by Lil Brooks

I showed up for training to become a Journeyman on Sept. 10, 2001. The world changed that next day. Never again would my parents be able to walk me to the gate at the airport. The planes stopped flying and the skies were eerily quiet. But I was embarking on a journey to a Muslim people group in Central Asia.

My first two years on the field were in more of an “office” job while my last one included a transfer to a place where the single-digit number of foreigners in a town of over 400,000 people was only a little intimidating. I was now a student. I wasn’t an expert and the things I could do didn’t make me “cool” anymore. I was now dumb and an oddball. I could barely talk and for sure couldn’t read as both the majority and minority languages had difficult scripts. I thought this “humbling” was what God was going to teach me — He’d already told me that He had things to teach me.

Humbling was definitely a part of it, but I can now see more clearly some of the things God was teaching me in those days.

There were very few believers in this town and those were all of the majority culture. As far as we could tell, there were no followers of Christ among the Muslim minority. The knowledge of Christ was not just anemic, it was non-existent among our peoples!

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church and knew that “Jesus Loves Me” and that “Jesus Loves the Little Children” (all the children of the world!). And I knew that individuals had to accept Jesus as their “Savior and Lord” to be saved from hell. Here I was in the middle of a spiritual “nowhere” and the task seemed overwhelming: “Prepare the way for the Lord.” That was our team’s goal. We wanted to get the barriers (culture, language, access, misunderstandings about the person of Christ) out of the way as much as possible so that when our friends finally heard the Gospel we’d been trying to tell them all along, they could believe.

The year began with alphabet study and shaping my mouth to make four different sounds that all had a similar letter and making my throat create almost hacking sounds that were key parts of words. My teacher was so kind and patient.

Soon enough, we began having conversations. It wasn’t long before I felt more than completely inadequate to be able to share this truth with her. I would wake up in the middle of the night sweating and frantically praying that God would equip me with words of Truth for our conversations and that He would, like Lydia in Acts 16, open her heart to understand those words.

For her, sin was just something you did. It had no basis in the attitude of the heart and it definitely wasn’t something you couldn’t just fix by doing works. But she was very interested in being justified before God. One day during class she asked me point blank, “Right now, how are you before God? What is your standing before Him?”

For me in this year, the Gospel became very clearly hinged upon Jesus. This seems kind of ridiculous now but then it was revolutionary. Jesus was the Good News of the Gospel. A better life, spiritual unity with believers, the ability not to fear things … these were all effects of the Gospel. To answer her question of my standing before God, I used words to a song I had just memorized in the local language: I could never be clean before God if it were not for Christ standing in my place. The Gospel was this and nothing more: Without Christ, I was unclean and unacceptable before God and doomed to a life of hell.

I remember where I was when I first articulated this new discovery. A friend and I were prayer walking in the neighborhood near where my teacher lived. We were praying that marriages would be healed, that men would not abuse their wives and that the minority people wouldn’t be oppressed. Suddenly I realized and said out loud, “God these people need Christ. They don’t need those other things as much as they need You!”

In the years since, I’ve definitely gone around on this one. I’ve thought that maybe people need to hear of the final justice of God or to know that rescue is coming and God will reconcile all the wrongs. But that year in that place where Jesus wasn’t known I learned that if it’s not Jesus, it’s not enough. If my conversations don’t help people understand their sinfulness, opposition to God and desperate need for Christ’s atonement, then my conversations are not enough. I also learned that the Gospel is the same for people in a Christian nation and people in a Muslim nation. Those who are apart from God, no matter where they live, must hear, believe, repent and trust God.

I had the blessing of knowing that I was in that place for a very limited amount of time and that anything I said could very well have been the only portions of the Good News she ever heard. That urgency helped me to look for opportunities to share as much as possible. And these things have never left me. It doesn’t mean I’m preaching on the street corners. It means I want to make sure there is no “unreached peoples” among my friends. I want them to all have heard the Gospel in words because, as Paul teaches us in Romans 10, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

By Trent Parker

The wind stirred the frigid air into a furor, enveloping the small band of refugees as they inched across the Central Asian mountains. Ali* fumbled with the lighter and held its small flame underneath his shirt to provide a short respite from the cold. One of the smugglers guiding them had taken Ali’s coat, leaving him with only a T-shirt. As his mule lumbered along carrying him over the mountains into another country — and relative freedom — a dream lingered in his mind.

Two angels were dragging me toward a tree as the shadows of evening fell. “Where are you taking me?” I asked. “You are sinful, so we are taking you to be killed,” they replied. At once a blinding light engulfed them and a voice rang out from the light: “His sins are forgiven. Let him go.”

