Sorani Kurdish is the second most widely spoken Kurdish dialect, and is the mother tongue of about eight million people from Iran and Iraq. Now, those eight million people can read the Scriptures in their heart language, allowing believers to edify their faith, grow in their knowledge of God and understand more fully what the Bible says.

For those who live in the Middle East, however, very few bookshops stock the Kurdish Bible, making a paper copy difficult to access.

OM has worked with partners to create a simple Kurdish Bible app, so that Kurdish people can easily download Scriptures in their own language onto their phones.

“It’s hard to carry your paper Bible discreetly if you’re a secret Christian,” explains one OM worker. “They’ll question why you have a Bible, but no one’s going to question why you’re going out with your phone.”

The basic app has been available since April 2017, and has had over 6,000* downloads in its opening year. OM is partnering with developers to make the app available on more devices, including Windows computers. They are also adding functions that will allow users to share verses on social media, highlight passages, and make their own notes.

Pray for the development and distribution of the Kurdish Bible app and for Kurdish believers to take ownership of creating relevant resources.

Pray that the new Kurdish translation would have an impact on the Kurdish church and there would be an increase of Jesus followers.

*Numbers accurate at time of writing

“What makes OM unique is a call to partner with the local church and a focus to go where there are no churches,” described OM Near East Field Leader Jeremy*.

As a practical way to prepare local believers from both Muslim and Christian backgrounds to be sent on mission long term with OM, the NE field debuted its Arab Internship Programme in February 2016. The year-long programme begins with a three-month in-residence training. For the second half of the programme, participants join an existing OM team in the Near East (Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq) or pioneer a new movement in an unreached area.

Three Syrian Muslim-background believers (MBBs) completed the first training cycle, while seven Egyptian Christian-background believers entered the second round.

“The participants come with a lot of ministry experience, probably even more ministry experience than we’d expect out of new international team members,” Jeremy noted.

They also come with fluent Arabic and, to some extent, culture, although significant differences do exist among Arab countries and regions, Jeremy acknowledged. The cultural training "is focused on how to live in an area that isn’t home and deal with all the cross-cultural issues that come up."

By equipping the local interns with reproducible ministry tools, similar to what foreign OMers learn in the Near East two-year training programme for new members, and helping them learn how to thrive in a team setting, OM hopes to send a stream of more Arab workers into the least-reached regions.

Foreigners often spend copious (but necessary) amounts of time and effort gaining language and culture, whereas nationals can start learning and implementing evangelistic tools almost immediately.

The speed at which the local interns can start making an impact is “quite startling,” Jeremy said. “The guys in the internship school, within a month, had opened the Bible 21 times [on house visits]. As a foreigner, I was just happy to be able to buy fruit after a month [of studying Arabic].”

However, “we’re not moving away from being an international organisation. We have strength when we combine different cultures together.” Jeremy clarified. “I think the whole international church has a role to play, and I would expect there to be people from outside the Arab world on those teams as well.”

The right fit

Hamad* and Nidal* were two of the first three Arabs to complete the three-month training module. Hamad had been looking for an opportunity to serve God using the gift of evangelism. Nidal wanted to begin ministry in a place where nothing was happening.

The training, they said, was personal and practical. They spent time learning how to facilitate Discover Bible Studies (DBS) on visits. They also practiced it themselves. “We did DBS in the morning together, so first we applied the Bible to our own lives and developed ourselves before we expected other people to accept it,” Hamad explained.

Even though both men are from a Muslim background, they had been discipled in a local church and learned Christian terminology. As OM interns, they learned how to talk about Jesus to people who have never heard the gospel and how to use language Muslims understand. “For example, Christians would say, ‘We’re dirty in our sins, and God has washed us the blood of the Lamb,’” Hamad said. “For a Muslim, you might say, ‘God took us out of our shame and gave us honour.’”

“What I really enjoyed in the training was being able to meet the local believers here who are in ministry, who have loads of experience and can help you understand things and open up relationships that were not possible from the outside,” Hamad said. “I was really encouraged; when there were problems in my family, people stood by me and prayed for me.”

Answered prayers on visits were a stand-out hallmark of Nidal’s time in the training. Amongst one family he got to know, no one worked the first time he visited. He prayed for them. The second visit, everyone had jobs. Another time, the family lost their UN paperwork, which allowed them to live in the country as refugees. Nidal prayed again. Four days later, the family phoned him and announced the papers had been found. “That was really special for me,” Nidal remembered.

The internship programme, Nidal summarised, “is a great idea. It teaches you, trains you up for ministry, and at the same time, it’s through the school that there’s more planting and sowing that’s happening.”

Following completion of the three-month training school, Nidal and Hamad joined an OM church planting team in the area where the training had been held, allowing them to develop relationships made during training as well as expand to new families.

“There are not churches here. There are very few people doing outreach in this area. There are not so many people ministering to Syrian refugees here,” Nidal said. “Our vision is to see the church grow here in this area.”

In addition to input from trainers on and outside the Near East Field, Nidal and Hamad helped facilitate the second training school. 

Pray that the Arab Internship Programme would find new sources of funding so that it can continue to train and equip local workers to reach the least-reached areas of the Near East (Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq). Pray for grace as current interns join existing teams and wisdom as future groups look to establish new teams in new locations.

*Name changed for security

Nicole James is an international writer for OM, passionate about publishing stories of God’s work among the nations and telling people about the wonderful things He is doing around the world.

In autumn 2014, she joined a CP-focused team in the Near East. But when her residency application led to being blacklisted from that country and started a year-long limbo, she decided to launch a new team in another location.

“When we started this team, we said what we really want is a team that is focused on planting churches and finding groups that will reproduce. I had come to the point that I really needed a team around me. I cannot do it alone,” Diane emphasised.

From the beginning, this team (initially two women, then three) wanted to identify and implement important principles inherent to CP and disciple making movements (DMM).

Nancy*, the third member of the team who previously spent six years in a neighbouring country, chose her current team in order to better learn how to practice making disciples. “The different kinds of experiences we have and the diversity…make the team strong,” she said. “Everyone adds something different to the team, but it makes it also one.”

“I look at my little team, and we are all very different and have different gifts,” Diane described. Working together is “not just about organising our time to go on visits together, but… how do we use our gifts together for the sake of church planting?”

Practices

Extraordinary prayer is one of the hallmarks of making disciples. Since Diane and her team were starting 'from scratch', they decided to build prayer into their schedules—thirty minutes of shared prayer daily plus one day a week of team fasting and prayer.

“Personally, it helps me to stay so more more focused on God as the One that’s working. It helps me to trust more in God than in my own skill,” Diane shared. “We spend a lot of time praying for other people, and we are growing together in a spiritual sense as a group that prays together for the community.” By taking an entire day for prayer, “we can pray for everyone we know. We’re not going to run out of time.”

“For me, it’s the centre,” Nancy added. “I’m really happy with this day of prayer and spending time together as team and sharing all the relationships. I don’t want to miss it…Prayer is number one to go out and see disciple making happening.”

Practicing extraordinary prayer, sowing intentionally and giving team members permission to speak into each others’ ministries are three keys, Diane said. “We need the different gifts that people bring to the team.”

The women also need each other for ministry. “Jesus sent people in twos. We try to make a point of doing a lot of ministry together,” Diane explained. Having worked extensively on her own, teaming up on visits is “not something that I find very easy,” she admitted. “Families usually prefer one person or the other person…they tell you all the time. For us, it’s like a spiritual struggle. We will not take on the comparisons.”

In fact, Diane said, differences can sharpen ministry. Maybe one woman is good at making new relationships, while another can easily bring up spiritual topics in conversations. Teammates can challenge each other to find new families if longer standing relationships stop showing spiritual interest.

After participating in an inter-organisational disciple-making training, Diane said she also focused on clear identification and invitation. “I think it’s so important that people know very early on what I’m about, and I don’t make false promises.”

“Whenever you come into a family, there are always these questions that people ask you: ‘Who are you? Where are you from? Why aren’t you married?’” Diane shared. “How do I use these questions to tell them that I’m someone who follows God and loves Him, and He is changing my life. And how do I move from that into an invitation: ‘God can do this for you, too. He can change your life and country and the world.’”

Stories

“We would love to see things happen quickly and have lots of people hear the gospel, but our goal is not to do things in a certain timeframe or see a certain number, but to make people into disciples with enough depth,” Diane stated. “A disciple is always someone who makes other disciples.”

Often, the women need several visits to determine whether the people they meet have sincere spiritual interest and if they will share the stories they learn with others.

For instance, Nancy talked about one woman who “already had an interest in getting the Bible. She was asking questions and she wanted to read together.” Later, the lady lost some of her eagerness to study.

“She says she believes that her help is from God, and she is asking me again about the book,” Nancy said. “Now I’m finding out where she is and what she really wants. [Does she] want to choose to follow Jesus or is it a polite way to connect with me?”

In another family, Diane met a husband and wife who initially showed interested in the Bible. The husband told Diane he had once dreamed that he opened the gospel and read that God is one.

“That’s a fantastic dream,” she replied. “Let me show you where it’s written.”

During the visit, another family member protested the husband’s dream, saying that Christians believe in three gods. When Diane got ready to leave, however, the woman asked her where she could get a gospel.

“I could give you a book, but it’s much more fun to read it together. Would you like to study the Bible?” Diane asked.

The next time Diane visited the family, that same lady had invited an aunt and uncle, who had stayed with the family an extra night in order to read the Bible.

“At the end, everything we do, it’s all dependent on what God wants to do. In some ways we’re still waiting for God to lead us to the people who will take the gospel and run with it in their communities,” Diane said.

Prayer

Pray for the ministry team to develop perseverance. “I think we’ve seen a lot of relationships developing three steps forward and five steps back,” Diane shared. “You have these people who get teary-eyed when they see a Bible, and they really want to read it, and suddenly they just don’t answer your phone calls.”

Pray, too, for more people to join the field. “We all have a long-term commitment, but for a stable team we need more people,” Diane said. “Someone who loves to learn and who wants to learn in community, who wants to be part of a team that is not just a working community but also family in the sense of caring for each other’s needs, who has a very good level of Arabic, who loves to learn but knows its good to get input, and who’s passionate about making disciples and planting churches.”

*Name changed for security

Nicole James is an international writer for OM, passionate about publishing stories of God’s work among the nations and telling people about the wonderful things He is doing around the world.

“There’s a network of Syrian Kurdish believers who have a heart to see others of their community come to faith in Christ,” team member Erica* explained. “There has been a lot of openness in the community, whether by attending meetings or participating in Bible studies, and we’ve been seeing God moving among the community.”

One of the Syrian Kurdish leaders asked the OM team to contact a family he knew in a village area which is unreached, with no previous access to the Gospel. The team initially visited the father and mother, who have several adult children.

“We told them that we visit people, share about Jesus, and pray with them. We asked the family whether they would like to know who Jesus is and learn more about following Him. They said, ‘OK, alright,’ and were open from the start,” Erica said.

“We began a Discipleship Bible Study (DBS) with them, starting from Genesis and looking at the lives of the prophets. We read various passages over several months and found that the wife would memorise the stories by heart. We were encouraged that they were always available to meet, committed and eager to learn.”

The wife also shared the Bible stories with her daughters. In time, the parents told the OMers that they wanted to invite other people to join the study. The daughter and other family members began participating in the group when the stories of Moses and the Passover were discussed.  

“They afterwards began experiencing miraculous encounters with Christ. One of the daughters had a nightmare and woke up feeling frozen or paralyzed, but when they prayed in Jesus’ name they saw her released. This was even before we began the studies on Jesus,” Erica said.

Meanwhile, the mother, who had been a smoker for 30 years, was miraculously weaned off of her nicotine habit with prayer. “This is a miraculous deliverance for the mum. The Holy Spirit is working in them,” Erica affirmed

“The husband is quick and wants to know everything in the same minute, the full gospel, understand everything and teach others at the same time,” she quipped.

“But we want to see him live the gospel, witness change and keep going and growing. We don’t want just to see a big push and have him fall away,” Erica said of the father’s spiritual walk.

Erica and her husband have both witnessed the deepening of the family’s faith in Christ. “It seems that the Bible the family has at home contains a prayer of salvation because they seem to be praying it all the time,” she said.  

“The mother told me that every time she reads the Bible, she wants to cry,” Erica said.

“I know this is the truth,” the woman told Erica and her husband.

The OM team said that they believed the Lord had prepared this family’s hearts before they met.

“They were ready, just ready,” Erica said, excitedly.

After more Bible study of both the Old and New Testaments for several months, the Syrian Kurdish family expressed the desire to be baptised. They also took responsibility for doing some of the studies on their own, demonstrating that they were owning what they were learning and sharing it with others. The family also studied some lessons on the cost of following Jesus.

Later, the team, in conjunction with a local pastor, a believer from a Muslim background, baptised the mother, father and two daughters.

“We gathered together in a beautiful, grassy patch near the sea. They shared their testimonies of how they experienced Jesus daily in their lives. The pastor explained the meaning of baptism to those who assembled, including some Kurdish friends,” Erica said.

“The simple baptism took place in the sea. It was really lovely!”

Erica said that the family has continued to make bold decisions. They informed their relatives in Syria about their decision to follow Jesus, despite their opposition.

“I’m convinced this is the right way and this is what we are doing,” the mother told her Syrian Kurdish relatives. 

“My hope for them is to continue to see them grow and impact others around them. They expressed the strong desire to keep studying together,” Erica said. 

“They are also sharing their new-found faith in Jesus with other Syrian Kurdish families where they live. But of course, we are longing to see many more people come to faith.”

*Name changed for security

A young Saudi man dressed in a traditional Gulf Arab white thoub entered a Christian bookshop in a densely populated Arab city. From Mecca, the young man was curious about the sign hanging on the bookshop’s entry, “I am the door,” and decided to investigate inside.

“The people [inside] were talking about Jesus,” OM team member Ingrid* said. “Then, after reading some more scripture verses in the shop, the man dramatically fell on his knees and proclaimed: “Yes, really He is the Lord!” and then he shared he accepted Jesus into his heart.

“He was already reading the gospel online over the past half-year and was being prepared for this special moment,” she said about the stunning conversion experience.

“My husband also went to the bookshop the next day when he normally teaches a Bible study, and we met the young man and they studied the Scriptures together. It was so beautiful to meet this wonderful young man. Later, we gathered together with other believers from a Muslim background and shared a deeper time of study and fellowship in Christ.”

“I normally pray through Operation World because next to the Bible, I think this is the most important book to know how to pray intelligently with much detailed information on various countries and people groups,” Ingrid said.

"And on the days that this precious man visited the bookshop, these were very days allotted by Operation World, to urge people to intercede for Saudi Arabia and its people!  What an amazing answer to prayer!” she said, excitedly.  “Both my husband and I were just blown away!”

“Wow, on these two days people are praying for my country,” the young Saudi marvelled. He was greatly touched by this news. 

Door to share the good news

Another ministry by an OM team involves engaging with local Arabs and foreign visitors ambling along the waterfront pedestrian area.

“I love the place. People are walking and the evening sea breeze is so invigorating. The opportunities to speak with people about Jesus and to give them biblical literature are beyond what we can imagine,” said one of the team recounting an incident a short time ago she experienced with her husband there.

“A couple approached us and stopped. I asked where they were from and the husband said, ‘Najaf in Iraq.’ I felt excited. We had been praying for southern Iraq for so long because there is hardly any Christian witness there,” she said.

The man looked at the New Testament and other literature. “I told him 'you can take whatever you want and as much as you want,'” she said. "And he asked incredulously, ‘Really?’”

“As he held his two-year-old girl in his arms, I noticed that the child had very thick eyeglasses, almost like what an older person needs to wear and I asked him about them.”

He said the child was due to have an eye operation at a hospital in the city. Then, he suddenly asked, “Will you pray for her?”

“We said we would gladly pray for the girl and her family, even at that moment,” she said. “So, we prayed that God would have His hand on her and the doctors, and that operation would go well and she would see properly.”

They went off with their bag of Bibles and other literature.

Pray for this family and ask the Lord to bring healing and restoration not just to the physical eyesight but also to their spiritual vision in order to see Christ revealed.

“So many Syrians pass by and they gladly take some literature as well. Although there are some people who say, ‘No, thank you,’ generally there is quite an openness among all the passersby,” she added.

“Meeting and speaking with people at the seafront is just so fabulous! We feel so full after we have spent several hours there, noting the number of wonderful encounters Jesus has given to us and the amount of literature distributed.”

“But we also feel there is a great urgency to get the message out,” she said. “We don’t know for how long the doors for sharing the good news will remain open. We have to grasp the opportunity now and not let it go to waste.”

*Name changed

Afterwards, some of the children encouraged their parents to go to the church despite some of the adults’ objections. “These are great people and they talk about Jesus the Messiah,” they said.  A mother and her children were deeply touched by the teaching and outpouring of love they found at the church. Spurred on by what they were learning, they said, “We want to follow Jesus.” Some 21 are preparing for their baptism.

DBS takes off

The DBS (Discipleship Bible Study) programme is really taking off with some six different groups of Arabs participating in just one location. Many other DBS groups are springing up elsewhere in the Near East (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq).

Praying for Muslims

Meanwhile, the 8th training of mainly local university students is underway teaching participants how to answer effectively the common questions Muslims have about Jesus, how to share their Christian faith with Muslim friends and ways to pray with them.

“So many of my dear friends are Muslims. I love them. But every time I tried to speak about Jesus, I felt stuck and cried,” one students said of her experience before the training.  

“But as the course finished, I found that I can speak confidently with my Muslim friends,” she said. “In fact, I had the opportunity to pray with more than 20 Muslim women so far who were either sad, sick or simply needed some encouragement. I am so excited!”

A project translating the Jesus Film into Arabic sign language recently wrapped up. Stay tuned for its release and distribution. 

Thank you for your support and prayers for the OM ministries in the Near East - Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq.

*Name changed

OM’s Arab internship school in the Near East (field consisting of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan) is currently training Arab Christians and others called to reach Muslims in a region of Iraq grappling with the effects of decades of conflict and greatly in need of Jesus’ healing touch.

“This is one of the most important ministries I’ve been involved in since I started full-time work nearly 20 years ago,” said Youssef*, an Arab believer who helps oversee the training programme in a neighbouring country.

“Putting the training into practice has meant establishing good relationships with a number of the Syrian refugees and engaging in DBS (Discovery Bible Studies) with them,” he said.

“During a visit with a Muslim refugee, the man shared his concern about his sick son, who had to go into the hospital. I asked him if I could pray in the name of Jesus the Messiah for his son’s healing,” Youssef recalled.

“Shortly afterwards, his son left the hospital. The man was then shocked after his son’s return home because the boy recovered. ‘There is an amazingly strong power in the name of Jesus the Messiah!’ the Syrian man told me. He said something unusual, this man was getting together with a Muslim friend of his and together they are praying in Jesus’ name!” Youssef explained.

Recounting another visit, Youssef said there was a Muslim man, who, with his wife, had been unable to have children. “We read from the Word and we prayed together in Jesus the Messiah’s name,” Youssef said. “That man, too, now is praying only in Jesus’ name and is being greatly encouraged.”

The Lord is also sovereignly moving in the life of a Palestinian Muslim taxi driver in the Near East Field who has met some of our OM team members.  He, too, has witnessed the power in Jesus’ name and says he wants to understand more about the Messiah and pray in His name.

“Having these divine encounters with people the Lord is revealing Himself to has been so encouraging to me as well,” Youssef said, adding that those in the OM Arab internship program are having their own experiences of Jesus’ touch on lives He wants to heal and save.

OM Near East Field is looking for people who have a strong desire to see vibrant communities of Jesus followers and churches planted among the least reached of the Muslim world. An initial 12-month training course is available for Arabic speakers interested in participating in this vital cross-cultural ministry aiming to change the destiny of war-torn Iraq.

*Name changed for security

“The husband of a young Kurdish couple I know struggled because there was no mention of the Kurds in the Qur'an, but this ethnic group appears in the [biblical] account of those in Jerusalem swept up by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost,” she said. “God used all the languages of the Middle East region among those assembled, including the Medes. Although the Kurds feel they are one of the forgotten peoples of the world, they aren’t forgotten by God.”

In the wake of Kurdistan’s recent failed bid for independence from Iraq, many in the region are feeling great tension and uncertainty about the future. This is most strongly felt in Kirkuk, where the Kurdish loss of the multi-ethnic, oil- rich city to the Iraqi government is more than a crippling blow to Kurdish hopes of independence. The Kurds have lost about 40 per cent of territory they took in the fight against ISIS (Daesh) since the Iraqi army moved in. 

After the Iraqi army and Iran-backed Shiite militias took over Kirkuk on 16 October 2017, more than 100,000 Kurdish residents fled the city, including police and security forces, adding to the numbers of already internally displaced people (IDPs) escaping ISIS, along with Syrian refugees sheltering in northern Iraq.

OM's ministry partners reported that 100 people from the Kakai religious minority fled Kirkuk, heavily traumatized by the atrocities they witnessed. The Kakai are a Kurdish Muslim group that reveres the Shiite Imam Ali but (unlike the majority of Muslims) accepts reincarnation. That mix made them a prime target for ISIS, which proclaims a violently puritanical Sunni Muslim line.

OM also desires to minister to Syrian refugees sheltering in Kurdistan. Amidst such desperate circumstances, ministry partners serve the physical and spiritual needs among this community of refugees and IDPs.

“There are families who are interested in learning what’s in the Bible through DBS (Discipleship Bible Study),” Margaret said, and “we would very much like to study with the refugees, but we still lack the needed government permission to open the way for carrying out our project” at the facility.  

“Many Syrian refugees are also fearful of the tensions brought on by the independence bid and efforts to quash it as they are already broken by the experience of war in their homeland,” she added.

“Pray for us to persevere in the midst of these challenges: the physical ones, like the lack of gasoline or petrol, as well as the spiritual obstacles before us. 

“A Syrian Kurd went into a large refugee camp and told everyone that he wants to become a Christian,” Margaret said, marveling at the man’s boldness.

“If we could get the message out [about Jesus], half of the camp would follow Jesus Christ,” the man told her. 

Please pray for the right door for OM to enter communities in Kurdistan and to meet those who hunger and want to hear God’s Word. Pray for the communities in Iraq and Syria impacted by war. Pray, too, that their spiritual hunger would be greater than any fear. 

*Name changed for security

As they chatted, the men discovered they knew one of Kyle’s contacts: the pastor of a nearby church. They asked Kyle “the normal questions,” he said. “Is Jesus the Son of God? How would you feel if ISIS came and took your land?”

According to Kyle, the Syrians had differing interest levels in spiritual topics. The first man seemed keen and wanted to know more. The second was sceptical and defensive. The third mostly stayed silent.

One evening, Hamid*, the most interested, asked Kyle if he could go to church.

“Sure, I’m going now,” Kyle replied.

The men walked to the church. Since they arrived a little late, the only seats available were right at the front. Walking down the centre aisle, Hamid was “freaking out. He had never been to church before,” Kyle described.

Nonetheless, he stayed for the whole sermon, only leaving when communion was served.

After Hamid and Kyle returned to the hotel, the other two joined a conversation asking about Jesus having the properties of God. “Which is it?” Hamid wondered. “You say Jesus is God, but the Bible says He has all the properties of God.”

Kyle, who studied theology, showed the three men other passages in the New Testament where Jesus talked about His own deity. “It’s just a funny use of terminology,” he explained. “In the Arabic, it sounds like Jesus has the same stuff of God, but that He’s not God.”

On three separate occasions, Kyle returned to the hotel to visit and discuss with the men. Hamid remained interested, Ali* antagonized and Moe* listened. Then, a month later, all three suddenly disappeared. They had left to Europe, each travelling to a different country.

“This is the thing about Iraq. We’re losing so many people…Everybody talks about leaving all the time,” Kyle mentioned. “I didn’t think anything was going to come from that sharing, especially when they left.”

Three months later, however, Kyle received a text message from Moe, the quiet one who had always listened to the conversations. “Brother, I just wanted to tell you I am in Sweden, and I am secure in Christ,” he wrote.

“That’s a really strange thing to say,” Kyle thought. “Something’s obviously happened to him.”

In fact, while Moe was at a refugee centre in Sweden, people from a local church visited the asylum seekers, offered help with Swedish and shared the hope of Jesus. “I went to their church, and I became a believer,” he told Kyle. “Now I’m going to be baptised on Easter. Would you come to my baptism because you were the first one to share with me?”

Kyle asked Moe where he was, but Moe didn’t know how to spell the name of the village. So Kyle called the OM workers in Sweden to see if they could help find his friend’s location.

One of the workers at OM Sweden told Kyle about similar refugee work he was doing. “If you do come on Easter, it will be cool because we’re baptising some Syrians the same weekend,” he said.

“Is one of them named Moe?” Kyle asked.

