News from the the Middle East

The following is a report on a recent M trip by colleagues to the Holy Land. How exciting to see God at work even in short-term mission experiences. If you would like more information on this ministry, please contact me.

Assalaamu alaikum.

My friend D and I made it home yesterday. H stayed on a couple of days and should be on his way home now. Pray that all goes well for him.

The trip was all that we expected and then some. We painted. We walked and prayed. We visited some of the historical holy sites. We had some divine appointments and we were healthy. Thank you for going with us through your prayers.

Let me tell some stories to give you a feel for our time in the land.

The Mosque of Omar

We had met the two young Palestinian Muslim men the night before as we delivered food to a poor Muslim family in Bethlehem. “Khalid” is 21 and is studying to be an accountant. “Hakim” is 26 and is blind. When Hakim was 13 he found a live Israeli land mine in his back yard. He lost his right arm and his sight.

We had asked them to take us on a tour of Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity. The young men did a good job of telling us the story of the birth of Jesus. As we left, I asked them if they could then take us to visit the Mosque of Omar.

This mosque was built across Manger Square from the Church of the Nativity and is a symbol of peaceful coexistence between Palestinian Christians and Muslims. The land the mosque is built on was donated by the Greek Orthodox Church.

We removed our shoes and eased in. We were met by a man who worked at the mosque. He wasn’t the Imam, but he worked for him. He took us inside and showed us around. Then it happened.

As we stood before the mihrab we began to talk about what the Qur’an says about Jesus. Hakim translated our conversation. It was an incredible exchange. The man we were sharing with had the typical responses I hear from most Muslims, but he was very cordial and listened to our replies and comments. The conversation lasted for maybe half an hour or so. Good seeds were planted, both in the hearts of the man who works at the mosque and in the hearts of Khalid and Hakim. This was one of our divine appointments.

Overflowing with Joy

Daher is a strong man. He wore blue coveralls and spoke broken English. He greeted us with warmth that I will soon not forget.

Daher is a Palestinian Christian. He is fighting for his land, land that has been in his family since 1924. In 1991, the Israeli government declared his 100 acres, along with surrounding acreage as Israeli state property. The plan was to build settlements for Israeli immigrants to establish “facts on the ground” in the West Bank. Daher’s property is now surrounded by 5 Israeli settlements.

Daher has legal papers supporting rightful ownership; papers from Ottoman, British, Jordanian and Israeli governments. He and his family have been fighting the Israeli government for 16 years. This is a David and Goliath type story.

We went to spend the night on the land and to work the next day. Daher built a fire in his wood stove and we sat around it to get warm. He smiled at us and began to sing:

“Hallelu, hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah
Praise ye the Lord…”

He was overflowing with joy. It was a beautiful time.

The next morning he woke us at 7:00 and led us to a cave where the goats had slept. It was time to milk the goats. So we did. He then fed us breakfast and led us to our work assignment. We were to pull weeds. There were weeds around the olive trees and weeds around the grapevines. So we pulled weeds. It was hard. The weeds had thorns and we had no gloves. We hated it. We loved it.

I truly felt like I was fighting for justice. Nothing more than a few hours of hard work and a few holes in my skin. Justice.

Naher has no bitterness. He fights for his land through love. He is one of the truest examples of Romans 12:21 that I have ever met.

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

I am honored to have met him and to have fought with him for the land.

For more information about Naher and his family’s fight for their land see: www.tentofnations.org

But How do we trust Jesus?

Khalid and Hakim invited us to lunch. Khalid’s mother was there and she had prepared a feast of rice and baked chicken. The serving platter had to have been three feet in diameter and it was heaped at least a foot in the air. A true feast. We ate and then ate some more.

After the meal, over tea and coffee, the discussion turned to religion. We started in the Qur’an and shared the Truth about Jesus. We talked of how Jesus was born of a virgin and was the Word of God and the Spirit of God. We talked of His sinless life. We talked of His miracle working and that He had power over death as evidenced by His raising people from the dead. We talked about His crucifixion and resurrection.

We then talked about why Jesus had to die. We talked about God’s requirement for a blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. We talked about the Muslim belief that every person will stand before God and give an account of their life. Their sins will be put on one side of a scale and their good deeds on another. If the scale leans toward the good deeds, they might be allowed to enter Paradise. If not, well…

We shared how God’s word says that if we are guilty of one sin, then we are guilty of all sin. (James 2:10) They understood and realized that we all had a problem.

We then shared how God loved His creation so much that He made a way to be reconciled with Him. What we can’t do, God did. We said that we must stop trusting in our works and trust in the completed work of Jesus.

Hakim translated for Khalid’s mother, “But how do we trust Jesus?”

What a moment. We shared what it meant to trust Jesus and then gave them two copies of the New Testament in Arabic, one for Khalid and his mother and one for Hakim. They were so appreciative. Hakim said he would have someone read it to him since he is blind.

This was another of our divine appointments. It was an honor to sit in the home of Palestinian Muslims and share the love and truth of Jesus. Pray with us that Khalid, his mother and family and Hakim and his family will soon be walking in the Kingdom of God. They are already walking toward it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

This was a great trip. Thanks for going with us through you prayers.

Please pray for the Palestinian people. I fear that we here in the American church are often guilty of forgetting about the Palestinians. Regardless of our eschatological stance on the nation of Israel, Jesus still died for the Palestinian people just as much as any other people and we must never lose sight of that. Pray for the Palestinian Muslims to know the Truth of Jesus. Pray for the Palestinian Christians, who make up roughly 4% of the Palestinian population in the occupied territories. They feel abandoned by their brothers and sisters in the West.

I’m home for about 3 weeks and will then head to East Asia as well as other spots in the Middle East. I will be visiting with some of our long-term workers and possibly meeting with a group to discuss writing a book on Muslims who are having dreams and visions of Jesus. By the way, we met a man last week who had a dream of Jesus. I’ll tell you his story soon.

Until ALL Have Heard,