The power of friendship evangelism and healing prayers in the Middle East!

Report: Bibles for Mideast and an underground Assembly of Loving God (ALG)  church in the Middle East

Born into a large Muslim Arab family in the Middle East, Aslam Shukkoor* firmly believed the only way to live properly and make your way to heaven was to follow the strict rules of radical Islam. He devoutly practiced his faith and followed its teachings. He never allowed non-Muslims even to visit his house.  He also made a good living owning date plantations and fuel stations.

He and his wife had three boys and three girls, all well-behaved, intelligent children. When the oldest son reached 15, a mysterious illness struck. It began with fever and body pain, then progressed to severe weakness in his legs until he became completely bedridden.  Aslam took him to several super-specialist hospitals, but doctors could not diagnose the cause of his ailments. Every treatment they tried failed, and within two months, the young man died.  

When the second son reached 15, the same disorder began to plague him. The imam of the local mosque told the family it must be because of an ancestral curse. So they invited a number of famous Muslim priests to pray for the children and all in the household. But nothing improved. Someone suggested to Aslam that their house surely had strong demons living in it, drinking the children’s blood one by one. So they decided to move to an area far away.

Bibles for Mideast gospel team sharing with locals

Several missionaries of Bibles for Mideast working in that region, on hearing of the tragedy in Aslam’s family, decided to go visit them.

“We are Christians,” they boldly announced at his gate. “Our Lord Jesus Christ is the living savior. He was crucified, died and rose from the dead. He is able to heal the sick and cast out all demons. If you allow it, may we see your sick son and pray for him and for the rest of your family?”

Aslam would have none of it.

“You kafirs!” he shouted [a derogatory expression for anyone not believing in Islam—Ed.] “How dare you come to my house?  We don’t need your prayers. Allah is merciful. We know he hears our prayers. Get away from my house before I call the police!”

The missionaries attempted to leave a sample gospel with him. Yelling again, he grabbed it from them before tearing it to pieces and throwing it in a nearby waste basket.

Aslam and his wife decided to take their second son, now in debilitating pain, to another country for, they hoped, better treatment. Unfortunately, he too died.

Soon afterwards, they boarded a plane for the flight home, bringing their son’s lifeless body back for burial. Another Arab couple, who ‘just happened’ to be members of an ALG (Assembly of Loving God) church, sat across from them.

They could easily see how distressed Aslam and his wife were—she weeping inconsolably and he trying his best to comfort her in the name of Allah. They obviously and palpably worried about their other children as well.

The Christian Arab couple gently questioned them, and learned they were travelling home with the body of their second dead son. They sympathized and consoled in such a kindly way that the Muslim couple soon considered them trustworthy friends. Aslam shared all they had gone and were going through.

The Christian woman related to them her own family’s unfortunate experiences and how the Lord Jesus Christ—through the prayers of Christian missionaries—had saved them. “If you believe in Jesus and pray in faith, he will certainly help you to overcome the problems. Our own lives are witnesses to that,” she assured them. She and her husband then shared the message of the gospel.

Aslam and his wife grew increasingly irritated.

“Islam is the most holy and true religion in the world,” Aslam let them know with certainty. “Prophet Mohammed is the true messenger of Allah. Prophet Jesus is only a human being and lower than Prophet Mohammed. Whatever Allah wills, he does. Though we are sad about our children, we know it is Allah’s will. We obey him and his truth. So our advice to you is not to become kafir.”

In spite of the tension, the four remained friendly for the rest of the flight. The Christian couple helped the bereaved parents at the airport, and even accompanied them as they took their son’s corpse back to their house.

The relationship continued to blossom as the weeks went on, discussions often centering on religion. The church couple naturally kept up their attempts to convince their new friends of the need for salvation.

It wasn’t many months before the Muslim couple’s third son came down with the dreaded illness. The Arab Christians decided to visit them, accompanied by the same Bibles for Mideast missionaries Aslam had ‘thrown out’ few years earlier. Aslam recognized them but said nothing about it. He simply invited them within the gates of his property and offered them seats in the yard.

The Christian woman they’d met on the plane went inside the house, where Aslam’s wife introduced her to her sick son and the couple’s other children. The woman again tried to explain the all-importance of prayer in Jesus’ name.

