An Unreached Muslim People-Group In China?

The Uyghur people of Western China number over 11 million, with several thousand more scattered through some other countries. Uyghurs are almost 100% Muslim, and almost entirely ‘untouched with the Gospel’ (Operation World): ‘The highly charged political and religious atmosphere, the removal of expatriate Christian workers from most of the region, and the general lack of vision by Han Chinese to evangelize these peoples are all contributing factors’ to this dire situation in Western China.

What makes this situation even more tragic is that  there was once a thriving church among the Uyghur people (13^th century).

Some years ago, a young Uyghur named ‘A’ was contemplating what he had learned from his study of the Qur’an: that Isa (Jesus) had never sinned. ‘Why,’ he thought, ‘do they say that Muhammad is greater, if Muhammad sinned, but Jesus did not?’  No one, not even his grandfather, nor his scholarly teachers, could answer that question for him, but many years later a foreign Christian at his university did. ‘A’ eventually came to Christ, studied in Bejing and in Turkey, and became an effective preacher of the Gospel to Muslims in Europe. God can reach them, but He uses human agents to do so!

‘A’  was a student in our Bible school in Germany back in the 90s. He as such an effective evangelist

among Turks that the mission that had sent him to our Bible school asked him to stop evangelizing in our city, because it was getting back to Ankara and making trouble for their work there!

Pray that the Uyghur people will be open to the truth of the Scriptures, and that they will have access to them, and read and study them! You can read up on the Uyghur people at the website of one of our partner missions, SIM:  http://www.sim.org/index.php/content/uyghurs

‘I was in prison, and you came to me’ (Matt.25:26)

I was just in the process of filling out an application form with our state’s Department of Corrections, to visit a ‘lifer’, when it occurred to me that this situation involves a rather unusual twist on Matt. 25. 

I’ve always understood Jesus’ words to primarily refer to visiting Christians who have been imprisoned for their faith. He says in v.40, ‘. . . to the extent that you did it to these brothers of Mine’—and ‘brothers’ is a specialized term in Matthew’s Gospel (and generally in the New Testament). ‘Neighbor’ refers to anyone around me in need, while ‘brother’ refers to a fellow member of the family of God.

In other words Jesus is saying that caring for, and identifying with, the persecuted church, is an expression of our faith in Him. Those who did it in NT times knew that they were putting their own life in danger:

‘Make every effort to come to me soon;  for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica . . . .’ (2 Tim. 4:9-10)

In a sense though, Matt. 25 does pertain to visiting prisoners in general, because every prisoner (neighbor) is a potential brother or sister in Christ.

The interesting thing in this case is that I am truly hoping to visit a brother in Christ, in fact, his application for long-term service with ReachAcross arrived here in the office yesterday. Think about that—

there’s no question about his field of service, he’s already there. No visas or expensive plane flights necessary.

There’s not really any question about his calling. God has already used him in reaching Muslims, in fact, he’s written his own tracts. Normally inmates aren’t allowed to visit religious services or teaching sessions in a religion that is not their own, but it happens to be possible in this particular prison.

‘Raymond’ (not his real name) came to know Christ during his first year of incarceration. Eventually he earned his GED, or high school diploma equivalency. Then he completed a two-year, Associate of Arts degree in Bible and theology, in order to become a chaplain’s assistant. That’s what he’s doing now—and God has placed him in a dorm with a lot of Muslims.

Please pray for Raymond. It isn’t easy, and it isn’t safe, either.  In his own words:

‘In the last nine months, I have been around more stabbings, fights, and robberies than in my entire bid [slang term for prison time]! Last year there was a heinous murder/mutilation and a riot.’

Pray for us, too, as we visit Raymond and consider his application papers. Pray that a visit will be possible—normally they are very ‘picky’ with visitors, and can refuse applications for any reason whatsoever.

There are a lot of things to consider, for example even our motto (‘Helping Muslims Follow Jesus’) could be an issue for Raymond in his surroundings. We’ll need God’s wisdom as we pursue this possibility.

We don’t know the rate of conversion to Islam that is happening in our prison system, but most guesses place it pretty high. With that in mind, can you think of a better mission field?

US Director

P.S. Check out the test question on our FB page!

Mali or Azawad—Religious Freedom or Oppression?

For many years, Mali, West Africa, has been one of few predominantly Muslim countries offering some degree of religious freedom, but the opportunity has been seldom utilized by servants of Christ.

