We didn’t expect much from Zacharia when he unexpectedly showed up for our training. He’d heard we were equipping national believers to reach Muslims with the Gospel. So, he hopped on his bicycle and pedaled two hours to join one of our training groups that met every other week.
Zacharia listened attentively during the entire training session. But he didn’t participate. At the end of the day, I offered him various resources and an audio file of Luke 6, the passage about loving one’s enemies. “You can put this on your phone and share it with Muslims,” I said.
“I don’t have a mobile phone,” Zacharia replied. “I can’t afford one.” So I offered him a printed copy of the passage, suggesting he could read it with his Muslim friends.
“I can’t read,” he said. Nevertheless, he took a copy. I watched him pedal away on his two-hour ride back to his village and wondered what he would do with the training he had received in that first session.
Two weeks later at our next training session, we had the trainees discuss what had happened since we’d last met. “What did you learn from your experiences of sharing?” we asked. “What went well? What might you do differently next time?”
We were nearing the end of the meeting, and Zacharia had yet to speak. Hesitantly, I asked him, “With whom did you share the passage?”
His response caught our collective attention: “I shared it with 150 people.”
“How many?” I asked, thinking I had misheard him.
“I went to a photocopy stand and used the money I had to make 150 copies,” he explained. It had probably cost him $5—a large expense for someone who couldn’t even afford a basic phone.
“My village holds a market once a week,” Zacharia continued. “I took the copies and stood at the market’s main intersection point. I gave a copy to each Muslim who passed by until I had given them all away.”
“How did people respond?” I asked.
“They all really appreciated it, especially since the passage was in our own language,” he said. He said several people had returned to tell him that they thought Jesus’ teaching is great. Many people asked, “Where did you get this? Can you get me more of these teachings?”
Some people said their religious leaders had never taught them anything like this. “They read the Quran to us in Arabic, which we can’t understand,” several people said. “But we can understand this passage. Thank you for sharing it with us.”
In faithful obedience to God, Zacharia had stood on a hot, dusty street handing out Scripture passages he couldn’t even read—all so that his Muslim neighbors could have a first chance at discovering Jesus.
I am humbled and encouraged by Zacharia’s faithful steps to share the Gospel.
- Pray for Zacharia and other national believers as Frontiers workers equip them to reach Muslims with the Gospel.
- Ask the Lord to raise up more men and women in national churches to love Muslims and invite them to follow Jesus.
- Pray that God will give bold and compassionate evangelists like Zacharia even more fruitfulness in their ministries.
Many Muslims live in places where no one has brought the Gospel. Frontiers teams are changing that. Read Jason’s story of sharing Jesus in a remote Muslim village by clicking the button below.
**This account comes from a long-term worker. Names and places have been changed for security.**
Original article: https://www.frontiersusa.org/blog/article/sharing-150
