I have so many praises for the ways God moved and worked during our time in North Africa. It is most definitely different doing M-Work (Ministry) in a closed country. For me, it was my first time operating and doing life and ministry in a place where freely practicing Christianity is not legal, and it was eye opening, frustrating, rewarding, and powerful. What amazed me most was getting to see first hand how the Lord is already moving and has been uniquely working in closed countries, long before we ever arrived. Everything that happened and every seed that was planted in these past six weeks is all to His glory and power!
In training, we were told that on average a person encounters God 7 times before surrendering their life to Him as their personal Lord and Savior. In a closed country, quite simply, the access to Christ is just statistically less likely. In this way, a person’s experiences with the Lord might be spread out over a fairly long period of time. The stakes are clearly high. Anyone who chooses to follow Christ must lose their own life to take up His, but in a closed context the costs are just perhaps more immediate. Persecution, loss of relationships, and becoming part of a minority faith in a Muslim world are only some of the immediate pressures of giving one’s life to Christ. With this knowledge, I knew that in interacting with people, it might be only their 1st or 2nd time experiencing or hearing of Jesus. So I kind of went in with a mentality of not getting my hopes up for the ways God would move. I just figured we would be casting seeds and did not expect to water or harvest mature seeds. But this was so shattered as I was reminded that we serve such an all powerful and boundless God!
Overall I feel like those six weeks just flew by and felt fairly normal as we started to fall into rhythms of life. But the last week I was honestly feeling a little discouraged and asking God, “Lord what did we even do in our time here?” And just praying over the people we had met and our time before leaving. Looking back now that last week might have been my favorite because the Lord literally brought almost everyone that we had previously met or interacted with back into our lives one last time and that week was quite simply so full. God’s timing just reigns!
When I say it was full, I mean everyone’s schedules just worked and we were able to grab one last meal or meet up with almost all of our close friends—the ones we had been getting to know throughout our whole time there and pour into them one last time. Additionally every time we walked around that last week, God brought people that we had only met briefly or hadn’t seen in weeks back into our lives in just so many perfectly timed “paths crossing.”
For me one such special moment was when a couple people on my team were waiting to meet up with one of our friends for lunch, and this woman on the street walked up towards us. I recognized her from a few weeks prior when the Lord put on my heart to give away a water bottle and another story completely, but God put her in our path and I got to know her name and bless her with a water bottle. This time she came up to us after a few members of my team had already been lead to pray over her, and she came up to me and I greeted her and she just started crying. We got to meet her in her grief and with the language barrier we found out there was something wrong with her family. My friend Allison, felt lead to pray and we asked in Arabic and all got to pray over her and her family in the name of Jesus! She just lit up and I heard a whisper to give her what was left in my wallet and did and she was just so touched and grateful. The funny part is she thought I was married to one of the guys on my team, Tyler, and prayed that we would have many children haha. When we told her he was just a brother, she prayed blessing on me to have a husband and many children. It’s a bit hard to describe but she was so full of praise and thankfulness and kept pointing towards the sky. What is difficult is we didn’t get to have a conversation about Jesus, she was praising Allah as she knows Him, but my praise is this was undeniably an experience with God for her and for me, and I trust that He will use it in her life.
The craziest story to me and one that just blows me away happened on our last night where we were staying. God’s fingerprints and timing just so clearly marked this whole night, but us girls were getting tea with some of our very dear friends, two sisters that we had just so deeply connected with, and the guys from our team met up with one of our other friends, a server at a restaurant that we walked by almost every day. Long story short, this sweet sweet man had kept interacting with our group and would just say things like, “You so kind, all of you,” and he kept mentioning there was something different about us. Well that night, in a long God ordained discussion from a 6 pm dinner to 3 am, the guys in our team got to answer questions and share the gospel and our sweet friend accepted Christ as His Lord and Savior! All glory to God alone! Remarkably that night our host, who is a local Christian pastor, was there and he got to walk through this journey with our friend and invite him to church and further discipleship. What is even crazier is our friend had actually dreamed about Christ 4 years prior at a time, in his life where he felt just lost and confused. God had truly been pursuing him so intentionally, and it was such an honor to share in a piece of his story. The next morning, he even ran into several of the guys and shared such joy as he told them he was already re-reading Genesis and just experiencing truth.
As with any God story or personal encounter with the Lord, there is so much more that could be shared!! What is beautiful and frustrating is you never know where you are meeting someone at. Have they encountered the Lord? Do they know Him? Is this the first time they are experiencing His love? What I know to be true is, God is unconditionally pursuing and knocking at the door of every heart (Revelation 3:20). He has done everything to make Himself known and invites us to seek His face and be found by Him (Jeremiah 29:13-14). So instead of entering into a closed context and trying to guard myself from disappointment, I have learned to open my heart to seeing the Lord move in even greater and more powerful acts of love.
Thanks so much for your prayers!! I have so many stories of God just directing and moving our path and ministering not only to the people around us but also directly to my team. We serve such an amazing God! It means so much to me to get to share this journey with you.
Blessings,
Breanna
