June 23rd, 2009 AM
No ESL today – must be time for a mosque visit.
Even though Jeff tells us not to worry about putting on our head gear as we girls pile into the van and the boys into the Shark. We do exactly that (the worrying part). Why? Because we’re girls, and we like to take pictures when we’re wearing stuff we don’t normally wear – like scarves and hijabs.
Jeff is giving us a run down of the neighborhood around Dix as we get closer, and the half an ear I started tuning out with becomes an ear and my eyes by the time we get there because there comes a point in the drive where I’m thinking about other things. I don’t even realize we’ve arrived until Jeff pulls into a spot and stops the van.
As we pile out, I pause for a half a second. The air is tense, thick with oppression, and I can do nothing but pray as all ten of us – Jeff, Christine, Alissa, Neshe, Annie, Louis, Andy, Daniel, Rob, and I – rejoin and head inside.
I’ve been here before. Actually, Alissa, Annie, Louis, Rob, and I have been here before. A year ago, we came here… to Dearborn and this mosque. We came to Dix with a youth group from another town in Michigan. The air was filled with invisible daggers and seething indignation… and not from the Muslims. What came out that visit was a youth group largely jubilant in the face of the battle they had won, and a group of young adults saddened and frustrated by the sight of a heart hardening to the gospel under vicious attacks on its beliefs.
But this year is just us, and it is different – our hearts are bleeding love, our minds oozing out determination to refuse waging rhetoric wars. Our desire is to show God’s love in the midst of evil which seeks to overwhelm us. Flashlights beaming light into the dark corners of humanity. The analogies are endless, and so is God’s patience with us, and with them.
And somehow… by the time we leave, I believe God has been there. In the questions about Muslim beliefs and practices, rather than debate about whether or not the Injeel (New Testament) or Qu’ran is correct. In the respectful manner in which our well-versed guide (for lack of a better term) answer our questions – even the most blatant of lies. And in the spirit of peace in which Louis gives him a copy of the Injeel that he politely accepts.
Not only that, but I do believe God was there last year, too. That even though the presenter did not see it, others in the room somehow saw the few who were not on the attack… and how shaken they were by what the rest were doing. And… God’s people will reach them before it’s too late. They are a beautiful people – Arab Muslims – and they were designed for heaven the same as the rest of us. God wants them for His own the same as he does us .We can either choose to be part of what God wants to do with them, or we can ignore Him and potentially leave heaven bereft of their lively presence because of our choices.
I choose to be part of God’s plans.
———
P.S. Meet the teal team – Alissa, Neshe, and me. We didn’t plan on color coordinating for the mosque visit. It just happened.
