The Smell of Smoke: The Aroma of Christ
Each year, we lead a two-week mission trip in the Muslim-majority city where we serve. During the trip, participants offer English conversation practice to Central Asian university students during their summer vacation. We spend most of the time in small groups—one or two members of the short-term team with six to eight local students.
One year nearly everyone in one of the small groups of students was interested in the gospel. The two team members told the group that they would really get down to some spiritual issues the next day. Aside from the one local student who wasn’t interested and didn’t come that day, all of the students in the group heard the gospel, and every one of them received Christ.
To mark this step, the team members told the group to write their past sins on a small piece of paper, crumple it up, and put it in a bowl on the table. Then a team member lit the pieces of paper on fire and burned them up. Smelling smoke, one of the college administrators poked her head in the classroom to see what was going on. “Oh, you’re practicing English. Go ahead,” she said, and walked away.
Indeed there was a fire, but not the kind the administrator was thinking of. God’s Spirit was at work, changing hearts and lives.
*Alexander Pierce is an MTW missionary serving among Muslims in Central Asia. His name has been changed for security reasons.
Interested in serving among Muslims? Check out some of our opportunities to serve at mtw.org/serve.
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SEE MOREPray for the missionary families who are getting kicked out of sensitive countries because of their Christian faith.
Pray today for the unreached living in Central Asia, as well as for the local believers and missionaries hoping to reach them. Pray for relationships and conversations of faith.
Pray for the "Timothys" in Muslim-majority West Africa who are growing in their Christian faith and teaching others.
Pray for a small group Bible study of Genesis in which Muslim men are encountering their need for Christ.
Pray for a small group men's study in the Middle East as men seek to learn truth Scripture while wrestling with the realities of what ISIS has taken from them.
Pray for South Asian communities in New York City who have been hard hit by the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, and for God to use missionaries serving among them.
Pray today for MTW's ministry to refugees in a large American city.
Pray for Muslims around the world who are hungry for truth and looking to the church for answers.
Pray for a group of Syrian refugees in the Middle East who are fairly new believers, and are leading churches. They are hungry for theological training.
Pray for God to open the eyes of Israelis and Palestinians to the truth of Jesus Christ and draw them to Himself.
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