On our 4th week of Outreach we went to Surfer's Paradise in the Gold Coast for Affwan (Affwan means Welcome in Arabic and Affwan is a two year old Muslim Outreach project ran by one of the guys on our base). So on Monday July 1st we headed up to the Coast from Hervey Bay which was about 7 hours away and once we got there we unpacked everything at our houses. The guys were staying at the main base in a dorm styled room and us girls were staying at the girls house which was a block away. The girls house was absolutely beautiful! We had our own beds (Susan and I had a room and Corina and Maegan had one), own kitchen, 2 bathrooms, in total around 5 bedrooms, a living room fully furnished with brand new leather couches and a swimming pool in the backyard. It was sweet! After unloading everything we went to a church nearby for our first meeting. We got to the church and met the others involved with the week-long ministry. There were the 2 leaders Craig Merriman (who was one of our lecturers) and Kerstin (one of the directors at the Gold Coast base). There was also three other guys who joined us who were also part of different YWAM schools. We had a orientation meeting and talked about our schedual for the week and learned a few basic stuff for talking with Muslims. Our schedual for the week was: 9:30 meet at the church to share stories from the night before then have worship and intercession. Then morning tea and a guest speaker until 12. From 2-7:30 was free time and then at 7:30 we were to meet at the Suntower hotel near the mall to to pray and then go have worship in the center of the mall with the focus of talking to Muslims and handing out tracks. So after we went through the orientation stuff we had the rest of the afternoon free and then went down town and had a time of prayer and went to do some worship and socializing. Once we got to the middle of the mall (the malls here are basically pedestrian streets with shops on either side like a mainstreet with no cars) we started worship. We got to talk to a few people who were walking by about who we are and what we're doing which they thought was interesting. It was very stretching to do worship in the middle of a busy mall for me because its not something I have ever done before. At first it was hard to stand there and sing because in my head I thought it was the most craziest thing ever and that people are going to think we're weird religious preachers. But once I started getting into it and blocking out the skepticism it became more and more easier. People who stopped actually respected us for it and started to ask some good questions. I got to talk to a couple of girl backpackers about YWAM and just about life which was neat. The mall didn't have as many Muslims as we thought would be down there but there was a few. We were all wearing shirts that said "Love One Another-Jesus The Messiah" in Arabic so while we worshipped a lot of Muslims walked by and read our shirts and some of the guys stopped and talked to the guys who were on our team about what we were doing. Every year around 40,000 Muslims go to the Gold Coast to escape the heat and most are very wealthy and high up officials who come with their families so it was a awesome opportunity! Usually in August Surfer's Paradise is black from the Muslim women's dresses. Since Bibles are not allowed in many of the Gulf countries we had stacks of tracks and Bibles to give out in Arabic. It was so great to see how in those countries they don't hear about Christian's or what their beliefs are but here God is sending the powerful and wealthy to Australia where they can be reached with the Gospel through outreaches like this. During that evening Maegan and I got a chance to meet 6 other Muslims. We saw them sitting down so we went and introduced ourselves and they invited us to sit with them. They read our shirts and were estatic, they thought it was so cool. They asked us about what it said and they asked us questions about our countries etc. We made arrangements for coffee for the next day and it wasn't long till we all had to go back to our house because it was getting late. On Tuesday we got up and went to the church for the daily meeting. We had a speaker come in from Interserve which is a missions organization for closed Muslim countries. So she talked to us about Women in Islam which was so interesting. We learned a lot about why things are the way they are over in the Middle East and it was good to just get a perspective of how the Muslim women live. Us in North America have such a twisted view on Muslims especially after 9-11 so it was good to learn more about their culture and the way things work. That night we went back to the mall except the women who we arranged coffee with never showed up. So Maegan, Corina and myself grabbed a guitar and started to sing worship music on a bench. Later on we saw some other Muslim women show up at Starbucks so we went over and got a coffee and sat down with them. Maegan and I talked to one of the ladies who worked as a personal assistant for the president's wife from U.A.E I believe it was. It was really interesting talking to her and hearing about the education over there and the differences in it. By the end of the night we gave her and the other 4 women with her (sister's and other relatives) who were talking to Corina some tracks and they invited us to go visit them and take care of us. They were so friendly and so caring it was really nice to talk to them. Unlike us in the Western world who are more closed off they were so open and loved to laugh a lot! On Wednesday July 3rd we did the usual routine and in the evening we went down to Surfer's Paradise and after looking at the market I saw those girls who were supposed to go for coffee with us the other day. I went up to them a bit awkward thinking they stood us up but I showed them some of the stuff I bought and they invited me to sit. We talked about life back at home and the cultural differences between there country (Kuwait) and Australia. They saw a girl walk by wearing a really