When my pastor asked me to pray about planting a church among Muslim peoples, I hesitated. I didn’t know much about missions, but I loved Jesus and wanted everyone to hear the Gospel.

After training with Frontiers, my wife and I and two other couples from our church boarded a plane headed for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Shortly after our arrival, our team began teaching a program for better health in the predominantly Muslim community. Each lesson incorporated stories from the Word of God and helped the small group apply biblical truths to their lives.

AbdeRakhman and his sister Maimona were among the first people in our classes who were open to the Good News.

When we got to the end of our series of health lessons, AbdeRakhman exclaimed, “Everyone needs to know the ways of God! Will you teach these stories in our home village?”

We quickly agreed and made plans to meet with his village’s sheikh to explain what we could offer the community.

“We’ll just go to the one village and speak with the leader there,” AbdeRakhman assured us. “We won’t do any lessons. This will just be for planning.”

For five hours we drove across dry scrubland to reach the village.

But when we arrived, we didn’t find just one sheikh. Instead, about 50 men waited under the shade of an old tree. They were thrilled to see us and ushered us into a rustic building to eat roasted goat meat and rest from our journey.

After some time, we heard singing outside. A huge crowd of women was slowly walking toward the building, chanting and waving their arms to welcome us.

Suddenly, our meeting with one sheikh had transformed into a group of nearly 200 people.

They had gathered hoping we would offer our health program right then and there. Some people had walked miles from outlying villages to hear from us.

But we knew from experience that our health and storytelling process didn’t function well with large groups. The program worked best in small settings where people could ask questions to better understand the lessons.

Plus, we needed to speak with the village leaders and get their permission first.

Awkwardly we turned from the crowd. A village elder led us away to a shaded mat. Behind us followed a group of men from the crowd—leaders and elders from a dozen surrounding villages. All together these sheikhs represented about 12,000 people.

We explained in depth the process and goals of our health program. We told them that we include stories of Jesus and the prophets that help people become whole in body and spirit.

We also explained that the program was most effective when shared with a few families who teach the lessons to other families, and so on.

“If we come and teach a group, and then that group doesn’t teach anyone else, it will be as if we never came,” we explained. “But if the group we teach goes and teaches another group, and then the members of that group each share the lessons with another group—soon all 12,000 of your people will have heard how to enjoy better health and follow the path that God shows us in the Word.”

The leaders loved the idea. They agreed to nominate five families from five villages to start the lessons and share them with other families.

AbdeRakhman has already met with most of the designated families. They’ve gone through the entire series of health lessons and Bible stories. These families are now sharing them with people in their villages too.

Praise God for opening a door for the Word to go out to 12,000 people, bringing hope to far more than our team could have reached on our own. By caring for the villagers’ physical well-being through practical health lessons, our Frontiers team built trust. The holistic healthcare we offered gave us an opportunity to speak into their lives about the spiritual health and the healing and freedom found only in Jesus.  

Pray:

• Pray that families in these villages will hear the Word, and that their hearts will turn to Christ.
• Pray for the Lord to open more doors for Frontiers teams to reach Muslim communities with the message of the Gospel through healthcare initiatives.
• Ask God to equip and send new teams of laborers to bring God’s blessing of health and eternal life to families throughout the Muslim world.

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

Main photo by Albert González Farran/UNAMID

Original article: https://frontiersusa.org/blog/health-lessons/