Evangelizing to Muslims

Here's another update for y'all.

Well having fourteen people who are all very different live together for the past three weeks has had its challenges. Despite this though we've remained very unified together and we spent part of today resolving any issues we may have had. I'm surprised though how I have handled living so closely to my team mates. I normally need a lot of alone time to myself but I hardly have any here but I still feel totally refreshed especially after I have my quiet times and I tell God I just want live that day for Him with everything that I've got.

We've been evangelizing since we've been here and God has given us some pretty great opportunities. I'll give you a couple of examples. Every time I have prayed for opportunities to witness to people or to share my testimony God has been faithful even when it looks like it, God somehow works it out. You just have to be faithful and God will me you there.

I was sitting at a bus stop. We had just come from the mall and had finished eating. We looked around the mall and then walked across the street. Across the busy street we didn't find any obvious places where we could share with people. Finally we recognized a bus stop, about twenty people we there sitting down, waiting for a bus to arrive. I sat down and watched one of my team mates try to get into a discussion a Muslim woman. "Hi there," she began. "My name is Sarah Jane. Can I ask you some questions?" The woman shook her head. Sarah retreated to another seat and began another discussion with a different man. I however waited. I wasn't sure that this time we would get to share with anyone. I looked at the blank unfriendly faces of everyone at the bus station. I got out my camera. I thought, "This could get a conversation going..." And sure enough a man behind started looking at my pictures. I tried talking to him in English. "Tiger", I said pointing to the picture of an Indian Tiger, I took at Perth Zoo. He murmured the Indonesian word for Tiger. "Do you speak English?" I asked. "No," he laughed and shook his head. Soon he left but said good-bye to me and headed for his bus. There was a young guy with slicked back spikes for hair. He was taking a break and sat down next to me just as the other man was leaving. We started speaking in broken English. He was selling magazines and trying to get me to buy one but I began talking to him about his life, how long he's been working selling magazines, if he was Muslim. My translator was Harry. I tell you a bit about Harry later but through our conversation Val told me he had a girlfriend, that he had been working selling magazines for seven years, and yes that he was Muslim. Yet, as soon as I said I was a Christian he put his two index fingers together saying that Christians and Muslims were friends. "Yes," I said, "Yes. Muslims and Christians are good friends. Since you say that Christians and Muslims are good friends, I would like honor and respect you and pray for you and anything you need prayer for." It took awhile for Harry to translate this but Val looked incredibly grateful for this and nodded his head saying, "Yes! Yes!" I prayed for his life, his business, his desire to provide for his family, and his ability to give his sister an education. It was a tall order but he amen'd everything I prayed for and was so grateful he gave me and the two others I was with a box of donuts he had bought. We said thank you and got his number. We may hang out with him later.

Second example happened today. We were wondering by a nearby mall. Marianna and I were walking with our translator Harry as we browsed a video game arcade. As we passed by one of the games Harry began speaking to one of the guys who was playing. Marianna and I walked towards Harry. Yadi, was a man in his mid thirties. We found out through our conversation that this man was pretty smart. He owned ten stores that sold cell phones here in Jakarta. He majored in Engineering which he did for a job but he got so bored sometimes he would come to the Arcade just to relax. The game he was playing was one of those ticket-winning games you play by dropping a coin down a slot trying to make it into little buckets which spun around from the center with "10" "25" and "Jackpot" written on them. The buckets had a hole at the top which the coin was supposed to drop into. Each time in dropped into the bucket you would receive as many tickets as the bucket had written on. You could get 100 tickets by dropping the coin into the jackpot barrel. Yadi was dropping his coins into the Jackpot barrel 1 out of 2 times, which was amazing. This guy was racking up tickets like nobody's business. He had a system. He had figured out the timing and was winning big. Anyway this guy was pretty friendly as we spent an hour talking to him in the arcade. At the same time Marianna was talking to a couple of adorable Muslim girls who were looking at us from there hoods and smiling. I had the chance to pray for Yadi and Marianna prayed for the Muslim girls. Well after our conversation, Yadi invited both Marianna and I to dinner at KFC which was right across the arcade. Even when the two others who were with us, Josh and Paul, came Yadi invited them as well to dinner. So we all sat together and I spoke to Yadi even further. As I was about to eat my dinner, a bashful little Muslim girl came up to me. She asked me through Harry if I would pray for her too and I of course agreed but then when I asked her what she would like me to pray for she ran embarrassed back to her friend. They whispered and spoke to one another and finally she had the courage to come back to me and asked me to pray for her family and school. It was a great day. It's always difficult to see how God is going to work opportunities but you just go out and pray for them and they just come.

Now a word about Muslims. Most Muslims are wonderful. They are people who are very dedicated to their families. The things is that most Muslims see their religion as better than Christianity, so when you ask a Muslim to convert to Christianity you can see why they're totally offended.

