I’ve decided that while I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the different types of ministry opportunities our team has been able to do this year (which has seriously been everything under the sun)…one of my absolute favorite things to do, especially in Africa, is door-to-door evangelism. I think I am one of the few people on my team that can’t wait to go out into the neighborhoods and meet new people every time we find out we’ll be doing door-to-door that day. Yesterday we didn’t have plans to go to Pastor Lawrence’s church on the island and do ministry there so we went around our neighborhood to talk to people and pray with them. We brought some church members from Pastor Chediel’s congregation to help us with translation and legitimacy and the first house we hit was as the home of a young Muslim woman.
Islam is the main religion of Tanzania, with Christianity coming in second, but since ministry started out slow this month, we hadn’t been able to minister to any Muslim men or women yet. I asked the woman, who was about my age, if she regularly attended a mosque and read the Koran, and she said she didn’t really ever do anything with her religion. My translator, Issac, called her “a lukewarm Muslim” and I proceeded to ask her about her family. She still lived with her parents, because she was 24 and had not yet gotten married. Her father was a Christian but her mother was a Muslim, so she decided that she would follow her mother and accept her religion as her own. This is when I began to pray. “God, what am I going to say to this woman?” I immediately remembered that my translator, Issac, used to be a devout Muslim before he came to Jesus 12 years ago, and that he would be the perfect person for the Lord to use! I told Issac I wanted him to share his testimony with her, and he was very hesitant at first but then nodded his head and got out a large notebook.
I wondered what could possibly be in this notebook that he would need during this specific time, and then I saw it. Issac had countless Bible verses AND scriptures from the Koran just for evangelizing to Muslims. I was blown away, so I began to pray for Issac and that the Lord would speak through him to this young woman. Issac translated what he was saying to her so I could understand what was going on in the conversation. He told her he had been a Muslim all his life and that he and his wife both went to the mosque twice a week and were passionate about studying the Koran. Issac’s sister-in-law came to visit them in 1998 and started talking to them about Jesus Christ and His power and His love.
Issac became very sick within a week of his sister-in-law’s visit and had to go to the hospital for severe stomache problems. He had a lot of acid built up in his stomache and they needed to treat him with a lot of medication. After taking his dosages of pills, he was getting even worse and the doctors weren’t sure what to do, so this is when Issac’s sister-in-law suggested the power of prayer in Jesus’ name. Issac, his wife, and her sister all prayed to the Lord for healing and for the first time in his life, it was with genuine faith and hope that their prayers would be answered. After a praying for a day and waiting for the miracle from Jesus, Issac found he no longer had stomache pains. They all went to the doctor so they could get test results done and GLORY BE TO GOD, Issac was completely healed!! He started attending the church we’ve partnered with near by our house, shortly after the miracle. With discipleship from Pastor, he soon became Born Again and got Saved along with his wife.
Now twelve years later, Issac is a church elder and a crazy amazing apologetics scholar, always studying the Koran and finding evidence for the case for Christ. He was able to show the young woman we were minstering to dozens of scriptures from the Koran that talk about how Jesus is the way to heaven and that you have to know Jesus to have eternal salvation. I had no idea those scriptures were in there and I was so blown away by Issac’s knowledge and research work on defending the Gospel. Issac read all these scriptures to the young woman, named Amani (which means “Peace” in Swahili) and she was blown away by his insight and testimony. At the end of the visit she asked if I could pray for her for Jesus to reveal more truth to her, so I did and before we left she thanked Issac over and over for sharing with her. Issac and I came back to visit her the next day and she started to cry, saying she had been praying to Jesus and reading her dad’s Bible all day and that she’d never felt so much joy and so much love in her life. She asked for Issac and I to pray with her and she decided to get Saved that day.
I was so excited and humbled that God had allowed me to see such a beautiful moment in this young woman’s life. The day you become Born Again is one you’ll never forget and getting to pray over her and with her was one of my favorite memories from this month. I told Issac what a unique gift he had from the Lord and he didn’t understand what I meant. I had to explain to him that his story and testimony was perfect for evangelizing to the Muslim community in Dar Es Salaam. God had taken him out of the Islamic faith and now had so much credibility to share with his fellow Tanzanians and I was so surprised he didn’t realize it. I told him he needed to come do door-to-door with us everytime we went out and he agreed. I also asked him if I could copy down all the scriptures in the Koran that had to do with Jesus Christ being the Savior of all people, and he said he would let me borrow his notebook this week. I was so blown away by how the Lord was using my African brother, Issac and even though I knew God could use me to minister to the Islamic community in Tanzania, the legitimacy Issac was carrying with him from his past to his wisdom was incomparable to mine.
I am praying that Issac will truly embrace the gift that God has given him and go out into the community, continuing to transform lives for Jesus Christ. I know each and every one of us has a story, a testimony and a special gift from God that we need to share with the world. God is excited to use us and loves when we use the obstacles and trials we’ve faced in the past, to bring other people with those same struggles into His loving and mighty arms!!! Praise Jesus for Issac, his testimony and his amazingly fantastic apologetics skills. Praise Jesus for your stories, your testimonies and your phenomenal spiritual gifts from the Lord. I know that God made us all unique and diverse for this very reason, to combat the Enemy with His love all over the world in our own special ways. Please be praying for our new sister in Christ, Amani and her new relationship with Jesus. Please pray for Issac, and that he will walk in confidence and authority as a follower of Christ and as an evangelist for the Kingdom. Please pray that more “Amani’s” will have their eyes and ears opened to the Gospel. I love you, all!!! See you at the end of August. 🙂
Amani and I at her home in Dar Es Salaam, the day she got Saved!
Issac preaching from his notebook to more Muslim women in the community!
