With Shouts of Joy

I met Amira shortly after moving to a new town in our host country, a nation in the African desert that my husband and I have called home for many years.

Amira is an energetic Muslim-background woman who loves Jesus. She visits a Muslim village several hours away every month and spends a week there teaching women to read and write in the local trade language. Most of the women speak very little of the trade language. And Amira, who belongs to a different tribe, doesn’t speak their language. She has tried sharing the Gospel with them, but the language barrier limits their conversations.

One day when I ran into Amira, she asked, “When are you coming to the village with me? You’d be such a huge help since you speak their language so well.”

She had a good point. My husband and I had been studying the language for many years.

But the reality was that I didn’t want to go. I’d never really enjoyed village trips. And as a mother with a toddler and a baby, I figured that my responsibilities at home put village trips out of the question. Besides, it’d be hard to wash my three-month-old’s diapers with a limited supply of water that had to be drawn by hand from a well in the desert. And I could list countless things that could go wrong on a trip to a desert village with an infant.

But Amira insisted. “Bring your baby,” she said. “She’ll be fine!”

“Soon,” I said, trying to put it off. “But I couldn’t go for a whole week—not with an infant. I’d only stay for a day or so.”

Water had to be drawn by hand from a well in the desert.

Week after week, Amira continued asking me to join her. Finally, worn down by her persistence, I agreed to go on a four-day trip. And so, early one morning, we climbed into a little bush taxi Amira had hired to take us to the village—where God surprised me with something unlike anything I’d ever seen in this country.

On our first day, Amira and I met with each class and had opportunities to share God’s story from creation to the resurrection. The women came alive as they listened. They couldn’t get enough of the Good News and kept asking us for more. I’d never seen such openness to the Gospel.

The women weren’t the only ones who responded joyfully as they heard about the Kingdom for the first time. Our hosts—a village elder named Ibrahim and his family—were just as spiritually hungry. Every morning and evening, Ibrahim and his wife joined us as we read from the Bible and prayed together. Their hearts were open, and they heard God’s Word with joy.

In the village, I discovered openness to the Gospel unlike anything I’d ever seen in this country.

At the end of the four days, Ibrahim and the other villagers told me to come back soon. “And next time, you and your child will stay a month,” the women teased me. I laughed with them and silently hoped they wouldn’t be disappointed if there weren’t a next time.

Back home, as I caught up on piles of laundry and cuddles with my toddler, I thought, “Well, God was really gracious. That went really well with a little one; there was only one diaper blow-out! But I think I’ve done all that can be expected with a little baby at the moment.”

When Amira told me about her plans for the next trip and invited me to come with her, I shook my head no. “But say hello to everyone for me,” I told her.

The night before she left, I sensed God say to me, “Your work in the village is not done yet.”

The next thing I knew, I was back in the village, sitting in the desert heat with my baby, asking an eager audience of women if they’d like to hear more of God’s story. They said yes, and for the next several hours, Amira and I shared more about the Good News of the Kingdom with them.

People in surrounding villages were also asking to hear about the Kingdom.

Throughout the entire visit, Amira and I witnessed villagers eagerly receive the Word of God. Sharing it with them filled us with joy.

I smiled and marveled as women in Amira’s literacy classes stood up and read John 3:16 for themselves.

I praised God when we heard about an Islamic teacher living nearby who was reading recently translated books of the Bible with a group of Muslim men every evening.

And I rejoiced again as we discovered that not only did our friends in this village desire to hear about Jesus the Messiah; people in surrounding villages were also asking for someone to come tell them about the Kingdom.

One of our evenings in the village, Amira said to me, “Every time I am here, I am full of joy.”

It was exactly how I felt, too. God’s presence was with us. Even when I struggled with my baby’s leaky diapers and the lack of clean water, I found myself rejoicing. The seeds of the Word were taking root and growing, and I felt like the psalmist who wrote:

Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.” The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad. — Psalm 126:2–3

“You will leave our village jumping and shouting with joy,” our host Ibrahim stated on our last trip.

He’s right. The Lord God is doing great things in this village and beyond. We rejoice that Muslim men and women are beginning to embrace Jesus Christ and the Good News of the Kingdom.