Stories from the Field

April 2007

A Special Arabic Teacher
From a Christian worker on the field

Many of you prayed for “Muna” during our Ramadan prayer focus this year. Here is an update about her.

This beautiful, intelligent, and enchanting young Shi’ite Muslim girl has been in relationship with believers for several years now. In fact, God has used her giftedness to teach many foreign Christian workers Arabic. Muna has gone through many seasons in her response to the gospel. She’s heard the message dozens of times and has been curious, apathetic, resistant and interested at different points. Her family is very observant of Islam, which is somewhat unique in the more worldly city of Beirut. She covers her head out of obedience to her parents, but her devotion to the Islamic law does not stem from her heart.

When the recent war began, she and her family fled to a village in the mountains where for several days they struggled with little water and inconsistent electricity. While those were difficult days, her family was all together and they were safe. Now, they are back in their home in south Beirut and Muna is making plans to move to Europe to open a school to teach Arabic.

Muna has resumed teaching two of our team members. One of the team members, in particular, has always had a special relationship with Muna. Just recently, during class, Muna asked a question in Arabic that surprised the two workers. She asked, “In your opinion, what does one have to do in order to be free?” This gave the workers to share with Muna the freedom in knowing Jesus. At the end of this same class, Muna asked if they could spend the last portion of class learning verses from the Bible. Continue to pray for Muna and the special opportunities our team is having with her.