by wpengine | Sep 5, 2019 | Church Partnership, Engage2025, Field Story, Mission Story
Dear friends,
S* has become one of my closest friends, a man who inspires me with his example of living missionally. I first met S and A, his wife, in August 2015, while preaching at Faith Church. I noticed this South Asian family enter the back of the sanctuary and made a point to seek them out after the service and learn about their story. Breakfast later that week began a journey of getting to know one another, becoming dear friends, and serving together in God’s mission.
S and A are Bangladeshi immigrants that model a missional lifestyle by reaching out in friendship, service, and with the gospel to the many Muslim immigrants around them in metro-Detroit. By the time I met them, S had already shared the gospel with hundreds of Muslims, led a handful from Yemen and Bangladesh to faith in Christ, and started Bible studies with new believers and interested Muslims.
When talking with S at breakfast in August 2015, he expressed that he was called by God to reach the Muslim immigrants where he lived and plant churches among them, but he didn’t want to do it independently; he wanted to be connected and accountable to the church. S had already served as a missionary with Wycliffe, planted two house churches in Bangladesh, and led many Muslims within metro-Detroit to faith in Christ. Was there a place for him in the EPC? I was committed to finding one.
S and A became members of Faith Church (EPC) and, under the oversight of our Session, were commissioned to start a movement of house churches among the Muslim peoples of Detroit. Faith Church and sister churches of our presbytery began working alongside S and A by teaching English, visiting in Muslim homes, helping with service projects, and sharing the gospel. We were blessed to work alongside S and A and graciously challenged by their missionary way of life.
During this time, God burdened S with the plight of Rohingya refugees. He made several trips to Bangladesh to visit them in their squalid conditions in the world’s largest refugee camp. In the last few years, S has helped dozens of Muslims come to faith in Christ, baptized many new believers in Bangladesh, started three house churches in Bangladesh, one in Detroit, and plans to establish another in Windsor, Ontario (across the river from Detroit) before the end of 2019. Recognizing God’s calling, EPC World Outreach appointed S and A as missionaries, splitting their time between metro-Detroit and Bangladesh.
Is there a place for him in the EPC? Yes. Absolutely! But he doesn’t tick the traditional boxes. He’s an immigrant who hasn’t been to the traditional schools. He’s learning American and EPC culture and needs people to champion his ministry and open doors to churches for him. But S and A are some of the most faithful disciples of Jesus I have ever met. I pray EPC churches will see the gift God has given them in S and A, celebrate their ministry, and support it so that the gospel continues to “ring out through them” in Detroit, Windsor, and Bangladesh (1 Thess 1:8). It is a privileged opportunity to join with them in what God is doing here and around the world.
*Names removed for safety and security.
By Steven Sage, former Senior Pastor of Faith Church, Rochester Hills, Michigan
by wpengine | Aug 29, 2017 | ITEN, Mission Story, Steve Woodworth
From the WO web guy:
As I prepare this post, I sit in my home just outside of Houston, TX and I am experiencing the fifth day of the devastating flooding in Southeast Texas. My experience is mild compared to many in the Houston area. The attention of America and many parts of the world has been directed towards Houston and the many images of tragedy broadcast through the television airways. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced, tens of thousands have lost everything and yet to date the current estimate is only a merciful 8* deaths.
A day before Hurricane Harvey began its destructive path through Texas, Dr. Steve Woodworth had sent me this story to post on the WO website. Steve is one of World Outreach’s ITEN associates. I thanked him but did not have time to open and read until today. Reading it today reminds me again that I am not the only person in the world with troubles. Houston is not the only city in the world with troubles. And while Houston troubles are close at hand, Steve reminds me there are other places in the world also suffering the consequences of a fallen world and in great need of a savior.
Whether in a big city in America or a small village in Africa, the truth and hope of the Gospel is needed, especially in times when fear and loss seem to prevail.
