“Is America’s lake as big as our capital city’s lake?” asked my friend Faduma, an older Muslim woman.

The question caught me off guard. First of all, America’s “lake”? Secondly, the capital city of Faduma’s country doesn’t have a lake. It sits on the African coast. It has an ocean.

But Faduma has never been to the capital, much less America. She has spent her entire life in a remote desert village.

To Faduma, the idea of continents separated by vast oceans is a foreign concept. She has no access to anything like a global atlas. Like many others in her country, she has a mental map of the world that is completely different from mine.

It doesn’t help that Faduma’s language has only one word for a body of water. 

Pond, lake, ocean. All wildly divergent in depth and size. And all lumped into a single word.

Because when you live in the middle of the desert and have never seen a body of water larger than a shallow pool in an oasis, why would you need a word for ocean?

Faduma has lived a lot of life. She has heaps of knowledge and wisdom.

But still, there are things she has not yet encountered, simply because nobody has given her the chance.

She has no one to explain the wonders of the ocean, with its tides pulled by the distant force of the moon and its depths teeming with “creatures innumerable, living things both small and great” (Psalm 104:25).

And until recently, she’s had no one to bring her the good news of the Father who sent His Savior Son to die for her sin and robe her in righteousness.

You see, Faduma lives in a country where there is no local church. 

There’s no local body of followers of Jesus who look like her and sound like her. No believers who think like she does and who can share about Christ.

My teammates and I are here to change that. 

We’re working to establish a thriving, healthy, multiplying body of Muslim-background believers. So that when Faduma’s heart is ready to receive Christ, she can see others just like her who love Him too. 

The world is shifting and seems bent on going digital. And that gives Jesus’ followers the chance to find innovative ways to advance the Gospel from a distance. 

But we must still send and go to the least-reached places.

Hundreds of millions of Muslims just like Faduma live where there’s no access to Christ’s message and no local church to proclaim the Good News.

Jesus calls us to go and change that:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” — Matthew 28:19–20

You have an important role in making disciples of all nations. 

Whether you pray, give, or go, thank you for your part in giving Muslims like Faduma the chance to hear the message of Christ.

• Pray for God to raise up more faithful followers of Jesus who are ready to go and bring the Good News to the least-reached places.
• Ask the Lord to give believers a burden to see whole communities of Muslims turn to Christ and be saved.
• Pray for Frontiers’ church partners who are working toward sending entire teams to live among Muslims and proclaim the Gospel.

**This account comes from a long-term worker. Names and places have been changed for security.**

Original article: https://frontiersusa.org/blog/cross-oceans