Posted on March 30th, 2009 by admin
My friend C from Latin America and his wife are leaving in the morning for a 4th follow up trip to the capital. They’ll be meeting with the three new believers we’ve been discipling as a team and hopefully meeting two or three new contacts. Two hours down the road the train stops for half and hour. During that time he’ll meet with Kamal, a national brother who we are helping start a church 2 hours east of that point. He’ll be handing off to him MP3 players and 20 Bibles that we smuggled over the border last week. Kamal will also be following up on three or four MP3 requestors in his region this week while C is following up on the others.
Kamal is a particular blessing since he has just arrived back in the country after attending Bible college the last four years. He has a real heart to do something for God here in his natal country as does his new wife. They arrived back in the country about 6 months ago. We are partnering with him in many ways. We help provide him materials, contacts, and training. We are planning on meeting the three groups (from our city, Kamal’s city, and the capital) this Easter. This will be our biggest meeting yet, Lord willing, of PNA church plants.
I want to thank Steve from Calvary in Ashland, OH for his recent gift that is allowing us to make these follow up trips. C didn’t have any money last night to take this trip tomorrow but hadn’t told anyone but God. I got an email from Steve letting me know of the money he had sent to help with this project. So this morning I gave C $100 to help with his trip. That’s when C told me of this answer to prayer. Thanks to all of you who make our ministry here possible.
The fragility and infancy of these works couldn’t possibly be overstated. We don’t know how long the Lord will allow us to minister in this country so we are training two young men full time for ministry. So much to do. We need your prayers.
Posted on March 24th, 2009 by admin
Thanks for your prayers for Suffian and Gus. (a Latin friend of mine here to learn Arabic who is a pro video editor). They met today with one young man named Suffian and Suffian’s friend. Suffian had contacted arabicbible.com and asked for a Bible. Suffian is not yet a believer but Suffian was very encouraged who open they were to the gospel meessage. He gave them both a Bible and MP3 player.
On another note so you can understand that it’s not always good news, one young man named Mohammed who had requested a Bible wrote a text to our cell yesterday. After he had recieved our letter and cd’s int he mail he had received a lot of trouble from his parents. He writes, “My parents are Muslim and are very angery that I am communicating with Christians. Please do not sending anythink more to my home.”
There is a LOT of opposition to Christ in Muslim countries that comes mostly from family. Continue praying that the shoulders of Satan would be continually weakened over the mighty hand of God.
Posted on March 20th, 2009 by admin
I want to say a huge team thank-you to everyone who gave to the Gospel MP3 project. I know I say it all the time but it has been a huge blessing to the ministry. Grace Baptist Church in Middletown, Shenandoah Baptist Church in TN, Oakwood BC in SC, New Beginnings BC in LA, my dad, my sister, and many friends gave thousands of dollars combined to help us finance this project. The money helped us record a Sat. TV program that has been airing here in North Africa offering the MP3 players as a gift to viewers. We have bought hundreds of these MP3 players and are loading onto them the gospel.
This week my family and I travelled to the capital city for three days to follow up on some of these respondents. We stayed in a hotel and my wife watched the kids while I met a couple of the contacts around the corner. Then it was my turn to watch the kids while she met a lady requester. Here are their stories:
Jamal- Jamal struck me as an unusually dedicated requester over the phone. We never know what we’re going to meet. But Jamal was traveling over an hour to meet me so I was very interested. I met him at the door of the old medina (city). He hugged and kissed me (on the cheeks) just like I had known him for a long time. We crossed
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Posted on March 14th, 2009 by admin
Picnic film I come from a culture that values individuality and individual opinion. It is really a great, liberating thing. Son’s don’t always turn out like their dads. In fact, our culture discourages it. So it is very normal to have a very lively discussion with oposing views about any one of a thousand topics while each person holds sacred his right to disagree. My brother, an Army Lawyer, holds as his job title, “To protect the right of the ignorant to speak and act ignorantly.”
However, in a Muslim country, dissidence from the common faith is a rarity. When witnessing to an Arabic speaking Muslim the conversation is typically quotable. They all have the same memorized, drone-like responses to every thing. Instead of saying, “I think” or “I believe” they almost always say “In our religion”. You’ll notice two things missing: the individual “I” and the switching of “belief or thought” (since those words is intrinsically individual) to “religion” which by definition is a group activity. So few have individual thoughts for a number of reasons:
1. Fear- I mention this first because it was my first hypothesis about why converts from Islam a rare. There are clear teachings in the Koran that command the killing of “kufar” or apostates. Anyone who turns again Islam is a Kufar. Sin does not make one a Kufar. That is forgivable. Only the cessation of belief in the Allah of Islam or it’s prophet Mohammed. This is not the main reason, however:
2. What never Why! This is the biggest reason that Muslim don’t have individual faith or thoughts. From a child they are taught to ask, “What does Allah require of me.” Why? is not an option. You cannot, must not ask why about anything. So from a child all of the pillars are performed and the book is memorized not annualized.
