Evangelization in the time of Covid: PPE x 2 (Personal Protective Equipment + Powerful Personal Evangelism)!

While it is true that Somalia’s broken healthcare system has hampered that country’s efforts to cope with COVID-19, our man in Somalia, Pastor Mustafa, sees instead more opportunities for geared-up evangelism efforts. Most recently, this involved the evangelization of a whole village in northern Somalia with full PPE added to the full armor of God as protection!
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Imam Sadath, spiritual head of a village mosque in northern Somalia, had followed the tenets of Islam his whole life and enjoyed popularity as a strong leader, teacher and even healer. But when Covid-19 swept through his village three months ago, none of the Imam’s prayers or recitations could bring relief.

Each day, an endless stream of villagers visited their leader, hoping to be helped, even as every home in the village lost someone to the disease. None of the imam’s duas (prayers, recitations, incantations, etc.) seemed to work anymore.

Medical workers carry the body of a COVID-19 patient at Martini Hospital in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia. Xinhua/Hassan Bashi via Getty Images

Then the inevitable happened—Covid reached his own home. Imam Sadath felt helpless and hopeless. He lost a daughter and a son to the disease, and soon he tested positive as well.

When Pastor Mustafa, a Bibles for Mideast leader in Somalia, heard the news, he and two other workers (all former Muslims) geared up in their PPE and headed for the Imam’s home.

They presented the leader, already beginning to feel the onset of Covid symptoms, with portions of the Bible: Psalms 91 and 121, as well as Isaiah 53. They suggested he read the sections each morning, noon and evening. As former Muslims, the missionary team knew well the discipline so deeply ingrained in Islam: all Muslims are expected to pray five times a day, usually reciting aloud or silently from their holy writings, so they figured this request should be an easy one for an imam.

But the Islamic leader tried to brush them away, wanting nothing to do with them or their literature. Suddenly however, he began to cough and struggle for breath, and then panicked at the real possibility of dying.

The Bibles for Mideast pastor began reading aloud the scriptures he had just given the imam. He went on to explain the prophecy from Isaiah 53 more fully: the crucifixion, death and resurrection of none other than Jesus Christ.

The missionaries then prayed for Imam Sadath and the remaining members of his family, who all reported they felt much better after the prayers.  

Before leaving, Pastor Mustafa reminded the Islamic leader about reading the scriptures three times daily, and this time, the imam wholeheartedly agreed to the plan.  [See one Pakistani pastor’s brilliant approach to bringing Muslims and Christians together through the worshipful Psalms: Using the Psalms to Connect with Muslims and the Quran.]

When Pastor Mustafa returned to the imam’s home a week later, he discovered the man not only felt far better, but had fully memorized all his ‘homework’! Imam Sadath reported that whenever he or his family members felt sick or had trouble breathing, they would recite these ‘words of God’ and feel better. He then asked Pastor Mustafa to tell him more about Jesus, and soon he and his whole family accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. 

After all were baptized, the former imam himself asked Pastor Mustafa to visit the homes in his village and distribute Bibles. A few days later, all geared up in their PPE and observing protocol for social distancing, the team set out to evangelize, give away Bibles, and pray with villagers who wanted it. Miraculously, not one person has died from the visited homes in the village. Quite naturally, people began to believe in Jesus as being so much more than the simple prophet Islam teaches about and many have become Christians. Please keep these new believers in your prayers.  

To keep up the work, Pastor Mustafa urgently requires 10,000 Somali Bibles, each costing about US$5.20.  As always and ever, we welcome your prayers and any additional help you can offer.

By God's grace and your prayers and support, Bibles for Mideast and the ALG Church continue to grow and thrive in Somalia, other parts of Africa, the Middle East and south Asia.

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Pastor Mustafa oversees approximately 40 underground Assembly of Loving God (ALG) house churches all across Africa and has long been one of our most active and powerful Bibles for Mideast leaders.   He knows and understands well those he ministers to, having once been among the 98.9 percent Muslim portion of Somalia’s population. We have reported many miraculous events in his and his team’s ministry in Somalia as he continues to prove  himself a  key player in God’s Kingdom plans for Africa.

Jesus lived—joyfully—within human limits: can we do the same?

