In my role, I have the privilege of partnering more closely with a national brother, David*, who is doing broad-seed-sowing among our people group. For us, broad-seed-sowing means putting out ads on social media, people willingly clicking and requesting either good news materials or a New Testament, and our partner sending it to them. He then follows up with them to see if they have had a chance to read the material or if they have any questions.
One of the goals of this project is to soften the soil of their hearts and loosen the grip of prejudice and misunderstanding about what we believe and what the Bible teaches. We are up against 1,500-plus years of systematic education that teaches falsities about our faith.
The ultimate end goal, of course, is to see people respond to the gospel in faith, get discipled, and get plugged into a healthy local body of believers. We have seen hundreds of New Testaments go out this year alone, and over the past few years we have seen people come to faith and get connected to local fellowships.
This local brother and his wife tirelessly serve others, shadow new leaders of small fellowships, and are constantly connecting with those who are curious about the faith. In fact, when he stayed with us a couple weeks ago, we all visited a local Kurdish family together. We have been discipling a young believing couple who have really struggled in their faith for the last two years.
While having coffee with this couple and their extended family, the Lord used David to lead their sister, an 18-year-old Kurdish woman, to faith in Jesus Christ! My wife has been sharing with this girl for months, through the interpretation assistance of the girl’s sister-in-law. She has had dreams about our Savior and has wanted to believe and know more, but she does not speak the trade language here, only the Kurdish language, so sharing has been difficult. But, David was able to explain the good news again and pray with her. Praise the Lord!
But, this does not come without hardships. For example, since this David came to faith almost twenty years ago, he has been forced to divorce his wife, has lost a child, has lost contact with another child, and has had his life threatened by his own family. Recently, the small fellowship of believers whose leader he disciples lost a mother of six (she had a stroke, went into a coma, and eventually passed away). Through all of these things, David has exemplified being “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing,” keeping faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and trusting that these hardships will be used “for the good of those who love God and walk according to His purposes” (Romans 8:28).
*NOTE: Name changed for security reasons.
