Palestinian Muslims Coming to Christ, Story #5

July 30, 2014 by Leave a Comment

This excerpt from my dissertation is the conversion-story summary of Respondent Five, a female from Nablus. Feel free to interact in the comments or Download my dissertation as a free PDF!

The following is ©2014 University of Pretoria and Craig Dunning, and if used elsewhere, should be cited as:

Dunning, CA (2014) Palestinian Muslims converting to Christianity: effective evangelistic methods in the West Bank. Pretoria, South Africa: University of Pretoria, PhD thesis, pp. 317-319.

Respondent Five – female – Nablus

Respondent Five’s testimony is intimately connected to the conversion process of her husband, Respondent Four. Their daughter had an eye problem that required corrective surgery. A family friend directed their attention to some Christian men who had been in their area, suggesting that those men could help the respondents’ daughter get the needed surgery at a Jerusalem hospital. As it turned out, the men did not have any direct connections to the eye hospital, but promised to do what they could to secure some help.

Before leaving, the Christian men also gave the respondent’s husband an Arabic tract with the following headline: “John 14:6 – I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man can come to the Father but by me.” At the time, the tract was not important to the respondent or her husband; they simply wanted help getting their daughter’s eyes corrected. However, while they did not understand the tract to be important, it was one of the instruments God used to get her husband’s attention, which resulted in them inviting the Christian men to visit and talk about spiritual matters.

As a result of her husband’s interest in, or sometimes consternation with the things the Christian men were telling them, the men were asked to return on multiple occasions to explain more about their beliefs. The invitations were not always open, though. At times, the respondent’s husband would forbid them to come to the home anymore. Alternately, he would revise his decision and allow them to resume their visits.

Although she never told her husband, the respondent enjoyed hearing the men talk about Jesus and the Bible and was always sad when they left. In many ways, she was the opposite of her husband as they each moved toward conversion. He was always troubled by the men’s visit; she never was. He respected Islam and enjoyed being at the mosque; she had internal conflicts with Islam and did not enjoy going to the mosque. And, while her conversion was intimately associated with her husband’s, she had her own personal experience, which involved dreams, Christian broadcasting on satellite television, a miracle, and personal dissatisfaction with Islam.

Prior to considering Christianity, the respondent had issues with Islam that had to do with the life of the prophet and the lives of Muslims. Muhammad had been presented to her as a model of how to live. Yet, he had a child bride. When the respondent gave some thought to the issue of a child bride, she began to question a number of things. For example, allowing men to have up to four wives was impossible in her mind, particularly for her personally. She also felt like Islam demanded that its adherents not think outside Islam, which means blindly accepting anything Islamic tradition or leaders teach and disregarding anything positive that was said about other religions. She thought this was an attempt to hide “the bad side of Islam.”

As a result of things the Christian men had said during their visits, the respondent asked God to give her a sign, a dream that would confirm the things she was hearing from the visitors. On three occasions she had the same dream of three wooden crosses descending from the sky. The only thing she could conclude from these dreams was that they were confirming what she had heard from the Christian men about Jesus dying on the cross between two thieves. However, even though they appeared to be God’s response to her request for a sign, she was not yet convinced.

In addition to the respondent’s personal reading of the New Testament and visits with the Christian men over an almost two-year period, the most persuasive influence in her decision to convert came through watching Christian broadcasting via satellite. Though she watched English broadcasts, too, she primarily watched Arabic language broadcasts, which were fairly charismatic in style and theology.

The turning point in the respondent’s decision to convert came while watching an Arabic language Christian broadcast during which, the television pastor said he wanted to pray for those viewers who were sick. The respondent had, for some time, had a tumor in her stomach that had not been helped through Muslim prayers for healing. In response to the television pastor’s message, the respondent touched the television and prayed for healing. She was surprised when she heard the pastor call her name and age, but believed that, like the dreams, this was a sign from God. Two days later, the tumor was gone and she “completely believed in Jesus.”

Due to her husband’s ongoing struggles between Islam and Christianity, the respondent did not tell him of her healing or conversion for about a week. And that occurred in conjunction with him telling her that he had converted.

Themes that emerged in this interview: Personal Bible reading, formal Bible studies, doubts about Islam/Qur’an, the kindness of Christians, prayer, dreams, crisis, family/group conversion, Christian broadcasting, gospel tracts, and pastoral/evangelistic visits.

