E-Connected Archive - December 2010
NOT A FOREIGN MESSAGE
Nabil reclined on a mattress on the floor with his mother and his six-year-old nephew, Ahmed. Nabil was trying to make funny faces to lighten their mood, to counteract the gloom that spilled over them as bomb blasts filled their ears. Nabil’s sister, Sarah, came in with a sandwich and a cup of milk for her son, Ahmed. She had mixed up the milk powder with more water than usual. Who knew when they’d be able to get to the supermarket again? Or whether there would be any milk on the shelves when they did.
Suddenly Nabil had an idea. He opened the door to the guest room, brought back a wooden stand with a Bible on it and turned to the section called the Psalms of David. “The Lord is my shepherd,” Nabil began in Arabic. |
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Sarah looked up. “What is this?” she interrupted.
Nabil drew himself up. “These are the Psalms of the Prophet David, peace be upon him.”
Sarah continued to listen as her brother read from the Psalms of the Prophet David. She was strangely comforted by the ancient words. For almost an hour, Nabil read Psalm after Psalm.
After reading, Nabil thought back a few years to the time when he first started talking to Pete and Dave, guys he worked with, about God and the prophets and about their respective holy books. He enjoyed getting together with them. Although they were fun-loving and ready to joke, they also seemed respectable and God-fearing. They didn’t fit his previous image of Westerners. So it wasn’t long before he started asking them questions about their spiritual practices, such as prayer and fasting. He also had some questions about the Bible. Because they worked in English and his fluency in English far exceeded theirs in Arabic, these early conversations had been in English. Soon, however, Pete and Dave began to improve in Arabic to the point that most of their conversations shifted into Nabil’s language.
One day, Pete and Dave introduced Nabil to their friend Terry. He wasn’t in the country for a long visit, but he and Nabil hit it off, so they spent a lot of time together. They visited each other and had long conversations about Jesus over thick Turkish coffee and then read the Bible together. Since Terry spoke no Arabic, they always read from the English Bible and spoke English together. Nabil loved Jesus and he loved reading about Jesus and the apostles in the Bible. Eventually his love for Jesus grew into a desire to serve him, and Nabil began to count himself as one of the followers of Jesus.
Nabil was well-respected in his work place, and many of his friends and co-workers were eager to hear what he had to say about his encounter with Jesus. After about a year, one of his close friends, Sami, also decided to become a follower of Jesus. Together, Nabil and Sami would invite their friends to meet together on their day off to read the Bible and to discuss what they read. Although Nabil had become used to reading the Bible in English, Dave and Pete encouraged him to use an Arabic version with his friends. The gospel should not appear to be a foreign message.
The sound of an explosion nearby brought Nabil back to the present. He finished his glass of water and went back into the hallway where he found his family asleep. Let them sleep, he thought. Nights are the worst for bombing, and they will be awake soon enough. He carried the Arabic Bible and its stand back to the guest room.
The violence in Nabil and Sami’s area eventually ended, and normal life resumed for their families.
Due to the violence, the group of young men who used to meet to discuss the Bible dispersed. Sami and Nabil turned their attention to their family and clan networks. Nabil’s sister, Sarah, and their mother have since become enthusiastic followers of Jesus, as have Sami’s wife and daughter.
‘Not a Foreign Message’ is an abridged version of one of the stories told in the book ‘Where There Was No Church’. If you want to find out more or order a copy (£6.50 postage included in the UK), contact us at info@frontiers.org.uk or 0303 333 5051.