I believe if Jesus was here he would want to love Muslims by showing them honor and respect and that is what I have found effective in building friendships with them. I ask if I can pray for them and their families and all of a sudden I've done something that probably no Christian has never done for them before. First of all, Muslims think that Christians are gossiping and talking bad about them when they go to their daily prayers. Muslims as you may know pray five times a day. Not all Muslims do this but many do. For some reason they have developed this stereotype of Christians that we don't like them and they we are plotting against them even as they pray. Sound familiar doesn't?

But the Muslims that I have spoken to want to love peacefully with Christians, just like the boy in the bus station did when he said Christians and Muslims are friends. Anyway, the US is seen as a Christian nation. Just as you see Indonesia or Iran or Malaysia as Muslim nations so is the US seen as a Christian nation. But you see the problem is when they watch American movies with sex-scenes and sexual content they associate that with Christianity. They think Christians are like this even though its just in the movies and the people who makes the movies are not even Christian. And they believe that Westerners are very loose and that they think of sex all the time because that is what is in the movies. Well praying for them and blessing them and not getting in their face and trying to convict them to betray everything they know about themselves is a much better way to witness the Gospel to them. They're very receptive if you're truly genuine. But here we are, breaking the stereotypes and sowing seeds that hopefully will bear fruit.

My Team

I'm sure some of you have been wondering who are the people that I have been traveling these past two weeks. So down below I have introduced all of my team mates with a short little blurb about them so you can understand a little bit of the dynamics of our team. I would just like to say that all of us are very different. We have bonded really close in the last few weeks but our personalities are unique.

We all call Michael "Campy". His last name is Campinelly or something like that so that's how he got his nickname. But he's one of my favorite guys that I've met. He's an outgoing, funny, spunky nineteen year-old that makes me laugh all the time.

Paul and I shared the same dorm room during DTS and we were also in the same small group. Paul grew up in YWAM. His dad is the regional director of North America. Anyway Paul's a great guy who has a lot of wisdom from growing up in YWAM. He's both an introvert and an extrovert. He can get crazy at times and he and I share an addiction now to the board game Settlers- Cities and Knights.

Johnny has also got to be one of my favorite guys that I've met. He's a Kiwi, meaning he's from New Zealand. He and I are both the introverted guys on the team. He's likes to not say a whole lot but when he does say something it's usally either something really profound or something really funny.

When I first met Josh I said to myself, "that's got to be one of the loudest guys I have ever met..." And it's true. Josh is loud, boisterous, but also servant hearted. I went into my room this week and found that Josh had made my bed and folded up my blankets. Josh grew up in YWAM too and has a lot of experience growing up in ministry.

Eric was my small group leader. Now he is one of the leaders of my team. The two things that stand out about Eric is his passion for fishing and his passion for also evangelism.

Alicia is the second leader of my trip. She's really the rock of our team. She's been an excellent leader. She's the oldest of our group being 30 and having done her DTS and joined YWAM only several years ago. Anyway, Alicia handles herself well under pressure. The Airforce seems to have given her that ability as well as her leadership skills.

Melissa I've called my favorite Canadian because she and I have had a lot of fun line dancing. She's really good at everything that I teach so I think she wants to start line dancing when she gets back home to Canada. Anyway, she and I are both contemplative people that like to talk about the deep stuff of life and I joke around with her a lot. She was one of my first friends during DTS.

Laura is a Hair-Stylist from Las Vegas, Nevada. I would say one of the things I admire best about Laura is her ability to converse and talk to anybody. She has no problem making friends here with the nationals and is my favorite person to evangelize with. She and I went to a hairsalon a couple days ago just to make friends with some of the people working there and ended up getting head-massages and getting to know people.

Sarah from Germany is one of the funniest girls I know. She and I are always laughing together. I practice my German with her a little bit and we have our own private jokes in German sometimes. Anyway, I love Sarah's jolly laugh and her sweet personality.

Mariana is one of the first people from Holland that I met. When I first came to Australia I met three people from Holland and she is one of them. I think my being really friendly early on with the Dutch have made us good friends. She's very intelligent and one of the oldest people here on our team next to Alicia. She often gets looks from the local men here being a beautfiul European blonde and they like to greet her in English.

Jessica is one of the youngest coming to YWAM just after she graduated High School. I've seen Jessica really transform during DTS becoming really passionate about God. She's very energetic and kind of sassy too but she's great fun.

Sarah Jane is another Canadian. A lot of Sarah's passions revolve the arts especially drama and acting. We put her in charge of leading the drama that we're performing for some of the churches here. Sarah has a lot of appreciation for my unique personality because of her own uniqueness.

Paulina is are second Dutch girl on our team. Paulina is probably the one person I don't know too much about. She's quiet about herself but outspoken on her opinion. She spent a year or so in the US during High School so she knows more about American culture than any of the other non-Americans.