Ali had grown up in a wealthy Muslim family. His father owned an electronics factory that allowed their family to prosper and while they lived in an Islamic world, their faith was something mostly relegated to the mosque.

“We didn’t understand Islam,” Ali said. “We said we were Muslims, but we didn’t really believe.”

Their need for religion grew when Ali’s father’s business faltered. His friends had betrayed him. They bribed the police to take everything from the factory, leaving Ali’s father with nothing.

Rage and despair washed over his father. He became mired in a legal battle against his friends — fought mostly with bribes — and was left with only a fraction of his former wealth.

Ali’s once-rich family now could not afford to pay rent. With nowhere to turn, they sought refuge from their desperate situation in Islam.

“My father went to a mullah (Islamic leader) for help,” Ali said. “He suggested that our family pray, fast, sacrifice animals and call out to the spirits for help, but nothing changed.”

A painful realization dawned on Ali’s father: he was going to have to leave their country — and his family — to seek a better life for them elsewhere. He fled in secret to a neighboring Central Asian country.

As the oldest son, Ali shouldered the responsibility of caring for the family until he was forced into military service. All the while, his disillusionment with Islam grew.

It was during this time the dream came. The angels came to kill him and he was saved by the voice from the light. Ali awoke feeling confused.

Months later, Ali’s father sent a message to Ali asking him to join him in exile. Ali requested a leave from his work to discuss matters with his mother.

The police took his mother to prison the night Ali arrived home. The police were using Ali’s mother to get to his father. The police informed her she would be released if her husband would return.

“I can’t go [with my mother in prison],” Ali said. “I am the oldest child and I must look out for my family.”

But his mother sent word from prison insisting that he leave. She was kept in prison for 21 days but released because they had nothing to charge her with.

The night his mother was arrested, Ali gathered what little belongings he had and made his way to a border town. Following his father’s instructions, Ali found a group of smugglers willing to sneak him and several other refugees across the border.

“We stayed in the first village until night, then we left,” Ali said. “We got on mules. There were 10 of us in that village with about six smugglers to help us.”

The small group headed into the mountain range separating the countries.

“It was November, so it was cold. Everyone had a coat but me. One of the smugglers had taken mine. Some of the people wanted to stop and rest but I had no coat so I wanted to continue going. It was very cold. I had a lighter and would burn it under my shirt to warm myself.”

Ali arrived in his father’s city after days of riding and walking. Ali’s mother and brother would follow his path months later — in the middle of winter.

Ali’s father had sent word months before to his family that he had become a Christian since he had left. Although the family had turned away from Islam during the trials, this news still came as a surprise. Yet when Ali arrived with his father, pressing matters like finding food, jobs and a home for their family pushed religion out of his mind.

Although they were free from their country, their new living conditions were far from pleasant.

“We had little money. We legally couldn’t have jobs and we had a bad house,” Ali said. “We slept on the floor and had [only] two blankets but no mattress to sleep on. We had no one to help us.”

When members of a local refugee church began ministering to Ali’s family, his mother and brother became believers, but Ali was hesitant. He began reading the Bible to find errors in it.

“I knew there were errors in Islam, and I thought since Christianity was an even older religion there must be more errors in Christianity,” Ali said, “But I didn’t find any.”

The church continued to disciple Ali’s family and he listened as they taught that part of coming to Christ was recognizing that you are a sinner. Ali had trouble with this — he did not feel that he was a sinner and struggled to see a need for salvation.

“I’m not that bad of a person,” Ali thought, “so why do I need to believe in Jesus?”

Ali prayed for God to change his heart and show him his need for Jesus. God answered Ali’s prayer — He revealed to Ali that he was a sinner.

“[My sin] destroyed my view of myself,” Ali said, “I realized that I am not a good man.”

Memories of the dream returned to Ali. The angels were coming to kill him and again the voice spoke to the angels telling them Ali’s sins were forgiven.

The Bible was telling Ali he was a sinner, and until this moment he had refused to accept that fact.

“I was at a dead end,” Ali said. “So I was asking God for help and the only help was his message in the Bible: Jesus Christ was crucified for me.”

Ali recognized his need for a Savior and asked Jesus Christ to become the Lord of his life.

“After I became a believer everything changed,” Ali said. “My thinking changed, my desires changed and my character changed.”

Things were not easy for Ali and his family after he became a believer. His family still struggled with money, and when his father returned to their country to rebuild his factory, he faced persecution because of his faith.

