Evangelization in the time of Covid: PPE x 2 (Personal Protective Equipment + Powerful Personal Evangelism)!

While it is true that Somalia’s broken healthcare system has hampered that country’s efforts to cope with COVID-19, our man in Somalia, Pastor Mustafa, sees instead more opportunities for geared-up evangelism efforts. Most recently, this involved the evangelization of a whole village in northern Somalia with full PPE added to the full armor of God as protection!
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Imam Sadath, spiritual head of a village mosque in northern Somalia, had followed the tenets of Islam his whole life and enjoyed popularity as a strong leader, teacher and even healer. But when Covid-19 swept through his village three months ago, none of the Imam’s prayers or recitations could bring relief.

Each day, an endless stream of villagers visited their leader, hoping to be helped, even as every home in the village lost someone to the disease. None of the imam’s duas (prayers, recitations, incantations, etc.) seemed to work anymore.

Medical workers carry the body of a COVID-19 patient at Martini Hospital in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia. Xinhua/Hassan Bashi via Getty Images

Then the inevitable happened—Covid reached his own home. Imam Sadath felt helpless and hopeless. He lost a daughter and a son to the disease, and soon he tested positive as well.

When Pastor Mustafa, a Bibles for Mideast leader in Somalia, heard the news, he and two other workers (all former Muslims) geared up in their PPE and headed for the Imam’s home.

They presented the leader, already beginning to feel the onset of Covid symptoms, with portions of the Bible: Psalms 91 and 121, as well as Isaiah 53. They suggested he read the sections each morning, noon and evening. As former Muslims, the missionary team knew well the discipline so deeply ingrained in Islam: all Muslims are expected to pray five times a day, usually reciting aloud or silently from their holy writings, so they figured this request should be an easy one for an imam.

But the Islamic leader tried to brush them away, wanting nothing to do with them or their literature. Suddenly however, he began to cough and struggle for breath, and then panicked at the real possibility of dying.

The Bibles for Mideast pastor began reading aloud the scriptures he had just given the imam. He went on to explain the prophecy from Isaiah 53 more fully: the crucifixion, death and resurrection of none other than Jesus Christ.

The missionaries then prayed for Imam Sadath and the remaining members of his family, who all reported they felt much better after the prayers.  

Before leaving, Pastor Mustafa reminded the Islamic leader about reading the scriptures three times daily, and this time, the imam wholeheartedly agreed to the plan.  [See one Pakistani pastor’s brilliant approach to bringing Muslims and Christians together through the worshipful Psalms: Using the Psalms to Connect with Muslims and the Quran.]

When Pastor Mustafa returned to the imam’s home a week later, he discovered the man not only felt far better, but had fully memorized all his ‘homework’! Imam Sadath reported that whenever he or his family members felt sick or had trouble breathing, they would recite these ‘words of God’ and feel better. He then asked Pastor Mustafa to tell him more about Jesus, and soon he and his whole family accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. 

After all were baptized, the former imam himself asked Pastor Mustafa to visit the homes in his village and distribute Bibles. A few days later, all geared up in their PPE and observing protocol for social distancing, the team set out to evangelize, give away Bibles, and pray with villagers who wanted it. Miraculously, not one person has died from the visited homes in the village. Quite naturally, people began to believe in Jesus as being so much more than the simple prophet Islam teaches about and many have become Christians. Please keep these new believers in your prayers.  

To keep up the work, Pastor Mustafa urgently requires 10,000 Somali Bibles, each costing about US$5.20.  As always and ever, we welcome your prayers and any additional help you can offer.

By God's grace and your prayers and support, Bibles for Mideast and the ALG Church continue to grow and thrive in Somalia, other parts of Africa, the Middle East and south Asia.

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Pastor Mustafa oversees approximately 40 underground Assembly of Loving God (ALG) house churches all across Africa and has long been one of our most active and powerful Bibles for Mideast leaders.   He knows and understands well those he ministers to, having once been among the 98.9 percent Muslim portion of Somalia’s population. We have reported many miraculous events in his and his team’s ministry in Somalia as he continues to prove  himself a  key player in God’s Kingdom plans for Africa.