“Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’” (John 20:18). A Christian man from a certain Muslim country recently asked me to contact his sister back home because she wanted to learn about Jesus. But connecting with a missionary abroad is highly illegal in that country. In fact, if caught, she could be executed by stoning. Nevertheless, I reached out on social media. Yet was the person on the other end really his sister? Or could it even be a hostile entity trying to infiltrate our mission network? A reply came that they did indeed want to learn about Jesus and even had a Bible. I suggested reading one chapter of Matthew every day and promised to send a daily message on that passage. We have done this every day now for the past two weeks. But I still wanted to validate the person’s identity. So, I asked a few times whether we could do a video call. Various excuses were offered as to why that wouldn’t work. Then, this past Monday, I got a text: “Can you call today?” Keep in mind that, if this really was the sister, she was risking her life by making this request… But making the call would only be part of the equation. Given the cultural context, it would be most inappropriate for me to speak to a woman directly. Only a female on this end could do so. I was thus very grateful that a lady in our church (pictured here), who knows Lutheran theology and is also an excellent translator, offered to help. In the call, we left our cameras off, and our interpreter shared about her spiritual journey from Islam to Christianity. Thankfully, it clearly was a woman on the other end—and it turned out to be the sister too. I asked our parishioner to read Psalm 23, and we closed with the Lord’s Prayer. May our new friend come to know Jesus Christ as her Savior! And thank you, Lord, for the many ladies in our churches around the world—sometimes trained as deaconesses—able to share Jesus with women, whom we men (even pastors!) sometimes can’t reach.
The Tiews in Germany 