Take Us To Your Leader - Stories from South Asia (2)

Day Two:

On the second day we went right back into the same area as the day before, but this time concentrated on a different set of villages with the same strategy. When our teams split up, we each found someone and asked them to take us to their leader. Sometimes they would lead us to the home of a civic leader, sometimes a respected teacher, and at other times they would take us to their Imam (the Muslim equivalent of a pastor).

On this day Katie, Jamal and I were greeted within minutes by a well-respected teacher who led us to his home nearby. For about the first 30 minutes we went through the formalities of receiving hospitality again – some of the best mango, jack fruit, and guava that I’ve ever had! Before long we were beginning a conversation similar to how we had done so the day before. There were two men in particular that sat and listened as we shared – I’ll call them Shah and Shem. Shah was obviously a very educated man. He explained to us that he had once lived and worked in Syria and that now he was the head educator for this village. When we entered into the discussion of the Koran, he immediately went through the rituals of bringing out his Arabic copy and read from it the passages that we asked about with enthusiasm. However, when we asked Shah about the meaning of these passages he shyly admitted that his Arabic was rusty and he did not understand much of what he read. So we offered him our copy of the Koran which had Arabic on one side and their local language on the other. As he read the passages in his own language a nervous smile came over his face. I asked Shah if the Koran taught that any other men were ever born of a virgin. He replied with a definitive “No.” Then I asked him if the Koran attributed the power to raise the dead to any other man besides Jesus. Again, the answer was “No.” I asked him where Jesus is now, to which he replied “At the right hand of God.” Then came the clincher. I asked him who a person should follow if they want to go to heaven. What Shah did next simply astounded me. Without responding verbally he pulled out his pen and began writing notes in his Arabic Koran! This might not seem like a big thing to Christians because we take notes and mark in our Bibles all the time. But for a Muslim, this action was equivalent to desecration. He was marking in the Koran questions that he had – his worldview was beginning to collapse!

I could see how nervous Shah was in that moment so I told him a few parables to get him to go deeper. The first parable was regarding our arrival in his village that day. I told him that we had no idea where his home was, but that we arrived and asked someone where their leader was. The response was that someone went to Shah’s home and brought him out to us. I explained that had he not come out to lead us to his home, we would not have been able to find it. It was his home and he knew better than anyone how to lead someone there. Then I compared humanity’s sinfulness to our inability to find our way to heaven. At that point, I asked the question again – “Shah, if you want to find your way to God, who should you follow? Who does heaven belong to?” At that Shah looked up and confessed, “Jesus is obviously the one whom I should follow if I want to go to heaven. Based upon what we have read, it seems that there is something totally different about him than any other prophet. I must confess – it seems that Jesus is indeed God.” I was humbled and amazed to see how the Holy Spirit was working in this man’s life to bring him to this point. After that I began to remind him of the story of Abraham and how God asked him to sacrifice his son – a story that is shared by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. I asked him what happened when Abraham obeyed God and placed his son on the altar. Shah responded by saying that God provided a substitute sacrifice in the ram. Then I took out my Evangecube and started sharing with him about the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man and how our sin separated us from God. Then I asked Shah, “Where is your substitute? If Abraham was sinful, surely we are.” As I opened the Cube up to the second picture with Jesus hanging on the Cross, Shah looked on intensely nodding his head. “Yes.” he said. “Jesus must be the substitute for us all.” As I progressed through the gospel presentation Shah affirmed that Jesus is the only way to know God and that he died to take on our punishment and rose to conquer death. But when I asked him to respond by placing his faith in Jesus and following him fully – trusting his word alone – Shah hesitated. Katie and I felt that at that moment Shah’s heart lay bare before us. Everything he had ever believed came crashing in upon him.

The next thing he said still amazes me. “God sent a Hindu to my people to translate the Koran from Arabic to our language so that we could read it. And now he has sent a Christian to explain that even it points back to Jesus and the New Testament. What good are the Muslims anyway?” We asked if we could pray for him that as he sought after Jesus that he would have the courage to follow the Truth. He and the other men in the room gladly obliged. We knew that had we pushed him to make a commitment that day before he processed everything fully he would have had a very difficult time. So we asked for permission to send someone back to him to teach him more. As our time in Shah’s home came to an end, he joyfully received a copy of the Bible and Jesus film along with the other men. He agreed to study it intensely and to continue to seek God’s guidance so that he could know God personally. As he walked us back to the road, once again we rejoiced that God had accomplished more than we could have hoped or asked for. We are confident that as the word of God spreads, the number of disciples will indeed multiply (Acts 6:7). Would you join us in prayer for Shah, Shem and their village as the IMB field representative goes back to this home in the days to come to explain more fully the words of Life?

Stay tuned for another amazing story tomorrow!