Aslam’s wife then called her husband inside. She asked him to invite the missionaries in as well, and allow them to pray for the boy. He agreed!

former Muslim woman reading Bible

Once inside and before praying, the Bibles for Mideast workers related their own dramatic stories of moving from Islam to Christianity. All listened intently, and continued to as the missionaries went on to share the gospel.

“I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior!” they suddenly heard from the sick boy’s room. “I believe He will heal me and deliver me and others of my house from this strange trouble. Please pray for me.”

So of course the missionaries did. As they laid their hands on his head and prayed, the young fellow explained later how he felt a man’s hands gently touch his whole body. He also sensed a horrible smell leave his body and then, a beautiful aroma totally enveloped him. Finally, he caught a glimpse of the hands and saw what looked like scars in them.

Immediately, all the pain vanished. He shook his legs and found them stronger. When he tried to put them on the floor, he found to his delight they worked! He began walking and running around as everyone else watched in amazement. Only moments later, all believed in Jesus as their personal savior and Lord.

Praying in an underground church

Since then, no sickness has come near that family. They now regularly attend an underground Assembly of Loving God (ALG) church and worship the Lord Jesus Christ in Spirit and truth.

Please pray for them as well as all missionaries, staff and believers of Bibles for Mideast and the growing ALG churches.

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* Name changed for security reasons

Conversions, healing and deliverance in the jungles of South Asia!

A seven-member team from Bibles for Mideast returned victorious last week from an exhausting but exhilarating mission trip in South Asia! Many thanks to all who held them up in prayer. 

High and deep in a remote, thickly-forested region of South Asia, two Bibles for Mideast missionaries have lived and worked among a group they call ‘jungle people’ for close to two years. Despite the area being infiltrated by sorcerers, witches and communist terrorists, several locals had made decisions to join the Kingdom of Christ and a small underground ALG Church was born.

But battles proved intense and were worsening. While the workers sensed an eagerness among many to accept the gospel, fierce backlashes from the Kingdom of darkness led to increasing fear and hesitancy among the inhabitants and death threats to the missionaries

So they did the best Kingdom logical thing: they declared a five-day period of fasting, prayer, house visits and gospel meetings. On hearing of the plans, Pastor Paul,  ALG pastors Peter Haneef and James Irshad and four other Bibles for Mideast evangelists decided to join up with the missionaries.

Simply getting there involved days of demanding travel, much of it on rough, stony roads and paths inaccessible to most vehicles. At one point they were stranded by torrential rains at a forest station near the foot of the final pathway up to the people they hoped to reach. As God would have it, the forest officer is a strong believer in Jesus, stays in fairly regular contact with the hilltop believers, and gladly sheltered, fellowshipped with and prayed with the evangelists. The plan was for some of the hilltop believers to make the three-mile trek down the mountain to meet the visitors and accompany them back up to where they lived.

As the rains, now accompanied by thunder and lightning, continued, dangerous rock and mudslides began rolling down the mountain.

“Our missionaries and believers could not come down from the hills,” Pastor Paul explains. They thought they might have to abort the mission.

oFFERING A BIBLE TO A LOCAL

“But that night we prayed until the rain finally stopped at about two in the morning. Then, finally, we went to bed. We did not have any idea about the hill people, whether they would come to receive us or not.”

About three hours later, the men woke to hear loud knocking on their door. They opened, stunned to see the ‘hilltop missionaries’ along with the new converts waiting to take them up the hill! Hours of torturous trudging later, they reached the top by ten that morning

“Physically we all were tired, but spiritually we were strengthened,” Pastor Paul reports of the ascent.

The original plan had been to stay among the people for five days: praying and fasting each morning, visiting in people’s homes each afternoon, then holding gospel meetings each evening. While they kept to the prayer and fasting even while and after climbing that first day, due to fatigue they canceled the afternoon visiting and evening meeting. Instead they pretty well passed out on floor mats in the hut they stayed in, but woke refreshed the next morning.

“We held our prayer and fasting again and a few more villagers attended,” Pastor Paul recounts. “Someone brought a deaf and dumb man to the gathering, and all joined in prayer for him.  After the service he knelt down before the Lord Jesus in front of me. I put my hands on his head and prayed. As I prayed, he suddenly said, ‘Praise the Lord Jesus and hallelujah!’  Then he said he could hear!”