“Yes!” the other OM worker replied.

Through God’s divine connection, Moe had met more OM workers in Sweden, and, after hearing the message again, he began walking with the Lord and sharing with his friends.

“You never know what impact what you say has,” Kyle said. “Sometimes you’re a link in the chain of their life story.”

Praise God for the new life Moe found in Christ. Pray that the other two Syrian men, Ali and Hamid, who live elsewhere in Europe, would also meet and surrender to Jesus.

*Name changed for security

Nicole James is a world traveller and writer for OM International. She’s passionate about partnering with fields to communicate the ways God is working across the globe.

“I go to the homes of the ladies, and I hear the kids singing those powerful songs. …That’s just so powerful that children are proclaiming truth,” says Amineh*, OM Near East field worker and leader of the children's music programme.

The children learn this song and others every week at a music programme centred around Arabic gospel songs, designed to reach young Syrian refugee children and their mothers. The programme provides time and space for the children to play and an opportunity for Amineh and her team to connect with their mothers.

Home visits

“Our goal is to have the children interact and have fun and for the mom and the baby to get closer to each other. But our biggest goal is to tell about Jesus, who was also a refugee [to Egypt],” Amineh explains.

Many of the women hear this message for the first time at the music group, she states; understanding how Jesus relates to them so personally touches them and keeps them coming back every week. After a woman visits the music programme twice, members from the ministry team try to visit her home and ask if she is interested in studying the Bible.

“We love hanging out with ladies in the morning, but sometimes we just talk about marriage, and we talk about our kids. We want to go deeper than that,” Amineh says. “We can get so much deeper with each other if we study the Bible together.”

“They never heard [truth from the Bible] before, so now they have. So that’s success, praise God; these women have heard.”

The DNA of a Believer

When the women do show interest in pursuing a life of Christ, the team invites them to help run different parts of the ministry, from preparing coffee to leading the puppet show. This opens many opportunities to share the gospel by helping women find their talents and giving them a sense of ownership in the programme.

Participating in the operations of the programme and leading the Bible studies also help the women understand what it looks like to follow Christ every day, whether or not they decide to take that step.

“It becomes [their] DNA,” Amineh says. When the women become believers, they know, “Ok, this is what we do, I know exactly,” she notes. “But of course, then the Holy Spirit will lead them so much more than before.”

Even though not everyone on the team has made steps to becoming a believer, “God can use anyone,” she says. One team member, who has long debated whether or not to get baptised, explained to one of the mothers how much Jesus had done for her. Upon hearing this, the mother was appalled.

“It’s one thing to hear it from a foreigner,” Amineh says. “[But] for her hear that from another lady—like, here’s a lady who’s Muslim who dares to go to church—that’s big for somebody who’s never entered a church [service].”

Some women read and study the Bible, only to decide not to follow Jesus. However, many of the women continue to come every week, even as their children grow older and they no longer have young children to bring with them. Amineh and her team faithfully pray over these ladies, that the gospel would transform their lives and communities.

“The prayer is maybe God is working, but you don’t see [it]. So when we get discouraged we always get back to [the fact that] God has called us to be faithful [and] glorify him.”

*Name changed for security

OM Communications intern Jana Eller is a student studying journalism and missions and loves to see how God is moving among the nations. She is always up for spontaneous adventures and exploring new things.

Jana: How did God call you into this ministry?

Sabirah: I have always loved to be in a place of prayer, and I get really excited about praying non-stop for ridiculous amounts of hours a day. But I realised not everybody is like that. It kind of made me realise, OK, maybe this is what God made me to do. I think people understand prayer and that it’s only through prayer that we can really change the world. But not everyone was made to actually spend the hours in the prayer room. The core of who I am has always been this. I only started defining it when I moved to the Middle East, and I was very fortunate that there was already a prayer house in my city from the day that I arrived. I could just come alongside the praying and be part of it. And slowly as our community has changed and as people have left and people have come, my responsibility has increased.

Jana: How has your ministry grown or changed since you moved to the Middle East?

Sabirah: I think I can answer that question from multiple perspectives. I think for the city, it has changed based on the people in the city. The prayer ministry in this city has kind of grown and changed as the workers have. But if we look at this country, the importance of prayer has changed and evolved. More prayer rooms have been birthed in the last couple of years, more people have been excited about prayer. Also regionally, we have a youth worker’s conference once a year, where all these workers from the region come for a training, and I have been hosting a prayer room there for the last two years. During the last one, I was really excited because I would hear about the youth workers that actually walked into the prayer room in the middle of the night and continued praying. And I was like, “Oh, that’s exciting,” because that hasn’t happened before. These youth workers have gone back and started prayer rooms in churches because of how they were encouraged by what was modelled. So, it’s kind of fun to see how more people are not just understanding prayer cognitively, they are starting to live it out.

Jana: What have been some of the challenges you face as a prayer ministry?

Sabirah: I think for somebody that loves to pray, sometimes it’s challenging to get other people as excited as I am and not be discouraged when they are not. Not everybody is called into the focus of intentional prayer ministry, so having wisdom on how to encourage and motivate people. Another challenge, I think it is the most rewarding and the most disappointing ministry at the same time. On the one hand, there’s an amazing thing about being in God’s presence, hearing His heart and just being with Him. But at the same time, it’s really frustrating because 99 per cent of the time, you never see things come to pass that you have been praying.

Jana: What keeps you encouraged?

Sabirah: I make my case of actually being allowed to get to do this. I love to be in God’s presence. I love to just sit at His feet and hear His heart. Every time I pray, I’m surprised because God gives me a really cool picture He wants me to pray or He reminds me of an amazing scripture to pray or we physically pray through a Psalm and the words become alive. I realise I am in the amazing privileged position that I get to pray these words over my people and over my city, knowing God will bless my city, even though I can’t see it.

Jana: How does your ministry fit into OM’s new focus on church planting among the unreached?

Sabirah: I think any ministry that is not birthed in prayer doesn’t necessarily last in the long run. Prayer is the key activity that prepares a people group, prepares a nation and prepares a city for the will of God. I mean we can’t physically prepare people’s hearts on our own; it’s the Holy Spirit that prepares hearts, and I don’t know why and I don’t understand how it works, but somehow God wants us to partner with Him, and He wants us to pray into the softening and preparing of the hearts and of the ground. So you know we often have a story of the sower, but I think we don’t always think of the preparation of the ground before. You know there is a season of rain, a season of ploughing the ground, a season of preparing the field. And in the same way, once the seeds are sown, you need the rain that continues to fall down on the ground and feed the seeds. And that’s prayer that prepares the ground and continues to ask God for the release of His Spirit.

Pray for God to call more people into this ministry and continue to grow the multiple prayer houses in the region. Also pray for strength for the pray-ers, so they may endure with perseverance, even when they cannot see the results of their prayers.

*Name changed for security

OM Communications intern Jana Eller is a student studying journalism and missions and loves to see how God is moving among the nations. She is always up for spontaneous adventures and exploring new things.

Amin and Nawar have found many key similarities between Latin and Arab culture, which has helped them to connect and adjust on the field. For example, one of the most important values in both cultures includes a strong focus on family and relationships.

“Everything is about relationships. The Latinos are very quick doing that. So that’s not an issue,” Amin explains. “We like to be together, we like to party to music, and food is a priority. If you have good food, that is important.”

“We connect with people very similarly. So for us, it’s not hard to connect with people and to have friends,” Nawar continues.

Learning social protocols

According to Amin, one of the biggest challenges in navigating these relationships, however, includes learning the social protocols, which vary from Latin culture. While some Arab cultures tend to appear more direct and open, this can shock those who are unfamiliar with that behaviour, he explains. Learning these protocols is key to successfully forming significant relationships with locals, he insists.

Regarding neighbourly visits, "maybe you need to learn a few things: what’s first, what's after, what's at the very end,” Amin explains.

One example he uses is offering coffee to guests. Whereas in Latin countries, this gesture may be seen as simply polite, many Arabs interpret this as a signal from the host that it is time to leave. In addition, in the Near East when the host offers anything, the guest is welcome to make a request for a different item, which also contrasts Amin and Nawar’s home cultures.

Another significant difference can be seen especially at formal functions. Arab culture largely centres on prioritising one another’s honour, the couple explains. Because of this, when attending social gatherings, people should always know who the guest of honour is.

“Whoever is the guest of honour, they know. I don’t know how they know,” Amin laughs. “So they find out you are the guest of honour today, so they make sure you have everything perfect. For us, it is everybody should have everything.”

Another example of prioritizing honour includes making introductions between genders on first meeting. “For us Latins, we are all touchy and all very friendly, no matter if you are a boy or a [girl]. Here, no,” he says. When first meeting it can seem like “the men basically ignore the ladies, then primarily the guy greets the guy and the girl greets the girl.”

After introductions have been made, often times the guests will request a tour of Amin and Nawar's apartment home. Although this took adjustment, Amin and Nawar stress the importance for them of finding balance between respecting the host culture and maintaining privacy. “Now I need to have my house very clean all the time, because [if] I have visits, …they want to check everything. Also, because they are looking if you are clean or not,” Nawar explains.

While Amin and Nawar continue adjusting to the culture, they also get to look back every once in awhile at where they started and praise God for how much they have learned. Nawar tells a story of one of these moments.

“I will never forget, I was coming back from an international trip back to the field. So, in the [airport], the attendant was trying to make a line. So suddenly he shouted, ‘Please, people, you need to learn how to make a line, one by one by one, not in a bunch.’ But it was funny, [because] he was shocked and frustrated. I was laughing to myself because you need to know the Arab culture.”

Part of Ministry

Adjusting one’s lifestyle simply remains a part of living and serving in cross-cultural ministry. Amin and Nawar continue to find the process fulfilling as God enables them to see how He transforms lives and communities.

“We need to see why the Lord is using this country,” Amin continues, “why the Lord is bringing refugees from Iraq, Syria and from Africa. And we are also here as foreigners, free to share from God."

“God gave me this passion and this love for the people here. So this is something I have seen every day that I have been here,” Nawar says with a smile. “This is how I have been developing some connections and relationships with people here that makes me feel at home.”

*Name changed for security 

OM Communications intern Jana Eller is a student studying journalism and missions and loves to see how God is moving among the nations. She is always up for spontaneous adventures and exploring new things. 

Through weekly drives to remote villages, past occasional camels and flocks of sheep, and hours spent on the floor with the families in the community-based rehabilitation programme she volunteers for, Sally has grown in her capacity to love the people.

Ten pictures arranged in a circle on one of the walls inside Sally’s apartment show the biggest catalyst for her heart change: the children.

Within the honour-shame society, the children are often hidden away because of their diagnoses: cerebral palsy, down syndrome, Duchenne’s muscle dystrophy, microcephalis, encephalopathy, lissencephaly. However, Sally and her co-worker Melody* recognise the kids’ individual personalities.

“Each of them has a different character or personality quirk about them,” Melody said. “The thing I loved so much about this last year was discovering who they were as people… That was the fun part about working with them, showing them their own value by encouraging them to come out of their shells.”

Rahman*, one of the oldest children in the programme, can write the whole Arabic alphabet and solve some math problems. “His favourite thing to ask about is… [going] to school,” Melody shared.

Said* has five younger siblings. “As soon as someone new comes, they attach themselves to you,” she explained.

Farouq* has a “cute small little voice”; Ali* loves games; Khaled* is fun to work with; and Omar* likes banging on improvised drums made of empty yogurt containers, she said.

Giving and growing

“God would use the kids a lot to bless us,” Melody stated. “We would come in and hope we were encouraging and blessing them, but they were also encouraging us.”

The ultimate goal of the project is for the children with disabilities to become contributors in the community. However, neither Sally nor Melody joined the OM Near East Field because of the programme. Sally said she had been touched by what she had seen of the project during an earlier trip and wanted to volunteer during her days of learning language and culture. Melody desired a natural way to stay connected to the community.

“From there, God just changed my heart with these kids,” Sally acknowledged.

For four months, an occupational therapist working with the project showed Sally and Melody how to do the exercises with the children. 

“We were both going through a big learning curve,” Sally remembered. “I’m very much a person that is black and white. Things needed to be on time… I needed to know what’s going on, what’s happening next, particularly with the different exercises, what the plan was.”

Life in the village, though, is anything but planned.

During the first week, Melody made some visits by herself using a borrowed car. The alarm kept going off, and, without a professional medical degree, she struggled to establish herself as an authority figure in the homes.

As the women continued to visit the families and review exercises with the children, however, they also became daughters and sisters. “For the two or three hours you’re with the family, you’re part of the family. You do the exercises, you eat with them, you play with the other children. You cry with them. They become part of who you are,” Sally said.

“I’ve become gentler and softer because of these kids. I can’t say specific things of exactly what happened… For me, it’s more moments where I see progress… Those are small things that are so encouraging with these kids,” she enthused. “Where there was nothing before, suddenly you see change.”

“It’s because of them that God has opened up opportunities for truth to be shared with these families, to pray over these kids or sing Jesus songs with them,” she added. “I’ve been challenged to love people unconditionally based on how I’ve been loved by these kids.”

Season of sadness

Six months in, one of the children passed away. A year later, two more died within a week of each other. “The one thing they don’t tell you in training is how much you will fall in love with the people you will serve,” Sally noted. “It was at that stage where I realised the depth of the pain that you experience is the depth of the love.”

When the women visited one of the children’s mothers, they prayed for her. At the funeral, Sally and Melody circulated pictures of the boy among those gathered, remembering his life and accomplishments. “We were able to both mourn with them, but at the same time connect with the kids,” Melody said. “It was a beautiful moment of sharing life with the family. That is how we share who Jesus is, sharing that life and the ups and downs, praying with them, and letting them be who they are.”

The desert blooms

When Sally recommitted her life to God six years ago, she asked God to, ‘Break my heart for what breaks Yours.’ “Because of my past, I was very strong always,” she shared. “These kids bring vulnerability into my heart and that brings softness. You begin to flower.”

“I’ve seen her soften and relax and trust that God is going to do it, but do it in His way. I think she has been surprised by how the Lord has given her such a deep love for the children,” Sally’s team leader affirmed. “The way she is around kids is beautiful. She is spontaneous, she is relaxed, she is loving them.”

“Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy.” –  Psalm 126:5-6 (NIV)

That passage of Psalms is Sally’s motto. Serving is hard work, not easily tilled ground, she said. But “I’ve grown so much, seeing God doing His work… God has shown me small, beautiful things through these kids. I’ve been taught thankfulness.”

Looking forward, Melody anticipated a more complete team by spring. “I know every new season is different,” she mused. “I’m excited to try new things out in the village and to see us reaching out to the community and being able to connect with the community… People know who we are. Let’s see how far we can go, both for the project and also for sharing, breaking down those walls. [Pray] that we’ll start seeing fruit.”

“The most beautiful thing is to see spring,” Sally said. “To see the desert in bloom.”

*Name changed for security

Nicole James is a world traveller and writer for OM International. She’s passionate about partnering with fields to communicate the ways God is working across the globe.

“It’s so discouraging when you feel in your heart that God really wants to do something, and people come in and scoff. The encouraging thing is that if it’s God’s idea, He will bring it up again,” explained Marjorie*, who joined OM in the mid-60s with her husband Clive*.

Recently, Clive and Marjorie reflected on their experiences in OM, the changes they’ve seen in the Arab world and the ways God has answered their old prayers. “Many crazy things happened. I think to me the blessing is that God does know our hearts. He knew the passion of people,” Marjorie explained. “If you did something in a silly way, or in a naive way, He saw the passion to reach the world and He honoured that and, slowly, He taught us.”

New training

Clive’s earliest adventures in MENA involved taking books into sensitive countries to distribute and sell, getting arrested and released, and being evacuated from the Near East Field on the eve of the Six-Day War in 1967. “We had very little orientation, we had very little Arabic, we didn’t have a clue,” he recounted. “But God was very gracious to very naive people.”

The current MENA Traveling Team (MTT), which started in 2015, reflects the spirit of OM’s first pioneers in MENA, “except they have more Arabic and training,” Clive explained.

In fact, MTT leader Seth* said God sparked the idea for MTT as a redemption of his own ill-fated experience on a different men’s travelling team over a decade earlier. When developing the new programme, Seth considered how to use young men to make the gospel of Jesus known and available in the most closed parts of the MENA region, while at the same time training and equipping them, not only for the task, but also for a lifetime of worshipping God.

By the end of 2016, two groups of four young men had participated in the year-long programme (and eight more participants signed up for 2017), each serving in eight different countries. Both teams completed 20 weeks of training in language, culture, Islam, Christian theology, urban and rural survival, ministry skills and cross-cultural living. Over two years, the men distributed more than 22,000 tracks (Gospels, New Testaments, DVDs and CDs) across the region.

New techniques

At one time, Clive recalled selling Arabic gospels on public newsstands in Egypt. “They sold extremely well, and this was thrilling and very encouraging,” he said. When people complained, the newsstand owners protested, explaining, “We sell more gospels than we do newspapers. They bring us a good profit!”

In order to provide mass gospel exposure, OM also commissioned printing ‘skinny Lukes,’ Marjorie remembered. Coverless and printed on extra-thin paper, the books weighed less than 10g and could be sent in a standard envelope without attracting attention. “We got phone directories in Iraq and distributed addresses to volunteers around the globe who signed up to send ‘the truth’ to ten names,” she described.

Literature distribution still happens in MENA, especially on short-term outreaches. And several Christian bookshops exist across the area, where workers regularly share stories of nationals from unreached areas buying God’s Word.

However, websites and satellite broadcasting have largely overhauled ‘broad literature sowing’ into creative access Arabic nations. Bibles can be downloaded onto mobile phones, extensive discipleship materials and full films transferred via micro SIM cards.

Social media has made it easier than ever for people outside sensitive countries to share with and disciple seekers inside. “Arabs are oral preference learners—they learn by hearing and seeing, not by reading books,” Marjorie said. “Now we have Internet chat rooms, radio channels, broadcast TV. It’s amazing how seed sowing is going widespread. We never thought that could happen. Harvest time has come.”

New partnerships

Along with new opportunities for training and methods for sharing, Marjorie also mentioned new attitudes emerging from local churches. Traditionally, in the Near East Field, there was little overlap between Christian background believers and Muslim background believers. Foreign workers often went around local churches in attempts to reach out to Muslims. “Now because of all the refugees, God’s put them in their midst and given [the local churches] the compassion to reach out,” she explained.  

OM has increased evangelistic training in churches, educating Christians about Islam and mobilising them to share with their Muslim neighbours.

“It is so encouraging to see what we prayed for and longed for and hoped for has happened. So we’re grateful to God for the years He’s kept us around,” Clive exclaimed. “There’s been pain and strain, but we can honestly say God has done exceedingly above anything we asked or thought.”

*Name changed for security

Nicole James is a world traveller and writer for OM International. She’s passionate about partnering with fields to communicate the ways God is working across the globe.

The picture they had envisioned was vastly different than what they experienced, the couple said. “When you first come out, people share stories with you about what happens [in missions], but they don’t share what happens from when you wake up to when you go to bed. You don’t get the full picture of what life is like when you’re out on the field,” Dan explained.

“Expectation catches up with reality really quickly, and then you’re like, ‘Now what?’”

Rick, a long-term OM worker in the Near East, understood Dan’s experience: “I think there can be a lot of disillusionment in the sense that people often think it’s going to be easier to make friends than it is. They hear the Arab world is the most hospitable land in the universe. … Then they come out here, and it takes so much work.”

“When you’re with your local friends, you’re always in ministry mode,” he continued. “One of my best friends in the universe is an Arab. We’re accountability partners; I tell him everything. But … he doesn’t know that I’m [a missionary].”

Faithful obedience

Some adjustments take time—learning the language, making friends with Arabs and, in Dan and Jane’s case, moving.

“Now we live in a community where more people are out in the streets and kids play in our yard. Meeting people is easier. Sharing stories with people has been easier,” Dan explained. But other restrictions, like a part-time job and a new baby, have made ministry more difficult. “It’s taken a lot of time away, which we would have had before.”

Still, there are opportunities for faithful obedience. At times, the message itself might prevent the listener from grasping truth, Dan suggested. “Often we come with our stories from the Western context. There are barriers, but you can’t see them; you can’t hear them.” In those cases, providing cultural context might help, he noted.

A year ago, Dan was having a conversation with a local friend, Ahmed*. Ahmed was viewing a YouTube video about a father watching his family drown in a flash flood, unable to do anything to save them. As Dan watched the clip, he started crying. “How can you do this without [a relationship with] God?” he asked.

Ahmed didn’t respond. “Just the blankness on his face—[he couldn’t] relate to the emotional relationship of what I was experiencing,” Dan later processed. “There are many other [situations] where you try to share and hit a wall, where you share and don’t get a response back.

“You share your testimony, you share your heart in front of people and you don’t see anything. … Maybe it keeps us humble that we don’t see results immediately sometimes. Our dependency is on God to do the work.”

Sometimes, lack of interest in spiritual truth means moving on—after pouring days, hours, weeks and months into people. “It has been tough,” Dan admitted. But he clung to “the promise that God’s Word will bear fruit, to keep on persevering regardless if we don’t see it now.”

Rick, too, encountered disappointment after he and another worker studied the Bible with a couple Arab men weekly for two years. “It was amazing. I learned so much. Doing it in Arabic, you have to double study. Not only are you studying the passage, but then you have to study how to present this well in Arabic. So I really enjoyed it,” Rick explained.

In addition, he said he valued seeing the Arab men study and learn how to lead the lessons. “But after two years of doing this, nothing changed,” he stated. The men “did not seem to be sharing the gospel, … they were definitely not overcoming things like fear … and they started to see this group of four guys as church.”

When Rick and the other worker invited a local pastor to join their study and provide teaching on church, the two Arab men and the pastor ended up arguing with each other. Suddenly, two years of studying Scripture ended.

Rick and the other worker reconciled with the Arab men after the fight, but they decided to discontinue the study. “If these guys are just interested in this comfortable, happy play of sitting in the living room, drinking tea and reading the Bible, is it worth it?” Rick wondered.

Another friend Rick was discipling stole from him, ending up in jail. “There have been a lot of disappointments,” Rick said. “It always leaves you wondering, ‘What’s the point? Is it really worth it?’ And I think it is.”

He cited Matthew 9:38, where Jesus told His disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into the Harvest (NKJV). “Jesus is the Lord of the harvest,” Rick explained. “You and I are not the lords of the harvest. We can’t produce fruit. But what we are called to is faithful obedience through times of great moves of the Spirit, and we’re called to faithful obedience when God doesn’t seem to be moving at all.”

Pray for workers in the Near East field to persevere with faithful obedience through times when they do not see fruit. Pray for breakthroughs in relationship and opportunities to share truth with the least reached.

*Name changed for security

Nicole James is a world traveller and writer for OM International. She’s passionate about partnering with fields to communicate the ways God is working across the globe.

Since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011, millions of people have fled. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported 4.8 million refugees registered in other countries, with 2.1 million Syrians registered in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, 2.7 million in Turkey, and over 29,000 in North Africa (18 Sept 2016).

But this exodus, birthed from desperation, has allowed Syrian Muslims to hear the gospel, many for the first time.

“People that hadn’t received the gospel for generation after generation…suddenly were right next to us. And the incredible change we found is that these people were so open, not only to have a visit or to receive a food pack but to actually sit down and ask questions,” explained Ethan*, a long-term OM worker and former OM Near East Field Leader.

“Syria’s civil war, in combination with the Iraqi crisis, has totally upended and impacted the countries in which we serve (Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon). The refugee crisis has put [us] in contact with many Muslims who…are asking many questions and are open for change,” stated OM Near East Field Leader Lane*. “It’s helped us to truly partner with local churches where we’ve had relationships for years…both in relief and development programmes and in providing training.”

Ministry in response to the war

Over the past five years, OM has partnered with over 40 churches in the Near East to meet needs of internally displaced people and refugees. In 2015 alone, OM’s Syrian and Iraqi relief fund distributed $3.2 million US, with over $1.8 million US going directly to aid, relief and development projects inside Syria.

Each project supported by the fund adheres to four core principles: providing local and relationally based assistance, working with local believers and building their capacity, helping people of all religious and ethnic backgrounds without condition, and maintaining a long-term view of the growth of indigenous communities of Jesus followers.

“We’re talking about providing significant interventions that meet desperate physical needs. That changes people’s lives, but then to create relationships while meeting that need has allowed OM to help people discover spiritual needs,” explained Lane.

Besides financially supporting relief projects, OM has mobilised workers to reach out to displaced Syrians in Northern Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. “[We] listen and pray with people, share the gospel… and say, ‘We’re here to love you because God loves you. God has not forgotten you,’” Ethan summarised.