3. Pride in the system. Islam is set up in a religious and political system. You cannot get married in this Muslim country without saying the Shahhad declaring faith in Mohammed. You cannot have a baby. You cannot run for office. The opposite of pride is Hashuma (shame). That’s what you become if you leave Islam. A huge shame to your family, tribe, and country. I have seen people discussing religious themes with me quite calmly until one of my national friends who is a believer in Christ starts to take my side. I have seen them turn from relaxed to extremely tense and angry upon meeting theirs real, live national kufar.
There are many other reasons but these a few. So I want you to pray for our language school teacher. He is one that left for university, studied Nietze and Marx and has left the norm of that. It is amazingly refreshing for me to discuss thoughts with an athiest. Seems surprising but after 1000 identical conversations with Muslims, this secretly dissenting ex-Muslim is a breath of fresh thought. Pray for him to accept Christ.
Posted on March 12th, 2009 by admin
If you are a church planter in a Muslim context AND a fundamental Bible believing Christian then welcome to a small but growing list of fellas that I’d love to get to know. My friend, Neal Cushman, from Northland Baptist Bible College is putting on a conference this January at my home church specifically designed to give Ind. Baptists working with Muslims the chance to get together and learn from each other. This will be the first (and hopefully not last) conference so if you’d like to come just let him know. The speakers will ONLY be people who are or have worked in Muslim cities for the glory of Christ. nchushman@nbbc.edu
Posted on March 9th, 2009 by admin
Today around the Muslim world is the celebration of the Aid Mulud Annebi (The birthday of the prophet). Good Muslims will fast today, Tuesday, in order to obtain more favor from Allah. Suffian is traveling today, meeting contacts. He met two yesterday. One was actually a girl. She is the first girl contact we have met here. Pray for her and others to be saved. Thanks to all who gave to the MP3 project. We are in the midst of buying them all and loading them with songs, teachings, and the whole New Testament. It’s a blessing to the Christians and seekers alike.
Posted on March 8th, 2009 by jefe40472
A week in a half after my procedure in Madrid, my doctors finally got together on the phone yesterday. The original surgeon, Dr. Miller from Dayton, who performed by “Lobectomy and sleeve resection” (lung surgery) passed on my complication from the surgery to Dr. Starnes in Cincinnati who has done three procedures to try to keep my bronchial tube open and my lungs functioning.
The third surgeon is Dr. Diaz. Other doctors in Spain tell us that he is the best thoracic surgeon in Spain. He did the bronchoscopy (stuck a camera in my lung to have a look) last week. When Starnes talked to Diaz she was pleasantly surprised that my bronchial tube was 6 mm (a normal tube is 12 mm) open four months after the last dilation (stretching of the bronchial tube). She expected that the tube would be completely closed off again by now. Not by scar tissue this time but by stenosis (kinking of the tube).
Where they disagree is that my surgeon is Spain thinks that I ought to have another surgery where they cut me open and fix that tube. He thinks further dilations won’t help. My surgeon in Cincinnati thinks that further dilations will help and that another surgery is unnecessary.
Where they DO agree is that for right now, if it stays at 6 mm then I am fine. Air is still flowing and the lungs are working. According to both doctor’s suggestion I will go back to Spain in four months and then we’ll see how open the tube is. If it’s still at 6 mm then we can thank God and hope that I never need another procedure again. We’ll see and thank God anyway whatever the outcome.
Posted on March 4th, 2009 by admin
I started this week taking Classical Arabic classes with a new teacher, Barak, who is Muslim but only in name. A few years ago he went to university, read Neitze and other philosophers, and became an practical atheist though it is really hard to get him to admit it. In the Western world to be an atheist is in vogue but here, well, it’s a dangerous thing to say. So, pray for him.
In our class we are going through a national education program for illiterate adults to teach them Classical Arabic. So that’s what I am now, an illiterate adult. In the book are portions of the Koran and Hadith (like commentaries). Today we read one portion that says this:
“You have a neighbor that has one right. You have a neighbor that has two rights. You have a neighbor that has three rights. You non-Muslim neighbor has one right. Your Muslim neighbor has two rights: The right of the neighborhood, the right of Islam. Your Muslim neighbor for your family has three rights: The neighborhood right, the Islam right, and the family right. “
If that seems confusing you should try reading it in Arabic. Anyway, basically it says that you as a Kufar (infidel) have half the rights of a Muslim and one third the rights of a Muslim family member of your neighbor. Pretty comforting for the Muslim but not so much for the Christian surrounded by said Muslims. It really is a good thing that 99% of Muslims don’t know or follow the teachings if Islam. I shared with Barak the story of the Good Samaritan as told by Christ. He thought that sounded like a better plan in his pragmatic atheism.