THEIR ORIGINAL SCEPTICISM TURNED TO ACCEPTANCE

The news of course spread quickly and by that afternoon, all of the houses in the area opened their doors wide to the missionaries and their message. Many more attended that evening's meeting.

Communist terrorists have a strong influence in this region, forming almost as dire a threat as ISIS.

“They were directing people against Christians and our ministry,” Pastor Paul explains. “They had a large stockpile of landmines they planned to use to destroy our church along with us during the meetings.”

In a wondrous God-twist, the landslides which had so threatened the evangelists’ trip up the mountain had also completely buried and washed away the terrorists’ collection of landmines. Shocked at their sudden loss, the terrorists still sent agents to spy on the church’s evening meetings.

On the third day, the believers meetings and visits went according to plan. That evening, one of the communist terrorists unknowingly stepped on a landmine planted by one of his comrades. Placed to explode when the missionaries walked towards one of the villager's homes, it instead nearly blew apart the terrorist.

Severely injured, he had no chance of getting to a hospital in time to be saved.  Believers who witnessed the explosion told his friends to bring him to the gospel center for prayer. They refused at first, but the locals persisted until they relented and brought him.

“We shared the gospel and prayed for him,” explains Pastor Paul. “At once our Lord poured out His healing power and restored him.  He knew the power of prayer and accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior and Lord.”

His friends, now totally free of misgivings, followed suit. They then warned the believers of the many other landmines they had planted all around the prayer hall. After the whole group prayed together again, the former terrorists went out and, under the direction and leadership of their healed comrade, located and removed all the hidden landmines.

On the fourth day, Sunday, most of the villagers attended the worship service. Everyone who did confessed before the Lord and accepted Him as his or her personal savior. That afternoon, the team visited all the remaining homes.

gROWING PRAISE AND WORSHIP AMONG NEW BELIEVERS

One of those happened to belong to the village sorcerer. She had a giant black idol as her ‘goddess’, the villagers explained, and when possessed, would begin to shudder violently. Then, taking hold of a huge sword, she’d find a rooster and kill it in front of her goddess. Screaming, she would proceed to drink the animal’s blood in hopes of pleasing the idol. Now completely demonized, she’d ‘tell the fortunes’ of those in attendance and dictate what they should and should not do to be blessed. All would obey.

Unfazed by the stories, the missionaries invited themselves into her home and shared their testimonies and the message of the gospel. They made it clear ALL worship and praise must be to the one and only Creator and Savior, Jesus Christ.

"He came down from heaven, suffered, was crucified on the cross of Calvary and died for our sins," they boldly told her. "On the third day—which was around 2000 years ago—He rose from the dead and still lives for usI In Him we have salvation and eternal life. Accept Him as your Savior." 

Not surprisingly, Pastor Paul says, she refused their message and further, “angrily asked us to get lost.”

But as they found out later, “she lost her peace and could not sleep at night,” he explains.  “Several times she tried to please the idol with her black practices. She’d pull her hair, grab it together and smash the floor with it, beat her chest and scream in front of the idol.”

Suddenly she heard a loud, horrifying noise. She looked to see that her precious idol had somehow been smashed to pieces and now lay scattered all over her floor.

In absolute terror, she ran out to find the pastors. With the believers, all were deep in prayer at their evening gathering. She rushed in among them and "prostrated herself before us,” Pastor Paul recalls. As she trembled on the floor in fear, the women prayer warriors gathered around her and helped her up. She explained all that had happened and begged them to pray for her.

“We shared the gospel again and she accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior,” says Pastor Paul.  “After that she did not go to her house because of fear, but stayed with us.” 

The group held a glorious baptismal ceremony on the fifth evening, baptizing many. They then wrapped everything up with the Lord’s Supper. The next day they set out on the long, arduous, but beyond-joyful journey back home

Please keep this growing gathering of believers and the missionaries working among them in your prayers!

It depends on whose hands

By Pastor Paul, Bibles for Mideast

A basketball in my hands is worth nothing.
A basketball in Michael Jordan’s hands is worth much.
It depends on whose hands.
 
A cricket bat in my hands generates little.
A cricket bat in Sachin Tendulkar’s hands generates fame and popularity.
It depends on whose hands.
 
Nunchaku [a karate stick weapon] in my hands is useless.
Nunchaku in Bruce Lee’s hands is a deadly weapon
It depends on whose hands.

A rod in my hands will keep away a street dog
A rod in Moses' hands will part the forceful sea.
It depends on whose hands.
 
