Divine Appointments in Egypt
11/13/2007 3:35:24 PM
  
God provided me with divine appointments one right after the next in this country. I was able to use my involvement in sports and weightlifting to build a bridge between myself and others. There was a nearly immediate mutual respect based on sports which provided an openness to the Gospel message. As I shared my testimony time and again, many of these newfound friends wanted to know just about every detail of my life. Since Christ is the most important part of my life, He came up in every conversation!
The last day we were in Cairo, we went to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx. We decided to brave it out Egyptian style and take the Metro (subway), which is what locals take, as oppose to a long (not to mention expensive!) taxi ride. As we disembarked, a young man walked behind us and quietly said, in English, “My name is Tafiq,*” and he kept walking. We picked up on this and continued the conversation with him. He was incredibly polite and took us to his house before personally guiding us around the Pyramids and the Sphinx.
While we were sitting in his living room, the conversation became very spiritual very quickly. He expressed his confusion as to what was the right religion: Islam or Christianity? This is HUGE doorway in the Muslim world, and as we found out from our supervisor. When a person is born, he or she is labeled Christian or Muslim. It is a welcomed change for a Christian to convert to Islam, but a forbidden move for a Muslim to convert to Christianity - one that can legally result in the new Christian being killed by any member of society, especially a family member, without punishment for the murderer. We later found out that a neighbor had already threatened to kill Tafiq simply because he had become aware that Tafiq was confused about religion.
Nonetheless, we were able to discuss the basic principles of Christianity openly there in Tafiq’s living room, but soon we became faced with a choice. The Pyramids and Sphinx were closing soon (within an hour) and it was our last day in the country, thus our last opportunity, to see these famous sites. But we didn’t want to leave Tafiq or the conversation. When Tafiq left the room for a moment, we discussed and decided that we were going to remain with him regardless of whether we would get to see the sites or not. Upon his return, he said we really should be going to the sites already, but that he wanted to join us and guide us around, which would allow us to continue our conversation! Of course, we welcomed his company.
After he took us around the sites, he asked us return to his house with him, where his mother had prepared dinner for us. While all of this seems like ordinary Egyptian custom and kindness, it was truly an extraordinary, divinely appointed meeting. We saw the truth of this as the rest of the evening played out. While his mother was putting the final touches on dinner, we were able to further outline what it means to be a Christian. We were also able to play some Christian music, such as “Praise You in This Storm” by Casting Crowns and “He Chose Nails/This Man” by Jeremy Camp, which led into a discussion of what the lyrics behind these powerful songs meant.
As the evening progressed, Tafiq became more and more open to the Christian message, so much so that before dinner when Kate and I prayed silently to bless the food, Tafiq referred to the Christian God that he knew we were praying to as “our God,” including himself in the statement. After dinner, he ran into the other room briefly to retrieve something, which gave Kate and me an opportunity to discuss our thoughts quickly. I asked her if she thought I should go through the plan of salvation with him, but she thought he was already saved judging by some of his comments, but I was sure he wasn’t, and when I expressed this to her, she said just to be sensitive to the Spirit and go from there, and that a quick way to figure out whether he was already a Christian or not would be to ask him to tell us about his salvation experience.
So, when he returned, I asked Tafiq to talk with us about his salvation. His reply was the turning point in the conversation. He replied that he had never made that decision, but he wanted to do so now, and he wanted us to help him do it. He led us to a private room, and there we further emphasized the ABCs of Christianity and he said he understood them and he wanted to move forward in his decision to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior. We could feel that this was of God and that he did truly understand, so this allowed me one of the greatest privileges and honors of my life. I led Tafiq through a prayer of salvation.
Another interesting tidbit in this experience is the fact that we encountered Tafiq at all. You see, Tafiq works quite a ways away from the Cairo area. He is only allowed a 2-3 day vacation period per YEAR, as he owns and runs a shop that won’t make it if he is gone much longer. It “just so happens” that he took the same 2-3 days for vacation as Kate and I had for the last 2 days of sightseeing in the Cairo. Our assignment was not in Cairo for the rest of our time in the country.
Even more telling of God’s goodness and divine appointments was that Tafiq’s mom lived in, the town where Kate and I were for our assignment. Tafiq told us later that he had been on the same exact block (in this city of millions of people) where our hostel was located, and he saw us walking out of the hostel. He said he felt something inside of him then push him to talk to us, but he was too shy. Later, Kate and I went to buy luggage for the trip home and Tafiq told us that again he was put in our path at this tiny little luggage store on a tiny street corner during his two day visit to his mother in “our” town. Again, he felt that unction to speak with us, but was still too shy to do so, but he said that when he let the opportunity slip by, that he felt the inside of him, his emotions, sink. So, on the following day, when he saw us for the third time on the crowded Metro as he happened to be in our exact little car with probably 100 other people getting off at the same exact stop we were, he just could not let the opportunity slip by again, and that is what led him to quietly, almost inaudibly, try to start a conversation with us, and from there, God took absolute control of what was said and how we interacted with each other.
On top all of the excitement off about a new member in our Christian family, especially in such a harsh environment for Christians, this was my first time ever leading someone through the prayer of salvation! The power of God met us as we prayed and brought us all to tears at the precious, life-changing decision Tafiq was making. After we finished, we could just see a new joy had swept over his entire countenance, and he expressed how different and alive he felt. He vowed to take his faith to others and present them with the same opportunity he had.
Serve God in Northern Africa or the Middle East!
* Name changed to protect privacy.
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