Linda*, a long-term worker who has served among Syrians in the Near East and Turkey, said, “There is so much openness for Muslims to study the Bible doing the DBS (Discovery Bible Study) method. I find it amazing. Syrians’ hearts have been prepared and opened by God for such a time as this,” she emphasised.

Changed lives in the midst of the war

“Through the war, people came [to the Near East] and had the chance to hear about Jesus. My uncle came here; he heard about Jesus and now he’s back in Syria. This happened to lots of people—they’ve had opportunities to hear they wouldn’t have had otherwise,” stated Freddy*, a Syrian MBB partnering with OM in church planting in the Near East.

Thirty years ago, OM workers in the Near East had not heard of Syrian MBBs, Ethan said. Now, in the neighbourhood surrounding one major city, he estimated there are nearly 600 small group Bible studies among Muslims, mostly Syrian.

“When we lived in Syria, we found that people were very nice…but weren’t spiritually interested at all,” he described. “Then Syria’s civil war happened, and we found many people incredibly open…to find out about Jesus, [and] why these Christians or Muslim-background believers are reaching out to them in love with no strings attached. What we’re discovering now is this massive interest. If you look at a history of what’s happened in the Church since the coming of Islam, there has not been a movement to this degree—where we’re talking of thousands and thousands—in this part of the world for 1,000 years,” he continued. “To watch what God’s doing now is truly remarkable.”

Vision shift and long-term impact

The crisis in Syria “has given the Church much greater experience working with Muslims and more vision. Churches are coming to us, asking to be equipped,” Lane stated. “A more equipped church means more people…bringing the gospel to more places.”

Long-term worker Renee* spent three years in Syria before the war. Now, she serves alongside Ibrahim and Freddy. “In Syria, we were focusing on just seeing one person be vaguely open, seeing one person come to faith but, with what’s happened, the vision’s much broader. Our expectations for what God’s doing have changed,” she explained. Her focus has expanded from “an individual [to] working through an MBB to a community to mobilising them to be co-workers [in ministry].”

Ibrahim hopes to see many more Syrians come to faith so that, when the war ends and they return to Syria, they can “testify about Jesus to their family members, to their cities, to their towns.”

*Name changed

Nicole James is a journalist, ESL teacher and adventurer. As a writer for OM Middle East North Africa, she’s passionate about publishing the stories of God’s works among the nations, telling people about the wonderful things He is doing in the world.

Both Christian and Muslim children attend the school, which is sponsored by a local church. Most of these students had to flee with their families because of ongoing conflicts in the Near East (Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon). Although the school charges a nominal fee to cover its costs, many parents cannot pay part or all of the tuition. OM committed to covering the kindergarten’s rent for one year, allowing the children to continue their education and receive biblical input.

Management

Karen* began managing the school three years ago after 11 years teaching in another kindergarten. “In the beginning, it was too much work,” she admitted. “It was so difficult for me because I was a teacher. I didn’t know anything about managing.”

The pastor of the local church sponsoring the kindergarten encouraged her to pray. “When I was praying, I would always say, ‘God, please, let me work for you, what you want me to do,’” Karen recalled. “I was listening and God told me, ‘I want you to work [here]. This is my work. I want you to do it.’”

Karen’s workload did not decrease—in fact, she took on accounting in addition to her other responsibilities to cut costs—but she recognised her work as worship. “It’s still a lot of work, but I’m happy because I know with Whom I’m working,” she stated.

One morning, after receiving a steady stream of parents paying what tuition they could for the upcoming period, Karen paused for a short coffee break. “This morning, I was so tired,” she said, “but I am so happy because when the parents come to pay the fees, all of them say the same thing. All of them say that our child is changed. Our child is happy and wants to come [to school]. … God is really working.”

Since the children come from mixed religious backgrounds, “we teach them what is in the Bible, but they don’t know it’s from the Bible,” Karen explained. “We teach them Christian songs, we talk about God, and it makes a difference in their families.”

Parents tell Karen that the lessons learnt at school extend into their homes. “This is good for the parents because some of them don’t know how to act, how to behave with their children,” Karen said. Profanity and physical abuse are widespread in homes, she shared. “In this country, most of the families don’t use ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry,’” she added.

At the kindergarten, students learn manners, polite speech and how not to retaliate physically when they are upset. Parents have told Karen, “Our child is changed at home. We see that they listen now.”

Murals

Last year a short-term team from New Zealand visited the school for two days, introducing new crafts, stories, songs and games.

“We wanted to teach them about God and support the church in what they’re doing,” stated team leader Mark.

On the first day, he shared the biblical story of seven-day creation, complete with colourful pictures and bright numbers. The children reviewed the vocabulary they knew in English and practiced numbers corresponding to the days of creation.

Susannah, another member of the team, teaches two- to five-year-olds at home. “There are quite a few similarities across education,” she noticed. However, improvising in the school’s small classrooms and shopping for craft supplies at local stores made her “a lot more grateful for what we have back home. You take it for granted: space, resources.”

Still, “it’s amazing to be here,” she said. “It’s so easy to build relationships. … At this age, you just give them a smile, and they’re really open to it.”

After the first day with the New Zealand team at school, “the kids were flying, they were so happy, and the parents were happy, too,” Karen described. The children told their parents, “We had guests today. We love them.”

During the week, the short-term team also painted two vibrant, original murals on the outside walls separating the school property from the street, replacing the former, faded artwork. Their service saved Karen not only money but also stress.

“I was about to go to a conference, and my mind was busy with who will paint, how much will I pay, who will give me the design, everything!” she exclaimed. But when the OM worker coordinating the team’s visit told Karen that they could also paint the walls, she trusted them implicitly.

Hiring outside painters can be tricky, Karen explained. Some charge high prices for simple designs and add costs for tiny changes. “When the team came, I went to the conference, and I was so happy. God bless them.”

Pray for the kindergarten to receive sufficient funding to continue its ministry. Pray for the staff, the building, the children and the parents. Visit http://www.om.org/en/give to donate to OM’s Syrian and Iraqi relief fund.

*Name changed

Nicole James is an international writer for OM, passionate about publishing stories of God’s works among the nations and telling people about the wonderful things He is doing around the world.

Zaid* – Syrian man who lost a leg in an explosion while fulfilling compulsory military service, stuck in Syria because the government took his identification papers

Serena* – former devout Muslim woman married to Zaid’s brother, believed in Jesus after three dreams

Um and Abu Zaid* – couple who came to faith as refugees in Near East, travelled back to Syria to care for son

Ellie* - OM worker in the Near East Field who discipled the family during their faith journey

_____

Their neatly wrapped headscarves stood out, identifying the Muslims mingling among the Arab Christians and expats gathered for Sunday service at a local church in the Near East. It was an unusual place for Ellie, an experienced worker living in the region, to meet Muslim seekers, but this family was unique.

Um Zaid, Abu Zaid and their family “were very interested in our faith, and somehow they got such a hunger that they started coming to church,” she described. Several times police questioned the family, even entering the church and taking them out. “But they were very stubborn, so they kept going back,” Ellie said.

After witnessing the family’s persistent desire to know more about Jesus, Ellie began visiting them at their home. She shared about Jesus with the extended family and gave an audio Bible to Um Zaid, who couldn’t read.

Every time she visited, Um and Abu Zaid wanted to know more about Jesus--“they were searching and seeking for truth”--but they weren’t ready to abandon their own religious tradition, Ellie noted. “It was like they were sitting in two chairs. They would believe in Islam, but they would also believe in Jesus, so they didn’t really make a choice.”

Carrying the cross back to Syria

In the midst of learning about Jesus, Um and Abu Zaid worried relentlessly about their eldest son, Zaid, who had remained behind in Syria, caught up in the military conflict. He hadn’t wanted to be part of the war, but after his uncle, Um Zaid’s brother, was beheaded for refusing to fight in the army, Zaid joined the military to preserve his life.

Several months after Ellie met the Syrian family, they learned that Zaid had sustained substantial injuries. “He was in a massive explosion, which caused him to lose one of his legs. The other leg was screwed up…screws and plates and everything. Also, his intestines were outside of his body, so he could have died,” Ellie shared.

The medical facility there didn’t provide proper treatment or food, so Um and Abu Zaid began making plans to go back to Syria to take care of Zaid.

“I remember everyone was telling them, ‘Don’t go back to Syria. You’re never going to be able to come back to [the Near East] again because you’re on refugee status here,’” Ellie recounted.

But Um Zaid’s heart as a mother trumped the community’s caution. Loaded with food, clothes and blankets, Um and Abu Zaid left.

While the couple was out of the country, Ellie and other Christians continued to pray, not knowing where they were or what had happened in Syria.

Months later, “when they actually came back, their skin was burnt from the sun. Abu Zaid almost died because he had a heart attack on the road. It was just crazy,” Ellie explained. “They were travelling from one border to another by foot in the excruciating heat, sleeping in the open air, snakes, scorpions—it sounds like a movie, but it’s true.”

Um Zaid told Ellie what had happened in Syria. “We had to leave Zaid there, and we don’t know if he’s going to make it,” she confided. “When we were there, I had a cross with me. I went to my son, and I said, ‘Listen, you need to believe in Jesus. Jesus is going to heal you.’”

Then she gave Zaid the cross.

“I couldn’t believe it—a Muslim woman doing this!” Ellie exclaimed.

Serena’s three dreams

With the family back in the Near East, Ellie went to her home country for a season. “I kept praying for them, and I kept sharing about this family for a long time,” she remembered. When Ellie returned to the field, she caught up with the family.

Serena, married to Zaid’s brother, shared, “I was a very, very devoted Muslim. I was completely against any Christians, and I hated Christians. I didn’t want to see them, I didn’t want anything to do with them,” she admitted.

Having arrived in the Near East, however, she saw how the war had torn her family apart. What is this? Is this our religion? she wondered. For four months, Serena studied the Qu’ran. Then, since she was attending church with her family, she also procured a New Testament, the Injil.

“For months after studying the Qu’ran, she got so confused because she saw so many contradictions…so she started studying the Injil,” Ellie said. “She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sleep. She was so depressed, she didn’t know what to do.”

“God, I want you to show me who you are!” Serena prayed. Then she had three dreams.

First, Serena dreamt that she and her young son were standing, holding hands, when Jesus came to them, took their hands and said, “I am the one you’ve been searching for.” In that dream, Serena began to feel incredible peace.

The next night, Serena dreamt that she was standing in a large field, wearing a white dress, surrounded by thousands of sheep. She addressed the multitude of sheep, saying, “Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord.” All the sheep began repeating her words: “Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord.”

After the second dream, Serena asked the pastor what it meant. He told her she would become an evangelist for masses of people, who would then believe in Jesus.

Finally, Serena dreamt of Jesus on the cross. “She sees the wounds, she sees the blood, she sees the love in His eyes, and then she woke up from the dream, and she’s like, ‘Yes Lord, I believe You are the Lord,’” Ellie recounted what Serena had told her.

Prior to Serena’s conversion, “she had always been in the conversations, but she didn’t say a lot,” Ellie remembered. Later, Ellie couldn’t believe the new things Serena expressed: “‘I was a slave, but now I am a child of God.’ And she would be like, ‘[in Islam] everything is the law, the law, the law. You have to do this, and this is haram (shameful), and this is haram, etc. But now I am free—it’s love.’”

Family of faith

When Serena told Ellie about her decision to follow Jesus, she also explained that the whole family had come to faith—“Um Zaid, Abu Zaid, Serena and her husband and the other brothers. One is leading worship in the church now,” Ellie said. “It’s so beautiful, but they’re like babies in their faith.”

Although she was out of country when the family decided to follow Jesus, Ellie subsequently stepped in to “make sure that the foundation is really solid going from Genesis, throughout the Old Testament until we arrive at Jesus. I feel my role is more discipleship and also encouraging them to share, encouraging them to reach out to others because they want to, but they don’t know how and they’re afraid,” she said.

In order to help the family grow in their knowledge of God and Scripture, Ellie began weekly Discovery Bible Studies (DBS) with the family, asking them to share the stories they learn with others.

“Serena feels so afraid to share, and she’s also not sure how to share,” Ellie said. “I told her, ‘It’s OK. God will show you, step by step. Just take the small step of obedience.’”

Meanwhile, Um Zaid reported that Zaid, still in Syria, had also become a believer. God had miraculously healed him and also provided a prosthesis for the leg he lost in the explosion. He learned to walk again and married a girl he had known since before the war started.

“I saw a little video clip of him dancing with his bride. It was so beautiful,” Ellie said. “They are very happy now, and he actually got a job…. It’s like a new life for him.

“God has the power to use terrible things…to reveal truth and [to stir] up hunger in their hearts, drawing them to Himself as well as revealing Himself through supernatural stuff like the dreams they received,” she explained.

There are still a few of the wider family members who haven’t come to faith, but those following Jesus continue to pray that God would also show them the truth.

Pray that the believers in the family would grow deeper in their faith. Ellie also wanted to invite one or two other Syrian believers to join the DBS group: “That’s our prayer for now, that it will really develop more and more into a house church.”

*Name changed

Nicole James is an international writer for OM, passionate about publishing stories of God’s work among the nations and telling people about the wonderful things He is doing around the world.

Then, it’s onto Arabic study—a few hours at home or in a local language school. Possible visits in the afternoon allow Alina to interact with local friends and provide opportunities to share stories or tidbits of truth.

After dinner, an unmarried 30-something neighbour might unexpectedly drop in, seeking space from the small home she shares with brother, sister-in-law, mother and grandmother. “She’ll tell us about her secret habibi (boyfriend). And we try to think as a household how to be with her in the disappointments of life and how to bring opportunities into that to share hope,” Alina explained.

From sunup to sundown, “you’re trying to throw out 'seeds' all the time, and you don’t know what they’re landing on,” she said, referencing the parable of the sower in Matthew 13.

Workers might base their effectiveness on their own awareness and intentionality, but it’s important to remember “there are so many dimensions of how God uses us in the community,” Alina stressed. “You don’t know what things people notice about you actually that are distinctive.”

Simply standing out is not enough to create vibrant communities of Jesus followers among the least reached, however. “We’re not going to see churches unless people are engaging with God’s Word,” stated Sophia*, another long-term worker.

Therefore, she, Alina and others serving in the Near East field (Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq) prize “putting God’s Word in people’s hands and showing them they can read it, and they can understand it and they can share it.”

And while there’s no one-size-fits-all method for sharing the gospel message, from nearly day one of field training, workers learn to prepare and share Bible stories in a variety of situations.

Listen, don’t judge

Sophia, who teaches English to local people, has used language practice to introduce biblical narratives. The teachers at her language centre, all like-minded believers, determine as a team which activities to implement in their English classes. Sometimes, the staff capitalise on a cultural connection, like studying the passage on Jesus’ resurrection during Easter. Another time, they introduced a new comprehension skill to the students: listening without judging.

During one of these English conversation groups, Sophia asked her students, “Can you listen to something you disagree with?”

She modelled the skill by first reading a section of the Qu’ran, showing students that “we can learn and engage from their text without arguing.”

The next week, they read from the Injil (New Testament). In the last few months, Sophia presented the stories of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son and the account of Jesus declaring all foods clean. The last story “was quite controversial,” she admitted, citing Islam’s strict ban on certain foods.

In addition to reading stories, Sophia has led conversation groups about prayer and fasting. “It’s a good opportunity for us to learn about Muslim practices, and for Muslims to learn about Christian practices,” she said. “A lot of people have said, ‘I didn’t know Christians prayed or what that looked like.’”

Many of Sophia’s Muslim students have never talked to a Christian or heard what Christians believe, let alone read anything from the Bible. At the end of class, Sophia often encourages her students to tell their families what they’ve discussed.

One girl, whose father does the daily call to prayer at a nearby mosque, “loved the story of Jesus declaring all foods clean,” Sophia recalled. “She was going to go home and share it with her family.”

Language lessons

After long-term worker Lisa* had a baby, she was looking for a language tutor to teach her at home since her new-born prevented her from continuing formal classes at a language centre. One day, Lisa happened to meet a young girl, Samaher*, at a neighbour’s home. “My Arabic isn’t great yet, but we can do conversation,” Lisa said.

“I’m looking for a tutor just once a week,” she told Samaher.

“I’ve tutored some people,” Samaher replied, naming a few other foreigners (whom Lisa knew).

Soon after, Samaher came to Lisa’s house to discuss the format of lessons.

“Do you mind reading some stories with me from the Injil?” Lisa asked.

“That’s fine, I used to do it with others,” Samaher replied.

As the lessons continued, conversations stemmed from the stories the women read. “We’ve spoken about heaven and hell and sin and where we agree and disagree,” Lisa described. “We’ve grown a friendship over time.”

During a particular lesson, Lisa left the living room to make tea. When she returned with the tray of drinks, she saw Samaher holding the English-Arabic New Testament she had left on the table. As soon as Samaher noticed Lisa, she put down the Bible.

“It’s ok, you can look,” Lisa encouraged.

Later, Lisa left the room again to care for her baby. Again, when she re-entered the room, she saw Samaher reading the Bible.

Then, the same thing happened a third time.

“What are you reading? Do you want to talk about it?” Lisa asked.

“It’s good for language, the English-Arabic [translation],” Samaher said.

“If you like it, you can take it with you,” Lisa offered.

The next time the women met, they did discuss the story.

At an OM gathering, Lisa told Renee*, who had previously studied with Samaher, about their lessons. “What, she’s reading the Bible?” Renee asked.

According to Renee, Samaher had made a decision to follow Jesus, but her parents found out and forced her to speak with a sheikh, the local Islamic leader. Because Samaher’s father worried about the foreigners’ influence on his daughter, she had only taught Arabic in her parents’ home.

Lisa’s baby, however, provided the chance for Samaher to get out of her house and have spiritual conversations in Lisa’s living room. Eventually, however, Samaher found a scholarship to study at university, and Lisa re-enrolled in formal language school. 

Recently, “I bumped into her on the street, and she said she’s busy now because she has to study, but she’d love to hang out. I’m going to be intentional about continuing the friendship,” Lisa affirmed.

Just keep sharing

Alina seeks to share stories on every visit, regardless of whether women have expressed spiritual interest. She regularly visits two Syrian sisters, who live next door to each other, with another Arabic-speaking believer. The two women, along with their three teenage daughters, welcome them.

“We don’t know what they think, whether they’re happy for the visit and just tolerate the story. At the moment we see it as an opportunity to keep visiting and sharing,” Alina explained. “Each time we go we share a story and we ask questions, trying to do a very simple, informal way of doing a DBS (Discovery Bible Study).”

Alina has also seen relationship grow with another Syrian friend, who was approved to travel as a refugee to Alina’s home country.

“Each time I’ve visited her, there’s just been a greater level of trust for what she’s trusted with me. Sharing [spiritual] things hasn’t been easy with her, but after I had gotten to know her a little bit, I found out her father is still in Aleppo. Late last year when the siege was particularly intense and bombing was intensifying, he got really sick and desperately needed to see a doctor, but he couldn’t get any help,” Alina recalled. “There were a lot of opportunities to pray with her and be with her in that situation.”

Ultimately, Alina, Sophia, Lisa and others pray, prepare and share—and leave the rest to the Lord. “It’s not our job to make fruit happen; it’s our job to continue to be faithful in the place [God’s] put us in,” Alina said. “We continue to pray that God will bring fruit.”

*Name changed

Nicole James is an international writer for OM, passionate about publishing stories of God’s work among the nations and telling people about the wonderful things He is doing around the world.

“A lot of refugees, in the depths of despair—they’re very downcast. They have a lot of negative comments. You talk to the Sudanese refugees, and they are so just upbeat,” she said. “They’re the sweetest, most optimistic people.”

However, Sudanese refugees can experience high levels of racism from Arabs in the Near East, long-term OM worker Marie* stated.

Though the Syrian conflict has become synonymous with the refugee crisis in the Middle East, the Levant’s refugee population is diverse. Lebanon and Jordan, which house more than one million and 600,000 registered Syrian refugees, respectively, also host significant numbers of other asylum seekers.

According to the April 2017 UNHCR Operational Update for Jordan, “A total of 733,210 people of concern were registered with UNHCR in Jordan as of March 2017, including 657,621 Syrians, 62,445 Iraqis and 13,144 others including, 7,441 Yemenis, 3,466 Sudanese, and 787 Somalis.”

In Lebanon, the UNHCR registered 20,725 refugees from countries other than Syria by the end of 2015, including Iraqis (84 per cent), Sudanese (11 per cent), Ethiopians (1.6 per cent) and Somalis, Egyptians and South Sudanese (3.5 per cent total).

OM workers in the Near East (field consisting of Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Syria) have found opportunities to share hope and truth with displaced persons from least-reached nations, a positive result of the conflict and crises tearing across the Middle East and Africa.

Sudanese

Bringing food and encouragement, Elaine spent most of her time visiting Sudanese refugees, who lived “in apartments smaller than 600 [square] feet…typically [occupied by] five to 10 people. There was mould everywhere.” Even in summer, their accommodations were “pretty damp and dark,” she said. “Most of the places didn’t have windows, and they were just concrete.”

The Sudanese refugees living in the Near East are not allowed to work and do not receive financial help from relief organisations, Elaine stressed. “The children are starving [because] they don’t have enough money to buy a loaf of bread.”

Marie, too, has reached out to the Sudanese community. For over a year, she has been part of a group visiting a particular Sudanese family every week. Often a local Arabic speaker joins them on the visits. “Normally, we do the [Bible] study together. We’ll read a story and discuss it,” Marie shared.

In addition to reading the Bible, Marie and the other believers also wanted the family to pray. Normally, one of the local church members led prayer with the family. “He really prays beautifully, it’s kind of like poetry when he prays,” Marie described. However, the lofty language was not reproducible for the family just learning how to talk to God.

One day, Marie decided she would pray with the family. “Arabic is not my heart language, so praying is not eloquent when I pray in Arabic,” she explained. “I prayed a simple prayer in Arabic, and I think the Sudanese family from that day on [understood] you don’t have to pray eloquent prayers for God to hear and for it to matter. That was a way God used my weakness to help someone in their journey.”

Several weeks after Marie’s prayer, the wife prayed for the first time. “It was really beautiful,” Marie enthused.

The Sudanese family are Muslim. “Certainly, they welcome us into their home and ask to read [Bible] stories.”

Once, Marie and the others shared the story of how Jesus is the light of the world. “If you have a candle, you don’t put it under the bed or under the table or under a cover, you put it on a table,” Marie stated. “I hope they’ll take that as a challenge to share what they’ve been learning with their community.”

Somalis

In addition to visiting the Sudanese family, Marie has also had opportunity to read the Bible with a Somali family. “Somalia is one of the most persecuted places on earth for believers. It’s really cool to be in [the Near East] where all these people are escaping terrible situations and yet hearing the gospel for the first time,” she shared.

Marie’s group focuses on reading Bible stories with whole family groups “so people have community,” she said.

Although many workers tell paraphrased Bible stories on visits as a way of introducing Muslims to spiritual truth, “I really like reading stories with people because I think it’s more accurate to what God’s Word is,” Marie explained. As a next step, “we’ve been trying to help people to memorise stories so they can tell them to people in their [ethnic] communities. For most of them, it’s the first time they’ve ever heard some of these stories.”

According to Marie, it’s often difficult to see spiritual results in her host country in the Near East, but she believes God is using the refugee situation for good. “Amongst all the refugees coming to [the Near East], and the increased pressure here, economically and politically, I think God’s at work. You can pray for groups we have, that people would deepen in their knowledge of who Jesus is, deepen in faith and share with others around them.”

Syrians

Many Syrian refugees, who rely on aid to meet physical needs, also have acute psychological needs: “grief or trauma or struggles with their children,” long-term worker Kathy* has found.

In 2017, Kathy joined two local volunteers to start a support group for 12 Syrian women. The women faced traumatic experiences in Syria and en route to their current environment, but in the support group, they’ve highlighted abusive marriages and absent social support systems, Kathy noted. “They’re talking about family pain; they’re not talking about the risk their houses will be bombed.

“We’re hoping [for the group] to be an option for them to share stories and build trust with each other, but also that there will be opportunities to invite them into DBS [Discovery Bible Study],” she said. “We want to care for them in their vulnerability, maybe through our own personal testimonies. We really want to offer a possibility to read and share what Scripture has to [offer] us.”

The church-sponsored aid and, subsequently, the support group give Syrian women opportunity to interact with believers. “This is about trying to build up trust and open doors into a community that’s very unreached,” Kathy emphasised. The women, if not for “this situation of extreme need, would never have been permitted by their community to come onto church premises…. Many of them in their life in Syria would never have met a believer before.”

Practically, the distribution programme provides opportunity for women in need to come onto the property. “Personally, I see it as more strategic—the doors it gives us into their homes to visit them. You meet one person, and you visit them, and you meet their friends. There is this whole network of women, doors open that would not have been open. Many of them are so happy to be prayed for. Some of them are happy to listen to stories; some aren’t,” Kathy said.

