Something began stirring in me when our team was in China and I saw women with veils covering their heads. See, we entered a heavily Muslim area of the country and that was normal for many women in the area. Then, when we were in the Dubai airport, I saw many Muslim women, some with just their heads covered like those in China, but a few with the full-on black: black robes covering all their clothes and black veils covering their heads and their faces, leaving only a small slit for their eyes to peek out. When I saw those women, my heart began to beat a little faster and I felt something stirring inside me a little bit stronger.
Let me rewind a bit to give you a little background on why I would possibly feel this way about a people group I haven’t worked with yet. In September of 2006 I took part in a missions conference at Judson College put on by the Student Volunteer Movement (or SVM2 for short). Though the conference was on missions all over the world, there was a definite focus on unreached people groups, of which most are in the Muslim 10/40 window. It was at this conference that I committed to working overseas for at least two years in whatever capacity God wanted to use me, and secretly I hoped that God would let me work with the women behind the veils. Then I went to the Urbana missions conference in December of 2006, and though there were hundreds of booths with different mission organizations represented, I felt more drawn toward the ones that focused on unreached people groups. I met a missionary that my church supports that worked in Jordan for a while and hearing her speak gave me even more of a desire to work with these women who are so often forgotten about.
I like mysteries. I’m a very curious person. I don’t, however, like mysteries that seem unsolvable or out of my reach. Veiled women are to me, right now, an unsolvable mystery. Their eyes can only tell so much of their stories, and the rest is left for me to guess. I often wonder why…why the veils? Why do strict Muslims require their women to be almost completely covered? Why the color black? Just “why?”. I also wonder what…what does she look like under that veil? What is she thinking about? What is her personality like? Is she happy, frightened, old, young, married, single, friendly? Who is she?
Some day I believe that God is going to give me a glimpse into the lives of some of these women. Someday I hope that He will allow me to find the answers to some of those questions that seem so far out of my reach right now. Some day I pray that He will allow me to see what is behind the veil. And for now, whenever I see a veiled woman, my heart goes out to them and I am reminded to pray, and that’s all I can ask.
