Breaking into a new community
In western cultures a lot is said about individual commitment. In the Middle East, generally decisions occur at a community basis. Although, there can be people that come to Christ by themselves; it is more common that a family will make a decision.
I have been doing outreach among the Turkmen people for the last 4 years. I have gotten to witness to hundreds of Turkmen, from one single tribe.
Through an orphanage that I go to share at with Turkmen Street kids, I met some Turkmen from another tribe. One day they got released, and I was worried that I might have lost contact with them for good.
I started driving around town hoping to find them. The city here is quite big, so it was no simple task. If you ask Arabs where the Turkmen live, they just seem to look at you funny and assume you mean Kurds or some other people. After prayer, I was able to locate the same kid that was in the orphanage.
So, how do you go about entering into a new community?
With the old tribe, I went around and passed out Jesus dvds in Turkish. Out of that, I started making friendships and started visiting homes.
This new tribe, is more difficult for me as it is in a sensitive area. To make things a bit more difficult, they are more intergrated with the Arabs.
When reading the Bible, I see the example of how the prophets and apostles would approach a new community. They would street preach.
I did this, and shared for about 45 minutes. After this I gave out dvds.
Before, with the first tribe that I was working with – I could share more directly about Islam as the Arabs were not present and could not understand… However, with this new tribe they live side by side and often times I find myself speaking in two conversations in two languages.
In the next few articles I will explain some of the steps I have been taking and how they have been going.
Related Posts:
Witnessing to illiterate people
Witnessing 101: online study of witnessing to Muslims
Downloadable books on Muslim evangelism
Filed under: evangelism