NEXT: Palestinian Muslims Coming to Christ: Story #6

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Filed Under: apologetics, Arabs, conversion, cross-cultural, Culture, dreams, Evangelism, Intercultural Studies, Islam, Life in Israel, Middle East, missionaries, mosques, Muslims, New Testament, Palestine, PhD, PhD excerpts, testimonies, The Gospel, West Bank

Palestinian Muslims Coming to Christ, Story #4

July 28, 2014 by 2 Comments

This excerpt from my dissertation is the conversion-story summary of Respondent Four, a male from Nablus. Feel free to interact in the comments or download my dissertation as a free PDF!

The following is ©2014 University of Pretoria and Craig Dunning, and if used elsewhere, should be cited as:

Dunning, CA (2014) Palestinian Muslims converting to Christianity: effective evangelistic methods in the West Bank. Pretoria, South Africa: University of Pretoria, PhD thesis, pp. 309-316.

Respondent Four – male – Nablus

Respondent Four was raised in an observant Muslim home. As an adult he avoided pork and alcohol, faithfully prayed five times per day and observed Ramadan. He was satisfied with his life as a Muslim. In fact, after returning from a lengthy stint working in the Arabian Gulf, he was involved in a religiously motivated political group that he described as actively seeking the establishment of a truly Muslim nation beginning in all of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean [i.e., modern Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza] and spreading throughout the region.

Since there was no work available when he returned from the Gulf, the respondent depended on aid from organizations like the UN to survive for more than two years. This lack of work gave him a lot of free time, so in addition to his political activities and daily prayer ritual, he had plenty of time to participate in a Qur’an study group, which, in his estimation, made him “a better Muslim, a stronger Muslim, and a Muslim more determined to see the end of Israel and the establishment of a truly Muslim nation.”

The respondent’s introduction to the gospel was the result of what appeared to be a chance encounter. He was perfectly satisfied with his life as a Muslim. His wife and kids were happily involved in the Muslim community. He was satisfied with his political activities, and though he was still having difficulties providing for his family, the lack of work afforded him the opportunity to continue in the Qur’an study. Life was good, except for one thing: His young daughter had a serious eye problem that medicine could not fix; she needed surgery.

About five years after returning from the Gulf, a Muslim friend told the respondent that he had recently met some Christian men from Jerusalem who work for an eye hospital, and suggested that they could probably get the respondent’s daughter the surgery she needed. Though he desperately wanted his daughter’s eye problem to be repaired, he was adamant that he did not want and would not allow the Christian men to help. So, he refused to see them.

A week later, the respondent, once again, saw the man who had suggested getting help from the Christian men who were visiting their area and distributing care packages to the needy. The respondent was still adamant: “No help from Christians!” he shouted.

The next night, the respondent began to experience a series of dreams or voices in the night. The respondent was not certain how to label the events, except to say that he never saw anything; he only heard a voice. This happened on three consecutive nights, and then once more a few days later.

The first night, he clearly heard in Arabic the words, “Your life is wrong.” The voice woke him and he was quite unsettled, wondering what was wrong with his life. He woke his wife and after telling her about the voice, asked how his life might be wrong. She assured the respondent that everything was okay because they were “100% observant Muslims.”

The next day, he spent the morning thinking about the meaning of the message. The only thing he could think of was that it was a sign from Allah that it was time to start the uprising against Israel that his political group had been planning. Without revealing anything about the voice, he contacted his immediate supervisor, who lived abroad, to see if it was time to implement their plans. Thinking he had solved the riddle, the respondent was quite surprised when his supervisor did not hesitate to say that it was not time. The supervisor’s answer caused the respondent’s day to be very long; he could not think about anything but the words he had heard the previous night and what they meant.

Before going to bed that night, still confused about the words he had heard, the respondent went to the mosque and prayed that he could become a soldier for Allah. In the night, he was awakened once again by the voice for the second time with a similar, but more emphatic message: “Your life is wrong, very wrong. I need you as a leader; many will follow you.” Again, he woke his wife and asked her what was wrong in his life and how he could improve, but she had no answer. The question plagued him throughout the following day, but he did not know the answer.

The next night, the third in a row, the same voice spoke again: “I need you somewhere else.” He did not understand what this meant, but did not bother to wake his wife again.

