“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked.
“Teacher,” the blind man said, “I want to see!”
Mark 11:51
Zahra fell into my arms and cried the first time I
visited her. I could not speak her language and she didn’t know English. There
was no way I could understand what she was crying about. But I followed her
into the kitchen where some of her daughters were crying. At least one could
speak English. She had just gone to a pay phone to call police that her dad had
beaten their mom. After about an hour the police came and
arrested Zahra’s husband right in front of me! The mom and daughters were left
scared and overwhelmed with uncertainty. I wondered what I should do or say.
“May I pray for you?” I asked. The teenage daughter who could speak limited
English asked very sweetly, “Are you a Christian?” “Yes, I am,” I replied. They
were very happy to gather around and be prayed for. They were the picture of a
flock of little lost lambs. I knew more discussion could take place at future
times. Right then there were some big issues and needs at stake.
Praise God that
many Christian women are eagerly getting equipped to reach out to Muslim women.
It's necessary to be prepared to answer objections Muslims have about the
trinity, the Bible being the Word of God, Jesus being the Son of God, His
divinity, Jesus' death, his burial and resurrection, etc. However, in real life, when we visit our
Muslim women friends, we often discover they have issues that are troubling
them. A lady may be plagued with not being able to get pregnant, wrestling with
jealousy about another rival wife, struggling with a health concern, debating whether
to have an abortion, not have access to money, has fear of losing a son to a
gang or his accessibility to drugs, she has recurring nightmares, fears the
evil eye, is terribly homesick, is grieving from a relative dying back home,
fears a daughter will get too independent, or has a husband who is absent half
the time, is under stress in her graduate studies, feels overworked, and so
forth. There are many issues they face.
While we may focus on being prepared for their
objections to arise we may actually miss grasping the issues they are working
through. In our pursuit of needing to know all the answers to objections and fear that we might not remember all
the apologetic material we can so easily forget these women are real human
beings experiencing the complexities of life in a new country. They may
actually be clinging to the security and familiarity of Islam and not be ready
at all to have a conversation about faith or listen to our apologetics. They will come up but
most likely that will happen later. I have tried to make it a practise to first really listen and observe well. Pressing issues suddenly are revealed. It
is into those issues I first speak and minister. Then when the objections surface - which they will - I will speak into those.
Dear heavenly Father, please help me to speak into
both pressing issues and objections according to Your direction. In Jesus’
name, Amen. 