The Lord blessed Ali in the midst of physical hardships and he grew spiritually. Ali was discipled by a local ministry and plans to go to seminary. He wants to return to Central Asia to help foster the growing church there.

“There are very few Iranians who are knowledgeable about the Bible,” Ali said, “For this reason I know that I must receive training and go back to serve the [Central Asian] church.”

Ali came to Christ in exile but knows he must take the hope he has found to the people of his homeland. The lack of freedom Ali experienced in his country is overshadowed by the freedom he now has in Christ.

For more information on how to reach your Muslims neighbors with Christ’s love, visit lovingmuslims.com. Lovingmuslims.com offers a two-week small-group study and an eight-day prayer guide for use with the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks this September. It also offers sermon outlines, feature stories and videos and additional resources. Churches and individuals can connect on Facebook by liking “LovingMuslims.com” and following @Loving_Muslims on Twitter.

*Name has been changed

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Trent Parker is a writer for the IMB in Europe.

Pastor Jon Akin’s sermon outline for the 10th anniversary of 9/11

When I first heard about the death of Osama bin Laden from people at the mosque in my neighborhood, I was in shock. Little did I know we were both living in the same country — Pakistan.

When I turned to the Internet for more information, I noticed a Facebook friend in America had updated his status: “Never forget 9/11.”

Rest assured, I haven’t.

In fact, I vividly remember that Tuesday morning like it was yesterday. On a rooftop in New York, I bore witness to my generation’s Pearl Harbor. For 101 minutes the towers burned until they were no more.

My older brother was working on the 82nd floor when Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower. He survived and joined thousands of ash-covered New Yorkers in a mass exodus across the Brooklyn Bridge. On the other side of the bridge, thousands anxiously awaited. Some carried photos of their loved ones; others offered free rides to the victims.

At my family’s home in New York, we gathered to watch and wait. The streets had been eerily quiet as I walked home. Phone lines were jammed. Only one TV station worked. Travel into Manhattan was banned. All anyone could do was wait.

In the days that followed bin Laden’s death in Pakistan, all anyone could do was wait to see what would be the end result of this major event. Public transportation was silent as people avoided the subject everyone else in the world wanted to talk about.

In the university classes I was teaching overseas, that silence didn’t last long. My students have always been open to discussing issues of faith, ethics and worldview. They’ll express opinions about Islam that would surprise or shock anyone. They want freedoms of expression and religion. They want choice.

Most here didn’t support Osama bin Laden or his cause. However, when I asked in class whether Islam is compatible with globalization, they answered reluctantly because they didn’t want to be perceived as bad Muslims. This thinking prohibits people from pursuing freedom, love and peace. But peace doesn’t come from Hollywood or not practicing Islam — it comes only from Jesus.

I know this struggle for peace from personal experience. After my family was attacked on 9/11, we waved flags, posted pictures of the New York skyline and chanted U-S-A at baseball games. We wanted to “get those terrorists” and show our solidarity as Americans.

All of that changed for me in September 2003 when I met Jesus.

God replaced my “American” identity with one grounded in His Son. Where I placed my security was no longer in my passport but in His eternal Word.

I used to constantly ask myself, “How can we possibly love the lost — the Muslim terrorists — who attacked my city?” Our answer should always be “yes, we can” because our Jesus-centered faith demands it. Our Christian response must never resemble the world’s.

To this day I’m convinced it was the Spirit who laid this nation on my heart. This country and people that never once crossed my mind became an inescapable thought. So much so, that when I shared this calling with my close friends I couldn’t help but weep.

I still have these heartfelt emotions for Pakistan, especially as I watched the online debate following bin Laden’s death. Another Facebook friend posted on his wall: “I’m a Christian and I’m happy Osama is dead.”

Juxtaposing his reaction with his faith made me wonder how much of our response is more American than it is Christian; more from our fallen nature than from God.

The early church felt the same way about Saul as we do about today’s terrorists and how I felt about those who attacked us on 9/11. However, look at what Paul left behind in Jesus’ name. I believe it can happen again because God can transform even the hardest of hearts. He did mine.

God opened my heart to become friends with someone whom I previously thought was my enemy. He looks like any other Pakistani but this man fought for his country and killed Americans as a member of a terrorist group. That is, until he found a Bible and read, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” That’s a truly radical thought, especially for someone taught to “kill your enemies and fight back.”

My friend now disciples a group of men with similar backgrounds, all of whom he led to Christ. Recently he was beaten nearly to death for sharing the Gospel, but it hasn’t deterred him from continuing to bear witness.

