two dear girls

Thank you for praying with us for these girls….

1) This young lady is hurting….  her father passed away about a year ago and her boyfriend is far away in Central Asia trying to earn money and she's at home caring for her mom in an oldddd home within city limits that doesn't have running water and only a coal-burning stove.  Hard Poverty.  She is one of the first serious adherents to Islam that I have met among Uyghurs.  Until my discussion with her I would have said that all my Uyghur friends were Muslim just like the Godfather was Catholic…..  not a matter of heart religion, but of hearth and home…..  Uyghurs are culturally Muslims.  But not this one.   She loves Mohammad and loves that he cared so kindly for women as to encourage polygamy so that more women can be provided for as wives and not be left unmarried.  She's soaking deep in Islamic radio teachings/ podcasts on her phone and articles on the web.  

2)  my dear "Hannah"- the girl who lived with us last summer…  She and "Rob" have, in just the past 4-6 months, become very serious Muslims as well.  She told me of wedding ceremonies she was at recently and how they were really Islamic… no pictures, no music, no dancing.  This isn't uyghur at all, but it is Islamic.  Hannah told me herself that she doesn't think most Uyghurs are Muslims…. they're just Uyghur.  (I also made the point that there are even some Uyghur Christians…. but she didn't seem to take that in.)  These two are loading Koran apps on all the U students' phones at the university and are pressuring their peers to take up the five times a day prayers….  All this from the couple that never fasted a meal during Ramadan in our home, the couple we never once saw pray the whole summer long.  This turn of events could be major discouragement for us…. but we're choosing to cling instead to the promises and testimony of God in His Word.  Just like Paul, who was on his way to persecute believers of The Way, these two will have all the more powerful testimony if they will turn to trust in Christ after a season in ultra-strict Islam.  

Would you pray with us that the Father would tear open the veil that is blinding their understanding, blinding their sight of Him?  He ripped the curtain in the temple top to bottom and we believe he can do it again in giving sight to these dear friends who are trying to see through the black lens of Islam.