So I’ve been teaching this new class, Comparative Religion: Islam and the Christian Response. I’m no expert in the topic, so some days we’re reading, other day’s we’re discussing, watching a movie, documentary, testimony etc., but my favorite days are guest speaker days!

While learning about culture, family life, core beliefs, theology and more, I have had or will have people who have spent time in over a dozen different Muslim majority nations come and share. Below, I chronicle some of their stories. Note: You may notice some intentionally vague or indirect words being used. Additionally, I will not be referencing any of the specific countries or names. This is for the security of those being discussed. Hopefully, it’s not too confusing to those not familiar with the lingo. Some of the people do current work, others are tales of years past. Either way, I hope you enjoy some small snippets of what I’ve been learning myself about why I do what I do…

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One of our guest speakers is a major sports fan. You see this person, J, and you see a serious athlete. While many kids grow up saying, “I want to be a famous football player,” I don’t often hear of people who actually make athletics a career. Not only has J been successful making his career, he has made it his ministry. A few days after moving to his country, he looked up the nearest rugby club. Though he didn’t know any of the local language, and few people on the team spoke English, there was enough common language in the game itself to communicate like pros. One player called broken commands to J, who played his part well enough that by the end of the night, he’d been invited to the next practice. Rugby became his life. He shared that after some months living there, he was doing something rugby related almost everyday. One day might have been coaching, the next, ref-ing, the next playing on his own club team. While the game afforded opportunities to bond with local people, the car rides to and from the game became a constant source of spiritually oriented conversations. J would talk about his family, his teammates would talk about theirs. The Muslim men didn’t understand the way J loved his wife. They didn’t understand how he parented his children. It became a path to talk about the picture of marriage and how it represents the relationship between Christ and the church. He had friends tell him, “The best way to secure your marriage is to have an affair in the first few months. It will push your wife to constantly be working to earn your approval and she will never leave you.” Doing life with these men allowed him the opportunity to speak into their lives, showing them a different way through his heart, character and actions. These relationships created endless opportunities for him to ask them about their faith and for them to ask him about his.

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In another country M was part of running an English center. In many countries, teaching English is such a valuable service being provided that the government allows Christian expatriates to be present in their nation. M was telling us about other workers with a different agency just a town or two over that were openly evangelizing in this closed Muslim nation. Beside the fact that the government later asked that group to leave, M saw time and time again, the people were afraid to go those workers because of the immense amount of shame it brought on their family if they were seen talking to the Christians. If people wanting to know more and talk about religion were known to frequent the workers, their very families would excommunicate them from the community, or worse. By running the English center, seekers (people wanting to know about Jesus) were able to come to the workers in honor. They have something they can tell their families that is honorable, “I am going to practice my English.” At that time in the whole town, there was one known believer outside of the team of workers there.

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S came and shared with us his experience working in a communications team that visited closed countries. He shared with us the testimony of a woman who had been brought to the city for education and there met some believers and found Jesus. He told of the battles fought when she had brought a bible home, and the abuse she went through in her family before finally leaving her hometown. He shared her heart for her people, and how difficult it had been not just losing her religion when she chose Jesus, but of losing her cultural identity as being Muslim is associated with being her nationality. He also shared how the faithful work of doctor’s from the hospital within spitting distance of our school had been the thing to even open the door for him to spend time in the village he had been. One of the coolest parts? The doctor that S spoke of was the grandfather of one of the students sitting in my very classroom.

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Another speaker, R, has spent many years living in his country. While definitely considered a Muslim majority nation, the Islam practiced there would be considered “folk Islam” by technical standards. More of a mixture of Islam and the local animist religion than pure Islam. During Ramadan, Muslims fast from sun-up to sun-down in an attempt to earn favor with Allah. R was recounting a story of a man who asked him if he would attend the “fast breaking feast” with neighbors if asked. In response, R turned the question around and asked if the man would eat of a goat sacrificed on one of the alters that littered the neighborhood to the other gods worshipped in the community. The man responded no, he wouldn’t, for if he did, that would mean he agrees the sacrifice is good enough for him as well. R shared how this conversation happened often in their context, and how he was often able to draw connections to the sacrifice of Christ- why would he need a sacrificed goat when the ultimate sacrifice had already made his way to paradise? Eating the “fast breaking feast” would be him saying the same thing- your fast is good enough for me, when in reality, only the blood of Jesus was!