I believe individuals such as my friend can change the world like Paul did. This change will come from a place we least expect and from a people we can’t imagine being anything but our enemy.

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The writer can be contacted at  commissionstories@imb.org.

Merve* was taught since childhood that the Bible has been changed, that Jesus is not God’s Son and that Christianity is not the true religion. She never questioned Islam and never looked deeper into Christianity. Why would she? She was taught that it was a lie. She believed she was accomplishing what God required of her as long as she kept the rituals.

But Merve began to doubt the beliefs she always assumed when she saw the genuineness of Elizabeth’s life in America.

Merve’s family talked about their trips to the mosque and their Ramadan fasting, but they never talked about God’s love or their relationship with Him like Elizabeth’s family did. Merve felt completely alone despite being surrounded by friends, yet Elizabeth prayed like God was with her every day and everywhere. Elizabeth prayed for a parking spot at the grocery store while Merve made decisions without ever asking God’s guidance.

“Christianity is for Europe and America, not for us,” Merve thought. “Turkish people believe in Islam. If Christ is the only way, then why was I born in Istanbul?”

Eventually the Holy Spirit led Merve to believe that Jesus is truly the Son of God, no matter where she was born.

God desires the nations to know Him and He is bringing people from every nation to His Kingdom. Although they may have been born in a Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist society, they have the opportunity to hear about Christ in the U.S. — an opportunity that many, like Merve, have never had. The short time they spend in America may be their first and only chance to experience the one true God.

 *Names have been changed and identities concealed on this site. While the country of Turkey provides freedom of religion, Christians often still face persecution from friends, family and employers.

By Shiloh Lane

As a teenager, Budi Mulyadi* trained to kill Christians with a 9 mm pistol.

For months, he aimed it at a target while an instructor shouted slurs against Christianity. Mulyadi didn’t know anything about the religion, just that it threatened Islam. Not once did someone explain Christ’s sacrifice to him.

Yet, almost 20 years later, he serves as a Christian worker.

Today Mulyadi works with American Christian workers to manage worship sessions for youth in Southeast Asia. He helps local farmers learn better ways to raise healthy fish and grow their crops. He gives food to poverty-stricken families.

As Mulyadi works, the jobs and the people he works with bring him joy and he smiles, but his smiles fade when he talks about his adolescence. At the age of 14, he lived in an Islamic terrorist camp that imbued him with wrath and hate.

Hate “was something that was implanted in my mind,” he said. “I could just think about Christians and the hate would pop up.”

An obstinate child, Mulyadi ran away from an Islamic boarding school in his early teenage years. The school merely taught him Muslim scripture but had too many rules for his taste. He had already run away from home after a violent disagreement with his father. The 13-year-old had nowhere to turn. Then he met an Islamic extremist who promised him a new education.

The man took the young Mulyadi to a large compound consisting of tents and surrounded by trees. Twenty other boys slept in these tents at night and trained with knives and guns during the day. They only stopped for sleep, food and prayer. When their instructors talked to them, they touted the supremacy of Muslims and the wretchedness of Christians. The Christians, they said, deserved to die.

“We were told that the Christians were infidels,” Mulyadi said.  “If we would kill Christians, then that would be a free ticket into Heaven for us.”

At the camp, Mulyadi felt anger and self-righteousness boiling inside. As he practiced with a gun supplied by the camp, hate filled him. At times, however, he also felt doubt and confusion. The instructors told him that Christians should burn in hell, but did he want to send them there?

The boy continued to mull over these questions as his marksmanship improved and as the gun felt more and more familiar in his hand. Eventually, the leaders believed, Mulyadi and four other boys were ready to prove their worth. Without a clear strategy, they sent their students out to kill anyone they could.

“There wasn’t any specific hit, so there wasn’t any specific contract,” he said. “If we could find someone that was particularly ‘holy’ — someone that would really make a dent … then that’s who our primary target was.”

Once they left the compound boundaries, Mulyadi discovered he wasn’t the only one with doubts.  The other boys had examined themselves as well, eventually determining they had no desire to kill.

“We were given a task to go kill Christians, and we had to make a decision — did we want to do that or not?” he said. “And, that was the point that we broke (and went our separate ways).”

All five boys decided to abandon the jihad. For all the camp’s brainwashing, they never wanted to kill anyone — no matter how much they hated them.

Mulyadi went home briefly, but his father’s anger forced him out on the road again. He eventually landed in a city several hours away and found a job tending the lawn of a health clinic. He spent the rest of his teen years living alone in a rented room.