After three consecutive nights of hearing the voice and not understanding the message, he happened to see the man who had recommended that the respondent seek medical help for his daughter from the Christians. For some reason, he felt differently about it this time, and told the man to have them come visit.

A few days later, three men came to visit the respondent and his daughter. Unknown to the respondent at the time, one of the men was a MBB, the other two were evangelical Christians, one Palestinian, the other American. During the visit, the men told him that they were not connected to the eye hospital in Jerusalem, but that they would do their best to try to find help from someone who was connected.

Before leaving, they also gave the respondent a tract with the following headline: “John 14:6 – I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man can come to the Father but by me.” He did not read beyond the headline, thanked the men for coming and led them to the door. He was not interested in the tract, but he thought it was appropriate to give it some attention in the presence of the men who were going to help get his daughter’s eyes repaired.

In the night, he was awakened the fourth and final time by the same voice, which said, “This is the explanation of the voice.” The message was short, but caused a different reaction than the previous three because he understood it to reference the Christian tract he had received. Tears flowed down his face as he woke his wife to tell her what had happened. Certain that he would find something important inside the tract, he asked his wife to come read it with him.

He read the tract to her and said, “I know it’s supposed to be the explanation of the voice, but I still don’t understand the meaning.” Since the information in the tract came from the New Testament, his wife encouraged him to call the men and ask for a Bible, so that he could read more to try to better understand the tract’s meaning. He followed her suggestion, and within a day, the men had returned with a Bible.

The respondent began to read the Bible side by side with Qur’an, intending to disprove the Bible. Since the tract included a verse from John’s gospel, he initially thought he should read that first. However, he decided to read from the beginning. After reading one chapter, he concluded that “Genesis was just a storybook” and he pushed it aside. He happily returned to the Qur’an for a day. However, the next day, he felt compelled to try reading the Bible again and he began reading in Genesis chapter two this time.

The story of Adam and Eve caught his attention because God spoke to them. Since he still had no steady work, he had time to read the Bible and attend the mosque. No one, except his wife and children, knew he was reading the Bible. He certainly did not tell the men at the mosque. He was also captivated by the story of Abraham, particularly the land promise that Abraham received. As he finished Genesis and continued reading the Old Testament, he expanded his reading to include Matthew’s gospel. For some reason he could not bring himself to read John.

Certain that the New Testament had errors, he was determined to find them and make notes to show the men from Jerusalem why they were wrong to be Christians. When the men returned to visit, he presented his list, and was disappointed when they calmly explained why the perceived errors were not actually errors. He was also disappointed when the explanations were clear and persuasive. The disappointment turned to anger when one of the men began to speak of Jesus as the Son of God. That was totally unacceptable and the respondent evicted the men from his home, forbidding them to ever return.

In spite of his anger with the Christian men, he continued reading the New Testament. Still wanting to prove it wrong, he read Matthew’s gospel again. This time, though, he started to have a sense that something was wrong in the mosque. The words of Jesus in Matthew were quite different than the words he regularly heard in the mosque. For example, Jesus said, “love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you” [Mt 5:44]. The sheik continually encouraged his listeners to “destroy the enemy.” This contrast was hard to manage. On the one hand, the respondent had great admiration for the sheik. On the other, Islam believes Jesus is a prophet. “That means,” according to the respondent, that “Jesus has a higher status than the sheik, and should be listened to more than the sheik.” However, it was not so easy to dismiss the words of the sheik because of their personal relationship as well as the sheik’s status in the community.

Another indicator that something was wrong in the mosque was the message of James 1:27, which describes pure religion as caring for widows and orphans. That was in contrast to his own experience of watching his sister, a widow, being neglected by other Muslims.

These two things – Matthew’s gospel and James 1:27 – were drawing the respondent toward Christianity, but that was such a discouraging idea that he thought he should continue reading the New Testament in order to find the errors so that he could dismiss the whole thing.

The respondent said the most difficult barrier to becoming a Christian was “the idea of Jesus being God’s Son.” However, that problem began to subside as the respondent read Genesis 22 and considered the story of Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son. This was the first time the respondent thought as a human and not just as a Muslim. Prior to this, everything had been considered through the filter of being a Muslim. Now, he could simply read the story as a person, a human. And suddenly, the story of God sending His only Son to die on the cross was a story of hope and not of blasphemy.

