9 Things You Told Me: Quotes from Believers Working in North Africa (Part 1)
We actually need some people around who have not grown up in complete chaos.
I taught her about Jesus, and I taught her about friendship, and I taught her you don’t actually have to be harmed in your marriage anymore.
She’s just felt very free with me, and she has shared a lot of things. That’s not uncommon for us as believers to have that experience. We represent outsiders. It’s a safe place. (Clarification: We ARE safe people—but not immediately. In the Arab world, in general, Westerners are viewed with suspicion, often for good reason. Once we’ve learned our neighbors' language and lived some life together and they “know of our concern for you from the way we lived when we were with you” (1 Thessalonians 1:5), THAT is when the trust feels strong enough to hold their deepest vulnerabilities. A place of honor isn’t automatically bestowed upon us as foreigners—it needs to be earned.)
We’re standing with our friends no matter what.
We don’t look at people as projects at all. We love them holistically and whether they’re taking three steps forward, five back, three forward, 18 backwards, full stop—we love them.
A lot of these men and women coming to house church actually left Islam a long time ago. Or maybe they never even bought into it in the first place. They might have given it lip service, but it’s more of a cultural Islam. So Christianity is often one of the many different identity pieces that they’re trying on as they leave Islam. Another identity a lot of them try on is homosexuality.
From a new North African believer: We’re living between the death of Christ and the third day resurrection. I’m in the middle day and things aren’t okay yet. And they’re not perfect. But I have to choose belief and I have to choose faith.
It’s a lot of just helping people to not give up on each other. It’s the normal way of the culture that the most simple of things will break relationship. And that’s a very, very normative practice here.
These are people that are just like literally clinging onto the garment of Christ by a thread.
Want to come help people not give up on each other? Talk to a mobilizer about working in North Africa.