Pray that OM workers in the Near East will continue to find opportunities to build relationship with refugees from least-reached nations. Pray that these people would come to know Jesus and spread their knowledge of God’s Word throughout their communities.

*Name changed 

Nicole James is an international writer for OM, passionate about publishing stories of God’s work among the nations and telling people about the wonderful things He is doing around the world.

**Statistics from UNHCR (http://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/UNHCR%20Jordan%20Operational%20Update%20-%20April%202017.pdf accessed 6.2.2017) (http://reporting.unhcr.org/node/15981 accessed 6.2.2017)

“I ended up having five Muslims coming, local friends, and then, I also thought I can invite Christian friends,” Koheun explained.

Although she lives in a city with upwards of 80,000 people, “it’s actually a very small community,” she described. Despite the eight women’s different backgrounds, within two minutes of conversation at Koheun’s house, they discovered mutual acquaintances.

“They got very quickly connected,” Koheun remembered. Then her Arab Christian friends, eager to share spiritual truth, turned the topic from small talk to what they believed. “There was some kind of opposition, and it was very interesting conversation,” Koheun said.

After lunch, the Muslim women left, but Koheun’s Christian friends stayed for a short debrief.

“How did you feel the conversation went?” Koheun asked.

“We were very encouraged. We would like to share more…We want to know how to engage our Muslim neighbours and nominal-Christian-background friends,” they responded.

Koheun prayed with her friends and talked about studying more together. They were “very interested in learning and having more training,” she said. When they left, Koheun considered the resources she had accessed through OM, especially the Discovery Bible Study (DBS) training that OM workers had facilitated at a conference for Arab partners the year before.

A low-barrier method of Bible study, DBS invites participants to read (or listen to) a Bible text, retell the story in their own words and answer three straightforward questions: What did you learn about God? What did you learn about people? What do you need to do to obey this text?

DBS also introduces non-believers to prayer by transitioning them from simply talking about life’s challenges and blessings to sharing those directly with God.

“How can I implement this resource in my local church?” Koheun wondered.

Simple resource spreads wide

Koheun first floated her idea to the OM Near East field leader. Then, with his support, she visited her pastor. They chatted about various aspects of ministry, and then the pastor brought up the need for more training: “We want to have more resources in order to train our local believers.”

“I have some ideas,” Koheun said, listing a few different options.

“DBS sounds interesting,” he responded.

With the pastor’s approval, Koheun set a date and began coordinating the training. Counting her close Christian friends and a few people from the church, Koheun estimated 15 Arab believers would attend.

As the date grew closer, word of the training spread. Another OM worker connected Koheun to Arab friends doing Bible studies in her city; a partner NGO sent out an email advertising the training to the local pastors it supported. “I got reports—40 people coming, 50 people coming, 60 people coming, 70 people will come!” Koheun remembered.

However, knowing the culture, she tempered her enthusiasm. “Many people show interest, but not many people will come. In the end, God will bring the right people,” she told herself.

On the morning of the half-day DBS training, scheduled from 9:30 to 15:30, Koheun and a few other volunteers arrived at the church before 9:00. Soon, other people arrived. “People kept coming and coming. We didn’t even open the church door [yet], but people were waiting outside,” she remembered.

In the end, 80 people attended the training Koheun thought would reach 10 or 15 Arab believers. “I was very encouraged,” Koheun said. After the event, she heard from believers who had changed the format of Bible studies they were already leading from traditional teaching to the learner-friendly DBS approach.

Months after the event, one Sunday evening at church, two young Arab men approached Koheun. Unsure of what they wanted, she was surprised when they thanked her for the DBS training. They were still using what they had learnt.

*Name changed

Nicole James is an international writer for OM, passionate about publishing stories of God’s work among the nations and telling people about the wonderful things He is doing around the world.

Although there’s no clear conclusion to the conflicts raking the region, and food distributions continue to be a lifeline for refugees and internally displaced people in the Near East, John and Nancy decided to start re-arranging their ministry priorities after attending a church planting training last fall.

“For me, it’s now a turning point,” John stated. “We [want to] implement what is actually on our hearts: to focus more on church planting.”

The needs of the surrounding communities will not disappear soon, and John and Nancy want to continue extending the love of Jesus to people from all backgrounds. However, they hope to focus less on what they give materially, through on-the-ground partnerships and OM, and more on “how far we get in a conversation [about God].”

Ben*, who completes John and Nancy’s three-person team, said the trio usually tries to visit around ten families a week. Sometimes they are church connections; others are contacts from distributions or “friends of friends of friends, way in the corners of [the city], living in half-finished buildings,” he described.

However, between trainings and project responsibilities, the team has struggled to establish routine church planting practices. Sometimes it takes a month to visit a family twice, Ben admitted. Often people move and contacts are lost.

With confusion trumping consistency, relationship breakthroughs are rare, “but there is everyday life, and God answers also in small matters,” John stated.

“When we think of encouragement, we think always of big things, but that He keeps us here and safe and also that when you wake up in the morning that you can be joyful, I think that’s a great encouragement,” he added.

Encouraging encounters

One morning, John and Nancy were praying for their neighbours at their kitchen table. “They are very friendly in the street,” John explained, but “the doors [to their homes] do not open easily.”

“Almost not at all,” Nancy interjected.

“Lord, bring people to us,” John prayed. Then the phone rang.

“Normally I wouldn’t take it, but somehow I felt I had to answer,” John explained. The caller was a man the couple had gotten to know in the past, but they hadn’t been able to arrange subsequent get-togethers.

On the phone, the man invited John and Nancy to a picnic with his family. “Thank you, Lord,” John thought. “We just need to pray and sometimes You answer that quickly.”

After the picnic, the family told John and Nancy they wanted to have more contact. By building the relationship, “I feel it’s easier to find an entrance for a [spiritual] conversation,” John stated. “I feel encouraged to share.”

*

Another time, when John and Nancy were flying back into their host country, they talked to the man sitting in their row. Shivan*, they learnt, was an agriculturalist, so they told him about a recent training they had taken on different farming methods.

“We also shared about God. We were talking the whole flight,” Nancy recalled.

When the plane landed, they exchanged contact information.

The first time Shivan visited John and Nancy with his two sons, he asked the couple for jobs. Although John and Nancy could not provide employment, the men enjoyed a meal at their home and listened to John share his testimony of faith.

Then they invited John and Nancy to visit their farm over a weekend.

That encounter provided little opportunity for meaningful conversation, but it further established the relationship between the families. Later, John and Nancy learnt that Shivan planned to travel to Europe for medical treatment. Before he left, he wanted to meet the couple again.

When they got together at a nearby restaurant, Shivan said, “I was so happy that you could take time so we could meet. I feel relaxed with you.”

During the meal, John explained who Jesus is: that He died on the cross and rose again to forgive sins. Shivan listened.

Before they left the restaurant, John told Shivan he would pray for his medical needs.

“I believe that I can be healed,” Shivan affirmed.

After Shivan returned from Europe months later, he was still very ill and announced to John and Nancy, “I want to be buried as a Christian, not as a Muslim.”

“There is more to that [decision],” John stressed. He invited Shivan to watch the Jesus film.

“Shivan was moved by it, and at the end of the film, he prayed along with the evangelist,” Nancy said. “Still, we want to be sure that this was a real confession and not a ‘deal’ to be healed. We want to see him become a new creation in Christ and to go alongside him in studying the Bible. Hopefully, he will bring some friends along.”

*

While walking around the mall on an afternoon, Ben noticed a local man intently looking at him.

“Hello! Where are you from?” Alan* greeted him.

After a few minutes of introductions, Alan invited Ben to have lunch at his house. “Oh, I’m meeting some friends. Maybe next week,” Ben said.

A week later, Ben did visit Alan, whose wife had prepared a large meal for the single guest. After a few minutes, Alan’s wife took off her headscarf and joined the men to eat, both abnormal actions for the culture.

“I don’t really like Islam,” Alan began. “When my wife goes on the street, and she’s not wearing hijab [headscarf], everybody looks at her. Why do they look at her? I’m an atheist; I don’t really believe.”

“OK,” Ben answered, unsure of where the conversation was headed.

“What do you do?” Alan asked.

“I work with the church here.”

“You’re a Christian? I’d like to come to church sometime.”

The conversation continued. Ben told Alan he’d studied theology, and Alan asked him questions from the Qu’ran. “I never heard a Muslim ask me questions about their own religion,” Ben noted.

A week later, Ben was busy with a short-term team when Alan called to ask about church again. He couldn’t take Alan to a service that day, but told him about an evening conference the church was hosting.

In fact, Alan showed up at the conference, and, because Ben was managing the children’s programme, he went inside by himself. Two hours later, he came outside carrying a Bible.

“I keep asking you for a Bible, but it’s OK, I bought my own. Look at this!” he told Ben, holding up a New Testament in his language. “Is this the real Bible? I heard there are many versions. Is this good?” he asked.

“Yes, this is good,” Ben assured him.

“He was so happy,” Ben remembered. Immediately, Alan wanted to know when Ben could meet to read the Bible with him.

“I was like, ‘Three weeks?’” Ben remembered, amused by Alan’s unusual persistence. “I’m super busy. This is how it is in this country—there are so many other things going on. You don’t even have time to meet people at the moment.”

Pray that John, Nancy and Ben would continue to be intentional in sharing the gospel with people in their community and that they would find time to build relationships. Pray that God leads the team to people whom He has prepared and who have a desire to know Him. Pray for more people, especially administrators and evangelists, to join the team.

*Name changed 

Nicole James is an international writer for OM, passionate about publishing stories of God’s work among the nations and telling people about the wonderful things He is doing around the world.

Home as a ministry

In recent months, however, she and her husband have begun a new ministry, taking three teenagers into their home. These include a Syrian boy and girl, both in the host country to attend school, and a Palestinian orphan, coming into Amala's home after several years on the streets.

“Having these three additional people, who are [from] difficult backgrounds, took sometimes quite a bit of energy, to be honest,” Amala said.

Each child brings a story of hardship. Moreover, their diverse backgrounds bring into sharp contrast the cultural differences on a daily basis, according to Amala. This caused quite an adjustment period for Amala and her family, as well as for the teenagers. Coming from their difficult pasts, “to them…what’s mine is yours, and of course you can lie to defend yourself. This is a lifestyle, and so to take somebody in, it’s 24/7,” Amala said. “This can sometimes be a bit challenging.”

However, despite the difficulties, Amala and her husband trust and rely on God so that they can love the teens. And they've seen that God's Word never returns empty. The Palestinian teenager has turned to Christ during his time in Amala’s home.

“It’s a process, but God is working in his life. In these months, I think we’ve seen him come a long way, and this is beautiful,” Amala said. “And there are answers to prayer, God does answer prayers. And then when you see an answer to prayer it’s really beautiful.”

The others continue to learn more about Jesus Christ and what it looks like to follow him. These victories, along with the support of their local church, encourage and strengthen her to pursue God’s calling on her life and her home.

She continues to see the Lord’s faithfulness in her home and in her current ministries and asks for prayer, that God would continue to provide salvation, healing and justice among the teenagers in her own home, as well as the women in prisons and the Syrian refugee communities.

*Name changed

OM communications intern Jana Eller is a student studying journalism and missions and loves to see how God is moving among the nations. She is always up for spontaneous adventures and exploring new things.

In response to this event, the father “started a Bible study. He changed his WhatsApp picture and Facebook profile picture to something related to Jesus Christ, telling all his family members [about Jesus]." His wife, within a week, said, "Oh yeah, we’ve started to call him the follower of Jesus,” explained Azzam*, administrator of OM Near East Field's church planting school.

The small group of Christian students from North Africa had overcome the cultural and religious divide between Christians and Muslims. This divide can make ministry in the region difficult, and ministry leaders often need extensive training to overcome the differences in a constructive way.

“When you jump from a Christian culture to a Muslim culture, there’s a lot that you can learn,” Azzam* said.

As OM focuses on church planting among the least-reached people groups around the world, they continue to prepare Arab missionaries to go into the mission field through the church planting school in OM’s Near East Field.

“We have a region that has the vision to serve Christ, to give their lives to Christ [more] than ever before. At the same time, we have needy places that are needy like never before,” Azzam explained, referencing least-reached provinces of Iraq.

Why Iraq?

Out of its 18 provinces, only six provinces are believed to have any churches. One of these provinces has a population of approximately two million people, but it only has one church with approximately 40 believers, according to Azzam.

The church plating training school "comes at a time of great need. More people [are] willing to go, and one of the needs is training,” Azzam said.

Objectives

OM’s church planting school prepares Arabs who have a specific call to go into the least-reached areas of Iraq for the purpose of developing new vibrant communities of Jesus followers. The programme centers on three objectives: bridging cultural differences, opening conversations about religion and learning to work in ministry teams.

To meet these objectives, the students undergo a year-long training. The first three months are classroom-based, with lectures each morning taught by experienced ministry leaders. In the afternoons, students go into the local area to make relationships with people and talk to them about Jesus.

“Many of [the people we visit] have the wrong ideas about Christianity. So, through this school, we learn how to make relationships with them, and through this relationship [share] the gospel,” said Eisa*, a current student in the school.

The students also take trips to visit Syrian refugee camps. This helps them gain a deeper understanding of how to face culture shock on a practical level. Iraq is 95 per cent Muslim and less than 1 per cent evangelical Christian, according to Operation World, so understanding how to operate in a similar environment remains essential for the student’s training, say the leaders.

“We do visits to Syrian refugee camps with them and help them to discover culture, a different language,” said Hayda*, a leader in the school.

“We know how to make relationships with people who have many problems and they are hurting. So first we have a relationship with them and…then you tell them about the work of God, and it will start to touch them,” said Mahir*, a current student of the school.

Teams

In addition to learning culture and religion, the students also learn how to work on church planting ministry teams. Azzam explains that many of these students have served within their home church. Learning to work with others in a new environment can present its own challenges. By going on visits and ministering together, the students are challlenged to work together to develop vibrant and reproducing fellowships in a foreign context.

“We need teams, especially if people are going to go to places where there are no churches, which is really where we want to send them,” Azzam said. “So [they learn] these issues of how to resolve conflict, how we care for ourselves, and how we work on a team.”

Once students have completed the first three months, they will take a short exposure trip to Iraq before joining a local team for nine months. This will help them learn how to implement their knowledge into their daily operations before heading to Iraq for four years.

Challenges and encouragement

In order to go to Iraq, the students need funds, and finding support to send a missionary to the field long term has repeatedly proven to be one of the greatest challenges. As a result, OM has partnerships with global organisations and churches to help fund living expenses for these students. The local Iraqi churches have also stepped up to help as well.

“We see the Iraqi church wanting to do what they can to make the way for other Arab [ministry workers] to come," Azzam* said. "It’s also been a real joy to see how, in a way, we have this global world praying, [and] some people [contribute] financially, and [it] sort of funnels through our little team and then it gets released out to Iraq again.”

“There are people that come from this school, and they are working in the [mission] field," said Nadir*, a leader in the church planting school. “There has been loads of people in this area who have never heard the gospel, and through the school, there has been much more outreach happening on a much wider scale.”

Pray for the students, some of whom have given up good jobs and left their families for the sake of the gospel. Ask for God to provide visas for long-term residency for church planters in Iraq.

*Name changed

OM communications intern Jana Eller is a student studying journalism and missions and loves to see how God is moving among the nations. She is always up for spontaneous adventures and exploring new things. 

What started as an in-house meeting turned into a weekly gathering of around 40 people from several countries. “The biggest encouragement to me [has been] to see people from different nations come to faith and attend the same church,” Shamwil said. “We are a really small church, but it has a lot of nationalities in it. This surprises me. Who are we to see these things happen? But we believe in Jesus. He does that, not us.”

Growing up, Shamwil worshipped in a church with other nationals from his country. There was also an Egyptian congregation that met in the same building, but they held services on a separate day.

OM opened Shamwil’s eyes to cross-cultural worship, but in the context of a prayer meeting or training, not a weekly church service. “To me, to see this [cross-cultural interaction] in my church, really, it’s a big thing because I didn’t experience it before,” he explained.

Shamwil and Aya’s church meets four Sundays a month, the order of service varied according to week. The first Sunday, the church holds a communion and worship time, and Shamwil preaches. For the next two Sundays, after a half hour of worship, people break up into smaller groups – women, men, couples and youth – for Discovery Bible Studies (DBS). On the fourth Sunday, the church invites a speaker from a different church to preach.

The favourite format, Shamwil mentioned, is DBS. “Anyone in the church can use DBS,” he noted. “If it’s a Christian background believer (CBB) or a Muslim Background believer (MBB), they can do it.”

A decade of labour

When Shamwil first visited the village to celebrate his brother’s recent marriage, he explored the community. “I walked more than an hour, and I didn’t find any churches there. I found mosque, mosque, mosque,” Shamwil recounted. “I thought this was a huge area without any 'light'.”

Though he hadn’t yet met Aya, he decided then to someday start ministry there as a married couple.

Nearly seven years later, Shamwil and Aya began visiting the village once a week during their engagement. They found and prepared a house, got married and moved in. “The church started from our home,” Shamwil said. “Half of it was home; half of it was church.”

Prior to starting church meetings in their home, Shamwil and Aya rented a small event hall to host kids club meetings. “After kids club, we started connecting with the families, and the families said, ‘Why don’t you do something with us?’” Shamwil explained.

As their house church grew, they eventually looked for a larger meeting place to start a church. “You don’t see from the outside that it’s a church, but inside, you see a big cross,” Shamwil said. That way, Muslims can discretely attend without attracting negative attention from the community.

When the church started, two families attended. Now, ten years later, 40 people, Christians and Muslims, regularly attend Sunday church services, Shamwil said. A handful of OM workers in the country, as well as other NGO volunteers, help with the youth, minister to the women and staff the ongoing kids clubs—one for local kids and the other attended by up to 66 Syrian refugee children.

“For years, we could not see any fruit with MBBs and suddenly, last year, God opened the door,” Shamwil expressed. He and Aya discipled a family from Syria for three months, teaching them the DBS method. Then the family began helping with ministry and bringing their friends to the church. Today the church includes 14 MBBs from six countries, he estimated. “We are so surprised. In 2016, God gave us fruit for the last ten years.”

Future outreach ambitions

“It’s a vision in our church that 2017 will be a discipleship year,” Shamwil shared. By discipling those in the church to do the current ministry, the leadership committee, including himself and Aya, will be free to pursue new ministry channels in 2018.

“God wants us to be steadfast in loving Him and praying for the people around us and to bring always glory back to Him. We are joyful in what’s happening,” Aya said.

In addition to providing growth within the church, God also opened the door for ministry outside the church in 2016. Shamwil hosted two church planting conferences, attended by 102 local believers. Those participants returned to their churches and started 51 DBS groups, amongst both CBBs and MBBs, he reported.

“We are so happy for seeing that happen in the land…That means churches in the near future will have more of a vision to reach out,” he said.

In early 2017, Shamwil’s church also hosted international medical teams, which offered day-long clinics for refugees in the community. He also planned to bring another group of international volunteers later in the year, including a doctor, dentist, gynaecologist, paediatrician, eye doctor, psychologist and pharmacist. “I’m so happy to help refugee families…with medicine,” he expressed.

Meeting the Good Shepherd

Shamwil, who grew up as a nominal Catholic, spent childhood summers with his grandfather, a shepherd. Camping in a remote tent with the “sheep and dogs and nothing else,” Shamwil watched his grandfather care for the sheep.

Years later, when Shamwil finished high school, he moved to the city with his family. There, a friend invited him to an evangelical church. The first time Shamwil attended a service, the speaker preached from Psalm 23. “I heard every word he said,” Shamwil remembered. “God will lead you. God will be [your] shepherd.”

“In my mind, If God does everything my grandfather did—my grandfather [was] a good shepherd, so God [would be] a good shepherd,” Shamwil explained.

When the speaker asked if anyone in the congregation wanted to accept Jesus, Shamwil raised his hand. “From that time, I [have] continued with Jesus,” he said.

Prayer

Praise God for this vibrant community of Jesus followers. Praise God for the growth of Shamwil and Aya’s church.

The church would like to expand its physical space in order to welcome more people, but Shamwil feels stuck: “If we move to a bigger place, it means more struggling with money. If we stay, it will be hard to have a lot of [ministry programmes] in the small space.”

Pray that God would provide for the expanding church’s needs and bless them with means of reaching out to the surrounding Syrian refugee community. 

*Name changed 

Nicole James is an international writer for OM, passionate about publishing stories of God’s work among the nations and telling people about the wonderful things He is doing around the world.

At a spring 2016 UN meeting held in Kurdistan, speakers emphasised the ongoing need for food assistance yet acknowledged the constant reduction of aid, said long-term worker and attendee, Karina*. In the beginning, displaced families living in large camps received two food packages a month, later only one, and then a single reduced portion, she explained. Now, even that aid has become irregular.

“Our partners mainly work in the unfinished buildings and [informal] camps, people who are spread out…and even in the mountains,” she stated.

Fifty-nine percent of OM aid given to the Kurdistan region in the first three quarters of 2016 ($520,600) provided food assistance for 20,500 families. Other relief funds went to health, hygiene and medical costs as well as seasonal assistance, such as providing propane bottles used for cooking and heating.

Many of the IDPs whose desperate pictures appear worldwide lived in well-off situations prior to Daesh (ISIS) invasions. “They are not [inherently] poor, but they are made poor because they lost everything,” Karina’s husband James* explained.

One IDP believer, Rashid*, “was clever enough to realise the situation and leave before they had to flee,” James said. Rashid and his family moved to Kurdistan ahead of the crisis. Now, they regularly volunteer in a local church, where, James noted, the joy of serving Jesus in a body of believers “keeps them going.”

Their money, on the other hand, is disappearing. “He has no work, they [left their home] two years ago, and they start using up what they had,” James said.

Unlike Rashid, most IDPs were caught off guard and fled with no provisions. Initially, donations poured in from around the globe, but two and a half years later, financial support has waned.

“You think now they should start to be self-sufficient, but how?” James asked. “There is no work…There are camps all over, and in one camp, there are 25,000 people.”

James and Karina, who oversee relief and development projects in Kurdistan, said donors want to see relief efforts transition into development; however, the majority of IDPs still struggle to meet basic needs. In addition, fighting in Mosul has heightened worries of a new wave of refugees rushing into Kurdistan.

Nonetheless, according to James, 20% of OM aid dollars in Kurdistan are earmarked for development, with part of the fund reserved for the future and part sponsoring educational trainings for IDPs.

*Name changed 

Nicole James is a writer for OM International, passionate about publishing stories of God’s works among the nations, telling people about the wonderful things He is doing around the world.

With a bachelor’s degree in business administration and five years’ experience working in a finance department, Jacob* wanted to find a missions organisation where he could serve with his skills. He connected with OM through his church and attended an orientation seminar at his country’s home office.

At the conference, he learned that OM’s Near East Field personnel officer had sent an urgent need for a finance person to come to the field. Subsequently, Jacob visited the Near East Field – Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq – and agreed to join and serve the workers with his finance expertise.

For the first three months in his host country, Jacob studied Arabic full-time. Then after a two-month transition phase, he took over managing the field finances. “I scaled down my number of language classes as I scaled up the finance job,” he explained.

The job itself is important for many reasons, Jacob noted. “The company is accountable to donors, and my job is to make sure that those donations are recorded in a manner that we can check where the money went to.” He also helps field leadership know how much money is available for which projects and informs individual workers how much money they have for ministry and life.

Jacob chose the Near East partly based on his interests in language and culture. “The CP (church planting) wasn’t the focus at the beginning at all for me, but as I lived here, it just became natural to share,” he explained.

Once, Jacob met a sheikh, a local Islamic leader, through his friend, Ahmed*. Ahmed invited Jacob to his home, where the sheikh also showed up to inform him about Islam. When the sheikh had to go to the mosque for prayer, Jacob asked if he could accompany him.

Jacob saw that sheikh several times, as well as another one Ahmed introduced to him. Although he didn’t have much opportunity to talk during the meetings, Jacob shared what he could about his worldview and Christianity. During many of the conversations, other men – as well as Ahmed – were sitting around and listening.

The next time Jacob saw Ahmed, his friend asked if he could go with Jacob to church. Jacob quickly agreed, and the two attended a service together. After church, the pastor took some time to talk to Ahmed. He also met with the two men another time at Jacob’s house, where the pastor answered Ahmed’s questions about Christianity in fluent Arabic.

Personnel and people

Klara* was new to the Near East Field but not to OM or support positions when she became the field personnel officer in early 2016. She’d fulfilled a similar role in central Asia for several years and in North America for a decade.

The job, she said, involves “candidates from home offices, applying to want to work in this area, placing them on a team, working with the teams on figuring out some of the details and timing.”