At this point, the respondent called the Christian men he had previously evicted and told them that he felt like he was “about 70% Christian” and that he wanted them to come to his home again. They were happy to resume their visits, and with each Bible study the respondent gained more joy and peace. However, he still remained somewhat conflicted about where he seemed to be heading, which contradicted everything he had been taught and believed in the past.

The men eventually began to pray with the family, which was quite disturbing for them. In fact, the respondent’s son warned that the family would “turn to monkeys” if they continued praying like Christians. This sentiment reflected the feelings of most of the family.

One mitigating factor, though, was the behavior of these Christian men who had been visiting their home. They were consistently kind, patient and forgiving toward others. Additionally, the Christians were helpful toward the needy; in this case, they were helpful in getting eye surgery for the youngest daughter of this family.

The respondent’s daughter’s successful eye surgery notwithstanding, the respondent still felt an obligation to Islam and the Qur’an, so he initiated a personal daily Qur’an study with the sheik. In hindsight, he thought his motivation for these studies was less to re-affirm his prior belief in Islam but more to confirm the rightness of Christianity.

In these studies, he began asking the sheik about Christianity. In the respondent’s estimation, the sheik was unable to satisfactorily answer any of his questions. For example, the sheik could not explain why the church was still present so long after the establishment of Islam. He could not explain why the gospel is wrong. Neither could the sheik explain why the ostensibly Islamic Palestinian government recognized Christian weddings or allowed Palestinians to use a Bible. While each unsatisfactory answer seemed to solidify the respondent’s thoughts about believing in Jesus, one of the sheik’s answers was very unsettling. “Can a Muslim who believes in the New Testament go to heaven?” the respondent asked. Emphatically and without hesitation, the sheik angrily shouted, “No! No Muslim who believes in the Christians’ book or the Jews’ book can go to heaven!”

That was a pivotal study for the respondent because it was the last private Qur’an study with the sheik and it clarified for the respondent that his departure from Islam was definitely underway. He began to skip praying with increasing frequency. The more he met with the Christian men, the less he desired to attend the mosque.

For another eight months the respondent consistently read the Bible in increasing amounts, “almost non-stop, day and night.” For the first two months, he read the Bible in conjunction with Qur’an studies, but he had no memory of reading the Qur’an in the final six months. During this period of intense Bible study the respondent saw that God actually related to humans, which contrasts with what he had been taught in Islam. That God would relate to humans was actually very comforting and appealing for the respondent once he had adjusted to the possibility. And, as he read the New Testament he got a sense that Jesus was actually speaking to him personally.

Also, during this eight-month period, the Christian men continued to visit and answered the questions that resulted from the respondent’s study of the New Testament. The respondent said, “It was at the end of this period that I really understood in my heart who God is and believed in Him.”

As soon as he realized that he had come to a personal faith in Jesus, he told his wife. Doing so was really frightening because of the fear of losing his family. However, he felt so compelled to tell her, that he was willing to take the risk. To his shock, his wife responded that she too had come to believe as had two of their children as well. That three other members of his family had come to faith confirmed in his heart the rightness of his decision because it reminded him of stories in the New Testament when whole families believed. The respondent called the Christian men who had been visiting to tell them the news. They immediately came to the house and the group prayed together to confirm each of their decisions.

Themes that emerged in this interview: Personal Bible reading, formal Bible study, Q and A, the Qur’an vs. the Bible, doubts about Islam/Qur’an, the kindness of Christians, prayer, dreams, crisis, family/group conversion, gospel tracts, pastoral/evangelistic visits, and common objections to the gospel

NEXT: Palestinian Muslims Coming to Christ: Story #5

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Filed Under: apologetics, Arabs, conversion, cross-cultural, dreams, Evangelism, Intercultural Studies, Life in Christ, Matthew, Middle East, missionaries, mosques, Muslims, New Testament, Palestine, Papers, PhD, PhD excerpts, Suffering, testimonies, The Gospel, West Bank

Palestinian Muslims Coming to Christ, Story #3

July 25, 2014 by Leave a Comment

This excerpt from my dissertation is the conversion-story summary of Respondent Three, a female from East Jerusalem. Feel free to interact in the comments or download my dissertation as a free PDF!

