The Big Picture
I joined North Africa Mission in 1980 and the following year I was in Philadelphia, when the North African Mission US office celebrated the centenary year of NAM. It’s amazing to think that we are now celebrating our 140th year!
When I was fifteen years old, I read a biography of William Borden, who died at the age of twenty-six in Cairo. God used the book to call me as a teenager to minister to Muslims, even though I had yet to meet a Muslim. In fact, I first met a Muslim when I was twenty, serving on the very first Operation Mobilisation (OM) team reaching out to Arabs in London in 1977. Having joined OM initially for a summer team, I felt led by God to stay on, and spent a further two years in India and one year in Egypt.
I was in one of the last OM groups to do ‘the overland trip’ from Belgium to India, driving a truck through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. During our short stopover in Kabul, we heard about what God was doing in the tiny underground church, and about the only church building in the country, recently built in Kabul. Shortly afterwards, the Afghan government (prior to the Russian invasion) demolished the building. In fact, the demolition crew dug down into the foundations - several metres deep - in the vain hope of destroying the ‘underground church’ that they had heard about.
There is so much to rejoice in, as increasingly God is raising up locals to make disciples and plant churches. In Lebanon and Jordan, God is doing a remarkable work among Syrian and Iraqi refugees fleeing from the violence in their homelands.
Though I didn’t realise it at the time, this call that I received from God as a teenager, was part of a much larger move of God in the 1970s in which He stirred thousands of people of my generation to be sent from churches in the West to the ends of the earth. What a privilege to be part of a movement of people whom God mobilised to introduce Jesus to Muslims and plant churches among the unreached.
So much has changed in the Arab world since I first arrived in Egypt in 1979! Back then, OM, Youth with a Mission (YWAM), and others were sending young Middle Eastern Christians for summer ministry among Arab Muslims in Europe, in the hope that they caught a vision for reaching Muslims around them at home. As a result, God raised up countless, dynamic and anointed Middle Eastern missionaries and leaders to minister in their own countries and beyond. One indigenous Jordanian mission agency that I know is now planting dozens of churches among Muslims throughout the Arab world!
Over the years, I have had the privilege of visiting many AWM-Pioneers’ teams and ministering in all but four countries of the Arab world. There is so much to rejoice in, as increasingly God is raising up locals to make disciples and plant churches. In Lebanon and Jordan, God is doing a remarkable work among Syrian and Iraqi refugees fleeing from the violence in their homelands. In some ministries, hundreds of Muslim refugees have come to Christ.
And yet, across the Arabian Peninsula, and in almost every AWM-Pioneers team that I have visited, the going is still very, very tough. In the difficult spiritual climate and with only a handful of believers, it often seems impossible to imagine God birthing house churches of believers from Muslim backgrounds (BMBs). Even in places like Egypt, where there is a growing harvest, I get regular reports of arrests, tortures and the forced flight of converts and Egyptian workers.
The tumultuous and precarious situations in Syria, Yemen and Libya present massive obstacles for resident ministry, and Arab World Media is standing in the gap in tremendous ways. There are, nevertheless, countless opportunities for expats to respond to God’s call, learn Arabic and invest their lives in loving Muslims throughout the region. There are millions of refugees in the Middle East and North Africa. Opportunities to minister to them and share the gospel abound.
It is also my prayer and expectation that, as the Lord did in my generation forty years ago, God will raise up a great movement of young, unstoppable, passionate disciples of Jesus, who will forsake the comfort of their lives in the West to serve as ambassadors of the King of Kings throughout the ever-changing Muslim world. The whitening harvest cries out for more labourers – please join me in praying them out!
Interested in going short-term?Every year, people like you offer up their gifts to serve God in short-term mission. They join teams and engage in cross-cultural ministry. They connect with people in a different culture and share their passion for Christ with them. Join EDGE and learn first-hand how to pray, serve and reach out to the least-reached. For more information, contact Dan on danw@awm-pioneers.org, call the office on 01509 239 525 or visit our website www.awm-pioneers.org/go/go-short-term.
Don served as a church planter in North Africa from 1985 to 1998, as Director of Arab World Ministries Canada from 1998 to 2006, and has served in his current role since September 2007.