She moved with her husband to the Near East Field because they saw an open door to the area and sensed a good fit for their passion and experience.

As newcomers to the field, Klara and her husband spend 15 hours a week studying Arabic, similar to what other workers in their first two years would do.

“The difference is you have a specific job you’re doing to support the field, so others can do what they’re doing,” she explained. “That doesn’t mean you’re not engaging with [local] people…We have people we’ve gotten to know and families we’re close to, but you do it in a smaller capacity.”

In the people-focused culture, “it takes time to make friendships. To engage deeply doesn’t just come overnight,” she said.

Klara and her husband met one local family through a common interest and began spending time with them. Eventually, her husband asked if they wanted to read the Bible. “They agreed, and we’ve met with them regularly over the last months to study the Bible together,” she shared.

Structure and serving

When Maria* agreed to marry Tim*, she knew they would move to the Near East Field. Arriving in the new culture, she discovered incompetency where she had previously been self-sufficient.  To overcome culture shock, she first focused on language and adapting to her surroundings, but as she adjusted, she looked for a way to use her skills to serve the field.

At the company she worked for prior to moving overseas, Maria had been in charge of development. “I was in charge of developing some skills on the leaders of our team that were focused on coaching, team leadership, team building—these kind of soft skills. My main role was to analyse, develop, implement and evaluate these processes,” she explained.

By communicating her experience to field leadership, Maria could apply her knowledge to improving organisation effectiveness for OM in the Near East Field. “I try to provide some help to get a structure, try to find some gaps in the organisational structure we have on the field and try to find how we can measure the performance and results of our people,” she described.

Support duties aside, Maria has also reached out to locals in her community. A fluent Spanish speaker, she was asked to teach an introductory Spanish course to refugees who will be resettled in a Latin American country. “My husband and I have been in some small [refugee] houses, and we realised that only if you take your time to spend talking with them, they will express how they are really grateful,” she said.

One Muslim woman in particular told Maria how surprised she was that Christians were helping the refugee community without receiving any money. “For her it was a shock to see that people you thought in the past were [against you], they opened their arms to embrace you,” Maria explained.

“The vision of OM is to go to the unreached,” she added. Her support role is linked to that “because if you have healthy workers on the field, you will be more effective to spread the gospel. You will have more people joining the field or even staying on the field, and the possibility to have more people coming to God is higher. Our vision is to go to unreached areas, so this is how I can contribute.”

Contact OM to find out how you can use your professional skills on the mission field!

*Name changed

Nicole James is an international writer for OM, passionate about publishing stories of God’s work among the nations and telling people about the wonderful things He is doing around the world.

Elena* and Lucy*, long-term OM workers in the Near East, knew Um Ali through their team leader. When they discovered they had one week free during the village’s summer holiday, the two women offered to facilitate a 4-day English camp in the community. However, they needed a place to stay.

Um Ali agreed to host the workers in her home, so Elena and Lucy started planning. “Our aim was not having a lot of kids but to connect,” Lucy explained.

In the morning, the women taught 12 teenage girls at a community centre in the village. After lunch, they did the same programme for a group of 11 girls at Um Ali’s house.

They focused on identity and introduced a special theme for each day: self image, self confidence, self discipline and uniqueness. “I’m very pleased with the plan we made,” Lucy said. “It’s not all about English—our approach is more holistic.”

On day one, the women told the story of Esther, followed by a lesson that incorporated practical words such as clothing, face and body. They ended by building sentences with the new vocabulary and doing a craft.

For the first two days, the girls decorated a mirror, and Elena encouraged them to remember the story of Esther, whose beauty was not only outward.

“Every time we look in the mirror, we point out everything that’s bad,” Elena told the girls. “When you finish this mirror, every time you look in it, look at something positive about yourself, whether it’s your appearance or whether it’s who you are.”

The last day, Elena and Lucy swapped the story for a discussion on uniqueness. “We should not compare ourselves to each other because we’re all different,” they emphasised.

“You could see the potential of the girls,” Lucy noted. “They were hungry to learn.”

“The ones that came in the afternoon, we knew from [previous] kids’ club, and they recognised us right away,” Elena said.  Continuing relationships and connecting through the English camp opened doors into homes.

Um Ali hosted the workers for dinner on the first night. The following nights, they visited with other families in the community. “It was very natural,” Lucy stated. “Because we were right there, they said we could come to their houses.”

“They were so exited to see us,” Elena described. “I felt like we really connected well because we were able to go into the homes. One of the boys was calling me ‘Auntie.’”

The local families also invited the women back. Lucy and Elena hoped to visit the families and continue building relationships, dreaming of the day they could also start Bible studies with the women.

“I don’t want to just go and preach because they have clear needs and we have skills,” Lucy said. “But we are not only going with our own skills, we are going there with the Word of God and God’s love.”

*Name changed

Nicole James a writer for OM International, passionate about publishing the stories of God’s work among the nations and telling people about the wonderful things He is doing around the world.

Maya* traveled to Lebanon after being wounded by a sniper in her home country of Syria. She came to know Jesus through a local church committed to serving Syrian Muslim refugees. When she asked the church for help for her sick child, the church offered prayer instead.

“When she heard the church say that, she was very put off,” explained Amy*, a worker who befriended Maya. “But after experiencing God heal her child, she was very convinced.”

Now, Maya “has an incredible hunger and thirst for Jesus,” Amy said. She leads other Syrian women in a Bible study group, has won a Bible quiz her church facilitated over social media, and has challenged Lebanese believers to explore their own faith more. One day in church, the pastor mentioned the Psalms. Maya flipped open her Bible and turned to the passage. Then, she showed a Lebanese woman sitting behind her where to find the verses. A year later, that women told Maya her eagerness for the Word had inspired her to go deeper with God.

"Dallas Willard described the Gospel as 'trusting all of Jesus with all of me,'” Amy said. “And I think, given how complicated Maya’s life is, she exhibits that more than anyone I know.” She still has physical and legal needs, though. Life as a Muslim background believer (MBB) refugee in Lebanon is not easy.

“I have such joy and peace in the midst of these trials because of Jesus, and I just want to know why wasn’t there anyone to tell me about Jesus in Syria,” Maya told Amy.

Karim*, another Syrian living in Lebanon, had been working for a charity in Syria when his leg was wounded by a bomb. He arrived to Lebanon, and the taxi dropped him off in front of a church. He went into the church, got to know people inside, and they really welcomed him, explained long-term worker Mary*.

“He saw the love that people showed him, so he started to come to church every Sunday.” After a year and a half, he brought his wife and children with him to services, and two years after arriving in Lebanon, Karim believed in Jesus.

“In his own society, no one really stood by him,” Mary said. “The first time Karim saw unconditional love was in the church... Then he discovered, it’s not the Lebanese, but it’s God working through them.”

Living in Syria, Nadine* had only heard a little about Jesus here and there from an uncle in Lebanon. When the war started, Nadine and her family went to Lebanon to live with him. Immediately, her uncle began sharing more about Jesus, and a local church invited Nadine to attend its teenage Bible study group.

“Everything she heard, she started to live and was really convinced about it, that Jesus was the right way for her,” Mary described. “Nadine started to read the Bible and pray and get more and more involved with church. She’d sometimes lead her younger siblings to pray and read the Bible, too.”

After a couple years, Nadine’s family moved to Turkey, where she was baptised. But Nadine’s stay in Lebanon was crucial to her change of beliefs, Mary noted: “If the war hadn’t happened, she wouldn’t have come to Lebanon and had the opportunity spend time with believers.”

Five years and counting

Today, it’s almost impossible to figure out exactly how many Syrian refugees live in Lebanon.

In September 2014, the UNHCR recorded nearly 1.2 million Syrian refugees in the country. Eight months later, the Lebanese government suspended new registrations.

Officially, Lebanon still hosts around 1.1 million Syrian refugees—one of every five people in the country, Amnesty International reported. “But everybody, including government officials, says that the numbers are far more than that,” NGO director and OM worker Ben* said.

The UNHCR’s 2016 statistics reflected the hundred thousand people who have travelled, seeking asylum in Europe, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. However, the records do not show the new wave of refugees who have illegally entered Lebanon following continuing conflict in Syria.

Across the country, Syrian refugees have transformed many unfinished buildings and agricultural areas into temporary homes, though the majority of Syrian refugees live in one of four regions: near the northern city of Tripoli, in the greater Beirut area, in south Lebanon and in the Bekaa Valley.

According to a network of around 40 ministries and organisations serving refugees in the Bekaa Valley, 2,381 informal camps have cropped up in the fertile but exposed plain between the Anti-Lebanon mountains bordering Syria and the western Mount Lebanon Range.

Even registered refugees struggle to survive. “The UN’s 2015 humanitarian appeal for Syrian refugees was just 61% funded by the end of the year. Funding shortages mean that the most vulnerable Syrian refugees in Lebanon receive just $21.60 per person [per] month or around US$0.70 cent a day for food assistance, well below the UN’s poverty line of US$1.90,” Amnesty International’s website stated (3 February 2016).

Ben, who regularly visits refugee families described the situation as “quite desperate. There’s a lot of domestic violence going on in the camps. People are under an immense amount of stress and they’re traumatised by what they’ve seen happen. Most people that we’ve talked to, they want to go home, they don’t want to immigrate. They’re just waiting it out so they can get back. People are very discouraged, there’s not a lot of hope.”

Food, housing, education and employment remain critical needs for Syrian refugees in Lebanon, but Lebanese government officials have blocked integration initiatives, warning that the refugees’ continued presence in Lebanon could lead to economic, environmental and national security threats.

As a result, “refugees are exploited,” OM’s Near East Field Leader explained. “They’re vulnerable, so local business people hire them for way below going labour rates. In addition, refugees often struggle to stay here legally, so there’s widespread employment of teenage boys at a conscious below market labour value, almost for free, in order to provide legal status for the father.” Young Syrian women are often forced into marriage or are at risk for prostitution and human trafficking because their families cannot afford to take care of them, he added.

Churches and Christian NGOs, for the most part, have little say in these legal justice issues.  However, many have stepped up their practical relief efforts in Lebanon. “When it comes to evangelical groups, everyone I’ve talked to is running at full capacity,” Ben said. But for every family receiving help, many more are still waiting. Every feeding and schooling program has a “huge long list,” he noted.

Operation Mobilisation’s (OM) Syrian and Iraqi Relief fund has assisted eight ongoing projects – including food packs, hygiene kits, winterisation support, education, medical outreaches and development initiatives – specifically for Syrian refugees in Lebanon, amounting to approximately USD $30,000 per month in 2016. OM has also provided training and resources for local partners involved in administering aid.

Several Lebanese churches, in addition to distributing practical aid to Syrian refugees have also opened their sanctuary doors to those seeking eternal hope. Many provide transportation to weekly services; others have started Bible study groups for Syrians. Two churches focused on raising up MBBs as leaders saw over 50 MBBs trained and equipped to facilitate new groups over a 12-month period.

Prayer

With refugees in Lebanon coming and going, “I don’t think the physical pressure of refugees in the country has changed, but it has affected [churches] as we’ve invested in long-term refugees who have come to faith. They’re the ones who have worked their way through the lists and travelled,” Ben explained. One church raised up 20 MBB leaders in 2015, but eight have since left Lebanon.

Pray for more labourers “to go and share this new hope,” Ben said. “When the gospel does go into a home, the transformation is quite amazing.”

“It’s a big ask,” Amy admitted. “Arabic isn’t easy.” However, to share Jesus with Syrian refugees, speaking their heart language is critical.

“There is an overwhelming need for refugees to have their eyes open to Jesus and what He can do,” Ben’s wife, Camille*, emphasised.

For the everyday, Syrian refugees need ways to work. “When you’re talking five years in, you’re not talking relief any more, you’re talking development,” Amy explained. “The practical needs are also long-term. They’re education; they’re skills development; they’re work opportunities.”

*Name changed

Nicole James is a journalist, ESL teacher, and adventurer. As a writer for OM International, she’s passionate about publishing the stories of God’s works among the nations, telling people about the wonderful things He is doing in the world.

“There are very few things the disciples asked Jesus to teach them. But I think they saw something so unique and different in Jesus’s prayer life, that they said, ‘Jesus teach us how to pray,’” Luke*, prayer facilitator for OM Middle East North Africa (MENA), shared.

OM as an organisation has a history of prayer, Luke said. “In the past we used to do all nights of prayer. Times in the past, [OM workers] would go to a conference. If we didn’t have enough funds to send people out all over the world, they would just stay at the place and keep praying.”

Although Luke observed that OM had lost some of its sense of the importance of prayer championed during its early days, now, “right across the board, we’re starting to see this freshness of people praying. Even with the international leadership, they’re praying more.”

Within the past five to six years, Luke said OMers have also began to take on the role of prayer as a title—facilitating prayer houses, arranging prayer walks and pushing for inter-organisational intercession. “There are people that God has created to spend hours in the prayer room, and I see that as a gift,” he noted.

In talks with workers across the MENA region, the term ‘strategic prayer’ continually pops up. Simply put, strategic prayer is “praying for nations and praying God’s heart for nations,” Luke said. Workers “spend time in God’s presence so they know what God would have them pray over the country, the city, the block. They want to get so close to God that they can literally pray back what’s on His heart for a city, country, nation and region.”

The biggest significance of MENA’s renewed focus on prayer, Luke summarised, “is that it’s pushing us back into the presence of God. We’re seeking Him like we haven’t before, maybe in ways we’ve never seen.”

NEAR EAST FIELD

Seeing the fullness of the season

Suki*, a long-term worker who’s lived in the OM Near East Field for nearly five years, sees prayer as a major part of her ministry. She spends several hours alone in her apartment and many at the city’s prayer house, at least twice a week in prayer meetings open to the wider worker community.

Besides attending – and often facilitating – weekly prayer times, Suki also helps organise country-wide prayer events where she lives and collaborates with regional prayer emphases. Every year, she participates in the field’s week of prayer, where small groups travel to different locations around the country to pray with and for people there.

This year, she also helped plan a string of events across the region, including prayer meetings in the countries of the Near East Field - northern Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan. “We prayed for the individual countries and prayed for what God wants to do,” she explained. “We really felt that God wants to release some of the amazing things we’re seeing in the Near East [into] the Arabian Peninsula.”

Speaking about her host country in the Near East Field, Suki said, “Over the last few years, we’ve really been praying for more openness in the south, wanting to see the miracles we hear about happen in the other parts of the country happen in the south as well.” During a spurt of short-term teams doing outreach in that area over the summer, she saw God answer with miraculous healings and incredible openness amongst several people groups.

However, extended prayer times do not always lead to tangible answers, she admitted. “The hard thing about prayer is you pray for things, and… it’s often hard to do a direct trace between what you pray for and what you see happen. Often times you pray for things you’ll never see play out in reality.”

In her experience, spending time in prayer as preparation for God to move has been key. “It [took] a lot of sowing in prayer before things started to change and started to happen. I don’t think we ever should stop praying. Prayer is the foundation.”

“It’s not about praying down a checklist or praying down prayer requests,” she added. “It’s sitting at [God’s] feet and asking what does He want to see change, the good things that He wants us to pray into existence and the bad things He wants us to pray against. He knows what He wants to do and He asks us to pray in His will.”

“God is already moving in mighty and unexplainable ways,” Suki said, “but I think He wants to do more than that, and He’s just waiting for his children to ask Him. If we really want to see the breakthroughs, if we really want to see the fullness of this season, we need to pray.”

Filling the land with prayer and worship

In another country in the Near East, Lester* and Penny*, long-termers who have served in the MENA region for 31 years, have also led a prayer team for the past two years.

“Wherever there’s been movements, there’s always been a 24/7 prayer before that. It’s kind of going hand-in-hand, preparing the spiritual atmosphere of a place through prayer. We’ve been trying to organise prayer events, prayer nights, have prayer teams come for two weeks—it’s support but as well as encouragement, hopefully, for the existing teams,” Penny described.

With three decades of experience in the region, Penny said she and Lester have turned to prayer as a “desperation of dependence” on God. “CP (church planting) movements are great, but if it’s not born out of prayer – or even just to prepare spiritual atmospheres and the ground through prayer – then all our wonderful strategies [are] nothing… It is God who’s going to do it, and it won’t happen without prayer.”

The prayer team started, in part, as a result of Lester and Penny’s attempts to establish a prayer house with 24/7 prayer in the city where they live. “We don’t want to build our OM prayer house,” Lester emphasised. “We want to work together with other people.”

However, in two years of networking and connecting with like-minded people, the couple experienced frustration after frustration. “It didn’t seem to come off the ground at all,” Penny described. Finally, they decided to start adding hours of prayer to their team’s weekly routine, even without a physical building.

“We are sharing and we are sharing and putting a lot of effort into knowing people, and not a lot comes back,” Lester shared. “So all the more we believe we need to push on with prayer. We are encouraged with the increase of prayer in [the country]. Local churches are putting more and more effort into prayer, and I believe something will come together, we just need to be patient and persevere.”

Organising prayer events has routinely been difficult, the couple noted. “People all clap, saying this is great, but they don’t show up… It’s an indication of the spiritual atmosphere of the land,” Lester said.

“It’s kind of puzzling, when theoretically you know this is what will bring in the harvest,” Penny added. “We know this, and yet, why is it so difficult to get people together to pray?”

“It’s a legitimate part of your hours of work,” she continued. “It’s just as important as evangelism and Arabic and everything else. It’s not about legalism, it’s just about filling the land with prayer and worship.”

*Name changed

Nicole James is a journalist, ESL teacher, and adventurer. As a writer for OM Middle East North Africa, she’s passionate about publishing the stories of God’s works among the nations, telling people about the wonderful things He is doing in the world.

Behind the high stone wall blocking Sharine’s* house from street view, plastic bags pile up in her courtyard. A small aisle to the front door snakes through boxes of children’s clothing and bulk packages of rice, lentils and flour. Her kitchen looks the same. Preparing tea for a handful of visitors one afternoon, she worked around the large cardboard boxes parked on her counters, full of supplies to give away. As the guests surveyed the scene, she asked them to ignore the mess. “My house is like a store,” she laughed. “I have to check all the products before I can give them away.”

The intended recipients—5,500 orphans in one of the country’s largest cities—lack even basic necessities, so Sharine has dedicated her life to caring for the thousands of children she now claims personally. “My orphans, no one will give [them] anything,” she stated.

One issue affecting the orphans is access. Although Sharine and her son, Hamid*, visit them once or twice a month, they risk a long and increasingly dangerous journey. According to Hamid, the route takes six hours if the old road is open, 11 hours if not. “You have to drive very fast,” he added. “There are areas you can’t stop the car because there are ISIS snipers.”

During a summer trip to distribute food and supplies, for example, Sharine and Hamid took an hour-and-a-half army-mandated detour onto a dirt road, necessitated by fighting between ISIS and national soldiers occurring on the route. Even standard checkpoints have deteriorated in terms of security, Hamid mentioned, as ISIS has also appeared in some areas wearing local soldiers’ uniforms.

When asked why they continue to travel to the orphans in light of the security situation, mother and son agreed their motivation was God. “We are accustomed that anything can happen to us on the way,” Hamid said.

Life calling

Sharine, who has helped establish dozens of house churches throughout the country, started her current ministry by visiting 60 culturally Christian-background orphans living in a house together. After falling in love with the children, she began speaking about them to the people she encountered.

While she was still working at her previous job, a colleague overheard Sharine talking on the telephone about the orphans. “Please, sister Sharine,” she said, “I heard you speak about orphans. What orphans are you talking about?”

“I have 60 orphans,” Sharine replied.

“Yes,” the colleague continued, “I hear the church will help only Christian orphans… We have many orphans in this country. Please, if you can, visit them. Don’t give them anything, just go and see what will happen.”

Shortly after that conversation, Sharine visited Muslim orphans in different locations around the city. “When I saw the places, I was very surprised,” she remembered. “I have 60 orphans, but they are staying in a small house. But these Muslim orphans [were] in tents without electricity, without water.”

The next day, when Sharine went to work, her colleague asked about her experience. “I couldn’t sleep yesterday, thinking about this,” she said, referencing the 1,500 Muslim orphans she’d visited.

“I will send you to another place, where there are about 2,000 orphans in tents,” her colleague responded. “In some places, there are no tents, just blankets strung up or holes in the ground.”

Having seen the first 3,500 orphans, Sharine decided to quit her job to focus full-time on her ministry.

While the house churches she knew had been able to help the 60 Christian-background orphans, Sharine’s connections in-country lacked resources to care for the thousands of orphans, including Muslims, she now claimed. So she travelled abroad to fundraise amongst outside organisations, visiting churches and family members.

One organisation pledged $6,000 USD. A wealthy aunt gathered $10,000 USD from her family and friends. Another organisation planned a month-by-month partnership with Sharine. This summer, OM also added relief funds to her efforts.

Every year, Sharine holds two parties, inviting around 1,000 orphans to each celebration. The events afford opportunity to distribute new clothes, toys and an even more important message. “I call many pastors…and the pastors will speak about Jesus,” she said. The parties, therefore, serve a dual purpose for the orphans: “not only to give food and help but to let them know this is not from Sharine, this is from God.”

And according to Sharine, the orphans understand. “Most of them are Muslims, but they love Jesus. They say, ‘Jesus, Jesus. We love Jesus.’”

The wider community also commends Sharine’s work. “The police, before, [used to] ask me what is this,” she recalled. “Now the police say, ‘Thanks to God. We pray for you because you will help the orphans.’”

When Sharine told another man, a Muslim merchant, about her work, he asked how she, a Christian, would care for the needs of the Muslim orphans. “Jesus gave me this love for everyone,” she replied. In return, the man gave her extra clothing and good prices on items she wanted to distribute.

Prices are cheaper where Sharine lives than in areas close to the orphans. Transporting clothes and supplies, however, proves problematic. Beyond packing her vehicle full on the trips with Hamid, Sharine sends extra supplies with friends whenever they travel to her area for meetings, storing the rest in her house-turned-warehouse.

Still Sharine struggles to transfer money to like-minded individuals who live closer to the orphans and could provide food to them. Before distributions can take place, Sharine has to get the money to her friends, who prepare the packages using locally sourced items—a relief cycle demanding constant planning and coordination amidst an impossibly fluid security situation.

Near the end of a visit with guests at her house one evening, Sharine pulled up some pictures of her orphans on her phone. She scrolled through images from a recent party, stopping on a photo of her with a young girl. “This is Mina*,” she said. “She lost her father and mother. The thief came and killed her parents in front of her.” Now her only family are Sharine and Hamid, who Mina calls “Uncle”.

“Pray for us,” Sharine asked her guests. “I’m a widow. I [use] all my time for my family and my service… Please, if you can help my orphans, this is my special need.”

If you would like to contribute to Sharine’s ministry among thousands or orphans, please visit www.om.org/give and designate your gift to “Syrian and Iraqi relief”.

*Name changed

Nicole James is a journalist, ESL teacher and adventurer. As a writer for OM Middle East North Africa, she’s passionate about publishing the stories of God’s works among the nations, telling people about the wonderful things He is doing in the world.

Zumba has been one of my favorite weekly activities of the last two years living in the Near East. The women’s cardio-dance classes have consistently provided a safe place for me to stay in shape, relieve stress and meet women I wouldn’t have encountered otherwise.

Recently, I moved to a new city and joined an all-women’s gym. My friend Samantha*, a long-term worker visiting from another country in the Near East, joined me for the first Zumba class I attended at the new gym.

While I was waiting for Samantha to change, I saw a handful of local women arrive. As soon as they entered the locker room, their faces transformed. Smiles replaced their previously guarded expressions as they shed their abayas and headscarves, revealing the workout gear they were wearing underneath the full-length dresses.

Intrigued by the way that the ladies’ less conservative dress and men-free environment seemingly affected their attitudes, I asked Samantha about working out with women in the Near East, following up on another experience I’d had months earlier with another friend in the Arabian Peninsula (AP).

Samantha’s story

“So often in this part of the world, women don’t hang out in public places as men would at coffee shops or restaurants,” Samantha explained. “When you are walking on the street, it’s hard to find women hanging out to meet them and start making relationships. At the gyms, women aren’t in a hurry, they aren’t in a rush. They’re comfortable because it’s women only. They don’t have their hijabs (head scarves) on. After they’ve worked out, they sit and drink coffee together. It’s a great place to meet women where their guard is down somehow, and it’s a safe place.”

Over her six years in the Near East, Samantha’s gym experiences have varied from evening aerobics classes in a tiny room housing three broken treadmills to a fancy city gym complete with a relaxing jacuzzi.

“In the winter time when it was so cold in our homes, we would just go for a jacuzzi in the gym and meet women. That was where I got to share most often, just sitting in the jacuzzi area with the women,” she described. “As they asked me questions, I got to share some of my life and faith with them and some stories from the Bible.”