In the big city, pastors of churches give comfort to many with words like the ones shared by my friend, Pastor Richard Harris of Christ EPC in Houston, as he shared Psalm 121 in a letter to the congregation and on Facebook to a city. Although only a snippet of these words of wisdom, let me share a couple of lines…
Psalm 121:1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? Who will help us? We are on this long, hard, dangerous journey through this life to the heavenly Jerusalem, and it is full of floods, storms, obstacles, brokenness, and sin. We get scared, tired, confused and we consider giving up. Who will protect us? Who can we trust? Who will see to it that we make it all the way home? Psalm 121:2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. Who will help us? There is only one answer. There is only one who can help. The answer is that Yahweh, the covenant making and keeping Lord, who made heaven and earth will help us.
In the small village, Steve shares his story about pastors to unreached people groups throughout the land, sacrificing their health, financial gain, and personal safety to spread the light of Christ to regions cloaked in darkness.
From Steve Woodworth:
Rokassa. The name of the village took me several days to pronounce correctly, although the hospitality of the inhabitants made me feel immediately at home. And even as I bumbled my way through the cultural divide, they repeatedly honored me with gracious generosity. From the moment you arrive, the children in the village will gather around you, asking for you to take their picture. With salutes, raised thumbs, and bursting smiles, they will hold their poses as long as the camera keeps rolling.
My journey to Rokassa came during the rainy season, when the tin roof of our dwellings and puddle-filled roads provided a setting for teaching where tranquility and a sense of silence seemed to pervade the land. The vegetation was green and the nights were punctuated by the sounds of bleating goats and foreign birds. Life in the village is simple. Electricity is scarce, available for a few short hours each day, and our showers came by way of a plastic tub of collected water and cup to pour over our heads. Our students slept of the floor of a local hospital and dedicated more than 7 hours each day to their studies in a small classroom within the village school.
We had come to Sierra Leone to assist local leaders with the continuing develop of a growing seminary called RBI (Reformed Bible Institute). Over the course of 5 days, we taught theology, pastoral ministry, church history, ethics and leadership to a class of over 40 students devoted to seeing the Kingdom of Christ come to this corner of His world.
Some are former Muslims who have already sacrificed family and their former communities. Now, as pastors to unreached people groups throughout the land, they sacrifice their health, financial gain, and personal safety to spread the light of Christ to regions cloaked in darkness. As we huddled together in our crowded classroom, we learned as much as we taught. We worshiped together without instruments and the pure voices of these emerging leaders filled the village with declarations that “Jesus Christ is Lord.”
The work, we were told, is difficult. The spiritual soil in many places is tough for planting. And yet there was an unshakable belief in the faithfulness of God to bring his promises for Sierra Leone to fruition. The evidence was all around us. Amidst a Muslim village of 500 inhabitants there now sits a Christian school, a hospital, and a classroom full of over 40 converts who have been called to minister the gospel to the next generation. Of course, we always desire more. We always wish for things to come more quickly. But our God is a patient God who has revealed to us the certainty of human history. These pastors we gathered with are the glorious “first fruits” of a movement of God’s Spirit that is spreading like a fire across Western Africa, reclaiming what was once lost to superstition, magic, tribalism, and the dark veil of Islam. In the eyes of these pastors we saw the future. A light on the hill of Africa illuminating Christ into the hearts of every tribe, nation and tongue.
But the rain kept coming.
It poured out of the heavens for days upon days until the soil on a hillside outside of Freetown broke free and roared its way into villagers down below. Hundreds of lives were lost, hundreds more were displaced and left homeless. In a country that has suffered for so long under dictators and diseases, the latest tragedy in Sierra Leone could (and most likely will) be interpreted by some as a cosmic curse on a land full of violence and corruption.
But those critics will not have met the men and women I did. They won’t have listened to their singing. They won’t have heard their visions. They won’t have witnessed a new generation of leaders who are willing to leave their families for weeks, travel hundreds of miles, and sleep on concrete floors to study the word of God. Men and women who believe that the power of God is infinitely more potent than the spells of a witch doctor, prayers to the spirits, allegiances to secret societies or the hollow promises of false prophets. Men and women who are peering into the heart of a wounded country to offer them a lasting hope in the love of a Father who is calling his children to come home. A Father, who when the flood waters recede, will use his Church to bring healing to a country longing for salvation.
“Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces
but he will heal us;
he has injured us
but he will bind up our wounds.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will restore us,
that we may live in his presence.
Let us acknowledge the Lord;
let us press on to acknowledge him.
As surely as the sun rises,
he will appear;
he will come to us like the winter rains,
like the spring rains that water the earth.” – Hosea 6:1-3
*The Texas death count has climbed to over 30 as of 9/9/17.
by wpengine | Jan 3, 2017 | Mission Story, Uncategorized
She pointed to her brightly colored hijab (head covering) and said, “back in Syria I would have been killed by Isis for not wearing black!”
This is the story of Abda. I interviewed her while in Lebanon. For this story, her name has been changed and the image here is not factual but her story is very real. Our visit was almost 25 minutes so this is a condensed version of her story. She was a very attractive young Syrian woman, a mother of nine and almost a widow. But “almost” is the story…
Abda came to Lebanon three years ago to escape Isis when her house was bombed. When Isis had come to her home, she and her husband hid in the mountains with several of their nine children. Other family members fled to Lebanon. Abda and her husband eventually worked their way to Lebanon leaving a daughter in Syria. She did not know if her daughter was alive or dead.
They got to the Lebanon border and they were stopped and told by the guards that they would not be allowed to get into Lebanon and they would have to go back to Syria. While the guard was inspecting their papers, he came across her son’s name, Isa. Isa is Arabic for Jesus in the Quran. She said, “I named him after Jesus although I did not know Jesus yet.” The guards told the family that they could enter Lebanon just because she had a son name Isa!
When they got to Beirut, hungry and with very few possessions, she met-up with her sister. Her sister told her they could get some food and clothing at a church nearby. Abda went to the church, received some food and then someone at the church prayed for and with her. She said, “I was just there for the food, I did not know how to pray.”
The second time she came to the church for food, the people began sharing their hearts about how they had met Jesus. Abda was touched. She knew she did not want to live the way she was living but she also did not want to become a Christian. But she became curious to know more about God and she accepted an invitation to come to a worship service.
Shortly afterwards, her husband got very sick. He was always tired, could not walk and so could not work. Abda took him to the doctor and they ran tests, discovering he had a severe of lack of blood in his body. They had to go to the hospital so he could receive some blood but finances were obviously a problem. She wondered with the lack of blood and a lack of oxygen to the heart, how he was even living. Some of the people from the church and her family volunteered to give blood, so the hospital admitted him. He received four bags of blood and began feeling better.
A month later, he began feeling tired again. After re-testing him, the doctor said that all the blood given to him was gone from his system. The hospital gave him some medicine, other friends gave more blood. But his body would not take the blood and the hospital told Abda that he was going to die. The doctor told her, “I can’t do anything about it, just take him home.”
Abda was crying and watching him die in front of her but she could do nothing. She knew the church was praying for her and they told her to have faith. The pastor told her, “If you have faith in God, your husband will be healed.” After she went home, she found her husband laying on the floor, unable to move. She grabbed her husband and told him, from the bottom of her heart, “Have faith in God and He will heal you.” “Don’t believe in anything else, just believe in Jesus Christ.” Abda prayed to God, “I believe in you and if you exist like you are saying, give blood to my husband.” “God I know you are alive and the doctors could not do anything, but I believe in you and I know you can do it, you can heal him.”
Within a month, her husband was healed. His blood was completely restored. The doctors were amazed. They told Abda that this was impossible but her husband told the doctors that God was alive and he had healed him.
It’s been a year since God’s healing touch and God has been helping them with everything. Abda said, “I and my family are serving God and putting all our lives in His hands. I am teaching my children about the love of God and the peace that He gives us. Even with war and everything else happening around them, He is never going to leave them. And the best thing He has shown us, is that we will be with him at the end of the world.”
She concluded, “We did not know Jesus in the Islamic world, but now we know how loving and how peaceful he is. I thank God for saving us from the war and letting me know him. I have no fear and will keep talking about God and serving him. I hope that anybody that is away from God will meet him and know how loving and peaceful he is.”
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