Imaad pilots the boat through a snaking channel lined with thorn and darkness. You watch his sinewy arms work and wonder if he is woven from the jungle itself.
This place is the Sundarbans. Your language helper in nearby Calcutta described it as a mass of sunken forests crumbling off the edge of India and Bangladesh into the ocean. According to BBC, it’s a river delta that has the largest concentration of people on earth. You wonder how this wilderness could hold so many people.
That’s all you knew about the Sundarbans when you chose this adventure.
But are you really choosing your own adventure? Or is God choosing it for you?
Floating on the silent river, you hear a call to prayer sounding from a village behind the next bend. It’s dusk. Imaad pauses to kiss the pendant hanging from his neck and whispers, “La illaha il-Allah”—there is no god but God.
The Holy Spirit reminds you of Isaiah 9:2: “Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them a light has shone.”
Your heart fills with hope as you pray, Father, fill this land with the light of Your presence and protection.
In the dusk, you catch a glimpse of Imaad’s deep-set eyes. The whites of his eyes are yellow. They are the eyes of a simple man, but one whose thoughts have for years been whittling at the hard things in life. His brow holds several creases.
You ask Imaad how many kids he has. At this, he smiles. “Seven. Blessings from God. You will see them!”
He draws the boat onto the shore, ties up by a tree, and leads you in toward his village.
Coming from a clearing ahead is the sound of chopping. Coils of what look like blonde wigs lie in a pile on the right. It’s jute. Big factories make bags from it, Imaad tells you, for all the supermarkets of India. If they’re lucky, Imaad and his family can sell enough jute to send his son away to high school.
You are just outside the village now. Imaad stops at a tree with a carved hollow. You watch him light a couple of incense sticks in an open coconut, and then your ears hear him recite the shahada, the Muslim confession of faith. He keeps reciting unfamiliar words. You assume he’s thanking God for a safe journey home. But there’s a small figure made of painted plastic next to the incense.
Your new Bengali doesn’t let you ask Imaad everything you want to. But you sense the Lord reminding you, “the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 12:12).
God knows everything about Imaad, his thoughts, his fears, his family. The Spirit will give you the words when you need them. For now, you listen, observe, and learn how to reach Imaad’s heart.
Imaad interrupts your thoughts. “This is home. Come! Meet my family.”
The truth is that you haven’t met Imaad yet, but someday you might.
Perhaps you will meet him by way of introduction. Maybe somebody will have taken the boat to his village and stayed as his guest. Somebody will have planted the seed of the Gospel in his house and tended to the soil. The Holy Spirit will have made that seed grow.
Someday, you might meet Imaad before a great throne in a holy city.
But Imaad doesn’t yet know he needs Jesus Christ.
Who will go and share the hope of the Gospel with Imaad and his people?
Imaad’s jungle is the 6th most populated district in South Asia. The Muslim peoples of the Sundarbans desperately need to hear the hope of the Gospel.
Has God chosen you for this adventure?
