Have you ever had a moment in your life where as everything is going on around you, you think, ‘I’m going to remember this moment.’ One of those experiences that just has so much significance it can’t be overlooked.
We experienced that during the debate with the Muslims…
Earlier in the week, another team leader invited us to join her team in a debate against a group of Muslim students that attended the local Islamic University. We all eagerly agreed and arrived bright and early on Saturday morning, our technical ‘day off’ for the week. In normal African fashion, we did not get started until an hour later when some of the students arrived in their customary long robes and caps. We had two topics for the debate: The Validity of the Bible and the Religion of Jesus Christ.
We began the discussion at 9:00 in the morning, and if you know me at all (Traci), debating is not my thing. I have a newfound respect for those who can get up and defend their cause at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately for me, I was not given that gift, so I listened, took notes, and swelled with pride as our teammates got up, one by one, and defended the Gospel.
The morning wore on and Muslim vs. Christian continued to defend their side of the story. It’s amazing what strong feeling well up inside of you when people make statements like, “Jesus was a Muslim,” or “Paul corrupted the Word of God” or “The Bible is full of lies.” I began to count down the minutes with the time keeper when the Muslims were speaking, just waiting for one of us to get up and proclaim truth. One of those brave souls was our very own Dustin Cole Suttle.
Now this blog is all about God and His Glory and how He moved so powerfully, but He did that through His children, and Dustin, being one of those children, made his heavenly Father proud that day. Dustin got up once to defend the reason for so many translations of the Bible and why they are written the way that they are. This was early on in the day.
11:00 rolls around and almost everyone on the World Race thought we were done, our tummy rumbling and our minds ready to have some time on the Internet. Oh, how wrong we were! We finished the end of the discussion, and the time keeper gets up and says, “now for round 2.” Well, so much for a day off!
That’s when things heated up…
