Bathtubs and Ballroom Dancing

I often wonder how God looks at us whenever we get caught up scurrying around—collecting strategies and best practices and the top 10 ways to be effective evangelists, parents, Sunday school teachers, or pastors.

Strategies and best practices are essential for a healthy ministry. It’s important to learn about what tends to work.

And yet, God is so creative! He often works outside our boxes and shows up in the strangest ways and places.

God literally danced Layla into the Kingdom!

Here are a few of the stranger ways my team has seen our creative God at work in the lives of our Muslim friends on the field.

Layla is fiery and full of passion. And her steps of faith are directly connected to ballroom dancing! She made a friend in her dance class who loves Jesus and who shared the Gospel with her. God literally danced Layla into the Kingdom!

Another woman named Aisha wanted to read about Jesus Christ in the Word. But her husband told her he wanted her to have nothing to do with the Bible. His opposition increased her desire to learn more, and she eventually embraced Jesus Christ. This infuriated her parents, and her husband divorced her.

Even so, Aisha says that out of great loss, she has found her greatest treasure in the Savior.

Out of great loss, she has found her greatest treasure in the Savior.

And then there’s our old bathtub with its slow-leaking drain. Recently, it was used to baptize our friend Halima, for whom we’d been praying for years. Halima was ready to follow Jesus Christ, even though she knew it meant sacrificing much for the Kingdom. So, we filled the leaky tub and celebrated as we welcomed our new sister into the family. What a moment!

We don’t always get to see the fruit of our prayers of faith and our labor in the harvest.

But when we catch a glimpse of God’s strange and creative ways—like bathtubs and ballroom dancing—we celebrate that more Muslim men and women are embracing Jesus Christ!