So, others have seized control of the country. In January of 2012, an alliance of fierce Tuareg separatists (another mostly unreached people group) and Al-Quaeda affiliated rebels, armed with Qaddafi’s left-over weaponry, took control of the northern two-thirds of the country, renaming it Azawad. The provisional capital was Gao, but the intended one was Timbuktu (yes, it does exist!). The few Christians who had moved to the area from the south were forced to flee—a Bible school in Gao was closed.

France has continued to help its former colony over the years, and when the rebels crossed their own boundary in January of this year, it was too much to take. French military units assisted the Malian army in driving rebel forces into the mountains, where they continue to mount guerilla attacks.

Despite the uprising, methods of evangelism and discipleship are still available—radio broadcasts, literature distribution (alongside of literacy work), even street evangelism. About 75% of the population is illiterate, so audio cassettes, MP3 players, and SMS cards for mobile phones—all are useful tools in telling the Story.

Not too long ago, one of our workers was traveling with a Malian pastor, visiting individual believers in the wide, sandy diaspora that is typical for the Sahel zone. They visited a little group and began to study the Scriptures. ‘Safwan’  was keenly interested, so ‘Stephan’ (a ReachAcross worker) gave him some Bible study helps, which he devoured. But where had Safwan got his Bible from? There aren’t any bookstores in his tiny village, and even if there were, the Bible certainly wouldn’t be available.

The mystery was soon solved as Safwan told his story: His father had become a committed Christian during his stint in the Malian army. Service completed, he had returned to his home village, where nobody else knew about his new-found faith. He remained the only Christian in his village until the day he died, but some time later, his son brought his father’s old Bible to our meeting. The seed that had lain dormant for a few years began to bear fruit.

With the equivalent of a fourth-grade education, Safwan had trouble reading some passages, but his comprehension is improving. He likes listening to cassette tapes of Bible portions—especially when he can follow along in his New Testament—the Old Testament isn’t available yet (a team of translators is working on it). God is working in the life of this soldier’s son.

Please pray for Mali. Safwan himself gathered in a good harvest of peanuts last year—most families are not so blessed, and if the rainfall isn’t sufficient in late summer, famine will again be just around the corner, as happened in 2012. More important still is the spiritual harvest that is just as meager. Neither type of famine—peanuts or the Bread of Life—is necessary, if God’s people will respond to His call.

Pray that God’s Kingdom will prevail in Mali.

Translated, with additions and revisions, from the German. 

Missionary Memorial Day

In a previous post, I mentioned the idea of having a Memorial Day in our churches for fallen missionaries. What I’m talking about are those who gave their lives in an attempt to establish a ‘beachhead’ for God’s Word—giving a chance for people to hear the truth about Jesus who otherwise have never had a chance.

In her classic missions textbook, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, Ruth A. Tucker writes that in the nineteenth-century Congo, ‘only one out of four missionaries survived the first term of service’ (p. 155).

The ratio was probably similar in some other places. Adlai Stevenson II, former Democratic presidential candidate, responded when asked what had most impressed him during a visit to Africa in the 1950s: ‘The graves. The graves. At every mission station, there were graves.’ His description of the rows of crosses is suggestive of military cemeteries, such as Arlington and Normandy.

And yet how many American Christians would be able to name at least three missionary martyrs?

More importantly, what difference does it make if we do know something about them?

Missionary pioneers are generally not an easy crowd to be around. In some ways they are spiritual giant, but many have or had significant personality flaws. Tucker comments that David Livingstone (not martyred, but he nonetheless gave his life in missionary service, as did his wife when she went out to join him) ‘was not an organizer, and soon [his] mission [agency] was in chaos’ (p. 152).

The same and more could be said of many others. They tend to be hard-headed (otherwise they wouldn’t be pioneers) and too often discount the wise counsel of colleagues. Perhaps more tragically, their families often pay a high price—think of C. T. Studd, who left his wife behind in England for more than two decades while he pioneered in the Congo.  Tucker’s comment on Livingstone, that their children buried a father ‘they had never really known,’ could be a common epitaph.

But at the same time, I have to wonder if my tendency to see the flaws in these men and women really doesn’t reflect my values as an aging American baby-boomer more than it does God’s perspective on these more recent apostles. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (11:37-38) describes them this way: ‘. . . they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented--of whom the world was not worthy.’  For me, one of the most gut-wrenching scenes imaginable is the one in the movie End of the Spear which a young Steve Saint watches his missionary pilot father fly off for the last time.

