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Islam: Understanding and
Outreach
by a Missionary in Asia
from Special Features, December 2005
Walking up the unevenly spaced stairs, we got a
whiff of the sterile smell of alcohol wafting through the cracked
wooden doors on each floor. Unlike some other buildings with cracked
windows and peeling stucco, this one has been kept up and clean. F's
son and daughter came to the stairway and handed us the supposedly
disposable robes. They blue robes were not only torn but filthier than
our own clothes. H reminded us, "If you don't put these on, the doctors
won't let you in to visit the patients. Remember, five minutes is all
you got."
F just went through major surgery for cancer. On
the hospital bed, she had multiple tubes hanging out from her blanket.
Tears slid down F's wrinkled face when she saw us. We had to bend over
and bring our ears close to her lips in order to hear her faint voice.
Her health was so fragile that she could hardly reach out her hand to
hold ours. We prayed together for life.
Now sitting across a table from F and watching her
serving tea, I couldn't stop thinking what a marvelous healing she went
through in the last four months. But my heart was troubled when I heard
where she had been this morning.
"So you brought your grandson to a Russian
babushka (grandma) for some kind of mysterious healing?" I was
astonished. "You should have brought the baby to God." I reminded her
how God brought her from the hospital bed to her own kang at home, and
how she slowly was getting back on her feet. Over the course of her
sickness, my husband witnessed to her many times. "God gives life. He
knows how to heal the sick," I said.
"The baby has been so sick for days. His body
doesn't retain any fluid and food. And today the doctor didn't do much
to help him either." F looked away and sighed, "Perhaps, I should have
taken the baby to an Ah-hong (leader of a mosque) and let him read the
Koran over him."
"I could pray for him right here in the name of
Jesus," I offered. F and her daughter and son-in-law wanted me to pray
for the baby and the family. I wasn't sure if they were desperate for
some kind of magical healing or they really believe God hears our cries.
Most of the people we serve are proud of their
Muslim faith. Yet in times of need they turn to other sources of help
instead of Allah. Why? In their minds, Allah is way up high and holy.
He is unapproachable. How I wish my dear friends would grasp the
blessing that God Himself came down from heaven and lived among us in
order to reach out to us in our pain. Please pray that they would
receive "the robe of righteousness" God has provided to give us free
and eternal access to Him.
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