Yesterday you received the link to a video interview with “Rashid”, the gentleman that we spent our third day with. Here is a brief summary of the events of that day.
We arrived back in the same area that we had worked in the two previous days. It was extremely rainy – quite miserable to hop out of a perfectly dry van and begin walking through the deluge without a clue as to where we were actually going. As we walked further away from the main road we didn’t see any people out to ask for directions to a leader’s house. After about 15 minutes a small boy of about 6 years walked up beside us and asked where we were going. When “Jamal” told him we were looking for a village leader he pointed back in the direction from which we had just come. So we turned around and started backtracking. After a while we came up on some teenage boys that were swimming in the river alongside the road. They asked us the same question that the little boy had, and after our reply – “Take us to your leader.” one of the boys hopped out of the river and turned us around once again. We had passed this little trail twice, but now we had an escort. As we walked through the mud and into the jungle we passed by a few modest homes and finally came up to one with a man standing outside.
I must admit that when I first saw “Rashid” that I was a bit disappointed. He appeared to be a less educated man and did not look as “refined” as the leaders whom I had spoken with the two previous days. He led us into his home which was in stark contrast to our prior experience as well. Katie and I sat on a small wooden bench attached to the front wall of the house. Jamal and Rashid sat on a straw mat down on the dirt floor. Beside us was a bed and the walls were made of planks allowing the daylight to shine through all around. As I sat down, I was selfishly hoping that this visit didn’t last too long. I wanted to move on to someone more influential. So after we ate the bananas Rashid offered, I started right in with telling him why we had come.
The moment was almost magical. As soon as I mentioned the name of Jesus, Rashid’s face lit up. As he read the verses in the Koran that speak of Jesus, he smiled and paused several times. After he finished reading the passage I had directed him to, Rashid’s story began to unfold. It was back in the 1970’s that he lived in the capital city working for a railway company. He had met a man there that was a follower of Jesu
s and the man and his mother had befriended Rashid, often talking with him about their faith. But after several years of friendship Rashid was forced to move back home to his village and his relationship with that man came to an end because of the distance. Rashid had often wondered about the Jesus that his friend had spoken of. After moving back to his village, Rashid said that Jesus appeared to him in a vision. This is not uncommon in the Muslim world. Some estimate that at least half of Muslim Background Believers (MBBs) had a dream or vision where Jesus appeared to them preparing the way for their subsequent conversion. In Rashid’s vision Jesus had told him, “Come follow me.” Rashid had responded to the LORD by asking, “How can I follow you if I don’t know the way?” Jesus told him that he would send someone to him to show him the way. By Rashid’s estimation that vision had come some 20 years ago – and with stunning confidence he looked me in the eyes and said, “God has sent you here to show me how to follow Jesus!”At that I realized that this was a rare case of ripe fruit hanging from the tree. There was no need in going further in the Koran. I went straight to the gospel, giving Rashid a copy of the New Testament explaining that this holy book contained the way of Jesus. He kissed the book and held it to his heart. Next I pulled out my Evangecube and shared with him the gospel, stopping and asking questions along the way to make sure he was understanding. When I finally asked, “Rashid, who is Jesus to you?” He responded, “He is my God! He is my Savior!” I immediately thought of the story of Cornelius in the book of Acts – how God had prepared him and then sent Peter to fill in the blanks and give him the gospel so that he could worship in spirit and in truth.
I looked at Rashid differently now, and I said to him, “My brother, today salvation has come to your home!”
He smiled and lifted his hands toward heaven. After praying with Rashid I asked if it was okay for Katie to go behind the curtain in the back room and share with his wife, who had been peeking in on our conversation intermittently. He seemed delighted and so Katie and Jamal went back and within minutes they emerged with even bigger smiles. Katie whispered to me, “She heard all we were talking about out here and said she believes it all. I shared the Evangecube with her and she asked Jesus to forgive her of her sins and save her. She is now a follower of Jesus!”It is amazing how we had underestimated this visit. We had walked past the trail twice and redirected. We had wanted to get this one over quickly, and it had turned out to be our best visit yet! We spent the next hour or so talking with Rashid about the 7 Commands of Jesus which explain what it means to be a follower. As I talked with him about baptism, he said he was ready. But after consulting with Jamal we both felt that it would be better for a national to return in about a week and do that. When I spoke with Rashid about making disciples he responded and told me that he would make 12 disciples just like his LORD! So I gave him another 12 copies of the book of Luke and explained to him how he needed to study and then invite other men to his home for prayer, reading the word, he could then teach what he learned, and then they could worship together. He told me that he would do it – he would devote 2 hours a day to studying God’s word and making disciples. That’s amazing considering the fact that this man is a subsistence farmer spending most of his waking hours in the rice fields or fishing to provide food for his family.
When we finally left, Rashid walked us out to the main road. We were overwhelmed with a sense of the grace of God. It was evident that this was not about us! We passed his house and God directed us right to it. We wanted to get it over with, and God had prepared the
way. Now we walked beside a man that we were confident would become a house church leader in this area. The rain had stopped and there were dozens of men out at the main road now. When we arrived Rashid asked if we could go ahead and begin giving the word to these men. We pulled out a stack of Luke’s and started handing them out, giving most of them to Rashid. We encouraged our brother and told him that someone would be coming back to teach him soon and baptize him. As we drove away on the rickshaw we smiled because Rashid was running from man to man with excitement giving them the word! I do believe that this simple man will make quite a disciple.
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