Last year, Samantha moved to a new city, where she and a friend started a community development project offering fitness classes at a reduced price for women who couldn’t otherwise afford regular gym fees. “It was really exciting to see the community grow with the women as we would sit and have tea and coffee after the hour classes and to watch the women get stronger,” Samantha said.

The first week of classes, some of these women had never done aerobic exercise. Two months of a regular workout routine transformed them physically and emotionally, Samantha recounted. She loved seeing how much stronger they became and how the workouts lifted their spirits.

After the classes started, Samantha invited one of the women, who was going through a hard time in her life, to her house for a pancake breakfast. Later, the same woman invited Samantha to Iftar, the evening fast-breaking feast during Ramadan.

During class one day, the lady mentioned that she wanted to make a desk space to develop her photography hobby. A few days later, she sent Samantha a message: “I’m happy that I have a place to work [on] my photos. You guys gave me hope in life, and I feel creative and new.”

“Building these relationships with simple exercise and seeing the women feel like they have hope in life… after coming to the classes was just joyful for me,” Samantha shared.

Alyssa’s experience

Last year, I accompanied another friend, long-term worker Alyssa*, to a fitness class at the women’s gym in her town. An avid runner, Alyssa had joined that gym for two reasons: to work out and to meet people. Running outside had always been one of her favourite pastimes, but living the AP, where even the lowest winter temperatures only reached 30°C (86° F) and outside sports usually involved only men, she decided to try indoor fitness.

Her local friends suggested a gym, where few expats worked out, Alyssa discovered. She also learnt that the all women’s fitness club provided a safe place for local ladies to be themselves. “I’ve seen the same people out and about with their abayas and headscarves, and they’re a little bit more reserved, a little bit more closed,” Alyssa noted. In the gym, she noticed the same transformation I had seen in my own city: “When they take the abayas off and their headscarves off, and they replace that with gym clothes, it feels like there’s a greater level of freedom in their personalities.”

“I’ve had a lot more opportunities to speak to people and get to know them a deeper level,” Alyssa continued, comparing her interactions with women at the gym to visits at their houses. “Part of the culture here is so formal: the formal greeting, the formal process of how they’re going to provide you hospitality. There’s none of that at the gym.”

After Alyssa had attended the gym for awhile, the manager asked her to teach a few of the classes, giving Alyssa more opportunity to connect with the women. “I usually start the class with one health tip,” Alyssa mentioned. “Secondly, I put in a ‘sneaky’ praise and worship song into the warm down.”

When she started teaching classes, many of the women approached Alyssa with a myriad of questions about health and exercise. “I love the fact that it’s an awesome amazing opportunity to affirm the women,” she stated. “A lot of these women don’t feel lovely, they don’t feel beautiful and they don’t get a lot of encouragement at home.”

“I can use my gifts and something I enjoy to do ministry,” Alyssa explained. “I’ve gained so many friends just from being there... For some of them, it’s the only thing they do, it’s the only time they leave their house. Pray that God puts me across the paths of the right people.”

At the gym, Alyssa has met women working to stave off their husbands’ search for second wives by becoming fitter, trimmer and, they hope, more beautiful. She has encountered women reeling from miscarriages. And she connected with Maya*, one of the town’s only believers.

One day, Alyssa was playing the song “Oceans” by the Christian band Hillsong United as a sound check, when a woman behind her said, “That’s my favourite song.” Alyssa turned around and saw a lady, fully covered in an abaya, who she then realised was Maya.

Maya had recently told her father she had become a believer, but he was not happy with her decision. He had taken her passport, put her under house arrest – except for trips to and from work – and forbidden her from meeting with any foreigners.

However, he could not fault her morale character. “You are the most moral person in our family. You are the most joyful,” he told her, according to Alyssa.

“You cannot attribute that to anything other than my faith,” she responded.

When Maya found out that Alyssa and one of her friends had joined the local women’s gym, she also started attending classes as a way of finding fellowship with other believers.

“If she is ever in my class, I just feel like the class goes differently,” Alyssa shared. She is full of vibrancy and life. Because she’s a local, she has far more impact than I could have ever.”

Still, Maya’s situation at home remained difficult. One evening she texted the other worker from the gym: “I really need you to pray for me to get stronger and God will provide me with a way to leave…The house is heavy and I’m worried about mum. She’s not doing well. Dad is getting more strict about not going anywhere but work. He’s mad and he talked to me tonight. I can’t live like this, and I’m very tired. Please pray.”

Pray for workers who use fitness as a way of connecting with locals in a comfortable atmosphere. Pray that they would be bold in making relationships and sharing with the friends that they meet.

*Name changed

Nicole James is a journalist, ESL teacher, and adventurer. As a writer for OM Middle East North Africa, she’s passionate about publishing the stories of God’s works among the nations, telling people about the wonderful things He is doing in the world.

Actually, when Kathleen was asked to lead the outreach, just over a year into her tenure on the field, she didn’t think she could do the job alone. So she asked Meg to share the task, and the two took on leadership together. Through the process of planning and executing the short-term trip, Kathleen found support as well as healing.

“I didn’t think I could ever be a leader, or I thought I’d just fail miserably. I thought I was totally inadequate when it came to that,” Kathleen shared.

Day by day, however, God worked out details: where to stay, how to get there, who to talk to. During morning prayer and worship times, Kathleen said God spoke truth into the lives of the short-term girls as well as her own. “I think I was a good leader,” she stated. “And that’s all God.”

The activities—sharing with students on university campus, talking to locals on public transportation, drinking tea in Bedouin homes—introduced the short-termers, as well as Kathleen, to what God was doing in various parts of the country.

“I’m so right where God has sent me,” Kathleen said of her city ministry. “But I’ve never been out [in the village where Meg serves], and it was beautiful to see what she does. It was a totally different life to what I’m living.”

Especially at the university, the short-termers’ bold sharing reflected Kathleen’s own approach. They talked to groups of girls, “getting to pray for people and share about our wonderful Jesus,” she exclaimed. At times, though, the team’s struggles also mirrored her own. Although the girls were committed to the trip, the early mornings, long commutes on public transportation and scorching temperatures often topping 40°C (104°F) took a toll. “When they were really tired and it was hot. I was just as tired and I was hot, but I had to keep a good attitude and pull the team, to push through even when my body didn’t have energy,” Kathleen remembered.

That experience gave her new respect for her own team leader and fresh insight into leadership in general. “It’s not about always how I feel, what I’m feeling right now, but we have a goal, a vision, and we’re working towards it,” she explained. Too, she witnessed how even on days where she felt most tired, “God always came through and gave me the energy.”

In Kathleen’s opinion, all workers within their first two years on the field should coordinate a short-term team, even if they hesitate at first. As a field, “we want to be raising up leaders, people that are capable to lead groups of people,” she said. “This is really good because it first teaches you a lot humbleness; it’s actually really hard to lead. It’s good because it gives you opportunity to see life and interact with other groups of people across the nation. I feel it’s really good because I believe the harvest is ripe here. We want to have new workers come our way. These are people who are potential.”

Are you interested in joining a short-term team to experience what God is doing in the world? Check out http://www.om.org/en/opportunities for opportunities where you can serve.

*Name changed

Aisha*, a mother of six children, invited Ellen to her home for a farewell lunch. “I had discussed with Aisha some ideas about starting business with little money before. I have seen some business qualities in her,” Ellen remembered.

That day, as the women were finishing their meal, Aisha turned to Ellen: “I need to tell you, we started a business… You are leaving us, but your ideas will stay with us.”

Aisha’s start-up costs had been minimal, equivalent to less than three USD in the local currency. The idea stemmed from her 12-year-old son, Amid*, who wanted more money for personal expenses.

Amid had been receiving approximately .50 USD, then he asked for a 20-cent increase. “We cannot give you more money, but we can earn some money,” his mother told him, remembering Ellen’s advice.

Together, Amid and Aisha saved almost three USD, with which they purchased local dried yellow beans. They packaged the beans and sold them in small plastic bags. Using the profit from their initial sales, they purchased more beans. Eventually, they sold enough to afford a larger bag of beans at the wholesale price.

Since they began their business, Aisha and Amid have expanded their venues, selling their produce at different locations. In addition, whenever somebody in the village wants to have the beans, they call the family, and Amid delivers the product.

“The mother has taught her boy how one can make money with little investment,” Ellen explained. Amid now has more spending money and is saving to eventually buy his own phone.

Driving away from Aisha’s house, Ellen thought about the family’s small business. “I am so glad the discussions about business had such an impact,” she said. “It gave me hope that the talks about Jesus and His power to change and save have had the same impact.”

Praise God for the impact OM workers have had in villages of the Near East. Pray for Aisha and other women living in these remote areas. Pray that these mothers would not only be influenced by practical business information, but that they would also accept the gospel message of Jesus and teach their children about His love.

*Name changed

Nicole James is a journalist, ESL teacher and adventurer. As a writer for OM Middle East North Africa, she’s passionate about publishing the stories of God’s works among the nations, telling people about the wonderful things He is doing in the world.

A decade ago, he worked with a believer who prayed every time they entered a city known to be dangerous. “Lord, you are able to protect us. You know all the people. Please guide us,” his friend asked.

Fahid thought his friend’s beliefs about Jesus were blasphemous, but he enjoyed listening to him pray. “I was really impressed that he prayed for me, and he prayed for the people… His prayer touched my heart,” he shared.

Later, Fahid’s friend gave him the Injil, the New Testament, and Fahid began to read about Jesus. 

One night, as Fahid struggled with depression, he fell asleep and had a dream. He recalled a man dressed in bright white inviting him to “Come” and join other people working in a field. At first Fahid felt afraid. “This was so strange, you know?” he commented. “But when I saw the joy of the people who were working there, I felt more peace.” Fahid remembered taking a bag of seed and joining the other workers, who were rejoicing and singing. “Why are you so happy?” he asked them. “Because the Lord is blessing us,” they replied.

In the following days, Fahid wondered who was the man dressed in white in his dream. Fahid first asked his mother, then asked the sheikh (a religious leader), and finally asked an old Christian friend. “This is the one that is written about… in the Bible. He is the Lord Jesus Christ,” Fahid’s friend explained.

From that point on, Fahid believed in Jesus and began growing in his faith. He shared what he learned with his friends and formed a small group of men who regularly prayed together for their city. Often, Karen’s husband, Seth*, joined Fahid and his friends for early morning prayer. Sometimes, when Seth was out of town, Fahid called Karen as the men were praying and asked her to pray for them. “He would put his phone on the ground, and I would pray, then all the guys would come to the phone, and [I] would have to say hi to everyone,” Karen described.

As time passed, Fahid became a leader in his community. People listened to him preach, and he baptized those who also wanted to follow Jesus.

However, after one baptism, pictures of Fahid appeared online. The captions accused Fahid of changing the Yazidis’ religion, making them Christians. Persecution followed. Fahid was beat up, enemies fired shots at his house and burned the van he used for ministry.

In the midst of these struggles, Fahid cried out to God, “Lord, why did this happen to me? I really love you, Lord, and I’m totally with you. Why do you allow this to happen to me?”

Then Jesus spoke to him: “Don’t be afraid. Don’t be terrified. I am with you.”

Fahid persisted in telling other Yazidis about Jesus, despite opposition. Ahead of the ISIS invasion, Fahid moved again. In his new area, he still has access to many of his people, displaced from the war. “At first, he wanted to leave [the country] like everyone,” Karen stated. “But God reminded him to stand firm and he got involved ministering to people,” telling them about his own life and encouraging them to follow Jesus.

“Even in this new time of persecution, God has been speaking to me, ‘Don’t be afraid. I am with you,’” Fahid said. “The new believers, when they get shaken up and are afraid because of the persecution, I will tell them my story and how God has been speaking to me and what He has been doing in my life. Up to now, I am a worker in God’s harvest field, and I want to be His servant.”

Pray that the believers in Fahid’s community would become firm in their faith in the Bible, learning how to lead so when they return to their villages, they can reach more of their people with the Good News of Jesus Christ. Pray that God would protect and encourage Fahid as he boldly shares with others.

*Name changed

Nicole James is a journalist, ESL teacher, and adventurer. As a writer for OM Middle East North Africa, she’s passionate about publishing the stories of God’s works among the nations, telling people about the wonderful things He is doing in the world.

“We’ve seen lots of [Muslims] come into the churches, but I think in the last year or two, we’ve seen more churches focused on establishing leaders from Muslim backgrounds… and helping Muslims background believers (MBBs) take care of the people around them,” he explained.

For one pastor, whose church ministers to thousands of Syrians, the idea of delegating ministry tasks to MBBs initially seemed impossible. “He thought it would be hard, he couldn’t really see MBBs leading other Muslims in Bible studies or other areas of leadership,” Caleb recalled.

After attending an OM-hosted training on Discovery Bible Studies (DBS), however, the pastor changed his mind and his church’s approach. “Their service [for Syrians] used to be a sermon, and they changed it to Bible study groups. As a result of this, they now have four MBBs leading groups,” Caleb commented. Within three months, the pastor switched from “saying, ‘I don’t think this is possible,’ to actually seeing it in his church.”

Lacy* and Trevor*, long-term workers who serve among Syrians in the same city as the church, witnessed the transformation’s results first-hand when the pastor asked them to partner with locals in two of the service’s 12 groups.

Before forming DBS groups for the Syrian service, the church already had a history of forming community and providing contextualized worship, often using Egyptian hymns with words and tunes that “resonate with Arabs,” Trevor described.

For the Syrian attendees—both believers and seekers—DBS deepened their sense of community. “Now the Syrians have community with a regular group that they can feel safer with and they actually get to ask questions,” Lacy explained.

They also learn to study Scripture themselves. “Most of the ones in my group don’t read,” Lacy noted. But they can access God’s Word from listening to other people read the passage and repeat it. The process “increases the number of people who come to know the Scripture exponentially over time,” she said. Of those who can read, “we’re seeing little cracks of opportunity with a couple people who are now asking for the Bible.”

One 20-year-old Syrian Christian asked Trevor and Lacy if they had noticed how many more people were attending church once the pastor implemented the DBS groups. “The amount of people coming on a regular basis has increased,” Lacy confirmed. “People are coming every week, not just once and a while.”

They also benefit more, according to a Syrian MBB, who had faithfully attended the pastor’s previous sermons. “We understand so much more of the Bible when we study it in the DBS group,” he told Trevor. “And the other thing is we get to pray for one another, and the Lord answers our prayer.”

Another woman and her husband, both MBBs, lead separate DBS groups at the church. “Her little group has formed an online texting WhatsApp group, and they communicate prayer needs through the week and answers,” Lacy shared.

Both Lacy and Trevor have been encouraged by the community established through DBS groups in their host city, but, Trevor said, they hope it doesn’t stop there: “We’re praying that it will go far beyond that particular church, that when they go back to Syria or move on somewhere else, they’ll be able to join others to study the Bible and worship.”

*Name changed

Nicole James is a journalist, ESL teacher, and adventurer. As a writer for OM Middle East North Africa, she’s passionate about publishing the stories of God’s works among the nations, telling people about the wonderful things He is doing in the world.

The answers trickled in from around the room: “Mosques, head coverings, desert, camels.”

Those ideas were true, she agreed, but she encouraged participants to be ready for unexpected elements as well. The Middle East is a “world of contrasts!” she exclaimed.

Participants gain new perspective

A few days into their trip, two team members already had new perspectives about one country in the Arab world and how they, as foreigners, could interact with locals. Joel described his temporary location as “a fascinating country full of vibrant and hospitable people…the food is delicious.”

“These last couple of days have been stressful, fun filled and life changing,” said Nathanael. “We’ve been fortunate enough to help run a picnic, teach English and sports, and adventure to visit families without the assistance of translators.”

Picnic provides rest and relaxation

According to one participant named Janae, many of the families invited on the outing – refugees struggling to survive in their new country – had not left the city for months. Due to visa restrictions “several fathers of the families do not work and many of the children do not go to school,” she explained.

At the picnic site, the Transform team members paired off with different families, playing games with the children, helping the men cook the meat and talking together.

“I sat with the women and we played get-to-know you games and a counting game. When we started counting in Arabic, I realized just how challenging it can be to not understand the other language. But from the laughter of the women I think most of them enjoyed it! This experience reminded me again how as women we have the same fears and hopes and dreams. These Syrian women have beautiful talents and hobbies and families and stories, just like me,” Janae shared.

“The picnic especially was a precious experience, hopefully as much for the refugees as it was for me,” Nathanael explained. “Playing football on a rubbish-strewn hillside with some of the men, boys and a couple of teenage girls in 40°C (104°F) was an experience I'm unlikely to forget.”

Team member Addie said her favorite part of the picnic involved “sitting with one particular family while eating lunch and playing a sort of charades to communicate. I learned all about their family and their stories and they invited me in as one of their own. They even gave me cookies and shared their oranges. The love that they showed towards me was so great even though they had been through so much horror. I am thankful I was able to be witness to a small part of their lives.”

Kids camp teaches flexibility

When the team showed up to run a kids camp in one community, they had detailed schedules for the English lessons and sports activities. However, they quickly realized flexibility trumped planning. “We went where we were needed, ditching our partners and lesson plans. We took different age groups and certainly started late,” Addie remembered. Of her teenage students, “one in particular seemed to like me. I knew enough Arabic, and she knew enough English that we could talk about the important things, like pizza and music.”

Janae, who spent time with the younger group, also learned from the experience: “Teaching English allowed us time with the children to sing songs, have fun and encourage them that God has a plan and a future. It was an incredible exercise of being flexible, adjusting to the restlessness of the young children and also being joyful as a way to make learning fun.”

Fashion show brings hope

Another day, the team participated in a backyard fashion show. Using balloons and extra pieces of fabric, the psychologist leading the event transformed an empty garden into “a colorful place of hope and promise” for the refugee girls attending, Janae described. “Girl after girl stood with pride as she was fitted for a colorful, hand-sewn dress. With a fabric headband and a beautiful dress, each girl walked down the cement cat-walk, stood on the colorful podium and had her photo taken.”

The team then played games with girls and colored together for the rest of the time. “What impressed me most is that before I had felt so far removed from the conflict. Now I was actually standing in this small backyard in a village in the Near East, and I was able by my actions and the colorful fashion show to bring hope, in a very small way,” Janae summarized.

Visits create connections

On the day when the team split into smaller groups to visit refugee families, without translators, Addie was amazed to see how some of her Arabic vocabulary memorization kicked in. “It was jumbled and I had the grammar of a child, but I told them about my family. And we asked about [the father’s] jobs in Syria. And we got to talk about the Bible,” she recounted. “We asked if we could pray for them. They said yes, and at the end, the father also prayed! He still identifies as Muslim, but I could tell something was changing in him.”

In another families’ home, Janae listened to a family talk about the terrifying experiences they had lived through. Then Janae asked if she could read Psalm 18, a passage she said had comforted her during bouts of anxiety she had faced that summer. “This passage made my heart strong and gave me courage,” she told the family. Using an Arabic Bible app on Janae’s phone, the father read the Psalm out loud to his family. Before Janae’s group left, they prayed for the family.

When Elizabeth’s group arrived for their visit, she didn’t know what to expect. “I walked into the home unsure of what was to come. I didn't know the language, culture, and conditions of the refugees I had read so much about over the years,” she said. The woman who welcomed them into her simple home, however, “gave as if she had everything,” Elizabeth remembered.

During the visit, Elizabeth’s group learned about the woman’s hardships. Her brother was paralyzed after being run over a truck in Syria. Her mother lost her eyesight during the treacherous journey to the Near East. Her two young sons remained traumatized by the killings they had seen. “She had much pain,” Elizabeth stated. But, as a new believer, the woman also had much praise. “Her new life in Christ was a beautiful testimony to how God is working. [Together] we sang a song and prayed.”

Ending offers lasting impressions

Having spent two weeks in the Arab world, the team left with a new understanding of the country, the culture and, certainly, the people. Since the outreach focused on refugees – the theme for Transform 2016 – the team’s takeaway focused on the people displaced from their homes.

“It is encouraging to see the long-term commitments to love and serve these people who are loved by God,” Joel said. “It is easy to feel like the task is too great. God is far, far greater. He is love. This is an opportunity to share the truth and love of the gospel with hurt and needy people. There is a real hope, and although we must be careful, many people are open to hear and discuss the good news.”

Sarah shared that she had felt intimidated through much of the outreach— “the noise, the heat, the people. And meeting refugees.” In her home country, she said, refugees were a topic of dinner table debates, like the energy crisis or politics. Talking with refugees in the Arab world and listening to their stories brought them to life for her. Still, she couldn’t understand or imagine what they had endured.

“The fact that I am so overwhelmed makes me discover new things about God, that He is even greater than all the pain and the sorrow and the injustice they tell us about. That Jesus is the only hope they have,” she explained. “I am just starting to understand how powerful the gospel is.”

Pray for refugees displaced across the Middle East. Pray that they would discover the hope found in Jesus. Pray that the short-term summer outreach participants would continue to advocate for the people they met and that God would call some of them back to long-term commitments to serve in the Arab world.

*Name changed

Nicole James is a journalist, ESL teacher, and adventurer. As a writer for OM Middle East North Africa, she’s passionate about publishing the stories of God’s works among the nations, telling people about the wonderful things He is doing in the world.

“My Arabic was limited, but there were some girls who lived in the dorms with me that were very interested [in learning about Jesus],” Lydia remembered. “They needed to know the Lord, in spite of my ability with their language.”

Lydia started studying the Bible with them and quickly realised that she didn’t have the vocabulary in Arabic to explain the Scriptures or answer the questions the girls had. But, the girls were so hungry for the Word that they helped Lydia navigate the language.

“If I had tried looking in a dictionary, it wouldn’t have helped,” Lydia explained. “Arabic is a complex language and sometimes there could be five options for the same word, each to be used in a different context. If the girls hadn’t been so willing to help, I wouldn’t have been able to teach them nearly as much about the gospel.”

She shared, it didn’t matter how good she is or how gifted; if God wants to reach people, He will do it.

Married life

“There is an Arab proverb that says, ‘A single woman is like a house with no fence--very dangerous,’” Lydia explained.

The Bedouin people she had been working amongst as a single were preoccupied and perplexed by her singleness. Most didn’t understand why she had moved away from her parents without having a husband.

When she got engaged, her Bedouin friends threw a big party to celebrate.

“At one of the villages, they slaughtered a sheep in front of my fiance's eyes to show the honour I had given them by leaving the dangers of being a single woman,” Lydia remembers.

Marriage changed the way Lydia did ministry. Before, as a single woman, she spent a lot of time living in community with the girls in the dorms. Living together allowed Lydia to form close relationships that wouldn’t have been possible in another setting.

Now, she reaches out to women, specifically mothers, who are Muslim Syrian refugees. She seeks out those who don’t go to the Christian centres or churches and introduces these women, who have never heard about Christ, to Jesus.

“The married women I’m working with now allow me into conversations I would have never been a part of if I was still single,” Lydia said. “When I was single, I reached out to singles. It feels natural now to reach out to married women since I am a married woman.”

Leading locals in ministry

One day, Lydia met a woman who had just been given a Bible but had refused to read it. When she got home, the woman opened the Bible and saw a vision. She saw a light shining out of the Bible and moving towards the wall.

“For her, it was God telling her, ‘Follow Me,’” Lydia explained. “I met her right after she got the vision. Because of what she saw, she decided to become a believer all by herself without knowing what she was getting herself into.”

After spending time discipling this woman, Lydia has noticed that her life has truly changed. She’s seen her grow from being focused on herself and her own problems to being focused on teaching her children about Jesus and wanting to reach out to others.

"Today she is doing ministry herself. It's very cool to see," Lydia declared. "She is a better missionary than I am," she said with a chuckle.

Please pray for Lydia and her family as they serve in the OM Near East Field. Pray that the women reached through her ministry would come to know Jesus and be motivated to share His love with others.

*Name changed

Lauren O'Shea is a journalist from the United States. She is a communications intern for OM Middle East North Africa and is dedicated to telling the world what God is doing through global missions and the arts.

The four young men comprise the OM MENA Traveling Team, or MTT, and during their time in the country, they distributed Christian literature, built two refugee shelters, distributed food and medical supplies to Syrian refugee camps, assisted a sports ministry and visited families and Muslim-background believers throughout the region. 

“Each day we trusted God to lead us to the right people and right places,” Marco recalled. “Quite often we’d set out for the day with only a general plan of what we were going to do. Each and every day God brought us to people who needed the good news [of Jesus],” he continued.

Praying with Muslim-background believers

The team was distributing literature when they met a man who took a Bible and then asked for as much literature and as many Bibles as they guys would allow. After a bit of conversation, they found out that this man was a Syrian refugee and a Muslim-background believer (MBB).

