Stories from South Asia - The End of the Story? NOT!

Day 6-9

Our journey had far exceeded our expectations up to this point. As we made our way back to the regional city that our IMB friend calls home, we talked and praised God for giving us such inroads into an area where few if any believers had ever taken the good news. God had blessed us and given us beautiful feet and had exalted the name of Jesus in the minds of thousands and in the hearts of a few. When we arrived at our friend’s home I must admit that I thought our work was pretty much finished. Our plans were to go out and visit some contacts of one of our national brothers the next day, but we were not sure where that would take us.

The next morning we loaded up and spread out around the city for these “appointments” that had been arranged. One of our teams went to a local newspaper where they were greeted and interviewed about their faith in Jesus. Another group went to a home where there was a believing wife, but her husband was still committed to Islam. When one of our team members started sharing with that man, he came right out and said, “It is evident that Jesus is the Son of God!” Shocked, Glen R. was about to ask him to commit alone when the man said, “Please, explain the way to follow Jesus fully so that my brother here can join me in this understanding.” Glen went on and shared the gospel and before leaving BOTH men had given their lives to following Jesus!

My visit that day was a bit different from what I had been experiencing. Katie and I went to a home of a middle-class secular Muslim family. We were greeted by a young man who was in his early 20’s. He spoke English fluently and had studied Western philosophy, being thoroughly indoctrinated in secularism. He was also a musician and asked if he could play his favorite song for me . . . John Lennon’s “Imagine.” If you know the lyrics of that song is proposes that religion and government are the cause of all the ills in the world and that by imagining a world without them we’d all be better off. Needless to say, I didn’t begin with the Koran on this one. Ironically I found myself giving a philosophical response to all of the lyrics to that song calling into question what the end of such a “dream” would be. The young man was provoked to thought regarding the holes in secularism and we went on to discuss C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” and the claims of Jesus. The young man had hailed Jesus as “a good man”, but I wouldn’t let him have it that way. Lewis said that Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. Based upon his own claims, Jesus must either be God Himself or be the most deceptive or demented man who ever lived. Faced with this, I asked the young man to reevaluate his thoughts of Jesus based upon history and upon Jesus’ teachings as found in the New Testament. We left there that day with a glimpse of what secularism will do to any person . . . it hollows them out and leaves them with nothing but questions.

Later that afternoon we made our way back to our host’s home and got ready for dinner. Our host’s wife then came to me and asked if I would be willing to bring one other teammate along and go to visit the home of their electrician, who had converted from Islam back in January and needed encouragement because he was the only one in his family or community that is following Jesus. Bryan and I joined her and we made our way to a little shanty village alongside the railroad track. As we went in to this tiny home made mostly out of scrap wood and metal, the man’s wife and two sisters greeted us. Within a few minutes they were preparing hospitality for us and several neighbors had come in to see the white faces. With the man’s permission, I started to share the story of Abraham and how God had provided a substitute for his son on the altar. From that I used the Evangecube and explained that everyone needs a substitute and that God Himself had provided the perfect One in Jesus Christ. When I got to the end of my talk, all four women indicated that they wanted to repent and put their faith in Jesus! Not sure they fully understood, I asked our translator to explain it to them again. He did and they were more adamant than before that they indeed wanted to follow Jesus. As we sat in that humble home praying we saw another four people birthed into the Kingdom of God. The man, who had for 6 months been alone in his journey, now had the makings of a house church! He was so excited and so I went ahead and spent some time explaining discipleship and how to have a house church gathering. They each indicated their sincere commitment to continue to study the New Testament and to follow Jesus in baptism.

As we went back to our host’s home that evening I was amazed at how I underestimated the LORD once again. Now would you believe that even after all that the LORD showed off one more time? Yep. When we were on the flight from South Asia back to London I was seated next to a man who looked near 80 years old. He had on the strict Islamic garb and at one point he leaned over and asked what I was reading. I told him it was the Holy Bible. He pulled me closer and said, “I have a secret for you. Jesus appeared to me many years ago when I was sick. I was about to die and he came to me and said that he would heal me. And he did!” At that I told him that Jesus could do more than heal his body, that he desired to heal his soul. I shared with him for a while and then I pulled out a New Testament in his heart language and presented it to him. He pulled the book up close and peered through his glasses at it – and then kissed it repeatedly – holding it to his lips at least 30 seconds. The rest of the flight every time I looked over at him he was either reading the New Testament or smiling at me. At one point I was standing up in the back of the plane with one of our team members and the man shuffled up and held up his fingers in the sign of the Cross and he leaned in close to David and me and said, “Jesus is now my heart. Jesus is my blood!”

After I got the team back to the States we received a follow-up e-mail from our hosts in South Asia telling us that the electrician had already won 3 more men to Jesus, baptizing 2 Muslims and a Hindu. Their little house church grew from 1 to 8 in a week’s time! Our national friends are heading back into the area where we worked this week to follow up on all of our contacts, including Rashid. They hope to remain there for several days teaching and baptizing those who came to faith in Jesus. And one final note – our host was contacted by a Parliament member of the country who is a radical fundamentalist Muslim, who invited him to come and share with him what our team had shared with his family. That meeting took place on Tuesday of this week. No telling what God is going to do there! All I know is I’m beginning to understand that He is able to do immeasurably more than all I could hope or ask for!