There were no Congressional Medals of Honor given for martyrs like Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, or any of the others who gave their lives in reaching the Waorani in the rain-forests of Ecuador in 1956.  But I would imagine that Jesus words, ‘well done, good and faithful servant!’ (Matt. 25:21) are worth a great deal more to all five of them than any earthly honor would ever have been.

Not to discount the debt we owe in the ‘free world’ to those who gave their lives in combating tyranny—the Apostle Paul says that some do give their lives for a good cause (Romans 5:7). But it may be a good deal harder to give one’s life (and sometimes even more so to live it out, consistently) for sinners, trusting, but not necessarily seeing, that in the end it will bear fruit.

 We honor military heroes who risked their lives for the sake of others. I wish we would honor God’s heroes (yes, I think He actually thinks that way about them) at least as much.

We owe it to Him and to them.

-ReachAcross U.S. Director

The Word Speaks our Language!

Despite the rise of technology and advances in media ministries in some regions of Africa, for many people, tracts and tapes are still the sole means of communicating God’s word. One worker from another agency shares about this rewarding ministry:

"ReachAcross has been sharing the Good News in West Africa via the printed page for over three decades. During this time we have kept book stocks in several local languages: Pulaar, Khassonke, Soninke, Bambara, Hasaniya, as well as French, Arabic and English. Also there are Scripture portions in Songhai, Tamaceq, Wolof, and others. We also sell tapes: the book of Luke, the Way of Righteousness (chronological teaching) and the Seven Signs (verses in the Qur’an which point to Jesus). 

There has always been a steady stream of Fulani customers and a trickle of the other ethnic groups. The biggest encouragement in our work in the past three or four years concerns the Soninke people. We are now selling Soninke books (literacy, folk tales, and Scripture portions) and tapes at an average of eight books and two tapes per week. Before then we sold virtually no Soninke material at all for years. The best-seller is naturally the Soninke alphabet book along with the primers - it is great to see the rising demand for literacy materials. 

Other well-liked items are the tape series on the life of Moses, and the book of Genesis in two different dialects. I can’t describe the joy I feel when a dignified Soninke man sits on a stool next to the book table and listens to the Moses story for an hour at a time. Or, despite Soninke customers’ amusement at the way I read aloud the Soninke alphabet book, they end up buying it. The sales during the recent Soninke festival were phenomenal but, we think, of even greater impact was the exposure Soninke people had to the existence of literature and recordings in their own language. 

Workers who produced quality literature in the local languages through the years should be encouraged that their work lives on. 

Each morning as I interact with people, I realize that many of my customers are appreciative of the fact that some outsiders took the time to learn their language, write it down and then publish it. Every day we pray that each book and tape ends up in the hands of one whose heart God is drawing to Jesus. Be encouraged and please join us in praying for these people."

Our thanks to all who give and pray so that the Word of God can go out through the printed page!

U.S. Director

Prayer Requests for Our Church Planters

Our Muslim Background Believers (MBBs) who participated in our church planting seminar as they have arrived back in their home villages and put into practice what they learned at the training weeks. On the last day, we asked them to step over a line in the sand, symbolizing their commitment to follow Jesus anew. Some of the things they mentioned:

1) Many expressed that they harbored doubts about the veracity of the Bible before they came, but the teaching of the Scripture helped them a lot.

2) Some had to deal with moral issues from their past and get those cleared up.

3) Some still have to deal with the fear of man  (not surprising!—none of us Westerners can lift a candle to their courage!) and persecution.

We laid hands on and prayed for each one, and gave them a promise of Scripture in line with the name they had chosen for themselves.