A sling shot in my hands is a child's toy.
A sling shot in David's hand is a mighty weapon.
It depends on whose hands.

Five loaves and two fish in my hands can only feed me.
Five loaves and two fish in Jesus’ hands fed multitudes of people.
It depends on whose hands.
 
Nails in my hands might produce a birdhouse. 
The nail-scarred hands of Jesus produce salvation for the entire world.
It depends on whose hands.

My hands are small and weak.
God’s hands are big and strong.
Since He is willing to bear my anxiety,
Shouldn’t I commit my worries and anxiety into His hands?
 
Little becomes much in the Master’s hands.
My strength is little.
But if I commit my strength into His hands,
I have much more strength.

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“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
The Apostle Paul writing in 2 Corinthians 12:9

Attacked by wild pig, rescued by ‘man with nail-scarred hands’

Pastor Paul's wife Mercy shares a pivotal, transformational experience in her grandmother's life

My grandmother Eliyamma grew up in a heavily-forested area in a highrange region of India. Her family was religious but hadn’t been taught what it meant to have a living relationship with Jesus Christ. Child marriage was common in India at the time, so at the age of 13 she married a man named Mathai.

Eliyamma and Mathai lived with her family in their mud house in the forest. They had no electricity or running water, and there wasn’t a local market to buy food. Her father and Mathai worked hard to reclaim the forest for their small farm, where they cultivated coffee and spices such as pepper and cardamom.

Because the family had no pipes to get suitable drinking water to their house or even a well nearby, it was part of the women’s daily chores to fetch water from the river.

One day, when Eliyamma was 27, she walked down to the river to fill up her water pot. As she bent over the water’s edge, a wild pig charged out of the underbrush and brutally attacked her. She fought back, using the water pot as a defensive shield and weapon to swing at the pig’s head.

But as they fought, the wild pig became even more enraged and fierce. His sharp teeth ripped her legs and arms. Eliyamma knew her life was in jeopardy when blood began to flow profusely from her torn body. She cried out for help, but no one was nearby.

Suddenly a man appeared out of nowhere. He drove the pig away and then knelt down beside her to tend to her wounds. When his hands touched the torn places on her body, she was immediately healed.

Still in shock, Eliyamma’s eyes grew wide with astonishment as she saw the palms of the man’s hands. They were nail-scarred; he carried the markings of crucifixion. Reverence and awe filled her heart. Only one response came to mind as she recognized who attended her. She prostrated herself on the ground and said, “My Lord and my God!”

It was but a moment that she was face down in the soil, which was damp with river water mingled with blood. When she slowly raised her head, her Rescuer had disappeared.

After this dramatic incident, Eliyamma had an insatiable hunger to know more about Jesus. She accepted Him as her personal Savior and, as a result of her testimony, her entire family believed and received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

In their lifetimes, Eliyamma and Mathai had a total of sixty-seven children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Eliyamma at 100!

Being one of them, I grew up knowing Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I married a man named Paul who, though Muslim by birth, accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior and Lord on his twenty-first birthday while studying at university. Now we are winning souls for Christ.

My grandfather, Mathai, went home to be with the Lord when Eliyamma was 62. Thirty-nine years later, Jesus took Eliyamma home when she was 101. Up until that day, she eagerly awaited being with her Rescuer face-to-face, and she devoted her life to studying the Bible, praying for others, and glorifying her Lord as His living witness.

“The Lord is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear?” (Ps. 27: 1)

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This forms a chapter from Amazing Modern-Day Miracles:  52 True Stories to Strengthen Your Faith by Suzanne Frey. 

Mohammed finds Jesus in Mecca!

Mecca! Mohammed shivered with excitement. To think he was really here, at the heart of Islam in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the great Prophet whose name he bore—the dream of a lifetime!

Although Mohammed served as an imam (pastor) at his local mosque on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, he had never before made a pilgrimage to Mecca, as all devout Muslims must do at least once. This first hajj in May 1992 fulfilled Mohammed's commitment to the fifth and last pillar of Islam. He went full of expectation that the trip would represent the spiritual climax of his life.

On his first day in Mecca, Mohammed signed up for a bus tour of some outlying holy sites. The next morning he arrived early for one of the many regularly scheduled departures, and he sat right behind the bus driver to get a good view out the front window. He was glad the coach did not fill up and seats nearby remained empty.

