Monday, February 21, 2011
When Things Come Together
It’s exciting when things come together. Even more exciting when we start to see some fruit from our ministries.
Two years ago, I met an Afghan guy “Toobah” when we first started the football programme. Many of the Afghan guys were a bit stand-offish at first, but I felt that we have built relationships and trust over the two years the ministry has been running.
As of last week, he’s now attending to the church plant that we’re involved with.
Toobah called me up a few weeks ago asking me to visit him because of "problems with his asylum case." He then called up a few days later and told me, "I want to change my religion." I assumed the two were linked, so I was admittedly a bit cynical.
I went with our new teammate Andrew to visit him; as it turns out, Toobah has no problems with his asylum case and simply wanted to talk about Jesus. He had used "asylum issues" as a cover in case I had been in contact with any other Afghans! We gave him a Dari Bible and Toobah was amazed, he didn’t know such a thing existed. He had taken a Farsi Bible from the church over a year ago, but has difficulty understanding it. He was so excited to have the Bible in his own language, that after reading a few verses his first response was to hug the book to his chest.
He is planning to attend church next week as well and plans to bring another friend (who I also initially met through football) who is interested in learning the truth about Jesus.
Two years ago, I met an Afghan guy “Toobah” when we first started the football programme. Many of the Afghan guys were a bit stand-offish at first, but I felt that we have built relationships and trust over the two years the ministry has been running.
As of last week, he’s now attending to the church plant that we’re involved with.
Toobah called me up a few weeks ago asking me to visit him because of "problems with his asylum case." He then called up a few days later and told me, "I want to change my religion." I assumed the two were linked, so I was admittedly a bit cynical.
I went with our new teammate Andrew to visit him; as it turns out, Toobah has no problems with his asylum case and simply wanted to talk about Jesus. He had used "asylum issues" as a cover in case I had been in contact with any other Afghans! We gave him a Dari Bible and Toobah was amazed, he didn’t know such a thing existed. He had taken a Farsi Bible from the church over a year ago, but has difficulty understanding it. He was so excited to have the Bible in his own language, that after reading a few verses his first response was to hug the book to his chest.
He is planning to attend church next week as well and plans to bring another friend (who I also initially met through football) who is interested in learning the truth about Jesus.
The progress with the Afghans is very encouraging – as it has taken about a year and a half of building trust and relationship to get to this point! It was also exciting to see how God is using two very different ministries in tandem (football and a contextual church plant) so that people will encounter the gospel.
> Please pray for Toobah as he has many questions and is still fearful about what his friends might think.
> Thank God for the encouragement as we start to see how God can use our ministries for the purpose of building His kingdom.
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