Here’s some personal info on each one, from my perspective, please support these brave believers by praying for them:

• ‘Philemon’ is one of two participants still single. Pray for him and also for ‘Samson’, that God will provide the right marriage partner for them. This is very difficult in a Muslim environment, especially for Philemon. He would like to marry his girl friend (a Christian), but this is very complicated.
• ‘Samuel’ is a ‘grandfather’ in the faith, and leads 15 different house groups! He really wants to develop leaders and give responsibility to others. That will be a tremendous blessing to many!
• ‘Pontus’ (yes, he chose a name representing an area of the NT world instead of a person, but why not!) is a quiet guy who hugged us about ten times when saying good-bye. A very loving guy and a faithful trooper!
• ‘Titus’ asks for prayer because he and his wife are still childless after 3 years—a shame in their society. It would undergird his spiritual authority to be a father, if the Lord wills.
• ‘John’ is from the high class in society and has a lot of potential and a loving disposition.
• ‘Barnabas’ lives up to his name—a young guy, but a sunny disposition, and full of energy.
• ‘Timothy’ is quiet and reflective, with a lot of potential.
• ‘Nehemiah’ is older—also quiet, but a very hard worker. He stayed up until 2:30 in the morning sometimes doing study assignments! Diligent, he will be conscientious in his work—we’re sure he always has been.
• ‘Ruha’ pastors a fellowship of 9 brand new MBBs. He’s a gem (they all are!).
• ‘Simon’ is older but loves kids. He is involved primarily in children’s ministry among Muslims at home. His son would like to study at college, but not sure if that will be possible.
• ‘Philip’ looks like he’s 20, but has 4 children, and is also pastoring a brand new fellowship of MBBs. He is a business man.
• ‘David 1’ is a tailor by trade, really a likable man, and pastors one house group in his home.
• ‘Silas’ is a very bright man with a lot of potential. He repairs cell phones for a living, and is a natural leader.
• ‘David 2’ (yes, there were two Davids!) is an energetic young man who contributed a lot to the discussions. I’ll miss his energy (and wish I had it!)
• ‘Abraham’ is also very bright, and a natural leader, but with lots of love and is very considerate. I’d like to serve under his leadership, quite frankly—and the same goes for many others!

*For security reasons each participant selected a name from the Bible to use for internet and publishing purposes.*

Is this Guy Crazy or What?

Last summer our international director handed me a book by Jerry Trousdale entitled, Miraculous Movements: How Hundreds of Thousands of Muslims are Falling in love with Jesus. I read the book, of course. After all, that’s what you do when you’re accountable to someone, right?

My first reaction: Is this guy crazy? I suppose maybe it’s true, but we’ve heard supposed "great success stories" before that had no basis in reality. This guy is probably some fringe semi-lunatic with a bunch of trumped up evangelism stories who is going to make a killing off the publication off this book. There is just no way to verify the stories he is telling. After all, Trousdale doesn’t document any of his stories. He doesn't identify any of the countries, he doesn't name any specific people, nothing. So are we supposed to believe this guy?  I remained skeptical.

Until I saw it happening.  Well, sort of.

South Asia isn’t Africa and many of the specific things that Trousdale mentions look different where I've been assisting (mainly through teaching Bible) in the training of church leaders for the past three weeks. Nevertheless, I have witnessed firsthand Muslim background believers in South Asia who can tell similar stories to the ones I read in Trousdale's book. 

There are certainly some differences. As far as I know (which admittedly isn’t much), we can’t talk about Disciple Making Movements (DMMs) in South Asia yet. A DMM is the basic element of a Church Planting Movement (CPM). Before you have a church, you have to have disciples, which is where Jesus told us to start (see Matt. 28:18-20). In this area of the world, the old paradigms of the top-down, centralized-leadership church are still very dominant even in totally unreached areas.  After all, they’ve seen Christians ‘doing church,’ at least many have, or they’ve heard about it, so it can be hard to have these smaller grass-roots DMMs to take root.

Even so, God is moving in South Asia and Muslims are learning to be disciples of Jesus.

The common approach seems to be to share what the Qur’an says about Jesus as a bridge to the Gospels. Once Muslims with an open heart start listening to the Gospels, things begin to change.  

The men we’ve been with for the last three weeks have led hundreds of Muslims into the path of discipleship. That's right, these 17 men have led literally hundreds of Muslims to Christ! What they struggle with, at this point, is empowering and training leaders. Up until now, they’ve been leading all these new groups themselves. In fact, the oldest and most experienced of the group we've been working with during our stay here is pastoring 15 fellowships! And he works a full time job during the day! He desperately needs more leaders to meet the demand in his community, so he asked me one afternoon, after we had broken into workgroups: ‘how do we do train new leaders?’

All I could do was show him what we at ReachAcross had worked out in our last plenum session and go over those points in detail. Thankfully our international director was with us and he has actually done this in Africa, and could give some good input on leadership training during the two last days of our conference.