“When Christ came into the world as Jesus to be a human being, that was his promise. Not to do God things as Jesus, but to be a human being. And he kept that promise faithfully, all the way through. He could have avoided the cross, but he didn’t, he kept his promise, to be human.”
— Madeleine L’Engle, in a 1996 talk to the Calvin Center for Faith and Writing

What if the things we most fear about our bodies―our vulnerability to illness and pain―are exactly the places where God meets us most fully?

Chronic pain began tormenting Liuan Huska in her early 20s.

“If God could heal me, why didn’t He?” she wondered. If God knew what was wrong, why wouldn’t he show her, or her doctors, how to fix it? After a few years of bewilderment, she eventually pushed through and pulled up the bigger questions too many Christians either ignore or offer ‘too-pat’ answers for.

A closer reading of the Christian story showed her clearly how God embodied Himself in human flesh as Jesus: “one who in every respect has been tested as we are,” (Hebrews 4:15) and “subject to weakness” (Hebrews 5:2).

“For all the words we use to label God,” she wrote in a recent post on the BioLogos website, “we can forget the name He called himself: Emmanuel  (Matt. 1:23). This is Hebrew for God with us. In Jesus, God doesn’t manifest as all-powerful, all-present, or all-knowing. Certainly, He may be those things, and showed His power through healings, wisdom, and knowledge. But the chief quality God highlighted in Christ was not doing but being. Being with; feeling with; suffering with.”

Liuan finds herself relating well to the disabled and others with debilitating health conditions. Too often, she says, those with disabilities “dwell in the margins of church and society, seen as problems to address or people to help.”

“Yet here we are, still human,” she writes. “Still made in the image of God. Perhaps, even, we reveal aspects of God—a God who embraced human limits and knew weakness—that others prefer to ignore.”

“If Christ can be God risen from the dead and still hold in his body some level of blemish and brokenness, we have to question whether our visions of wholeness are really shaped by the Scriptures, or by society.”—Liuan Huska

“If the church can manifest this aspect of God’s character more faithfully,” she concludes, “descending into human pain as Christ did, we may yet reveal to the world the relevance and saving power of the Gospel.”

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Liuan Huska is a freelance writer and author of the book Hurting Yet Whole: Reconciling Body and Spirit in Chronic Pain and Illness. She lives in the Chicago area. You can read her original post at the Biologos website here.

Kerala floods: Dozens missing in deadly India disaster

[with reporting from BBC and others]

More than 20 people have been killed in floods in southern India after heavy rains caused rivers to overflow, cutting off towns and villages. Several houses were washed away and people became trapped in the district of Kottayam in Kerala state, not far from where Pastor Paul and his wife live. While he and his family remain safe, they are asking us for prayer.

In one tragic incident, a family of six—including a 75-year-old grandmother and three children—were confirmed dead after their home in Kottayam was swept away.  The bodies of another three children—aged eight, seven and four—were also found buried under the debris in Idukki district, where the search continued for at least five other missing people.

The Indian military has joined rescue efforts, flying helicopters with supplies and personnel to areas where people have been trapped under debris by the landslides, officials said on Sunday.

Pastor Paul, only recently released from hospital, continues to need prayer for a full recovery as well.

While we rarely can fully understand the ‘why’s’ of our lives here on earth (see recent post: Enduring faith), we can pray to be used when calamities strike. Who knows: our prayers and/or our actions may have a huge impact in helping others find the faith that holds us firm, even as the ground beneath shifts constantly.

“God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear,
though the earth change,
though the mountains topple into the heart of the seas,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains quake at their swelling.”

—Psalm 46:2-4, Tree of Life version

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Enduring faith

Whether it be while waiting for what we believe to be a needed miracle, or simply living day-by-day, it seems what we all need—perhaps now more than ever—is enduring faith. Faith to endure, or resting in and continuing to grow in faith: it matters not how we think of ‘enduring faith’ but that we have it, know it, and live in it.

How many wrong theologies have grown up and infected believers in attempts to explain the unexplainable?

‘Why did my friend die?’
‘Why did my evangelistic effort seem to go so badly?’
‘Why does my child not speak to me?’
‘Why am I sick?’
‘Why did that horrible accident happen?’
‘Why? Why? WHY?’