The following is ©2014 University of Pretoria and Craig Dunning, and if used elsewhere, should be cited as:

Dunning, CA (2014) Palestinian Muslims converting to Christianity: effective evangelistic methods in the West Bank. Pretoria, South Africa: University of Pretoria, PhD thesis, pp. 305-308.

Respondent Three – female – East Jerusalem

Respondent Three was born and raised in a Muslim family in Jerusalem’s Old City. Her parent’s and siblings were observant Muslims, but not overly religious, as demonstrated by her learning in a Christian school near her home.

In fact, she said that many moderate Muslims learn at private Christian schools based on the idea that Christian schools provide better educations than public, or even Muslim schools. She was quick to point out that her parents allowed her to attend the Christian school for this reason and because “it was well known that none of the [traditional] Christians would speak to her about becoming a Christian.” And they did not. From elementary through high school, no one ever spoke to her about becoming a Christian.

During the respondent’s final year of college, a CBB (Christian Background Believer)[1] classmate offered to help her improve her English. After a short period of practicing English together, the Christian asked the respondent, “Do you have any idea why I offered to help you with English?” Having no idea, the respondent asked, “Why?” The Christian girl’s answer was shocking: “Because I see Jesus on you!” “I am a Muslim not a Christian!” the respondent said to herself, as many questions came to mind. For example, she wondered, “How can she see Jesus on me?” and “What does that even mean?”

Soon after, the CBB invited the respondent to a three-day student retreat. These retreats are designed to allow Palestinian Christian and Muslim students to spend time together in an environment that emphasizes Palestinian culture, though some also include decidedly Christian themes.

At this particular retreat, the respondent became very angry when the host pastor declared, “Jesus is God.” Among Muslims, the idea that Jesus is God is anathema and often one of the primary barriers to faith in Jesus, and it certainly was for this respondent.

Following the pastor’s shocking statement, the respondent spent three hours asking him questions. However, the respondent said, “He could never give good answers. The best he could do was to encourage me to read the New Testament, particularly the gospels.” He also asked to pray for her, and in his prayer he said, “God, please speak to her.” These two things – encouraging her to read the NT and asking God to speak to her – would become the catalysts for her to come to faith in Jesus as savior and God.

After returning from the retreat, the respondent began to read the New Testament and think about Jesus a lot. In fact, for the next year, she read the New Testament diligently, seeking to hear God speak to her. Additionally, she worked for a Christian businessman who had daily devotions with the staff. In those devotions she heard a regular gospel witness, focusing on the death and resurrection of Jesus. Still, the deity of Christ was offensive to her. “A prophet? Yes. God? Definitely not!” she remembered thinking at that time.

During her year of Bible reading, in addition to the staff devotions at her workplace she also attended Bible studies with an Arab pastor, and on occasion, she also discreetly visited his church services.

Toward the end of her year of reading the New Testament, she had several recurring dreams that lasted throughout the night. Jesus continually appeared in her dreams with long hair, brown eyes, a beard and wearing a white robe. In all but one dream, He remained silent. In the one dream in which Jesus spoke, He said a single word: “father.”

Interestingly, that word was spoken in French, a language she recognized but did not speak. This required her to find someone who spoke French, which was a fairly easy task in East Jerusalem. When she found out the word Jesus spoke was “father,” she felt like she was getting close to believing in Jesus, God’s Son. However, rather than be relieved to finally come to this conclusion, particularly given these circumstances, the respondent was quite unsettled by what she thought she now believed because she was the first Muslim that she knew who might believe that Jesus is God’s Son and that He is God. She had never heard of a MBB, which indicated another barrier to her coming to faith: ignorance of the possibility.

Realizing that she may actually already believe that Jesus is God frightened her for a few reasons: 1) she had never heard of a Muslim becoming a Christian, 2) she felt like becoming a Christian might be betraying her family, and 3) she worried what others would think of her. This fear of the unknown caused her to cry for hours each day for one week, asking God to give her the Holy Spirit. Throughout the day she would cry and pray and read the New Testament. Finally, at the end of the week, the words “Jesus is God” finally escaped her mouth, confirming for her that she really believed because those words so closely matched what she read the day before: “. . . and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3 NKJV).

