The Arabian Peninsula Partnership
The Gospel for every person and a church for every people in the Arabian Peninsula amongst indigenous peoples
May 11, 2009
Research.
Praise
On their own initiative, a number of the local believers met and celebrated Easter together. They had a traditional Arab meal and enjoyed fellowship honouring their Saviour together. Hearing about this brought such hope to all of us. It is a glimpse of what is to come as God builds His church in our region.
Prayer
Pray this week for the follow up of a local person who had a lot of good contact with Christians in the past year or more. Pray for a positive meeting, in terms of friendship, desire to continue to get together and openness to discuss deep things of faith.
Please remember a woman in our neighbourhood who seems to have believed in Christ. God gave a "sign" to a worker that He was working in the woman’s life, then the woman asked for Christian materials! She wants to talk more, but always she is “accompanied” by watchful family members. There may be others like her, we don’t know. Pray that her and the worker will be able to talk privately and that God will build a church from this seed!
Pray that the tentmakers here will not be discouraged through the trials of seeing friends forced to leave, through sickness, through depression and repression, and that God in His faithfullness will continue and finish the work He has started in our country.
Pray for a local family whose son has been diagnosed with Leukaemia. Ask for God’s mercy in the midst of this crisis and that they will find comfort in the presence of Christians and not in their Muslim faith. Pray that our God will make clear that only in Jesus there is forgiveness of sin. Pray that the Spirit will spark a desire in the whole family to know and walk with God more closely, and that they will be given a Bible.
As the church grows, so does persecution. Ask that the Father will be with a brother who is fearful right now and wants to leave the country. Ask that he relies on the Father to help him through this hard time. Ask that he will believe that he will never be given more than he can handle, as he has been promised in the Word.
Testimony
Mohammed came to Christ last year watching Christian programs via satellite television. He is being discipled, and is continuing to grow in his faith. Recently a close relative died and some "Tentmakers" attended the "azza", a three-day period of visiting and comforting the family.
During one of those visits, a tentmaker, "Dan", walked in, just as Mohammed’s uncle was posing questions which cast doubt on the reliability of Scripture. The uncle turned to Dan and asked about the four gospels. Dan explained that the four gospels were not variants on the life of Jesus, but complementary testimonies to His life. In response to another question, Dan said he had some idea of an answer, but would do better to go back to sources before venturing a solid answer.
Abu Mohammed (Mohammed’s father) then spoke up, saying that even Muslims too often take what someone else has told them, without checking out the facts for themselves. He said we need to do our own research, a comment with which Dan heartily agreed. The interaction between Dan and Abu Mohammed continued warmly, and in the end, the two exchanged telephone numbers with hopes of getting together more to discuss these spiritual matters. Pray for the work of God’s Spirit to bring Abu Mohammed to Christ.