritual prayer. Many Muslims believe that, as
they get older, they should spend more time in du‘a’, or extra-rogatory prayer, in
order to prepare themselves for eternity. Photo by J. Dudley Woodberry. From The
World of Islam: Resources for Understanding, Copyright © 2006 Global Mapping
International. Used by permission. All Rights Reserved
pioneers have finally come to fruition. The argument that “Muslims are
not interested, so why should we be interested in them” finally became
a moot one, although I hardly agree that the number of converts
should determine where we go as missionaries. In any case, the vast
majority of Muslims still haven’t heard who Jesus really is. The need is
still there.
Perhaps the church historically used that argument in order to avoid
“uncomfortable” missions. Perhaps the church was not willing to lay
down long-standing political and religious grievances, whether justified
51
or not, against Muslims for the cause of Christ. And in the light of
recent events, we tend to see Muslims as dangerous and menacing,
rather than simply as lost people. We were prepared to go to a
remote tribal group, learn the culture, and find out possible connecting
points from which the gospel could be shared. We were willing to
adapt to them as much as possible, in order to win them for Christ.
More recently, in the wake of the collapse of Communist regimes, we
were amazed at the spiritual hunger of millions who grew up without
God.
Muslims, however, represent a tough bunch. They intimidate us.
Perhaps this is the case because we share so much more of our value
system with them. Muslims claim our scriptures as part of their own
history. They themselves believe that Islam superseded Christianity,
just as Christianity made Judaism unnecessary. They are, in a way,
closer to us than any other “lost” people group out there. Maybe Islam
threatens us more than some esoteric Eastern polytheistic cult, or
even creeping Western secularism. And in terms of community, we as
individualistic Western Christians seem to have little to offer to
Muslims, whose religious rituals are almost always performed in a
group. How can we tell them they are lost, when we place little value
on communal unity or time together, and their life is never spent
alone?
Could it be that Muslims, and Islam, force us to be “better”
Christians? To live life more radically dependent on Christ? To make us
give up a life-style that suits our sense of comfort? I’m not sure,
perhaps these are just empty ramblings. But I do know that Jesus
never commanded us to go just to those nations that would be easily
persuaded, those that were not stubborn, and those that never
offended our sensibilities.
“Aren’t they too dangerous?”
This question closely corresponds to the previous one, but deserves
separate attention. It has become very much relevant, in particular
since September 11th, 2001. The stereotype of the fanatic and violent
Islamic fundamentalist terrorist is pervasive throughout the West, and
particularly in our churches. This question is also relevant because
some Muslim countries have experienced a lot of unrest in the last few
decades, and have been prominently displayed on the news. So when I
was telling people where I was going, and after I came back from
where I had been, an unspoken question, that did not remain so for
long, formed itself in people’s minds. “Why did you go THERE?”
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While I don’t want to suggest that everyone is called to the Muslim
world, or even to developing countries, the question above seems
most natural for people whose hearts and minds are focused on living
as comfortable as possible as much as possible. I don’t recall Jesus
telling us to go only to those countries that would issue us a visa, or
where our standard of living would not decrease substantially, or
where are lives would not ever be threatened. Jesus did not call us to
go only there where we could maintain an illusion of control over our
lives. I do recall Jesus telling one man to sell all his riches and then
follow him. At another time, he told those around him to pick up their
cross and follow him. We can pick up our crosses anywhere at
anytime. It doesn’t mean we have to go to the Muslim world to do
that. However, it does mean we cannot use the excuse of “excessive
potential danger” when refusing to consider such a place. Picking up
one’s cross is as dangerous as it gets. No threatening, and perhaps
imaginary, Muslim terrorist can top that.
“Is it really necessary?”
This is a question I have heard and expected to hear from nonChristian friends. But in today’s post-modern climate of questioning
absolutes, it is one I am starting to hear from people of Christian
backgrounds as well. I have no intention to try and prove in these
pages the exclusiveness of Jesus’ claims or the absolute necessity of
His saving work for every individual. That has already been done by
older and smarter people than I. But the question is still relevant, and
it is still being asked. So here is an experiential answer.
Muslims are intimidating to us, as I mentioned earlier, specifically
because they already adhere to a rather systematic faith, and they are
firmly embedded in a strong and supportive community. Why should
we spend energy converting them to our faith when they already have
something that seems to be working quite well? Why should we seek
to tear them out of their social network and endanger their lives by
having them switch allegiance to Jesus as the Son of God? Isn’t it
enough that Jesus is one of their prophets, and they live good and
moral lives, according to the fairly stringent standards of their laws?
Well, first of all, we must affirm that we seek to convert nobody.