When asked what was the most decisive factor in her coming to faith, the respondent noted several critical factors: The initial contact with her college classmate opened the door. The picnic retreat planted seeds. The devotions at work and Bible study with the pastor gave her information and answered most of her questions. Reading the Bible gave her greater understanding of God’s plan and Jesus’ identity. The dreams confirmed what she had been told and had read. And finally, the confession that “Jesus is God” was evidence in her mind that the Holy Spirit was working in her, which had been her prayer.

Having noted all of those as important, she said that two factors were the most important in her coming to faith. Both were personal interactions with other believers. First, that her boss (non-MBB) was patient, kind, and not pushy while she considered the faith. Second, she added that consistently spending time with older female believers (non-MBB) made an important impact on her decision as they prayed with and for her, studied the Bible with her, and encouraged her to seek God.

Themes that emerged in this interview: Personal Bible reading, formal Bible studies, Q and A, the kindness of Christians, the witness of a friend, prayer, dreams, retreats/conferences/special events, meeting Christians/MBBs, uncertainty, the deity of Jesus, ignorance of other Muslims believing in Jesus, and fear or shame as a barrier to the gospel.

[1] Within the Palestinian Evangelical paradigm, a Christian Background Believer (CBB) is a person from what is considered a “traditional Christian background” (e.g., Catholic or Orthodox) who becomes a “born-again” (i.e., Evangelical) Christian.

NEXT: Palestinian Muslims Coming to Christ: Story #4

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Filed Under: Arabic, Arabs, conversion, cross-cultural, Culture, Evangelism, Intercultural Studies, Islam, Life in Christ, Middle East, missionaries, mosques, Muslims, Palestine, PhD, PhD excerpts, testimonies, The Gospel, West Bank

Palestinian Muslims Coming to Christ, Story #2

July 23, 2014 by Leave a Comment

This excerpt from my dissertation is the conversion-story summary of Respondent Two, a female from Bethlehem. Feel free to interact in the comments or download my dissertation as a free PDF here.

The following is ©2014 University of Pretoria and Craig Dunning, and if used elsewhere, should be cited as:

Dunning, CA (2014) Palestinian Muslims converting to Christianity: effective evangelistic methods in the West Bank. Pretoria, South Africa: University of Pretoria, PhD thesis, pp. 301-304.

Respondent Two – female – Bethlehem

Respondent Two was born and raised in Jordan, a Palestinian in exile. Her father was a teacher who encouraged his children to read, especially in English. This emphasis on reading gave her the opportunity to think and explore things outside of Islam and to question her family’s religion.

During her childhood years, her father’s answer to any questions that were raised about Islam was always, “don’t question Islam, just accept it.” This answer did not satisfy her, so she continued to read and think independently.

When the respondent reached high school, she began to notice what she described as “contradictions, logical tensions, and other problems,” in the Qur’an. However, she was always reminded that she should never “question Islam, just accept it” and that she should “believe in Allah, Muhammad, the Qur’an, and angels.” The more she read, the more she noticed what she thought were problems in Islam and contradictions in the Qur’an. One specific issue she found objectionable was that “Allah can’t forgive one mistake.” She also mentioned that her mind would wander during prayer and that she started to think that Islam might not be true.

While studying in college she became friends with a Christian, which not only was a new experience for her it provided a new way of thinking about religion in general, and Christians specifically, even though her new Christian friend never suggested that she should become a Christian.

It was at that time that her initial set of dreams occurred, but it would be almost ten years before she understood their meaning. In the first dream of this set, all the stars in the sky came together in a single bright mass before falling one by one to the ground beside her. Having no idea what the dream meant, she asked trusted friends and family members who either laughed at her or said they could not interpret the dream. She wondered if the stars represented jinns – evil spirits. The last dream in this series of dreams was once again of all the stars in the sky coming together, but this time, they gathered together in the shape of a Christian cross. Like the previous dreams, she had no idea of the meaning of this dream, but this time she was too afraid to ask anyone for help.

About six years later, the respondent received an emotionally crushing blow when her six-months old son died suddenly. Many of the questions she had about her son’s fate were answered in a set of dreams. In the first dream she saw a white dove that told her that her son was okay. This was both understandable and comforting to her. However, in the second dream, “a man dressed in white with a face of light” appeared and said in Arabic, “come to me,” which did not make any sense to her at the time.

Although she was comforted by the thought that her son was okay, she did have a terrible nagging fear that he died because she “was not religious enough.” That resulted in her praying more regularly and more fervently, but she never could get beyond the fear of death. She said that she constantly worried that “someone else might die because I was not religious enough.”

