Before I do, I hope you had a memorable and blessed Thanksgiving and Christmas. I began my return journey home after Thanksgiving in time for Christmas. Even though I missed the best meal of the year, I did enjoy many good meals with dear brothers and fellow ministers of the gospel with Campus Crusade for Christ Intl’ (CCCI).

 

I had four hosts during my time in SA and it was a blessing to spend time with them all; to be reminded of the difficult living conditions that so many of our fellow followers of Jesus live through in that part of the world. Yet, they faithfully serve our Lord to demonstrate His love and share our Savior with the World.  We have much to be thankful for as Americans… which means great responsibility.

 

Before I tell you about this meeting I had with a Muslim man on a train, I would like to summarize as briefly as I can my mission in SA. For the safety of those I have worked with and my future safe return to these places, I've removed the names of the countries and cities. 

 

I began my FIVE city tour in what I would be safe to say a very religious part of the country. Multiply at least ten fold what Christianity is to the bible-belt in America and that is about what orthodox "religion x" is to this area. The national staff in the region say the people there are “staunch” which is close to what Americans might call radical or fanatical. 

 

Reaching Tomorrow’s Leaders

From there, we drove back to my arrival city for a few days of ministry there. One of those outreach events was one of the most prestigious schools in the country.  My host said that the students we were reaching are the “news-maker’s of” their nation. We had a good turn out and I had several students chase me down as we were leaving.

 

These students’ key question was how can you trust the bible? I was able to share why they can trust the authority and source of the message concerning Christ. That is something I don’t have as many opportunities to share… why we can trust the gospel record manuscripts of Jesus’ life.

 

Then I took a 7 hour journey by train to my next stop where my next host had arranged several events for me with fantastic attendance in two cities. These two cities Tiffanie and I visited and performed in six years ago so it was nice to come back. My host this time around also put together a unique opportunity to present two of my seminars back to back for a group of students and CCCI staff. One covered that same message – why the gospels can be trusted and authoritative. 

 

After two days of events I jumped back on a train that very day and headed back to to my arrival city to end my tour. I had a total of 16 outreach events; 5600 students (mostly college) in attendance.

 

Unlikely Divine Appointments

Amazingly, while on the train, a man from Saudi Arabia sat next to me. He was originally from a different country in South Asia but had lived in Saudi for “a very long time” he said. He was on that train in that country on vacation. Back in Saudi Arabia he was working, of all places, in a university in a computer engineering department.

 

This man was immediately very talkative asking me some very straight to the point questions. Why was I in this country? What kind of shows did I do? What was the purpose of the shows? What kind of message… on and on. Eventually, as I shared with him that I talk about spiritual things with students, he then came right out and asked, “do you believe in one God?”

From the time he sat down next to me till we were gathering up our luggage upon our arrival at our final destination, we talked about the similarities and the differences between Islam and Christianity. I began to draw other listeners on the train and even had people ask me a few questions of their own.

 

As with the most Muslims, a critical point of contention is their conviction that the gospel message Jesus came to bring, what Muslims call the Injil, was either corrupted or lost and our New Testament Gospels do not portray the real Jesus but a corrupted gospel version. This is largely based on the fact that the Koran’s account of Jesus contradicts the Gospel writer’s account. This new friend ofcourse agreed with the Koran.

 

I happened to have my laptop out in front of me as I had originally planned on getting lost in a movie. God had other plans. Instead I loaded my power point presentation on the historicity of that gospel message by our NT writers and the significance Jesus’ divinity, death, and resurrection. This very educated man (much smarter than me) seemed dumbfounded as he was quite unaware of the overwhelming evidence for the preservation, authenticity, and historical accuracy of these four eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus. In fact, as I shared with him, even the Koran states that Allah's word cannot be changed and that Jesus was given the Gospel (God's word) to preach. How can the gospel, which Muslims agree was given by God and who's word cannot be changed, be changed and not exists in the eyewitness accounts of Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John? His response was silence. 

 

As the train began to slow down for it's final approach, I left him a challenge; “who would you have better reason to trust about who Jesus is: several eyewitnesses to his life - people who were there, ate with Him, walked with Him, lived with Him, and then gave their lives for this message (one he just saw HAS BEEN preserved and unchanged) or someone else who never met Jesus and lived and supposedly wrote about him over 600 years later?!

 

This Muslim man was very kind, patient, and at first more interested in talking than hearing. I just listened, but, by the end of our time, he was doing all the listening and insisted we keep in touch. That felt like a real divine appointment and a real highlight for me.

 

During this mission I had more travel days than usual. That meant less days of programs. Add to that some programs being cancelled because of swine flu outbreaks, I was getting a bit discouraged which was really just the flesh.

 

Just as the Lord chose to miraculously transport Philip to reach the Ethiopian, I like to think that the Lord has a purpose even in the lesser things of what we all do every day. A mundane and seemingly irrelevant train ride was actually an American follower of Jesus on a train in South Asia sharing the riches of Christ’s love and truth with a man from Saudi Arabia. Let’s make every moment count for eternity, if we are willing, God will use us when we least expect it.

 

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this report and for your prayers and financial support. Have a blessed NEW Year.