R shared another story about a man who was from that nation and knew Christ. The government paid this man to go to rural villages and teach them to read. This man did his job daily, but used for his proof text copies of scripture, so as the villagers learned to read, the first thing they often read was passages in God’s word. By doing this, the local believer was also able to tell the missionaries who weren’t just passing through like he was, which villages wanted to know more about God. Many of the villagers, due to their Islamic upbringing, already knew about Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), Issa (Jesus-a man they consider as a prophet) and other prophets as well. Using stories from the Old Testament, in this context and others, often leads to further conversations and discussions about faith with people who’s religious understanding is built on Islam.

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P came and shared about how as a woman, her ministry was mainly to women in her country. Working with special needs children gave her insight into how her culture viewed trials. One woman she was close to had a daughter with extreme disabilities. The woman saw this child as a gift from Allah, a special test, that if passed meant guaranteed life in paradise. We talked a lot this day about Islam as culture- a way of life. When the little girl died, the community marveled at how fast the burial preparations happened and proceeded. Fastness was an indicator of Allah’s desire to have the little girl with him. With her disability, she couldn’t walk, talk, or engage in most regular activities. Obviously, this meant she couldn’t do anything wrong- she couldn’t wash in the wrong order, step into the bathroom with the wrong foot first, so her list of bad deeds was so short, Allah brought her to himself fast. After the little girls passing, the mom felt this intense loss of purpose. Her ticket to heaven was gone, and she didn’t know if she’d passed the test.

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Muslims are not only in Muslim nations- they are also often refugees when their own countries are war torn, politically unstable, or unsafe to remain. A’s ministry also used an English center, but in a non-Muslim majority nation. She shared about a girl, a young woman who came to follow Jesus. Her family was concerned, suspecting this was the case. Though they’d worked hard to leave her home country, her following Jesus was worse than living in the unrest back home. “Maybe now God can use me to reach other Muslims- people living back home who don’t know the truth!” the young woman told A shortly before never seeing her again.

A also shared about a young man who came from another country seeking asylum. He’d come to know Jesus from workers in his home5`town, the man who brought him to Christ? The dad of one of the students in my classroom. This man, had been threatened, ostracized, and targeted for violence in his home country because of his decision to follow Christ. He came to this English center, first to help him learn more English, and second, to find other believers to encourage and uplift him, to be community and the body of Christ. The coolest part was watching my student light up, personally knowing this man, hearing where he ended up and that God was continuing to work in his life.

After one class period, a student from the class who lives in a neighboring country to one of those discussed above stayed back to chat with our speaker. He was talking about all of the current political unrest in his home country. He was talking about 22 people who have recently been killed in the name of jihad (Islamic holy war for the purpose of winning converts). He excitedly shared that a missionary doctor in his nation that had been held by the jihadists was released after seven years of being held captive just recently. He shared how very few missionaries had stayed in his nation seven years ago when the doctor had been captured. He shared about how desperately his nation is in need of prayer.

Another Muslim majority nation has just in the past few months kicked dozens of expatriates and missionary workers out of their country. A student of mine was evacuated to a neighboring nation during April in an attempt to take them out of harms way, and her mom stayed in my home for a night just over a week ago. Due to the political turmoil and hostility to Christianity, she and her family will never be able to go back to her home there again.

Another of my students was trapped in a war zone over a month ago, a military coup happening in her own city. There are two chemistry textbooks she had in her possession that are gone for good. She was able to bring with her a backpack only when they finally were able to leave the country safely after weeks of war raging around her, dad in a different location across town while her mom and siblings were where she stayed. Her eyes sparkled as she shared about how she had seen the Lord’s hand at play since she had left her banquet (RVA prom) dress on campus, which meant she actually got to wear it to the big event.

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Today we began the “…and the Christian Response” part of my class, Comparative Religions: Islam and the Christian Response. We opened this section of our class by reading a portion from the book, “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus” by Nabeel Quereshi where he chronicles his story as he, a Muslim man, sought Christ, “These are the costs Muslims must calculate when considering the gospel: losing the relationships they have built in this life, potentially losing this life itself, and if they are wrong, losing their afterlife in paradise. It is no understatement to say the Muslims often risk everything to embrace the cross.”

Hearing the tales of these fellow workers has been inspiring, fascinating, incredible, and sobering. There are so many who don’t know Christ, so few telling them, and such high stakes for these people made in the image of God to find him. So, I ask you the same question that was my students journal entry at the end of today:

Is it worth it?

Prayer Points

• Pray for the workers in these nations. It is hard being a light in a dark place. They are constantly under attack.
• Pray for the people they are loving, for relationships to be built, and for through the love they show, people would wonder about this relational loving God and his son Jesus.
• Pray for those in these places that have left their faith to follow Jesus. Pray for physical safety and for new deep communities to come around and support them as many have had to leave theirs.