Well that's my team. If it's possible I'll try to post pictures of all them sometime.

The Slum

The cars and mopeds rush close by us as we try to manuever across the busy streets of City J. We weave back and forth, hestitantly, looking frantically left and right as we cross the street from our apartment. There are no traffic lights. Pedestrians must cross the treacherous street filled with busy cars, taxis, buses, and mopeds unprotected. The key to not being hit by a random scooter or car is by moving slowly. Slow movements give the drivers time to slow down for you and let you cross safely. But the streets are so crowded and there are no sidewalks here that even when you walk down the street, vehicles will come uncomfortably close to you. But that's all part of life here. Dodging traffic and jumping across huge puddles of water, caused by the daily rains, has become part of our everyday experience. Seldom, do we see the blue sky.

Our week has been filled with meetings with local church leaders and ministry workers. Mega-Cities has provided us with several contacts including several churches in our side of the city and a local slum ministry. We spent Friday morning at a local slum close to where we live. We were led by Max and his team. Max is a young Asian man, with a prominent acne problem. He looks almost comical, like an Asian hobbit. He stands a little more than five feet tall with a little poney-tail hodling his black hair at the very top of his head. His feet, which I noticed while we were resting at the end of the day, are thin, talon like nobs which look more like fingers than toes. Regardless of his funny appearance, Max leads well. He tells us what we are to do once we get into the slum and has confidence in what he does.

The day in the slum began with us making our way through some very narrow and dark passages in the East part of the city. The neighborhood itself is tucked in from City J's main streets. The homes here are very small and the walkways through this little residential area are cramped and filled with pieces of garbage and refuse that the neighbors leave. I have seen poorer communities like those families who live on the trash mounds of Tijuana Mexico but they are still obviously poor.

A local woman invited us into her house, the first thing we arrived. She took us into her tiny little room of a house where she tried to make all fourteen of us comfortable. We all sat closely to one another, legs folded, as we went over the agenda for the day. The people of the neighborhood, brought donuts or rather a pastry-type food that they called donuts and clean water for us to drink. Max tells us we're here to do three things. One, is to work with some of the children of the neighborhood, the second is to help with a Christian doctor who makes visits here to reguarly check up on the children in the area, and the third is to clean all the trash and refuse lying in the corridors between the houses.

I help clean the trash while simultaneously video-recording all of our progress as we follow Max's volunteers who show us where we should clean. I get in there right away, I take the trash with one barehand and throw it into my clear plastic bag, feeling the wet and sometimes slimy trash on my fingers. We did this for an hour or so, greeting the curious on-lookers and neighbors with Salamat Pagi! (Good morning!) They're very interested in us. They surround us to see who are these white people in the neighborhood. Everyone's friendly. The children play with us or shyly look at us from a distance. Everyone laughs as I come out from one of the houses and bump my head on a low ceiling, just above the door.

First Wave

We all arived in City J several days ago. Our first task is to read the complete Bible as a team out loud here in the East part of the city. Speaking out the Word of God is a declaration of God's character of Who He is and we believe is the first part to seeing many come to know Christ. We have spent over the last 48 hours reading the Scriptures. We have three hour assignments in groups of three to four and then late night assignments in groups of two during the wee hours of the night.

The East side of City J reminds me much of Phnom Pehn in Cambodia. It's the wet season now. Water pours down in turrential rain here soaking down the streets in huge puddles. Many of the homes here are flooded up to a foot of water.

Our apartment, however, is try for now. It is a three bedroom apartment oddly right next to an auto shop. It has a very small kitchen, living room, and dinning room. All fourteen of us fit snuggly in this little apartment. We're very thankful for the airconditioners in each of the bedrooms which blow cold air in the hot and humid nights.

One exciting thing that happened was that we were invited into a Mosque yesterday as we were prayer walking. I immediately noticed the spiritual oppression as soon as I walked within its gates. Anyone who has walked into a temple and has felt the darkness in those places will know what I am speaking about. But we met several of the school teachers there who seemed very friendly to us. We prayed outside the Mosque walls asking God that the veil of misunderstanding would be lifted from their eyes and the Muslims would know the true God. I'll speak a little bit more about Islam later in my blog but Muslims do not know the compassionate and loving God that we know. They live in fear not knowing where they are going at the end of their lives. They worship a distant and unemotional God. But there's hope for them. I believe that Muslims can be some of the greatest Christians because they can take their zeal and apply it to their relationship with Christ.

We here are part of the first wave of hundreds and thousands that will be going to City J, crying out that the Lord will bring salvation into this city. But here there is much hard ground that needs to be broken up. The hard ground of the soil of City J needs to be tilled and the harder we hit this ground, with our prayers and in our faith, the greater work God will be able to do in the succeeding waves.