low top and a really short skirt and they asked if I wore that kind of stuff and if she was a christian. I explained that I value modesty and how majority of the Western World are not Christians, I think this shocked them because they see t.v. and take that as the Western World and they view Christianity as a Western religion so it was good to talk to them about what genuine Christians believe. A lot of what the lecturer said was helpful in understanding what they view us as. I shared with them the main points about Christianity as well and thats its a choice that only you can choose and how it can't be forced on anyone because its something that is a issue of the heart. They also told me about about what they believed about modesty and why they wear what they do wear which was cool. We discussed some of the similarities between Islam and Christianity which was interesting to see what they do believe about Jesus and God. These girls loved talking about boys and had so much fun together, it was so much fun to sit with them and talk about life in general and about their culture. They weren't very different than we were, we all wanted to have fun and thought the same sort of stuff was funny. Just talking to them broke a lot of mindsets that I had put up about Muslims and I was also able to break some of their mindsets so it was a really great opportunity for both of us. For the rest of the week we had the same routine as we did the first couple of nights. We met up with the same Muslim women: Amna, Eman, Afnan, Jenan and Dalal (ages 17-25) and her mother for the rest of the week and had really good conversations. Me and Dalal really connected and talked a fair bit and on one of the nights she talked to me about Islam and told me that I should read the Koran. Corina and Maegan were there as well talking to some of the other girls and they were really pressing into us about our faith. They were also talking about there's and it seemed like they were trying to convert us which was so weird! It really made me think very hard about what I do believe and it really solidified it in my mind exactly what I believe. When you have to defend your beliefs thats when you really start to understand and figure out why you believe what you believe which was good. We ended our conversation well and sat around with the guitar, but for awhile it seemed like we were almost fighting when talking about Islam vs. Christianity, I hated it. In there culture when you raise your voice its a sign of passion. One of our lecturers said that he knew some Muslims and they were talking about one of the missionaries and how they weren't convinced that she believed what she said she believed because she was so quiet. So in there culture if you raise your voice its showing passion and it convinces them that you actually believe what you are saying. So it really took me out of my comfort zone in stepping up and being passionate in their kind of way and not shying away because I was uncomfortable or not used to it. It also made me question my beliefs and made me really press into some of the questions that they wrestled me with. The rest of the week was a blast, one of the days us girls set up a face painting table and handed out flyers for Friday afternoon. So we were busy painting faces on Friday while the guys had a volleyball tournament going on with some of the guys they had met. On past outreaches with Affwan it was more of a women's outreach because the Muslim women love sitting and having coffee and are so open where the guys are more hard to talk to and don't usually sit around and talk often. But the guys on our team had met a few Muslim men going to college in the Gold Coast and developed a friendship with them. So they all played volleyball and in the evenings went to the theatre, coffee and even bowling which was really good for them. On the last night when the guys were out at the movie and us girls sat at McDonalds (which was the regular place we would meet them) with the Muslim girls we had met we were invited to their hotel. So we spent the evening at there house talking with them and eating. We got to see them without the head covering which was really weird and they baked some food from Saudia Arabia which was good. We had a lot of fun talking as friends. By the end of the night we exchanged cell numbers and emails which was great. It was a good time of closure for the weekend and just a all around blast for all of us! It really stretched our whole team into the evangelistic outreach but as well as friendship based evangelism. In addition it broke so many mindsets from us and them. Some of the guys had really good conversations about the Bible. On some of the lecture days our lecturers who have lived in Muslim countries went over verses in the Koran which a Muslim, if they read it, would disagree with. So some of the guys pulled those verses out. One actually was so shocked he phoned his friend in Dubai and asked him to read him the verse in arabic (the English Koran is not accepted as correct). So we had a lot of challenging conversations. More and more there has been stories of Muslims having dreams and seeing Jesus. Actually one of our lecturers because a Christian because he had a dream where Jesus came up to him and said "You are dead, I have come to bring you life". So after persecuting his parents for becoming Christians he started going to the church in the U.S.S.R. (now Russia) and now he's a pastor and many of his Muslim friends are becoming Christians. So it was great to just plant those seeds and send out tracks and Bibles knowing that God is faithful and He is the only one that can bring salvation, not any of our words but His and His alone. On Monday July 8th we got up for our last morning in Surfer's. We had a breakfast with all the others who helped out with the project and then went on our trip which was supposed to be 16 hours away to Airlie Beach but only made it to Hervey Bay and stayed the night then took off and made it to our destination... Airlie Beach.
No comments:
Post a Comment