Monday, May 9, 2005
[Thanks for the feedback many have given over the years. We believe that the time has come to share more clearly what God has done in our day. Please read with grateful hearts as you have time and send any comments or feedback to: ptap at srginc dot org . Blessings, mjh.]
PRAISE!!
· We are so thankful to the Lord for the special blessing that the media brings to our country. The radio and satellite broadcasts can penetrate into National homes where we can’t reach. Praise for the Arabic, Farsi, Urdu broadcasts that thousands are listening to each day.
INTERCEED
· Pray for the expatriate Muslim Background Christian Believer in our commercial city. He is key to the small MBB church in the city next door. Pray that his visa would be transferred from his old job in the Police to his new company.
· Pray that God would work in the minds and hearts of the many National Muslims through dreams and visions.
· Pray for the tentmaker who is now a widow and caring for his small children after the sudden death of his wife last year. Pray that his heart would be healed. Pray for the children – that they would be blessed by the women in the Christian community that have cared for them.
· Pray for the outreach ministries that were recently funded by International Christian Foundations. These ministries have such an impact for the Gospel in the many remote and desolate areas in our country.
· Pray that the thousands of Arabic Bibles and New Testaments that are in hiding in our country. Pray that the window to distribute these precious seeds would become obvious to the country’s leadership.
TESTIMONY
· B was a lonely, angry hurting expatriate Muslim mother of 3 children living in a busy city on the south side of the Arabian Gulf. She would be forced to take the kids out of their cramped apartment at night just so they could get fresh air.
This one Friday evening she took the kids to a beach near their apartment. While her kids would play at the edge of the sea, she would sit nearby in her neat trousers and loosely tied abaya trying to forget her anger at her husband, at her life, at Allah. Soon there were two conservatively dressed Western women talking to her children. One of them spoke Arabic – what a surprise from a Westerner! Quickly, B. came over to find out who these two pleasant ladies were. She found out that they both were British and that one lived in the big city nearby and the other was her friend visiting. Naturally, the conversation turned to spiritual matters. These two ladies were Christians like all of Westerners are, but they were different somehow. There was a love for God in their words and sincerity in their faces. The woman visiting from the UK asked if B. had a Bible, she said yes, her mother gave it to her. In fact, her mother had received the Bible from a nurse when she was in the UK for medical treatment 10+ years ago. The visiting woman’s eyes lit up, asking B. where her mother received her medical care. It was in the same hospital where she worked several years back. And she often gave Bibles to their patients – part of her loving care of those in need. In the next few seconds, B. came to know that the very Bible her Muslim mother had given her several years back was given to her by this wonderfully friendly and loving nurse visiting from the UK! What a small world!
Of course Allah must be at work in this amazing coincidence. What could these Christian nurses have for her she thought. In the next few weeks the woman, now a frequent guest for tea in the afternoon, would become her good friend. This new friend loved her children, she always had positive things to say about life, about God, about her husband! She was different, but why? Her friend introduced her to reading the Bible to hear the words of Issa – the wonderful prophet. But the stories in the Injil were full of life and power. Her friend told her that God wants to have a friendship with B. like none she had ever had before. It sounded so wonderful, but it couldn’t be true – not if Islam is true. She wrestled back and forth – between the Yeshua (Jesus) of the Bible with a life of forgiveness, joy and peace – and the rules and regulations of Islam that she knew so well. One hot, July day she cried out to God to give her a sign that Jesus is the way – and that God needed to give the sign in the sky. Just after praying, a series of clouds appeared in the otherwise cloudless sky outside her apartment building over the Gulf. The clouds clearly spelled out the letters: “Yeshua”! With tear-filled eyes she called her friend to say that she wanted to follow Yeshua and to come quickly to pray with her.
Today she is following the Lord. Her husband has gone from abusive over her Christian belief to benign. The children have all come to faith in Jesus and share their faith at school. B is no longer angry with God, learning to love her husband and is filled with peace and a growing joy.
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Praying Thru the Arabian Peninsula
ptap@srginc.org
www.pray-ap.info
USA #: 800-376-5876
Encouraging & equipping believers & churches around the world to pray through the heart of the Muslim world so that church planting movements will spread throughout the Arabian Peninsula & beyond ... to the glory of God.
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PTAP
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USA