Because if we convert someone, it is through our own human strength,
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and the heart of a person who is converted by us has not really
changed. Only God can change hearts. It is not our job to “outpersuade” someone. However, we are the messenger, in word and
deed. We are the most tangible way Muslims will see Jesus. We serve
as the conduit of God’s power. And we should not stand in the way
when His power is moving Muslims to accept Jesus. And I was a
witness of that power in my target country.
People came to us to hear about Jesus even before we had ever said
a word to them. A few of these stories have been recounted in
previous chapters. Jesus resonates in people’s souls. Jesus also is a
stumbling block to many. His life and words aren’t easy to swallow,
and to the Muslim heart and mind this is no different. But this does not
change the fact that I saw people that wanted to know who Jesus was,
and what He could do in their lives. No amount of persuasive
preaching, unbalanced argumentation, or even manipulation could
ever have that same effect. Those things would have never led to
radically changed lives.
In the majority of cases, including those I described in the previous
chapter, dreams were part of the process that brought individuals to
Jesus. In Muslim cultures, as in ancient biblical ones, dreams are
highly significant, and perhaps we in the West have too easily
dismissed them ourselves. In many cases, they served to question or
confirm the decisions they had made. Sometimes people had
significant dreams as a result of conversations with us. Often it was
the dreams that first brought them to us. Why mention the
significance of dreams? Reaching Muslims is a work of God, not of
man. I can’t emphasize this enough.
But really, have I answered the question yet? Why is it necessary to
reach Muslims with the gospel? Don’t we cause more harm than good?
I did point out that it really isn’t our choice or doing when God brings
people to himself. If people professed to follow Jesus because of our
doing, they soon fell away. The question, however, becomes moot
when observing the change in the lives of individuals. Jesus saves us
from hell, and it becomes evident in our lives when we accept Him for
who He is. Hopefully my stories served to confirm that.
“What about materialistic motives?”
Perhaps I should answer at least one more objection. This is a
question that has to be dealt with, when we from the wealthy and
economically developed West work among predominantly poor Muslim
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populations. Are those Muslims that are seemingly attracted to the
gospel much more attracted to the promise of a comfortable Western
life-style? When they show interest in what I have to say, aren’t they
really interested in what I can potentially give them? Aren’t they trying
to get access to the West, perhaps a visa, through me? This is an
objection not easily dismissed. As you have seen, material greed was a
problem during my year in this country. In the end, it was fairly easy
to spot those who were not interested in Jesus, but only gain. They fell
away quickly. Those whose hearts had been changed profoundly by
the gospel stayed strong.
However, I believe that all of us have hidden motives. We have
desires that we want Jesus to fulfill, when we come to him. To a
certain extent, all spiritually hungry Muslims I interacted with also had
other motivations for relating to me. In a sense, so did I when I
interacted with them. But that does not take away from the fact that
Jesus was and is drawing us to him, despite our ugliness. As
Westerners, we do have the responsibility to adapt to our Muslim
target culture as much as possible, in order to separate the message
of Jesus from the message of the materialistic West. When we present
Jesus as an upper-middle class white evangelical yuppie to young and
ambitious Muslim students, for example, we can hardly blame those
who jump on the bandwagon purely for material gain. How we present
Jesus to Muslims largely depends on how we present ourselves to
them.
Scripture: Acts 2; Philippians 2:5-6
Questions for thought: In light of more than a billion lost Muslims in
the world, how would you answer the above questions for yourself:
Aren’t they too stubborn?
Aren’t they too dangerous?
Is it really necessary?
What about materialistic motives?
Recommended Reading:
The Cross and the Crescent, Phil Parshall
Parshall writes out of a lifetime of experience in the Muslim world. He
compares and contrasts the Christian and Muslim views on several
topics, and shows us why Muslims need Christ.
Whose Promised Land? The Continuing Crisis over Israel and
Palestine, by Colin Chapman. Until recently, Chapman was a lecturer
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in Islamic studies at the Near East School of Theology in Beirut,
Lebanon. He gives a balanced view of a very thorny issue, and one
that is at the root of much suffering in the Middle East.
Light in the Shadow of Jihad, by Ravi Zacharias
This book, written by a well-known Christian apologist, “. . . looks at
9/11 from a Christian perspective, seeking to make sense of the
tragedy while placing world events in historical context.” (Quotation
from a reviewer.)
Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, by Ahmed Rashid
This book is written from an Islamic perspective, but it is important for
us in the West to have a broad understanding of the context and
conditions that have given rise to militant Islam.
The Gospel for Islam: Reaching Muslims in North America. Edited by
Roy Oksnevad and Dotsey Welliver
Perhaps the most important book available for North-American
Christians intent on obeying Jesus in today’s world.
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