All seventeen of these men are on their way home now, back to their villages, back to their jobs (hopefully), and back to their little house groups.

They are returning to their jobs as church leaders, and our job supporting them has just begun. We’ve looked at Scripture with them, raised questions, encouraged, and given them a chance to network together. We need to pray earnestly for them, and we can, visit them again and maybe help facilitate as they gradually overcome the old top-down paradigms. We can only hope and pray that the work they have already begun, and the time we spent with them over the last three weeks will bear much fruit as these brave men bring the Gospel to their Muslim communities.

As for me, I’m still working out what this time will mean for me when I go home in a few days. There is a lot to think about. In the meantime, Trousdale’s book, that I was so skeptical of before, is a very important read and I would encourage anyone to read it with an open mind. Also helpful is Trousdale's conversation with Marv Newell of MissioNexus. You can read this conversation here.

And I don’t think Jerry Trousdale is crazy anymore, I just think I have a lot to learn.  But much more than that, I’m thankful to have experienced these last three weeks, and to have had a little tiny part in building God’s Kingdom.

God is good, and patient with people like me.

'Gideon'

Update from South East Asia: Who Is Teaching Whom?

These are not our participants, for security reasons we cannot photograph those brave brothers,
 but it is simple working men like these that are leaders of house churches in South Asia

As we have been teaching this church planting seminar to South East Asian Muslim background believers, we are continually impressed with their faith, and with just how much we from the West have to learn from them.

‘Samuel’ is a grandfather in the faith. He led ‘Simon’ to faith in Christ, and Simon did the same for ‘Ruha.’ All three are currently attending the training sessions here in South Asia, and all three are pastors of house fellowships.

They don’t necessarily use the word ‘church,’ or even the word ‘Christian’, because both terms are associated with negative ideas. The main problem is that the old wineskins just aren’t the right fit for the new ‘wine’ of God’s transforming power. They don’t want the buildings, programs, or entertainment of Western Christianity, they want a real life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ for themselves, their families and their communities. They spent their day Saturday looking for Muslims in the local area and sharing God’s love with them.

Even as we teach them, they are teaching us. Here’s what I mean:

We are teaching them theories and principles. For example, we taught them Jesus’ parable about the houses built on the rock and sand: ‘Everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house, and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock’ (Matt 7:24-25).  We analyzed the story with them using the education we've been blessed with. We looked for the key words and ideas, and stressed that the rock is obedience to Christ, not simply knowledge of Christ.

They are teaching us the practice. These are, for the most part, farmers, fishermen, and handworkers, who labor by day, and minister to others at night. They left their jobs in order to come here for this three weeks of training, and at the very least, they will lose their whole monthly income (maybe around $200) in order to be here. They might get their job back when they go home, but they will struggle to feed young families. The ‘winds’ of persecution and hardship are slamming against the ‘house’ of their lives and families all the time.

Most of them pastor at least two fellowships of Muslim background believers who meet in homes at least once a week, and some more often than that. All know what it is to suffer rejection for Jesus.  Some can never go back to their extended families.

So who are the real teachers here, us or them? Sure, we have perhaps more knowledge and resources. We come from a part of the world where Christianity has a long history of dominance and we are the heirs of this history. They live in a land dominated by other religions and live in constant danger of persecution. They aren’t yet acquainted much with principles of Bible interpretation and background information, but they are experienced in the area of spiritual warfare, and have seen many people delivered from demonic oppression. They know Jesus personally (many have had first-hand encounters in dreams or visions). As we have shared with them, we have learned amazing lessons in faith, obedience and trust.

Even if I were to never come back to this place, I will never forget these brothers: Samuel, Simon, Ruah, Nehemiah, Philip, Samson, David 1, David 2, Silas, Abraham, Pontus, and Timothy. Then there are the new ones who came just this week: Peter (also a father in the faith), Philemon, Titus, John, and Barnabas. 

Thanks for praying for them, and for us:—Joshua, Titus, Eric, Miriam, and John—we have five more teaching days with them. Pray that the Lord would use us to fill them and encourage them for the last five days of teaching. Also pray that God would use these men to teach us what true obedience and faith looks like.

-Eric Adams

P.S. You may wonder how all of these men are named from the Bible. For security reasons, no real names are used in this post. These South Asian brothers each chose a name from the Bible to identify with. Please keep them in your prayers.