During this episode of increased prayer and uncertainty, a family friend began to regularly visit the respondent and her husband. The focus of his visits was to talk with the couple about Jesus. It did not matter if they wanted to talk about Jesus or not, the visitor always seemed to get the conversation turned in that direction. This friend would regularly point out problems within Islam as well as testify of how his life was being blessed by Jesus.

Within a couple visits the friend gave the respondent and her husband a Bible, which she began to read immediately. Over the course of about twelve months, the respondent “read the New Testament five or six times and the Old Testament three or four times,” and she sensed her thoughts about Christianity becoming more positive. However, even though she was starting to gain a level of acceptance about Christianity and the possibility of becoming a Christian, the deity of Jesus remained a major barrier. She simply could not embrace the idea that God could come to earth in human flesh.

Soon after that first year of reading the Bible, she had her third set of dreams. The initial dream of this set took her to a large mountain upon which stood “a person of light” that spoke to her in Arabic. She asked the person of light, “Who are you?” Immediately, without giving the person of light an opportunity to answer, she answered her own question: “You are God.” Then she asked her final question, “What do you want from me?” The person of light answered, “It’s time to tell you about your first dreams. You can get the answer to your questions from Christians.”

The family friend introduced the respondent to a pastor in Jerusalem who interpreted her first dreams. He told her that, “the stars falling from the sky to the ground represented [her] leaving Jordan and arriving in Palestine, and that the stars in the shape of the cross represented [her] believing in Jesus.” This interpretation made some sense to her since she had come from Jordan to Palestine. The second portion was also reasonable, to a point. She could believe in Jesus as a man. However, she still could not accept Jesus as God.

This internal tension lasted another six months, but she continued to read the New Testament in large quantities. The more she read, the more she loved Jesus, the man and the prophet. However, the more she read, the more clear it was to her that “the New Testament presents Jesus as more than a man and more than a prophet. It presents Jesus as God, too.” “Obviously that’s one of the parts of the New Testament that Muslims believe was corrupted,” she offered as an apologetic against what she was coming to understand at that time.

Her husband had lost interest in their friend’s regular discussions about Jesus and Islam within the first three months, but she had not. In fact, she had become more interested, but she had to be cautious in order to avoid upsetting her husband, who eventually suspected she had become a believer and sent her to her father to be sorted out. Since she had not yet believed, her father could not get a confession from her, and with a stern warning sent her back to her husband.

Immediately upon her arrival, the respondent’s husband warned her that if she ever became a Christian he would divorce her and send her back to her father, who would certainly kill her for the family’s honor. Fearing for her safety, she replaced the Arabic Bible that she carried in her purse with an English one since her husband could not read English. She also began listening to the New Testament on an mp3 player, which gave her safer and easier access to the New Testament while riding the bus or cleaning the house.

Shortly after her return home from her father’s home, she informed the man who had been witnessing to her and her husband that she was “really close to believing,” but that she still could not believe Jesus is God. Within a couple days of this conversation, she had her final dream, in which “Jesus appeared dressed in white with a glowing light in his face.” In Arabic, he said to her, “I am the way.” At that moment, she awoke from her sleep “believing in Jesus.” She immediately got up and called the person who had been witnessing to her and whispered, “I believe Jesus is God!”

Themes that emerged in this interview: Personal Bible reading, doubts about Islam/Qur’an, dreams, a crisis, uncertainty, and common objections to the gospel.

Download my dissertation as a free PDF here.

NEXT: Palestinian Muslims Coming to Christ: Story #3

Filed Under: apologetics, Arabs, conversion, cross-cultural, Culture, dreams, Evangelism, Intercultural Studies, Islam, Jerusalem, Life in Christ, Middle East, missionaries, Muslims, Palestine, PhD, PhD excerpts, testimonies, The Gospel, West Bank

Palestinian Muslims Coming to Christ, Story #1

July 21, 2014 by Leave a Comment

This excerpt from my dissertation is the conversion-story summary of Respondent One, a male from Bethlehem. Feel free to interact in the comments or download my dissertation as a free PDF!

The following is ©2014 University of Pretoria and Craig Dunning, and if used elsewhere, should be cited as:

Dunning, CA (2014) Palestinian Muslims converting to Christianity: effective evangelistic methods in the West Bank. Pretoria, South Africa: University of Pretoria, PhD thesis, pp. 298-300.