“The man told us that he had a dream or a vision about Jesus while he was still in Syria, and that’s what led him to search for more information about the gospel when he and his family fled to Lebanon,” Leo said. “They ended up connecting with a small Bible study group when they first arrived, and now they are quite involved in leading studies with other MBB’s in their neighborhood.”

The man invited the team back to his house to pray for him, his wife and his five children. The MTT guys prayed that this man would receive healing for a severe leg injury and for safety and provision for the whole family.

After they were done praying, the family asked if the guys would follow them to a friend’s house to pray for their child who was ill.

“I was moved by their faith in the power of prayer,” Jake said. “Even in their difficult circumstances, their faith wasn’t shaken.”

Hungry for the Word

The guys were passing through a small village and passing out Bibles when they met a Druze man who was thrilled to meet followers of Jesus Christ. The man ushered the MTT guys into his store and showed them that he already had a Bible and had been reading it every day.

“He said that someone gave him the Bible earlier that week,” Jake said. “It was really encouraging to meet him, and others like him, who were so hungry for the gospel.”

Moved by locals’ hospitality

As they travelled throughout the region, the team experienced the blessing of Arab hospitality. Almost everywhere they went, the guys were welcomed into family homes and presented with a meal to eat, or offered a ride in the car from a stranger passing by.

One day, they met a Syrian refugee family who was interested in talking more about Jesus. The family welcomed the guys into their home and gave them delicious cakes and tea.

“It was so cool. We got the opportunity to pray for them, and we found out that they had been going to one of the churches that we had been partnering with,” Leo said. “They invited us back for dinner, as well. They were such a blessing to us.”

Another time, the team was walking along a road when a car stopped just ahead of them. When they walked past the car, the driver told the guys to hop in.

“The car was already full, but he really wanted to give us a ride,” Leo said. “This kind of thing happened every time we went out. It was truly amazing.”

Depending on God

Reflecting on their adventures in the Muslim-majority country, the MTT guys agreed that the biggest thing that God taught them during that time was dependence on Him.

“So little of our schedule was confirmed ahead of time, due to the nature of the work we were doing,” Jon said. “It was awesome to see how God led us through each situation and to experience His provision,” he said.

“We prayed that God would go before us and open up the hearts of the people we’d be ministering to. And He did!,” Marco said. “We were shocked by the number of people who were so open to receive what we had to offer - the light of Christ,” he continued.

The team continues to rely on God as they have now travelled to their next destination country and are trusting that the Lord will use the people of the local church to follow up with unbelievers who received literature.

“The literature helps them initially and they get some good reads, but they need someone to follow up and disciple them if they’re going to grow more,” Marco explained.

Please pray for the people who received the literature the MTT distributed. Pray that they would be motivated to continue seeking Christ, and that established believers would be diligent in seeking them out and discipling them. Pray for the MTT as they travel to and minister in other countries in the region. 

Interested in this ministry? Apply for MTT

*Name changed

Lauren O'Shea is a journalist from the United States. She is a communications intern for OM Middle East North Africa and is dedicated to telling the world what God is doing through global missions and the arts.

Isaiah 19 speaks of a highway that would connect Egypt to Assyria, and prophesies that they would one day become a blessing to one another. 

A community of believers from across the world is coming together to establish houses of prayer along what has been called the Isaiah 19 Highway, and gathering to pray for the Arab world. These believers organise extended times of prayer and worship. 

There is a network of people participating in this sort of intentional prayer and worship in the Near East Field (the OM field includes the countries of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq). This summer, more than 100 workers came together in Kurdistan and spent more than 40 hours in a continuous cycle of worship and prayer. Then a group met in Lebanon and continued to pray and worship for 54 hours straight. Those leading these events are moving along the Isaiah 19 Highway and continuing to worship and pray for breakthrough in the Middle East. 

“We always sense that worship is absolutely key. You worship first, and the worship pushes the darkness back and makes way for the gospel to go forward,” said Peter*, an OM worker from the UK. 

“2 Chronicles 20 talks about the worshippers and the dancers who went ahead of the army and, basically, the army never had to fight because God defeated the enemy as a result of the Israelites’ worship. He cleared the way before the troops,” Peter continued.

In 2015, during one of the prayer and worship events in the Near East Field, a man who was praying received a picture from the Lord. He says that he saw a great tsunami that started in the Levant area and flooded into the Arabian Peninsula. The group interpreted the vision as God telling them that all the amazing ways the gospel is moving forward in the Near East will soon flood over into the Arabian Gulf region, and that those nations will start to experience the church planting movement that the Near East is currently experiencing among Muslims.** 

Sadie*, a South African worker currently living in the Near East Field, said, “That’s something we’re obviously really excited about because we can imagine the impact that’s going to have on followers of Islam and the bigger area, once the Arabian Peninsula floods with the truth of Jesus!”

Sadie shares that one of the themes that has emerged over the last few months of prayer is an emphasis on praying for Sunnis and Shiites. She notes that people have been praying regarding the division of these two groups for years, but she senses a newfound importance to pray in this way. While standing on top of a high place, she and a team prayed over the divide while looking out over their city in the Near East. They had the opportunity to pray whilst being able to see the different areas where the Sunnis and Shiites reside.  

Other focused area of prayer was for one of the large Palestinian camps, praying against the radicalisation of the region’s young people. 

“There are some great stories of radicals encountering Jesus, and their lives have turned around,” Peter excitedly retold. “We prayed for more encounters like that, and that ‘Sauls’ would become ‘Pauls’,” he explained in reference to the biblical account. 

Peter shared: There have been generations of missionaries who have been 'sowing the seeds' of the gospel of Jesus in the Middle East, without seeing much fruit from their labour within their lifetime. Now, he explained, it seems as if the "fruit is coming up left, right and centre" as seen through the new vibrant fellowships of Jesus followers in the Near East. 

Peter believes that the  increase of people gathering to pray and worship globally is bringing and releasing more and more people into the Kingdom of God, and Sadie agrees. 

“If we want to see God move, and we know it’s His heart to move and touch the Arab world, it’s going to require us to humble ourselves and pray. It’s beautiful to see how more and more people are understanding that and are stepping into a life of intentional prayer,” Sadie shared.

Pray for wisdom and protection for the prayer teams as they travel throughout the Middle East and North Africa as they lead prayer and worship gatherings. Pray that God would continue to bless the houses of prayer along the Isaiah 19 Highway, and that more people would be willing to pray on behalf of the people in the region. Pray that God would raise up more Christian Arabs who would worship and call out to the Lord to see Muslim Arabs come to know Jesus Christ.

*Name changed

**For more information regarding the church planting movement in the Near East Field: http://news.om.org/country-news/nea

For the last year and a half, however, the three women have shared everything: Bible Study groups, prayer times, even an apartment. “I think it’s really cool how we can live together, and we are three so different people, and God has united us,” Christine shared.

Forming a team with one other was both challenging and sanctifying, the women agreed. “I found out much more about who I am and how I work than before, and I think it’s mainly due to living with people from a different background, different cultures and different personalities than me,” Sandra explained. “Learning…what part is cultural from back home and what part is my personality and what God needs to change as well, how God needs to grow me in certain areas, that was my biggest surprise this year.”

“We all work together,” Laurie confirmed. “My favourite part about the team is that we have the same heart, we have the same vision, and we are excited about going and doing it together.”

Expectations versus experience

Christine and Sandra, who arrived in the Near East at the same time, thought their ministry would be mostly individual. And, for the first few months while team leader Laurie was still on home assignment, their days played out a simple rhythm of language learning and friendship building. “I thought I was going to be hanging out with loads of girls only at the university,” Christine admitted.

But when Laurie returned to the field, she cast a vision for something bigger: a church planting movement in an unreached city a few hours drive from where the other two had been living. “When we moved… we searched for God to give us a vision, and we realized it was more towards groups than towards individuals, which was new to me because I’m more of a one-on-one person. God keeps reshaping a vision and giving us dreams. We really want to get into families, which is not what I expected in the beginning because I really thought I would be hanging out with university students. It’s been great: we’ve been doing some Discovery Bible Studies (DBS), visiting locals, and a lot of Syrian refugee visits as well,” Sandra said.

Laurie, who initially introduced the idea of church planting to her team still wondered whether it would work. “We went in with those big expectations, but I don’t know how much I believed them,” she shared. “When it happened, it was still like, ‘Wow!’ We did 17 DBS groups in the first six months. God is so good.”

Going for groups

Laurie, Sandra and Christine operate according to church planting principles. From the beginning of their time together, they have incorporated prayer, God’s Word, and "wide sowing" into their weekly routines. Since they want to see a city-wide movement start – rather than raise up individual believers – the women look for opportunities to talk to groups of girls in local settings.

"Wide sowing", Sandra explained “is basically going to meet new people, new girls in our case, be it on the campus, in a coffee shop, in the mall, at the gym even, and just sharing bits of truth, not necessarily the whole Gospel… Our goal is to sow the truth and see who’s interested.”

When they do find women who are interested in studying the Bible, they seek to make the experience as reproducible as possible, capitalising on their university town’s coffee shop culture. Inviting girls to meet them at coffee shops “gives us the opportunity to have a space that we can study with the girls that they can turn around and do it with their friends as well,” Laurie explained. “If it was in our house, they can’t [replicate] a Bible study with their friends there, because that’s our space.”

Diligent discipleship

Although the girls aim for group discipleship, they’ve seen true change happen in a few of their friends’ lives through consistent individual discipleship—often in a coffee shop with the Bible open on an iPad or laptop next to their order of donuts and drinks.

One of the team’s Muslim background believer (MBB) friends, Amira*, came to faith three years ago by herself. “It was a supernatural intervening of God,” Christine explained. Discontent with Islam, Amira was searching for answers until one day, a very particular thought popped into her head: You should read the Bible. Some time later, Amira saw a nun walking down the street, so she ran after her and asked for a Bible. “She started reading it and saw that it’s truth and gave her life to Jesus,” Christine summarised.

Later Amira shared some of her experiences with a foreigner sitting beside her in a taxi. “My roommate talks about the same things you talk about. You guys should get in contact,” the other passenger suggested. In fact, the stranger’s roommate was Laurie’s friend.

Eventually, Laurie and Amira developed a friendship, neither knowing they’d end up in the same city. Discipleship, Laurie said, meant “learning patience and love” as she walked with Amira through the challenges of living out her newfound faith. When Christine and Sandra joined Laurie, they befriended Amira, as well as other Muslim background believers, reading the Bible, praying together and helping them grow in faith.

“Seeing the change in our girls is soul-satisfying,” Sandra declared.

“Especially in the life of Amira,” Christine added. “She’d joke about sharing at the start with her mother and father and family, but she was living in fear. God has just changed her in ways I could never imagine, to the point that she did share with her brother and is sharing openly and boldly.”

Power of prayer

Over the past year and a half, prayer has been key—for the women individually, “but also as a team and with the girls we’re discipling,” Sandra said. “We want to see a supernatural move of God in where He’s placed us, and this can only happen through Him.”

In the beginning, the team prayed together one hour a week. A few months into their time together, they raised it to five hours. Then, Christine said, challenged to “raise the ordinary to the extraordinary,” they upped it again: praying together eight and a half hours a week. “It’s been so good,” she exclaimed. “The biggest breakthroughs I felt are not necessarily when I’m out [sharing]… I really feel God’s heart for the city when I pray and worship.”

The women have also seen direct answers to their intercession. “One of these prayer times, we were crying out for Amira’s family,” Christine recalled. “An hour after praying, she tells us she’s shared her testimony with her brother, and her brother wants to read [the Bible]. I do think there’s such power in prayer, such power in crying out for our friends, and in faith asking for these things.”

Finding freedom

Recently, the women decided to visit one of their MBB friends, Fatima*. When they arrived, they quickly noticed that her younger sister, Mirna*, looked drastically different. “She was super skinny, white where she was previously tan…She had marks all over her body, and she wouldn’t make eye contact,” Christine described. Alarmed, she asked the mother what was wrong.

“She has a jinn (evil spirit) inside her,” the mother stated. The jinn hadn’t allowed Mirna to eat for two weeks, she didn’t sleep or bathe and she physically harmed herself, the mother explained.

With the mother’s permission, the women started praying for Mirna, who immediately began manifesting—making choking sounds and becoming abnormally strong. The women prayed for awhile, and, eventually, Mirna calmed down and asked for food. Thinking the demon had left her, Christine, Sandra and Laurie went home.

Later, however, Fatima phoned back, begging for them to return. Mirna was worse. The next day, the three women mobilised their supporters at home, calling for a full-day fast before they went to pray for Mirna again. “We had a great response,” Christine noted. “And we personally experienced a lot of freedom in that time.” 

That evening, “it was a heavy spiritual battle,” Christine described. The women spent five hours praying over Mirna, speaking truth into her life and commanding the demons to leave. During that time, Mirna manifested different demonic personalities, but by the end of the night, Christine and Sandra agreed that many demons had left her. Mirna is likely not completely free from demonic activity, but since the night of prayer, “she’s asked her sister to read the Word with her, and the mother recognizes that there is a change, that there is power in Jesus’ name,” Sandra said.

Aside from praying for Mirna’s spiritual freedom, Christine, Sandra and Laurie also witnessed one of their MBB friends be baptised last spring. Previously, the three women had been discussing their friend’s expressed desire for baptism, wondering what steps needed to happen first. “Should she tell her family about her faith before her baptism?” they wondered.

Finally, Sandra recalled the apostle Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian man in the Bible, his brief explanation of the prophets and the Ethiopian’s immediate desire to be baptised. Seeing water alongside the road, Philip baptised the man right there and then.

The three women considered their friend’s faith, her boldness sharing the Gospel with others and her desire for obedience. Convinced of her sincerity, they set a day, found a location and, with a few other believers gathered around, celebrated their friend’s symbolic new birth. “What a joy!” Christine exclaimed. “This is the biggest answer to prayer ever!”

Praise God for the work He has accomplished through this OM team. This summer, Christine and Sandra will end their commitment in the city. Pray for God to call more workers – women, men and families – to join this ministry team. To apply: http://www.om.org/en/job/s3623

*Name changed

Nicole James is a journalist, ESL teacher, and adventurer. As a writer for OM Middle East North Africa, she’s passionate about publishing the stories of God’s works among the nations, telling people about the wonderful things He is doing in the world.

The four young men of the OM’s MENA Traveling Team (MTT) are tasked with going to extreme lengths to make the Gospel of Jesus available to unreached people living in the religiously closed countries of the Middle East and North Africa. After spending the year as a part of the MTT in 2015, Jake has returned as the team’s mentor and welcomed the three new participants to the team.

As part of their training, the team spent a month trekking through the desert, learning to survive in harsh outdoor conditions and bonding as a team. During their time in the wilderness, they caught only a glimpse of what doing ministry in the region is like.

Near the end of the trek, the group was camping near a wadi, or canyon, when they began to experience bad weather. The sky was pouring rain and the guys were hesitant to leave the tent, but, they needed food. Marco and Leo decided that they would brave the storm and walk through the rain to get breakfast for the group. While they were walking, a man who lived in town was driving past the two in his car. He stopped, and kindly offered to give them a ride.

“After talking with us for a bit, he circled back to our tent and picked the rest of the guys up and invited us all to stay with him for the night,” Jake recalled. “We spent the entire next day with his family and friends and we were able to share our faith with a lot of people. Looking back, it was one of those days where weren’t expecting much to happen, but God created a lot of opportunities!”

The team continued to experience God’s provision throughout the remainder of the trek, and they returned back to the base with a renewed sense of urgency to do more outreaches.

After another phase of classroom training, where the guys learned more about Biblical teachings, urban and rural survival, they set out to distribute Christian literature for the first time as a team.

Putting theory into practice

On a Monday morning, Jon, Jake, Leo and Marco downed a few cups of coffee, loaded up their backpacks with Arabic Bibles and thousands of pamphlets, and set out to distribute Christian literature.

After making their way through the city streets, the team arrived at their destination for the day: the seaside promenade where many come to walk along the ocean, ride bikes, fish and spend time with friends and family. Since this particular Monday coincided with a national holiday, the walkway was filled with locals who were making the most of their day off of work and school. The team seized the opportunity to distribute literature amongst the throngs of people.

As they meandered through the crowd, the team prayed that God would go before them and prepare the people’s hearts and minds to receive the message of the Gospel.

Leo shared that he’s also been praying for courage. “I’m not naturally an evangelist,” he hesitantly divulged.  “When it comes down to the moment, I just have to step back and let the Spirit lead me to go talk to people and share my faith with them.”

Eager to receive

The Lord answered prayer, prepared the way for the MTT and placed many people who were eager to receive the literature that the team was circulating. Plenty of men, women and children gladly took the material and began reading the Scriptures.

One man was exceptionally excited about receiving the literature. Not only did he gladly accept what was given to him, but he asked for more copies to give to others, pulled out his wallet and tried to pay for what he had been given.

“He kept insisting that he should pay for what he had been given, and I insisted that what we had to offer didn’t cost a thing,” Jake recalled with a grin.

While there were many others who, like this man, were receptive and eager to receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ, there were also many who were opposed to it. These individuals rejected the material that the team was handing out and weren’t open to discussing faith.

More to come

Jon shared his hope that those who received literature during this outreach would continue seeking the Lord. “My prayer is that this wouldn’t be a one time thing for them. I pray that they would get connected with local churches and other believers, and that receiving these pamphlets would be just the beginning of their faith journey,” he expressed.

This is just the beginning of the journey for the MTT, as well. After this first experience of distributing literature as a team, they will continue to travel throughout the MENA region and do whatever it takes to share the Gospel with the unreached until the end of the year.

The entire team is expectantly waiting to see how the Lord will use their team in the coming months.

Please pray for the MTT as they continue ministering to the region throughout the remainder of the year. Pray that the Lord would guide their steps, prepare the way before them, and protect them as they go to extreme lengths to share the Gospel in religiously closed countries. Also pray for the people they will be sharing the Gospel with - that their hearts would be open and they would respond. 

*Name changed

Lauren O'Shea is a journalist from the United States. She is a communications intern for OM Middle East North Africa and is dedicated to telling the world what God is doing through global missions and the arts.

After a few moments, Ann returns to the kitchen to put the finishing touches on dinner. The apartment is filled with the savory smells of her Latin American cooking, waiting to greet the friends she and René are having over tonight. 

The mix of Latin American and Middle Eastern culture may seem odd to some, but to Ann and René, it is home.

A burden for the lost

Originally René did not think he would find himself living in the Levant region. It wasn’t until he served with OM's Ship Ministry that his heart began to change. 

“I didn’t have a plan for what exactly I would be doing after I left the ship. I was trusting the Lord to lead me in the right direction,” René said. “When I came to this region my heart was in shock about the needs of the people and about how they were so open to hearing about Jesus.”

The openness of the people to listen to the gospel made a significant impact on his life. He noticed that although there were plenty of people who longed to know God, the number of Christian workers in the region were few. 

He returned to the ship, and eventually back to Latin America to complete the responsibilities he had there, but, with a newfound burden for the people of the Middle East. 

“Always it was in my heart,” René recalled. “I was in Latin America, but I always wanted to go to the Middle East. I was praying and asking the Lord if I should go alone, or if I should wait until I marry.”

Soon after, René started dating Ann. From the very beginning, René clearly told Ann that God had called him to serve in the Middle East region. 

“I told her, if you think this is not your call, if God is not calling you to missions, then we are not meant to be,” René said with a smile. “She had to pray and ask for God’s direction. I was very sure about my call here - whether I would go alone or not.”

Ann shared, she wasn’t so sure about living in the Middle East at that time. After a lot of prayer, she came to the realization that God was calling her into ministry to this region. 

“I knew that He had called me and placed this burden on my heart for the people, but I still didn’t know if I could serve there,” she said. “It seemed so hard, so dangerous.” 

She explained that as she continued praying, God’s peace washed over her heart and she became confident in following God’s call to minister in the Middle East region, specifically on the OM Near East Field. 

A shocking lack of culture shock

The couple anticipated that they would experience major culture shock when they made the move from their home countries in Latin America to the Arab World, but were surprised by the relative ease of the transition.

“We kept waiting for culture shock to hit us, but I don’t think it ever came,” Ann remarked with a laugh. “Even 8 months later, I still don’t feel like we ever experienced a shock. What shocked me was how similar the Arab culture is to Latin America.” 

Middle Eastern and Latin American cultures both place a high value on hospitality, family and friendships. They are considered to be ‘warm’ cultures. 

Aside from learning the language, René noted that the only major difference is the relational dynamic between men and women. 

“Latin Americans, we treat both [genders] the same. We are very friendly in Latin America,” he said. “Here it is more appropriate for men to socialize with other men, and women to socialize with women. The rest is totally similar. It was not hard at all for us to adapt from our Latin culture,” René continued.

“Also the food!,” Ann proclaimed. Comparing Arabic bread and fresh produce in the Middle East to food in Latin America she explained, “The local food here is good, but I miss my Haas avocados and good tortillas.” 

The harvest is plenty, workers are few

Conflicts in the neighboring countries of Syria and Iraq have led to an ever-increasing number of refugees fleeing their homelands. While this is a tragic situation for many reasons, René is able to see a positive aspect of the circumstance.

He explains that in Syria, there were restrictions on how, where and with whom the gospel could be shared. However, because many Muslims have fled the war in their own country and are entering into countries where sharing the gospel is allowed, there are opportunities to share the gospel with refugees. 

“It’s up to us to leave the comfort of our homes and share this hope that is for them,” René said. “They are so willing to hear that God loves them, even in these hard times.”

Since they’ve arrived on the Near East Field, Ann and René have had the opportunity to serve in one of the larger communities of Syrian refugees. Once a month, they help put on a children’s programme and last month more than 200 children attended. 

“It’s just very simple things that we do. We play some games and we tell them how God loves them,” Ann said. “It was very touching for me. These simple things give them a small moment to remember that they are kids. Some time to forget about what they’ve lost and about their problems, and to learn about the hope we have in Jesus.”

Another time, René was visiting a refugee woman who had lost her husband in the war. She was in her house with her mother and two sons, and the sons were sitting on the floor, eagerly listening to Bible stories. 

One of the sons was still very traumatized from the brutal violence he witnessed during the war. He is safe now and goes to school, but his mother says that he never smiles. 

“While he was listening to the Bible stories, the little boy started laughing and smiling for the first time since the war. We were sharing hope with them,” René excitedly recalled. “There are thousands more just like them, desperate for this hope we have in Christ.”

Please pray for more Christian workers to respond to God’s call to serve among Muslims in the Middle East region and specifically on the Near East Field. 

*Name changed

Earlier that day, Timothy had also seen a Facebook post from another local, warning his friends about the missionaries in the city wanting to evangelise youth.

Finally, hoping to not waste his team’s culinary efforts, Timothy phoned Hamid*, a neighbour down the street. Hamid had once shown spiritual interest, watching an entire DVD series explaining the Gospel with Timothy and his team. But after falling for an Arab girl, Hamid had suddenly launched back into Islam, attending the mosque and sprinkling his speech with sayings intended to ward off evil spirits.

“When it was only him coming for dinner that night…and the people I invited just didn’t answer my phone calls, and after reading this comment [on Facebook], I was like, ‘Why are we here?’” Timothy remembered.

Even though Hamid had gone from “incredible spiritual interest to nothing,” Timothy and his team still saw him at least once a week. Jared*, one of the other young men on Timothy’s team, shared one of the conversations he’d had with Hamid a few weeks before that night’s dinner.

The two young men had been discussing future plans, when Hamid, out of the blue, asked Jared, “How would you react if I became a Christian?” Jared asked what he meant and told Hamid that being a Christian didn’t mean becoming like him and Timothy, but rather that Christianity imitated Jesus himself.

Jared had also taken other opportunities to tell Hamid how God had provided for the various needs in his life and talked about his assurance of salvation through Jesus.

Still, when Hamid showed up to dinner that night, Timothy wasn’t happy. “The only guy coming over is a guy we had so much hope for, and he’s been such a disappointment,” he thought.

Despite Timothy’s misgivings, he said the dinner went well. Hamid left after the meal, but he returned to the apartment a while later. Sitting in the living room, Hamid turned to Timothy and said, “OK, I’m ready to become a Christian. What should I be doing? Reading the Bible? Praying?”

Timothy, wanting to gauge Hamid’s motivations—his question coming after a year of no spiritual interest—shared his testimony. So did two other foreigners who were staying with Timothy.

The next morning, Hamid and Timothy talked for another four hours. As they were discussing prayer, Hamid told Timothy, “That’s what I love about Christianity. You can pray to God about whatever you want, whatever you’re doing.” Timothy read Matthew chapters five through seven with Hamid, looking at what Jesus’ teachings on prayer, fasting and giving alms—“how a Christian generously gives from himself to God without being a hypocrite, without it being [only] religion,” Timothy said.