The bus shifted into gear and headed down the road toward the city of Medina and the shrines they would visit. In Medina the Prophet Mohammed had established his theocratic state after fleeing a murder plot in Mecca in the year 622. With Medina more than 200 miles north of Mecca, Mohammed had plenty of time to strike up a conversation with the bus driver.

Above the drone of the engine they exchanged chit-chat, using English as a common language.

"Yes, this is my first hajj," Mohammed told the dark-haired driver whose face framed deep, penetrating eyes. "I'm from Sumatra, a Malay—one of the largest Muslim people groups in Southeast Asia."

The driver swiveled his head sideways enough to see Mohammed. "You know, you really shouldn't have spent all your money coming here."

Mohammed figured he had misunderstood. He leaned forward to catch the driver's words. "Excuse me?"

"Coming here on pilgrimage is really a waste of money," the driver repeated unmistakably. "All the rituals seeking to get into Allah's good graces—when you stop to think about it, Islam is full of hypocrisies."

Stunned, Mohammed  could only listen as the man went on to point out issues he had never considered. For over an hour they conversed as the bus rumbled on through the desert.

"The truth is," said the driver, turning to look straight at his passenger, "God wants to know you personally, as a friend, not just at a distance through rituals. Islam can't give you that kind of relationship."

With their destination approaching, the driver slowed and downshifted to park at the site. Everyone disembarked, but Mohammed's head spun with new, unthinkable thoughts. In a daze he followed the tour group, yet now everything seemed confused.

What did the driver mean? Where did he get such a perspective? How could I possibly run into a person like that in the Holy Land!

After the tour Mohammed hurried back to meet the returning bus, eager to get a seat by the driver and resume their conversation. But when he boarded, he looked up to see the face of someone new. His spirits sank.

"What happened to the earlier driver?" he asked the man behind the wheel.

He got little more than a shrug in response.

Intense pleas to Allah for forgiveness in Mecca

Mohammed found a seat and stared out the window. During the trip back to Mecca, his heart burned with the words of the man on the morning bus. He felt he could recall the whole conversation from beginning to end.

Mohammed's hajj lasted more than a week, but the excitement and anticipation he had brought with him fizzled like air from a leaky tire. Everything he saw and did etched fresh questions and doubts into his mind. As he continued his pilgrimage, he scanned all the buses lined up at each tour site, but never saw his driver again.

Back at home, Mohammed's family wondered why he had not returned bubbling with joy from his spiritual zenith. In the solitude of his thoughts he pored over the events of his hajj. He could not forget the driver's words or his face. Yet Mohammed's spirit grappled with perplexities. If Islam is not the true faith, what is?

A few days later, Mohammed dropped by the home of a neighbor we will call A-Ching, a Chinese Christian, to borrow something. A-Ching welcomed him inside with customary Indonesian hospitality. As they chatted, Mohammed's eyes lit on something hanging from A-Ching's wall. There within a picture frame he saw the face of his bus driver from Mecca!

Mohammed gasped, pointing to the picture. "A-Ching! Do you know this man?"

"Yes, I do," came the reply. "That's Jesus. You know Him as Isa."

Mohammed sat still as a stone. Isa! The second-highest prophet in Islam—the Christians' Messiah! Could it be ...?

When he found his voice, he spoke up quietly. "I have a story to tell you, A-Ching."

His neighbor, just as shocked at the tale, listened in silence. When Mohammed finished, he began to choke up, suddenly overcome with conviction of his sin. A-Ching explained the truths Jesus had declared about His own identity and purpose.

"Mohammed, you can receive salvation as the free gift of God through Jesus Christ," A-Ching told him. "You can have a personal relationship with God."

Mohammed prayed and committed his life to Christ. When he returned home, he gathered his family and spilled out the whole account. Awed at his story and his transformation, they, too, confessed Jesus as Lord and Messiah.

A-Ching introduced Mohammed privately to the pastor of his local fellowship. Then, for their own protection, a network of believers spirited the new convert and his family to a safe house in another city where they could receive biblical teaching without risking retribution from angry Islamists.

Mohammed's trip to Mecca indeed proved to be the turning point of his spiritual life. But he never expected supernatural revelation to come through his bus driver.

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This story has been excerpted, with permission, from Stories from the Front Lines by Jane Rumph.