The Call for Muslim Evangelism

Tonight I got to hear Trent Cornwell preach at Lighthouse Baptist Church (La Iglesia Bautista El Faro). Trent’s been a real good friend of mine ever since we studied together down here in Peru four years ago. Right now he is the youth pastor at Vision Baptist Church in Alpharetta, Georgia, and God is doing amazing things through him.

His message tonight was on the bondage of bitterness and how we think we are hurting others with it, but we are really the ones it kills. He used a powerful quote to bring his message home which states, “bitterness is the poison we drink hoping that the other person dies.” It’s not a matter of whether or not the person who hurt us deserves to be forgiven, we need to be the ones taking the first steps in forgiveness.

Trent will be preaching throughout the youth congress down here throughout the week. We are expecting over 1,500 South Americans to attend and many of them are still unsaved or not living for the Lord. Please keep him and everyone else who is involved in the event in you prayers.

Well…sort of.

Gretchen and I live in a desert, and as a result we normally wake up extremely thirsty with dry mouths, but not this morning! We had PLENTY of moisture in the air - and everywhere else for that matter.

We woke up at 6:00 to what sounded like someone taking a shower in our bathroom. When I got out of bed to get ready for church, something didn’t feel right - actually, it felt wet…very wet. I opened the bathroom door to find water shooting out of our wall. Not just a leak, but a horizontal geyser blasting water against the wooden medicine cabinet we have on the other side of the room.

Nothing would plug the whole, and I had no idea how to turn the main water valve off. I turned every knob I could find that might possibly stop the deluge, but I just got soaked like everything else in the room. Nobody that knew how to fix the problem was answering their phone, so I ran out in the street and asked someone I never met before to show me what to do. Of course, he had no idea either.

Finally, standing out in the cold winter weather drenched from head to toe, Chris Gardner came strolling down the road and showed me how to turn everything off. It took a few hours to fix everything and clean up, but things are back to their normal arid conditions they were before all of this desert flooding.

Gretchen and the baby are just fine and didn’t come out of this with a single scratch. We’re still waiting for the real excitement to come this October.

Right now we have almost a hundred people visiting the here in Arequipa. Gretchen and the other missionary wives have been preparing all of the food for the groups which has been a full time job in and of itself. Our kitchen has been filled every day with giant crates of fruit, bottles of homemade salad dressing, and enough raw meat to make a butcher nauseous.

In spite of all that’s going on, Gretchen and I were able to have our first Bible study at the house last night. Seven people show up, and most of them were either unbelievers or just recently saved. Needless to say, we had some interesting questions come up as we studied the first chapter of John. One person in particular was pretty antagonistic, but for the most part people were sincerely interested in the Word of God and what it means to become a child of God.

Keep my friend Fer and his girlfriend Fatima in your prayers. I met Fer about four years ago when I studied down here under the ministry of Austin Gardner. We studied the Bible together then and after a while he accepted Christ as his Savior. After I left Peru, he told me that he was moving to Lima, and eventually I lost contact with him completely.

Last week when I got back into town, I went to the Wednesday night service at Fe and on the other side of the auditorium was Fer sitting off to the side. We talked after the service about how things have been for the past few years, and then he told me about his girlfriend, Fatima, who he just led to the Lord a few months ago. God has really been working in their lives recently, and he told me that they really want to focus on growing spiritually. I told him that I was thinking about starting a connection group to study the Bible every Friday night.

They’ve been meeting with me throughout the week as well as the Friday night connection group. They have a desire to learn and I am excited about what God is doing in their lives right now. We have been talking about baptism and taking the next step in their spiritual growth.

Next week is the annual youth congress at the Peru Baptist Bible College, so we will continue with the Friday night Bible studies the following week. I am praying for 20 new members to join the group by December, so between that and finishing language school we have a lot work ahead of us in the next couple of months. Please keep all of these things in your prayers.

A friend of mine who works with Ministry of Grace, named Sabir Ali, told me a little while back about a ministry named Life Challenge Africa and a DVD series they have entitled “Battle for the Hearts.”

I just got all of their materials in the mail and it is a goldmine of information. If you are interested in Muslim evangelism their books and DVD’s will help you tremendously.

Casablanca was our final stop before returning to our “base” between in a city near the Mediterranean Sea. We would spend the next week working out this city. Finally, some stability!

Within the city are two old French Catholic church buildings with mostly West African immigrants attending. A couple of other expatriate churches meet on occasion, but all of them are suppressed by a law that forbids them to tell a Moroccan about their faith (although it is completely legal for Muslims to try and convert people to Islam). Since a major part of our doctrine it to “make disciples” we didn’t feel the “freedom” to practice our beliefs.

But we did it anyway!

Tons of Moroccans heard the gospel and received a Bible in Arabic. Every day the students would go out in the streets, practice the phrases they had learned. Obviously, not everybody could communicate very well in Arabic, so when they found someone who spoke either English or Spanish they would sit down with them and go through the material the best that they could. They all had some pretty amazing experiences, and a few people were very interested in hearing more.

The girls got to go over to a Moroccan friends house and meet the entire family for lunch. They drank mint tea, ate couscous, and talked a little about the Bible. They were so excited about getting the chance to share Jesus Christ with people who they would other wise never have met. Seeing the genuine kindness of the people and the sincere belief they have in Islam broke all of our hearts. It was like what Paul wrote about the Jews in Romans 10:2, “they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.”

They could have a personal relationship with their Creator if they would only call upon the name of the Lord.

BUT, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14)

Who will be that preacher that will take a risk by taking the gospel to the Muslims of this world?

If you won’t do it, who will?

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Not that I’m proud or anything, but here are a few of the latest ultrasound pictures we have taken of our daughter. She’s due this October. Thank you for your prayers.

We left Assaourira late in the evening and headed to Casablanca. The city was quite a bit different than what the old Humphery Bogart film portrayed. We didn’t come across anybody named Rick or Sam, although the city had a real black and white feel to it. It had tons of old gigantic gray colored buildings, construction, and mosques all over the place. A booming metropolitan area, Casablanca has over 6.5 million people living there, and it felt like it.

We got there real late at night and found our Moroccan contact who got us a great deal on a hotel. It only cost us $6 per night, and it was worth every penny of it. We diefinitely appreciated having a place to stay that night.

The next morning we visited the mosque Hassan II, the third largest mosque in the world. It was constructed during the reign of king Hassan II in honor of his father Muhammed V. Symbolizing the powerful grip Islam has on the country of Morocco, this massive, ornate structure is positioned on the Atlantic coast. The giant minaret has replaced the old lighthouse less than half a mile away.

Inside this mosque/lighthouse, however, was anything but light. A cold darkness swallowed scores of faithful Muslims as they entered for evening prayers. It was heartbreaking to think that these people were doing the best they could to communicate with their Creator, but if no one teaches them that Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and man, their prayers will never be heard.

Casablanca - a enchanting city with an enourmous lighthouse but no spiritual light.

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Another one accepts Jesus Christ in China!

My good friend who is working there as a missionary just sent out a post on his blog, the gospel in china, about a young man called “S.” who just got saved recently.

Check out his blog, and pray that the Lord continues to work through him and his wife as they spread the hope of eternal life throughout the nation of China.