Respondent One – male – Bethlehem

Respondent One was raised in a traditional Muslim home that was not religiously active, which created a general lack of interest in religious issues that was compounded by his negative experience both with religious Muslims and orthodox Christians in the Bethlehem area. One thing he was certain of was that he did not like the Christians; “They didn’t care about the Muslims, only themselves,” he said.

About ten years prior to our interview while living in Bethlehem, he started working in Jerusalem and met a “Jewish woman who believes in Jesus.” She was friendly and began to talk with him about spiritual things. At first he was not interested in such discussions, but because she seemed genuinely interested in him as a person and also “loved Jesus very much” he was provoked to continue the conversations and to begin reading the Arabic Bible at home.

He read the Bible side by side with the Qur’an to see where they agreed or disagreed. In his studies he began to notice some problems in the Qur’an, particularly what he described as “logical problems and errors.” It is important to note that his personal studies were not guided studies; he simply read and compared both texts.

As questions about Islam and the integrity of the Qur’an began to mount, he started to attend a Hebrew language Bible study in West Jerusalem. At the Bible study he learned more and began to see “how the Bible fit together much better than the Qur’an.” The topics of study in the Bible study were the books of Genesis and Daniel. As he continued to read and study the Bible he began to sense a confidence in what he was reading, and he concluded that, “Faith is the natural outcome of honestly reading the Bible.”

The evangelistic stage lasted about three years, when finally, “all the pieces were in place” and he “believed that Jesus is God who died for [his] sins.”

Shortly after coming to faith, he arranged to be baptized a couple of times by different Arab pastors, but for various reasons the pastors backed out. Finally, the Jewish pastor, whose Bible studies the respondent had been attending for three years, baptized him in West Jerusalem. The respondent’s family – wife and five children – witnessed his baptism.

Two days after his baptism, the respondent had a dream in which appeared a man with a glowing face dressed in white. The man told him two things: “You are on the right path, continue on” and “You need to tell others about your faith, don’t stop.” In his mind, this dream served two purposes: To confirm his conclusions about Jesus and to give him a “calling” for his life.

The respondent has spent the last seven years learning more about Jesus and telling all who will listen. His witness has been effective in about fifteen others coming to faith in Jesus. He doesn’t have a planned approach to evangelism, he “just starts talking about Jesus” to people as he visits their homes. His approach is to speak highly of Jesus and encourage others to read the Bible, which he assumes, will be as effective for them as it was for him. Along with printed Bibles he also distributes mp3 players loaded with audio Bibles and other Christian literature.

His conversion resulted in tensions with his family. The respondent’s conversion to Christianity has been an open topic amongst his family – wife, children and siblings – all of whom have remained Muslims. Soon after his conversion, he told his wife that she could choose to let him stay at home or send him away. “But,” he added, “whatever you choose, I will always follow Jesus and tell others about him.”

His evangelistic efforts have also created tensions in his village and problems for him personally. He said that he was arrested, incarcerated, and beaten by Palestinian Authority police because he “would not stop telling others about Jesus.” According to his testimony, telling others about Jesus “is the red line for the Palestinian Authority.” He is currently in exile due to threats on his life as a result of his evangelistic efforts. In this case, exile means that he does not live with his family. Instead, he moves about from host to host – both in the PA and Israel – staying a day here, a few days there, perhaps a week somewhere else.

The respondent said that the most important things for his conversion were Bible reading and an openness to listen. And he added that the latter was definitely the result of Christians showing a true interest in him as a person and being very patient with his questions. Arabic language Christian programs on satellite television also were helpful in building and maturing his faith, as has been his continued contact with believers in Jerusalem.

Themes that emerged in this interview: Personal Bible reading, formal Bible studies, the Qur’an vs. the Bible, doubts about Islam/Qur’an, the kindness of Christians, and dreams.

Download my dissertation as a free PDF!

NEXT: Palestinian Muslims Coming to Christ: Story #2

Filed Under: Arabic, Arabs, conversion, cross-cultural, Culture, dreams, Evangelism, Helping Others, Intercultural Studies, Islam, Life in Christ, Middle East, missionaries, Muslims, New Testament, Palestine, PhD, PhD excerpts, Quran, testimonies, West Bank
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