Hanging Out with the Lord

Values. Everyone has them, whether they are expressed, or not. In the Old Testament, the word we translate as 'value' means heavy or weighty, referring to precious metals or the heavy wheat being separated from the lighter chaff. It is the important, weighty things; the things that matter.

When we talk about our values at ReachAcross, we are talking about the things that God has built into our work that reflects who He is. Our most important value is prayer. We have a personal God who makes it possible for us to connect with him constantly. To use modern slang, we’re ‘hanging out’ with Him all the time! We get closer to other people by spending time with them. The same is true with God. Because He has promised to be with us always(Matthew 28:20), we can always be spending time with Him in prayer. Through prayer, our relationship with God can grow deeper as we discover what is on His heart for us and other people. We can not only lay out our own burdens before Him, but those of others as well. The work of ReachAcross was born in prayer, and it is prayer that continues to make this service for Muslims possible.

Recently we experienced a very evident answer to prayer—a pretty hopeless visa situation suddenly changed, and only God could have done it. We were reminded again that it is He who opens doors. As the Apostle Paul wrote: 

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. (Col. 4:2-4)

Open doors are always a miracle, even when we don’t realize it. Whether God’s Lordship changes the life of an individual, or a family, or a whole clan—continued prayer is the key. That is where our partners have such a vital role to play.  Just like the men who brought their friend to Jesus, and let him down through the roof when there was no other way to get to Him, so our prayer partners bring Muslims to the Lord through their prayers.

“And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” (Mark 3:5)

It was not the paralytic’s faith, but the faith of his friends that impressed Jesus so much. Not only that, they wanted their friend to be in the presence of the Lord, so they went to extreme lengths to bring him to Jesus. We can do the same for those we care about, by praying for them. All of us, workers and prayer partners, are in this together.

Let us follow Paul’s advice and “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), continually lifting up our concerns and those of others to the Lord.

If you would like to pray with us for the Lord’s work in the Muslim world, please follow @ReachAcrossPray on Twitter for prayer updates.

ReachAcross U.S. Director

God Speaks My Language!

from the Reach Across U.S. Director

We don’t know why God allows certain things to happen, especially when they seem to be contrary to His own will—a case in point is the disruption in many Middle Eastern countries which has cost the lives of many people in countries like Syria. In another country, an English teacher was shot dead as he drove to his language school, and another European worker, who had roomed until recently with one of our own ReachAcross folks, was kidnapped, and has not been heard from in several weeks. In all the anguish caused by these happenings, one good thing that has happened has been that several long-term ReachAcross members have relocated to new places and started new ministries. One of them who recently moved from the Middle East to a European country, relates the following:

A plan formed in my heart to give a Bible to someone I had met. Along the way, I popped into a computer shop to buy a USB stick. It was a very tiny shop, with just enough room for 3 people to enter. As I chatted with the shop owner, I happened to use words like “Alhamdulillah” (praise to God) and “Insha’Allah” (God willing) in the conversation. Soon he asked me if I was a Muslim. I replied that I was a “follower of Jesus”.

He paused to think, and then asked me again, “Are you a Muslim?”

“No, I'm a follower of Jesus, a Christian.”

He was taken aback by my confident tone and said, “I didn't know that Christians said things like Alhamdulillah or Insha’Allah.”

I told him that yes, we do say such things; these phrases are written in the Bible. He was quite amazed. I then asked him if he had ever read the Bible. He said he hadn’t, but then with an interested expression, he added that his dad used to read it when he was a young boy. A smile of pride grew across his face as he remembered. He admitted that he couldn't read the Bible because it was in English, but his father loved reading it. (He made sure to confirm that his father was a Muslim even though he read the Bible.)

I asked him if he would like to read the Bible and he said yes. So I told him that God had brought me to his shop that very day for a special reason. I told him I had a Bible with me and said, “God wants you to have this Bible.”

He was stunned and his mouth dropped open. But his expression quickly changed and grew a bit sad because, though it was nice to see a Bible, he couldn’t read English. So I told him that actually the Bible is in Arabic too. Again his mouth dropped in amazement. He couldn't believe it! I took the Arabic Bible out of my bag and handed it him. He was thrilled and started flipping through the pages. He asked about the price but I told him it was a gift. “It's free, because God's word is free.” He was so excited! Then some other men entered the shop and he quickly hid the Bible behind the counter so they wouldn't see the new treasure that God had provided.