The next week, Hamid watched a sermon on DVD with Timothy, an hour-long account from another Muslim background believer (MBB). “An hour is a long time to sit in front of a screen and watch a sermon, but he was captivated,” Timothy remembered. “Any time this guy didn’t understand a concept, he would stop it and say, ‘What are the sacrifices? Who are the Pharisees?’”

At one point, Timothy left the room. When he returned, Hamid was explaining the video to the other guy in the room, a foreigner who didn’t speak Arabic. “Not only was he watching and listening, he was also able to explain,” Timothy said. “With all the difficulties, with all the disillusionments, it’s amazing how one conversation can change your attitude and make you thankful again for being out here.”

Pray for Hamid to feel God’s presence and truly explore the life in Jesus that he has chosen. Pray for courage as Hamid experiences the Holy Spirit’s conviction. Pray for Timothy, Jared, and their team in the OM Near East Field (field comprised of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq) to disciple and support Hamid in his newfound belief.

*Name changed

Nicole James is a journalist, ESL teacher, and adventurer. As a writer for OM Middle East North Africa, she’s passionate about publishing the stories of God’s works among the nations, telling people about the wonderful things He is doing in the world

Selma lives in a neighbourhood in the Near East (field comprised of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq), where many Syrian refugees live. While spending time with these Syrian women, she realised quickly, that one problem the families have, is space. They are crowded in small apartment homes.

“They live like in dorms,” she explained, “and when you knock on the door, anyone that lives in the different small rooms would open the door.”

In these cramped rooms, children have no space to play. To ease the problem, Selma, who has two small children of her own, started the “Children's Music Group” together with other women from a local church. During this time, there is enough space for the children to play, run and enjoy toys. At the same time, Selma and the other volunteers are able to talk to the mothers and read the Bible together with those who are interested.

“After half an hour of playing, we have another half an hour where we have music. The children can jump and enjoy their mothers,” Selma shared. “It’s kind of a three dimensional ministry. For the kids to enjoy, for the moms to enjoy their children, and to read the Bible with these mothers.”

If women want to read the Scriptures, Selma invites them to a small group called Discovery Bible Study (DBS). The concept of DBS is a group-based. The format is easy to hand over for locals to conduct the study. If Selma cannot make it to the group, the group can do the study alone. 

“It always starts with common questions, like 'what are you thankful for?',” Selma’s teammate explained. “After that, we read a Bible story and later there are again questions, this time related to the story we read. We end with a call for obedience, like 'what will you do now?' or 'who will you help in the next week?'”

First they read the story in classical Arabic and then the story is retold in the local dialect. Often someone also translates the story into Kurdish. There are MP3 audio recordings of the story available – so DBS groups just have to press 'play' to share the material with others who are interested.

Unexpected encounters

Zahra* went to the Children's Music Group regularly. One week Zahra had problems with her teeth and didn’t show up. She was at the dentist when Selma went to check on her, so Faizah*, her pregnant neighbor, opened the door. She invited Selma into her home.

“We started talking and then we spoke about helping at the church, when Faizah suddenly said, 'I just gave away a Bible',” Selma said.

Faizah then asked Selma if they could read the Bible together.  "I was very surprised!,” Selma expressed. “Normally, I have to ask, the women don’t ask me! So, we met later together with Zahra, and started to read the Bible together."

Selma asked Faizah to share more about herself. Faizah told her, “The last time I was pregnant, I had a dream. I was flying and didn’t feel the weight of the baby. I was wearing a beautiful white dress and flew up to a hill where I saw Jesus being crucified. Around him I saw elders bowing down, wearing white, and singing beautiful songs to Jesus.”

Faizah didn’t know what to think about the dream she had, but Selma shared with her from the Bible in the book of Revelations. “We read Revelations together and Faizah was amazed,” said Selma. “Since then, we regularly read the Bible. It was great to see, that God opened this door and arranged this divine appointment.”

*Name changed

Please pray for Selma and other OM workers leading Bible studies among Muslims. Pray for Faizah, that she comes to know Jesus through studying the Bible. 

Ibrahim becomes a leader

Ibrahim* grew up as a rebellious young man, prone to alcoholism. When a Kurdish Christian friend shared the Gospel with him, inviting him to church and explaining that Jesus was his only hope, Ibrahim accepted the invitation. During his very first time in church, God’s spirit touched him. His life was completely changed and over the years Ibrahim became a strong leader.

When the war broke out in his region of Syria, thousands of people gathered in the parks with no work, no income, no food, and no drink. Ibrahim and others called upon OM workers in Syria, who realised: “We must help!” Since then, OM has helped to provide thousands with aid and relief on a monthly basis.

Joe explained that through his longtime relationship with Ibrahim and pastors like him, OM has been able to partner with a number of Syrian churches. 

Planting churches in the chaos

Early on in the war, Joe had a clear sense from the Lord that the city Ibrahim lived in would be destroyed. Joe shared his concerns with Ibrahim and challenged him to leave the city and go into an unreached area where no churches had been planted yet. The Lord confirmed this message to Ibrahim and he was willing to go.

He left the city with his wife and two children and moved to a small town surrounded by hundreds of other small villages. The new beginning was hard - he and a handful of believers spent much time in prayer, often whole nights of fervent prayer. Eventually a small church was born. It quickly grew to one hundred people and at Easter they had 200 visitors! A strong fellowship was born in the countryside.

Now, Joe continues to mentor Ibrahim, mostly via Skype. In the past year it has become almost impossible for the believers in this specific area to travel because it is too dangerous. “Whenever Ibrahim has the opportunity to come out of Syria, we meet up for encouragement, debriefing and training,” Joe explained.

Ali meets a Kurdish Christian

“Impossible,” Ali*, a Muslim Kurdish man from Aleppo, Syria used to say. “No Kurds are Christians!”

Ali and his family fled the constant shelling and unemployment in his city and moved to the same town as Ibrahim. There, he was trying to feed his family on $30 USD a month. When some believers visited with a food package, he was amazed. He had never met Kurdish Christians before. They challenged him to come to church and see for himself. Ali accepted the invitation, loved the church and today his whole family has come to know Christ.

“People need help. There are many stories like this,” Joe shared. “We work with six churches in Syria. Even if we can no longer enter into the country, our long-term relationships mean we are still able to bring aid.”

“We are not leaving.”

In the east of Syria, an area where most of the church members have left, there are two churches where the elders have decided to stay. “Because God has put us here,” they said. Joe emphasised that this takes much courage.

Ahmed has a Dream

Some years ago, Ahmed* had a dream about Jesus. He also listened to a sheik (Muslim leader) share about Jesus in the mosque, and how Jesus had raised people from the dead (this is part of the Koran). He wanted to ask more questions but the sheik brushed him off, saying, “you can’t understand this!”

Ahmed started searching for a New Testament but could not find one. When the war came, he fled to Turkey where he met Kurdish believers and managed to get a Bible. In three months he read through all of the New and the Old Testament. He also started to help other refugees with food and shared how Jesus loved them. Recently, he moved back to Syria and has asked for prayer; it is a very difficult situation.

Please pray for peace in Syria. There are many ’Ibrahims’, ‘Alis’ and ‘Ahmeds’; pray that they will not lose hope but see God at work in their everyday lives. Pray for pastors and elders leading churches, where many of their members have left as refugees and where many seekers come. Pray OM will be able to continue supporting the Christian ministry in Syria through practical aid and spiritual encouragement.

*Name changed

Once Farah finished her glass of water, the first thing provided in light of the temperatures still soaring towards 30°C, Hayley returned to the kitchen for juice and the cookies she’d baked in anticipation of Farah’s visit. She also grabbed a piece of paper that had been lying in her room for the last few months.

Hayley served Farah the second drink and offered her a fresh-baked cookie, setting the rest on a low table in easy reach of her guest. Then she handed her the neon sheet of paper with a hand-printed recipe for a South African milk tart. “I keep forgetting to give this to you,” Hayley apologized. “It’s from the girl you met during the summer program.”

Translating the Father’s love

Farah had played an integral role during the Transform outreach, translating at the four Kid’s Club programmes as well as joining the team for their daily debrief. “My favourite part of the summer programme was when the kids acted out the different stories,” she told Hayley.

Some of those stories were parables, bits of the Bible that the Bedouin kids not only heard for the first time but also learned by performing. For Kendra, as leader of this year’s Transform outreach, sharing truth with the kids and also their mothers encouraged her most.

The story of the prodigal son especially hit home for them, she remembered. “When we say, ‘Who is the hero of the story,’ the kids say, ‘the father.’” The storyteller then made the point more explicit by adding, “God is like that Father,” Kendra said. “The moms were there, the kids were there, and I know those seeds are there. I was like, ‘Oh, this is why I’m here: to share.’”

Hayley said having other outside believers come to her village, take part in her everyday life and learn to love her friends and neighbours was a highlight for her. Her local friends experienced what it was like to be around a community of people who love Jesus, and the additional support amplified her team’s ability to serve the community. “I felt encouraged and motivated by the fact that they came and participated alongside us,” she shared. “We did plan a special program, but they really were coming alongside with things we were already doing, supporting us and giving us increased capacity for our ministry.”

Dual focus

The international team that came to the field for the Transform outreach focused on two main ministries.

First, Kid’s Club. According to Hayley, Kid’s Club was already an established part of village ministry when she arrived on the field three years prior. A fixed location and up to 60 regular attendees made it an ideal means of building relationships with the kids and their families.

“It’s enjoyable, it’s fun for the kids, it’s educational, they’re able to learn something, they’re able to practice English. It’s good, wholesome fun,” she described. “The kids are always eager to come and participate, to learn and play games and learn crafts.”

Hayley and Kendra’s team normally organizes Kid’s Club once a week at a single location, but with the additional help from the Transform participants, they put on the programme fourteen times spread over four locations. In one village, 102 kids showed up. “It blew our previous records out of the water,” Hayley said.

“That’s the day we shared the prodigal son story,” Kendra explained. “For me, it was the best.”

The second way the Transform team supported village ministry involved teaching English. For the first year and a half that Hayley lived in the village, she taught English a short bus ride away from where she lived. Since then, she’s taught in a handful of other locations. “It’s something I enjoy, and it’s something there’s a huge demand for,” she explained.

Three of the short-term women worked with Hayley for the duration of the Transform outreach, figuring out how to implement the English lessons she’d created for teenage girls in her village.

In addition to the planned programmes, the Transform participants also received cultural orientation, went on local visits, participated in prayer walks and drives, and completed an exploration adventure where they travelled to another village via public transportation, alone but equipped with maps and instructions.

Long-term encouragement

“I’m always delighted when new people come and they really want to learn,” Hayley said. “All three of the Transform groups I have worked with, the participants have been eager to learn, eager to participate.” With this year’s team particularly, she noticed that in “the things that we would ask them to do, they were very eager to listen to us, to really work hard to try to adjust to the culture out here, to try to learn how the Bedouins live and what things are important to them.”

Of course, challenges arose during Transform, inherent to life on the field. For instance, the night before Kid’s Club and English classes started, one of the scheduled locations cancelled. However, even that sudden reworking of plans reflected workers’ normal life in the village. On the morning of Farah’s visit to Hayley and Kendra, regular Kid’s Club had also been cancelled by the director, 15 minutes before the women were planning to leave. Farah, who had agreed to translate that day, was already on her way out the door when she received the message on her phone.

As far as Transform relates to the field at large, Kendra said, “Short term is good because maybe people want to come in the future, and maybe it gives them good experiences… For us, it’s nice because you get new, fresh people, excited people. We get used to the local sheep and the camels, and they’re like, ‘Oh, camels!’ They bring new ideas and also energy.”

Another benefit, according to Hayley, “is just being able to spread our connections and get to know more people.” Months after Transform, she attended a neighbour’s wedding, where she saw some of the girls from the summer English programme. They remembered her as well as the short-term volunteers, she noted: “People here still ask, ‘Oh how are those girls? How are your friends? Where are they? Are they coming back again?”

For some people, coming back to the Middle East is “the final step, the ultimate result,” Hayley explained. But those who never return also play an important part in sustaining long-term ministry. Short-term participants “have the opportunity to represent us, our team, our ministry, our village, our people to their own churches, their own Bible studies and friend groups, and through that, they kind of spread our network globally… which broadens our prayer support. When these people come temporarily, they spread the word on our behalf. I do think that’s a special moment when they go home and tell others about us.”

*Name changed

Nicole James is a journalist, ESL teacher, and adventurer. As a writer for OM Middle East North Africa, she’s passionate about publishing the stories of God’s works among the nations, telling people about the wonderful things He is doing in the world.

By the end of their year in the Middle East and North Africa Area (MENA), however, the MTT participants not only knew how to hail a cab and use basic Arabic to communicate, they’d also grown immensely – personally and spiritually – as a result of their varied travels across nine countries. They also left a legacy across MENA, having distributed over 10,000 Gospels within 12 months.

“To know that, through the team, we have made the Gospel available to over 10,000 people in the MENA region is unbelievable actually,” MTT leader Paul* said. “We’re meeting an actual need of the field that long termers can’t accomplish.”

Unlikely encounters

During their year travelling around MENA, the group said some of the most memorable encounters were completely unplanned, “random encounters in random places,” team mentor Tim* described.

Once, while walking back through a city in the Near East after distributing literature, Kyle and Tim met two men who wanted to know more about what the MTT members were doing as well as what they believed. After awhile, an older man sitting nearby joined in, asking them what they had been discussing. Upon hearing the topic of conversation, he said, “That’s great! I’ve been hoping and praying to get a Bible for five years now.” Luckily, Kyle and Tim had an Arabic Bible in their bag, which they promptly gave him.

Another time, in a different country, a young man approached the MTT group and started talking to them. “He was tired of Islam,” Tim explained, “and he didn’t know anything about Christians.” Then Tim and the other MTT guys explained some of their faith to the man and gave him a Bible.

“He was one of those guys, as soon as he got the Bible in his hands, he just started reading and kept reading for a good while,” Tim remembered. “He gave it back to us, and we said, ‘Oh, you can keep it.’ Immediately, as we said he could keep it, his face just shone.”

“I feel very privileged to have those [encounters] where I have not done anything to prepare the ground,” Tim shared. “God has led us perfectly to that person who He has been working in and allowing us to be part of it, in giving the Word and sharing.”

Expect the unexpected

From sleeping outside in the desert during a sandstorm, to being run out of town by an angry sheikh, to mailing thousands of Gospel tracts through the postal system, to being pelted by raw eggs—each country offered unique adventures, according to the MTT members. Despite the constant variables, for Kyle the experience proved “very much what I expected because I was told to expect the unexpected…You basically have to be as flexible as possible. You have no idea where you’re going before you sign up.”

If anything, the amount of training between trips – ranging from finding water in the desert to telling people the Gospel – surprised him the most. Each training module carried purpose, preparing the team for their next outreach.

Tim said the group often worked by themselves in the countries they visited. Despite his two years of prior experience in the Near East, spontaneous planning, at times, challenged the team. “We’ve had a lot of own initiative in every place we’ve went to,” he explained. “Freedom can allow you to do things, but when you’re new to a place it can be difficult to know what to do and how to do it.”

The men gained momentum as they progressed through the year, Paul noted. “Each training phase that we finish, they have just a little bit more confidence in what they’re doing. You can see it in the amount of questions they ask about hotels, busses, etc. The first outreach, they had very specific questions. They asked about everything, which is a symptom of being nervous about not knowing and not having the knowledge and skills to improvise on your own… Now I can say, ‘Here’s a general picture of where we’re going and what we’re doing.’”

Re-route to Serbia

Paul highlighted flexibility and diversity as two especially successful elements of the MENA Travelling Team, particularly near the end of the year.  These characteristics played out not only individually but also corporately as the group re-routed one of its final trips from North Africa to Serbia, ten days before their plane was scheduled for departure.

With OM workers on the ground in southern Europe and the Balkans desperate for additional volunteers to support their small teams’ burgeoning efforts to assist in the refugee crisis, relief coordinators called on those within MENA to lend a hand. “A few people were able to say yes and go, but for the most part, most of us can’t. We have language classes, friendships and jobs,” Paul explained.

MTT, however, was different. “I talked to the field leader in North Africa,” Paul recalled. “I told him I would like to be able to answer yes [to Serbia] because it’s an immediate need.” The field leader agreed, and four days before the team’s would-be trip to North Africa, Paul purchased tickets to the Balkans instead.

Spending two and a half weeks in Serbia among refugees, MTT members “were able to bring their language, their understanding of Arabic culture and Islam and how to interact with that people group,” Paul said. “It was a cool thing for me because our whole purpose is to be in the MENA region, but I always preach that flexibility is what MTT is… Even in the first year of MTT, we’re changing to meet the needs.”

For Dan, making relationships proved just as important as meeting needs. “What we’ve done has been cool, but what’s been more meaningful for me is the people that we’ve been able to partner with. It’s really been cool to come alongside these people that are already doing incredible work,” he said. “We’re different than normal short-term teams…We have some Arabic skills, we show up and go to work. We’re able to encourage the teams [on the field] because we’re not tourists.”

MTT finished its first year in late December 2015. Kyle transitioned to team mentor, welcoming three new participants in January 2016. For more information about how you can be involved transforming lives and communities in MENA, check out job opportunities: http://www.om.org/en/mission-jobs/by-area/middle-east

*Name changed

Nicole James is a journalist, ESL teacher, and adventurer. As a writer for OM Middle East North Africa, she’s passionate about publishing the stories of God’s works among the nations, telling people about the wonderful things He is doing in the world.

OM workers Henry* and Christine* recently moved to Europe, after 23 years of living and serving in the Near East. A few weeks before they moved, they attended a goodbye service held by the local Kurdish fellowship where they’d mentored, discipled and encouraged Syrian believers.

The Kurdish group, which has existed only two years in its current form, seemed eager to champion the couple’s expanding ministry frontiers. “A number of them have the vision to see something happening in different parts [of the world],” Christine said. “Some of the fellowship has left to Europe… It’s very much on their heart to see ministry to them there. They were very excited to pray for us, that they could send us off.”

At the farewell gathering, the men gathered around Henry and Christine to pray for them. Afterwards, the leader stepped forward. “I want to anoint your feet so that wherever you go, God will give you the land and the people before you,” he told them.

“I was so humbled by that. They were praying for us to go to [Europe] and see much fruit and to reach out and serve,” Christine recalled. “This picture, the way that they prayed for us, the way he humbled himself to anoint our feet was such a beautiful gesture and an expression of their hearts to see God’s kingdom come.”

Having vacationed in Germany a few months prior—as the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe unfolded, capturing the attention of international headlines—Henry and Christine felt God leading them to transition their long-term ministry to a new location.

“Europe has set up a good relief network,” Christine explained. “On the practical side, I think there are a lot of good things happening there. When it comes to the spiritual side and the cultural understanding [of ministry among Arab refugees], sometimes that’s lacking.”

Kurds from all over the Middle East have headed to Europe, fleeing on-going conflict but also leaving the kind of training and support Henry has offered. “We don’t want to leave them alone,” he said, referencing their relocation. “We [will] try to help them and help the churches.”

Stretching, blessing and preparing

Originally, Henry and Christine’s vision was for the Sunni and Shii’a Muslims, not the Kurds. But after being kidnapped and forced to leave the city they intended to stay long-term, the couple relocated to a Kurdish area. A few years later, when they moved countries again, a Kurdish pastor contacted Henry. “He had a vision to train Syrian Kurds, so we started to train Syrian Kurds with him,” Henry said. “At that time, the fellowship was only a very small group of people.”

When that pastor left, another leader emerged, and the group grew to about 40 people. For a few years, the fellowship fluctuated, sometimes functioning well, sometimes not. In 2012, however, large numbers of Kurdish refugees arrived in their area. Whereas the Kurdish believer group up to that point had mainly consisted of single men, that year “we actually started to see hundreds and hundreds of Syrian Kurdish families,” Christine said.

During that time, the couple “encouraged the Kurdish believers with literature, to do outreach and to start Bible studies,” Henry said. They also asked the local centre coordinating work among the Kurds to start a weekly meeting. “We didn’t have the responsibility for it, but we just encouraged them,” he emphasised.

About 250 Kurds now attend weekly meetings at local churches, Christine estimated. In the years of growth, she and Henry never led the ministry but simply supported the Kurdish believers, consistently “mentoring, encouraging, standing by them in times of difficulty, encouraging them to persevere, [and] walking alongside them.”

“Sometimes we feel like we haven’t given much, but it seems like some of these little things have touched them or given them an example to follow or challenged them to really keep on going and persevering in their ministry,” she said.

For example, one Kurdish believer told Christine about her first encounter with Henry. He’d walked up to her family’s sixth floor apartment, in a building without an elevator. Then Henry saw that the family didn’t have a Bible, so he walked down the stairs and then back up again to bring them God’s Word. “That so touched her because no one would do that,” Christine explained. Six flights of stairs were reason enough for most neighbors to avoid visits, people of Henry’s age in particular. “But here he is and he really wants us to grow and come know the Lord and just to help us and encourage us,” the believer said.

In a neighboring country, too, where Henry travelled every few months, he encouraged the Kurdish believers by becoming like them. “In winter, it was freezing cold, and in summer, it was so hot,” Christine said. “These guys didn’t have all the comforts, and Henry would be willing to stay with them.”

“Through the 23 years [in the Near East Field], we had ups and downs. We had some really exciting times and some times to plow on and keep on. What God is doing among the Kurds right now, we never had planned. God, through His ways, brought us around,” Christine encouraged. “That’s a lot of my story: God giving me the grace, stretching me, blessing me and preparing me for something new. As we trust God, He’s faithful.”

“Henry and Christine leaving creates a very big hole, both relationally and in terms of ministry for us as a field,” stated the OM Near East Field Leader. “They’ll still be involved with the Kurds, and we see how their move to Europe and focus on mobilizing churches there is a really good fit for them. We’re excited for them to take advantage of this opportunity.”

Pray for Henry and Christine as they transition to life in Europe. Pray that God will use their cultural and ministry experience to reach many Syrians, in order that they may come to know Him. Pray for more workers and churches in Europe to join the work among refugees.

*Name changed

Nicole James is a journalist, ESL teacher, and adventurer. As a writer for OM Middle East North Africa, she’s passionate about publishing the stories of God’s works among the nations, telling people about the wonderful things He is doing in the world.

”As we were looking at needs around the world we felt really drawn to this part of the world because it has been a difficult place to work and there has not been a lot of fruit,” Ed explained. “Once we narrowed down the area, we started looking at people groups and we read about the Kurds and the great need there. So we specifically felt the call to Kurdish people.”

Kurds are an ethnic minority living in several countries in the Near East. ”There are many workers reaching out to Kurds, but few of them know the language,” Kim shared. “Arabic does not hit the heart as much as their heart language.”

Almost all the refugees that the local team is working with are Kurds. Every member in the team has their own speciality and Ed and Kim are focused on the language. ”This is the time for the Kurds to hear the Gospel,” said Kim.

Usually Kurds are excited about the interest to learn Kurdish, but there are some who don’t understand why they’re doing it. Ed and Kim have seen that Kurdish is not considered an important language because it is more common to speak Arabic.

There are no institutes or schools for learning Kurdish, so Ed and Kim had to find people to teach them. Their learning is based on hearing and talking. In Kurdish written language is different from spoken, and many Kurds actually cannot read or write their own language.

“It has its challenges,” admitted Ed. “Instructions that we get from our teacher are in Arabic and our Arabic is not very strong. We had six months of Arabic before starting with Kurdish. Right now our main focus is to learn Kurdish. Our target is to hit 30 hours of studying a week.”

Even though there is a Bible in Kurdish, it is not commonly used because people learn Arabic in school. Talking about religion in Kurdish is a bit unpractical as everyone is used to talking about it in Arabic. Some needed words do not exist, or people don’t know them in Kurdish. “There are Kurdish believers who are trying to teach religious words to each other,” Ed shared.

In the neighbourhood there is a church community connecting with refugees. In that community Arabic is the official language, but they also have a Kurdish pastor. Instead of Arabic, they have the opportunity to hear teaching in Kurdish once in a week, and that church community has become socially important for many refugees.

Ed and Kim’s goal is to find the yet unreached people. They are always looking for chances to meet new people, even outside their immediate community. In his free time Ed goes to a local gym. When he started to recognize different languages he realized there are a lot of Kurdish men going to the same gym. ”They are not connected to any church, so finally there is an opening to a totally new group of people,” he said.

When asked about goals beyond that, Ed shared their vision: ”Our goal is to help the Kurdish community establish a church someday.” They want to help people grow as believers as much as leaders. Ed and Kim are not here because of the location but the people. If these people would move somewhere else, they would move with the community.

”If the war ends, we will all go back together and we might end up in Germany as well,” says Ed, laughing. Pray for Ed and Kim, that they would learn this new language properly and could reach the unreached people with their heart language.

*Name changed