Nice shoes and AirPods

Here is a story from a Jesus Film Mission Trip that went out before Christmas. It was in a secure country, so the names have been changed for security reasons. Joe tells the story of going out to do evangelism with a local believer we will call Moe.

“Moe and I went out mid afternoon to look for people to talk to as well as grab some lunch.  We eventually found ourselves sitting at a fast food restaurant, burritos in hand. A guy sat down next us and also began to eat. Smooth as can be, Moe looked at him and said “Hey, I like your shoes!”

No response. 

Quickly we realized that he had AirPods in and didn’t hear us. Moe complimented his shoes again after he took an AirPod out, and we jumped into conversation with him. This was my first conversation in country so I was still a bit nervous and Moe led the conversation.

Our new friend, “Abdul” was here from Somalia.  (Somalia is 99.8% Muslim) His English was perfect. He was going to school here for engineering. His mom was in Europe but his dad still lived in Somalia. He shared that he is a practicing Muslim, and he actively prayed 5 times a day with the call to prayer. 

I told him that he was the first Somalian I’d ever met. He seemed to think that was cool, and told us that we were the first Christians he’d ever met. We talked for a while about various things, slowly getting more into a spiritual conversation. Eventually we began asking him what he knew about Christianity, and what Muslims think about Christians.

He told us that the Quran talks about Jesus. He was a prophet. I asked him if it’s true if Muslims believe Jesus never died. He explained that Jesus was replaced and made to look like him, and that man was killed. The real Jesus was just brought up to heaven without dying. 

We began to explain what really happened, and how the Bible prophesied what would happen to Jesus along with more of what we believed, answering questions as he asked. I asked him if he wanted to watch a film in his language of what happened. He was eager to see a film in his language.  I showed him the last clip of the JESUS film which shares the gospel message. 

“Abdul” told me that he’d never heard that before. He was very skeptical and kept trying to bring it back to the Quran. Eventually he said that Jesus only came to the Jews, but Muhammad came to all people everywhere.

I told him of the story of Philip and the Ethiopian (Acts 8) and explained that Christianity spread to many nations within the time of the Bible, and even to a country very close to his own: Ethiopia. He was visibly shocked and told me that he had to go rethink some things. We set up a meeting for next time. 

I started out nervous, but left feeling really encouraged.  One big lesson I learned is to remember to always compliment people’s shoes because you never know what will happen.”

Doing ministry where the soil is hard is very challenging, but God is at work and His Word is powerful!