“Why are you taking pictures?” he snapped as I descended the ladder steps of the colorfully decorated wedding house.

I had just finished taking what I hoped would be great pictures of the inner workings of one of the Great River people’s wedding feasts, including a picture of him, the ongtooan (religious teacher), eating rice with the Hakim (head religious leader) and other men of the village. He had obviously sneaked out to confront me.

“The mother of the groom asked me to take some pictures of the wedding feast for her,” I replied. “Is that not appropriate in Islam?” I continued, trying to appear humble to soothe him.
“No. In Islam, we don’t take pictures of weddings! But because the family asked you, I guess it will be okay.” And so ended my first conversation with the ongtooan—cool, suspicious and short.

In the following weeks, whenever I saw the ongtooan, I would try to catch his eye and give him a warm smile, but he always turned away. His vibes were unmistakable. He did not want us here, and the sooner we left, the better.

In Islamic culture, the religious teachers are very respected. This is partly because of the belief that only Qurans written in Arabic contain the true words of God. Qurans in any other language are only commentaries of the Quran, not the pure words of God. Because only the ongtooan and a few highly educated people can read and understand Arabic, the ongtooan becomes the chief avenue by which the people can receive truth. In our people’s minds, whatever the ongtooan says about God is fact. Period.

It became very obvious to me that, if we were to have any influence with people, we must first gain the confidence of the ongtooan. But how? That was the million-dollar question.

One of the challenges of being the only foreigners in a completely Muslim village is the fishbowl effect. Everything we do is analyzed. How we discipline our kids is scrutinized. The food we eat is noted. Even what we wear to bed is fair game for probing questions. This scrutiny is not limited to daily living but extends to our spiritual life as well. How we pray, how many times we pray and what we wear when you pray are all on the table for inquiry.

In our fishbowl, Friday prayer time is painfully awkward. Every Friday at noon, every man in the village stops what he is doing and heads to the mosque to pray. Every man, that is, except me. What message was this sending to our people, let alone to the ongtooan? If we proclaim to be godly people, why didn’t we pray with them? Were we just like all the other Westerners they knew of who were too busy to pray?

After prayer and seeking counsel, I determined to go and visit with the ongtooan. Fortunately our relationship had warmed somewhat over the past months. He had noticed that we were not preaching at him or his people. We were not twisting people’s arms to change their religion. Instead, we were visiting with them in their homes, helping their sick, and at times even wearing their style of dress. Maybe we could be trusted after all.

As I approached the ongtooan’s house, my stomach was in my throat. “God, give me the right words to speak to this man,” I prayed. “Send Your Spirit to open his heart and mind.”

He welcomed me warmly and motioned for me to sit on the mat and have some tea. “May I ask you a question, ongtooan?” I began.

“Sure, go ahead,” he replied.

“You are the teacher of this village, so I wanted to ask you something. I follow God like you do. I do not want to become a Muslim. I believe and follow the Torat (books of Moses), Zaboor (Psalms) and the Injeel (gospels). But I like to be where people pray to God, and because you are the ongtooan, I want to ask you if it would be alright for me to come to the mosque and observe what you do.”

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. It was obvious by the look on his face that a breakthrough had been made. “But you cannot mention the Torat, Zaboor, or Injeel.”

“That’s fine,” I replied. “I won’t mention any of them at the mosque.”

The following day, I made my way to the mosque. As I slipped inside and sat cross-legged at the back, whispers rippled through the crowd of gathered worshippers. “The foreigner has come to the mosque. The foreigner has come to the mosque!”
Since that day, I have made it a habit to attend the mosque on Fridays. I don’t pray the way everyone else does. I simply sit cross-legged at the back of the mosque, bow my head and pray that God’s Holy Spirit will come and open the minds and hearts of all those gathered to worship. I pray that God will help them see the truth of the gospel as it is in Jesus, and that they will understand the three angels’ messages as revealed in the Bible.

God has blessed these weekly times of prayer. The only place to meet all of the spiritual leaders at once and in one place is this prayer time. I have discovered that those who are more devout tend to stay by after the prayer time has concluded. They visit on the porch of the mosque and often discuss spiritual topics.

Three Fridays ago, as I was sitting with some of the men on the mosque porch, the ongtooan sat down beside me. As we talked, I told him I study God’s books (to Muslims, the books of Moses, the Psalms and the gospels are distinct books) every day. “They are very important,” I said. “They are more important than the food we eat.”

“Yes,” he said. “But it is not enough just to read God’s books. We must follow what God says in the books. If we don’t, we are like a person who goes to the doctor and receives a diagnosis but then fails to take the medicine.” Then he said, “You and I come here and pray. All the men of this village come and pray. But there are many in this world who don’t come and pray. There are many who don’t follow God.”

From an earthly standpoint, this man has a long way to go before accepting Jesus as his Savior and before placing the Bible above the Quran, but he is moving. It is our prayer that he will move all the way.

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