A young teacher named *B has been coming to our cultural club recently. He is a Kurd from Batman, Turkey. He is not shy, but in large groups he is rather quiet and just listens. Several of the guys at the dernek have been helping him with English one-on-one or in smaller groups, and have been using that opportunity to share the gospel with him. He even went with some of our teammates to attend the city-wide Easter celebration that is led by the existing local Turkish churches. He heard the gospel clearly presented there by a pastor from a local church.
One day he asked me if we could speak in private. He began to ask me really good insightful questions about the gospel and about what we believe about Jesus and his identity and our salvation. He was very polite rather than aggressive or challenging. He seemed rather shocked (in a good way) when I confirmed to him what he thought he had been hearing from my teammates and from Kaan abi. We talked for almost two hours about the exclusivity of salvation in Jesus by grace through faith. He wanted to know what we believed about Mohammed and the Koran and Islam. I could sense that he didn’t want me to beat around the bush, so I asked him if I was reading him correctly and could I speak openly. He said yes. So I told him that Satan uses many different things to deceive people from true salvation and one of those things is the Koran and Islam and the way of Mohammed. I acknowledged that there might be some true things contained within the Koran but that made it all the more dangerous because Satan often mixes truth with lies in order to deceive people more craftily.
Every once in a while during the conversation, his phone would ring. Every single time, he spoke to the person on the other line in Kurdish rather than Turkish. I asked him if he would like some kind of biblical material in Kurdish. He said yes. Then I asked him if he would rather have audio or written text. He said audio. He was surprised and pleased when I told him we had the New Testament in audio form in Kurmanji. The next day he gladly accepted it.
Please pray for B to humbly seek truth no matter where that truth us found- even if he realizes that it is outside of Islam. Please pray for all of us who have contact with him to have boldness and wisdom and gentleness in continuing to share the truth with him.