We can all add to that list our own ‘why’s’ and yet, we must not try to ‘explain it away’ with our own theology, our own ‘theory’ of why or why not … in other words, our own theology.

“We must not create a theology around what doesn’t happen,” as Bill Johnson sums it up so succinctly.

Mother Teresa, oh she of such apparent huge faith, had a great reply when someone with, to him, an unbearable and seemingly insoluble problem asked her to pray for him.

“What do you want to me to pray?” the tiny wonder-worker asked.

“Please, pray that I will have clarity,” he beseeched her.

“No, I won’t.”

“WHY?” the inquirer wondered.

“I pray you will have trust,” she replied.

In all the trials of life, we may not have clarity, but we can have trust. And really, what else is enduring faith but TRUST in He in Whom our faith rests, come what may.

‘It never rains but it pours’: Ministry leaders need your prayers

Truth really can be stranger than fiction; so be forewarned dear reader/supporter, as we also put the old expression, ‘It never rains but it pours’ to the test.

Shortly after my own release from hospital (second stay this year, second of four surgeries) our dear Pastor Paul, Director of Bibles for Mideast, sent me a casual WhatsApp message regarding the recent death of his 98-year-old aunt. He was, he said, considering travelling to her funeral—a 200-mile bus trip along rough roads—and asked for prayer for guidance.

Two days later I got another message saying he had returned, and that he had also presented the Gospel message to three Muslim families. As I understood it then, all had accepted Jesus and Pastor Paul was back home.

The story becomes murky, however, because at some point—I am still trying to figure out the timeline and details—Pastor Paul was viciously attacked and captured by extremists furious he had evangelized the Muslims. Apparently one of the attackers, using Pastor Paul’s cellphone, began sending messages to several of his correspondents, myself included. They certainly had me completely fooled.

When a few days then went by with no word from or about Pastor Paul, I contacted Peter Haneef (who leads the Assembly of Loving God [ALG] Church, umbrella organization for all Bibles for Mideast churches).  He explained as much as he knew, beginning with how Pastor Paul’s family had become worried when he did not return from his aunt’s funeral. They then learned he had been attacked after evangelizing the Muslims, and was being held captive by his attackers.

The deceased aunt’s son—a politician with some connections—had heard that his cousin had been attacked and captured. He managed to discover where the captors were holding Pastor Paul, gathered up a group of political cadets to storm the place, and after a fierce battle, freed the pastor. They brought him back to his home, but his injuries were so severe his family took him to the hospital for care. His cellphone remained in the hands of his captors, but by then I knew not to believe any messages I got from Pastor Paul’s WhatsApp account.

THEN—complete silence from Pastor Peter Haneef. Getting desperate for more information, I contacted Pastor Paul’s wife Mercy. She has had too many of her own  medical emergencies this year—hospitalized for heart surgery, and then later, for a stroke—so I wasn’t sure whether she would be well enough to respond. She thankfully was able to reply in her broken English to each of my numerous inquiries, and the blurry picture I managed to piece together follows.

Apparently, Pastor Peter had himself been kidnapped—on his way home from visiting his friend and co-leader Pastor Paul in hospital, I believe.

“He understood they were taking him to kill him,” Mercy explained. “He prayed to the Lord. He saw a police van behind, called again to Jesus, opened the door and fell out.” The police from the vehicle behind the captors’ of course came to investigate, and finding the injured pastor, rushed him to the nearest hospital.

So your prayers are certainly needed and appreciated: for Pastor Paul, Pastor Peter Haneef, myself and for the ministry as a whole: that absolutely no challenges thrown our way will deter us from seeking and following His Way, His Purposes, His Redemption.

We are all recovering, and we “know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28). Please pray especially for Pastor Paul, who is still on supplemental oxygen.

While the old adage may go, “It never rains but it pours,” we also believe the Holy Spirit can rain down as copiously to save, guide, heal and protect. Make it so, Lord!

Isaiah 45:8 – “You heavens above, rain down my righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness flourish with it; I, the Lord, have created it.”

A beautiful version (with lyrics) of Holy Spirit Rain Down, a song released by Hillsong Worship of Australia in 1998 and sung here by Alvin Slaughter.