The Damascus Road

As he trimmed hedges year after year, Mulyadi became interested in general spirituality — not simply what he found in the pages of the Koran.

During his spiritual search, he found the name of Jesus, a prophet according to the Koran, and questioned why Muslims never mentioned Him in their lectures and discussions. He seemed overlooked. Mulyadi picked up a Bible and investigated.

Then, one night, as he prayed alone in his room, he heard a voice say, “I will send a Helper unto you.”

Mulyadi didn’t know where the voice came from or who the “Helper” was, but he turned to Scripture, and after exhaustive reading, found John 14:16: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever.” (NASB)

From the moment he read that verse in John, the young man devoted himself to Jesus, a man who had the power to send him a Helper — the Holy Spirit — and the power to tell him about it 2,000 years after His initial promise.

“My whole demeanor has changed, and God has filled my heart with love,” he said. “I’m not an angry person anymore. My temper is gone. I don’t get mad at people like I did before. Because God loves me, I am able to love others.”

This love turned Mulyadi into a Christian worker. He loves the people he once hated. He leads worship for people he once scorned. He desires to bring people to Christ when he once wanted to punish them for following the Savior. This is his new passion.

“Until God chooses to take me home, I’m going to be here on a mission to share the Gospel with people who need to hear it,” he says.

As Mulyadi preaches God’s word in scores of villages and spends time with his family — a wife and daughter — he rarely speaks to anyone of his time as a terrorist in training. Only after an hour of questioning does he mention it, and until recently, his American partner didn’t know about that section of his life. It’s personal.

However, every once in a while, he reunites with the four other men with whom he left the Islamic camp. They get together and discuss their work and families, and they discuss God. Although Islamic extremism filled them with revulsion for Jesus, Christ pursued every one.

All five are now Christian pastors.

*Name changed

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Shiloh Lane is a writer for the International Mission Board

By IMB staff

ARLINGTON, Texas — Jason Thibeaux said he wasn’t really afraid of Muslims. But he definitely didn’t love them, either.

“I was indifferent to Muslims, and that broke my heart,” he said. “That was almost the worst scenario — that I would treat them as though they weren’t even there. You go have your life, and I’ll have mine, and hopefully we never interact.”

But Thibeaux, Sunday School director of Lake Arlington Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, began to notice God at work in his heart. He started noticing Muslims.

His community was full of them.

God “very much convicted my heart,” Thibeaux said. “[My attitude] needed to change and I needed to do something since He’d brought them here to my back door. I needed to be a part of His mission here locally in making sure that they got to hear the Gospel.”

So he and his Sunday School class — which had been focusing on missions — decided to build relationships with their Muslim neighbors in Arlington.

“We (the class) had some really good discussions about what is missions and, you know, it’s not just those who do it as a career — it’s us. It’s supposed to be us, at least,” Thibeaux said.

Thibeaux began training to teach ESL and he, his wife and another Sunday School member connected with a local ministry to begin classes in an area of town where a number of Muslims lived.

No one came… for weeks.

“That was somewhat heartbreaking,” he said.

But they began to see children coming and though some won’t participate when the group shares Bible stories, some do. “Some of them are getting it,” Thibeaux said.

Todd Virnoche says the same thing.

Virnoche’s kids participated in Lake Arlington’s backyard Bible clubs and came home saying they couldn’t believe the mission field was so big in their own hometown.

“They were surprised that kids hadn’t even heard of Jesus and they were living here in Arlington, Texas,” Virnoche said.

Since then, Virnoche and others have been knocking on the doors of their Muslim neighbors, taking them school supplies, giving them financial help, and teaching them English.

When a Muslim girl, Joanne, got critically injured in an accident, Virnoche went nearly every day for 72 days to pray with the family in the hospital. She lived, and because of his investment of time and relationship, she and all her family and friends welcomed him in as a close friend.

“There was a trust that was established there by God’s grace — the fact that we (the church) were able to be there and to help and minister to them a little bit,” Virnoche said.

Thibeaux said long-haul relationships are what they are all about.

“The thing that’s been different about this is it’s not just an event to build up to. It’s not just ,‘OK, I’ll take a week off work and I’ll do my duty of missions and then I’m through,’” he said. “It’s really been a thing where God said, ‘You’re here, I brought them to you. Why not love them and make that part of your life?’ We’re called to love them. God’s brought them here, He’s put us here for a reason. It’s not an accident. We’re supposed to love them because they are our neighbors.”

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