*I was startled to see my friend Azim walking home so early in the workday. Especially distressing was the pained and helpless expression on his face. “What’s wrong, Zimi?” I asked. “Are you okay?” *

*His anxious eyes met mine. “It’s my wife—something is wrong with her,” he stammered. *

“Oh Azim, I’m so sorry,” I responded, “Do you know what’s wrong? Can I do anything to help?”

Azim attempted a brave smile. “I don’t know, brother,” he said softly. “I’ll call you when I know more.”

I thought back to our trip to Kosovo together just two days before. Azim wanted to introduce me to his extended family who lived there. It was unusual for him to take a day off from work, but he had wanted to make this journey for a long time.

I also suggested that our wives should meet one another. “Let’s all get together soon,” I said.

Azim heartily agreed. “Yes, that would be great!” he nodded. “My wife really misses America. She has been depressed ever since we left. I think it would cheer her up to talk with Americans.”

A couple of hours after I saw Azim in distress, Azim’s cousin called me. He got right to the point. “Azim’s wife is dead. It was suicide. Azim wants you to come to him.”

Stunned, I hung up the phone and hurried to Azim’s apartment building before I realized that I didn’t know exactly which apartment he lived in. We had always met at the usual gathering place for men—a little café. It didn’t matter. I knew the wails of the women relatives would lead me to the right door. I was right.

The house had already drawn some mourners. The forlorn death wails are the saddest sounds I’ve ever heard. I made my way to Azim’s side. His wife’s body was in the next room.

I saw him before he saw me. His eyes were red, and his face was stony and somber. Azim seemed in a state of shock, almost unaware of his surroundings. When he heard someone mention my name, he turned to me with a lost look and then stood up and reached out to greet me in the Albanian way. We embraced and put our cheeks together first on one side then on the other. “I’m so thankful you are here,” Azim said. “You are my brother, and I’m so relieved you are here with me.”

For a long time, I just sat with Azim. “I don’t understand, Sean. She had been depressed for such a long time, but yesterday she was so happy. I hadn’t seen her so happy in years. I thought her sadness was finally over. Why did she leave us? Why?”

Azim is an agnostic of Muslim background who has only recently become interested in learning about God, so I hesitated a moment before responding, sending up a silent prayer for wisdom. I asked Azim if I could pray for him. “Yes, of course. I would appreciate that. But let me get my son. He needs this. He is a boy who just lost his mother.” After Azim called his son and held him close, he said, “Uncle Sean is going to talk to God for us, my son.”

“God knows the unspoken words of your hearts, Azim,” I said quietly. “We will talk to God together, okay?”

“Okay, my brother.”

After some hours, more and more people arrived, and I decided to go home for a while to prepare for staying up all night with Azim. It is an Albanian custom for close family members and friends to stay awake all night and then bury the body when everyone else arrives the next day. Besides, I was hurting in a different way, and I needed to talk to Brenda and pray with her.

When I got home, Brenda and I held each other, prayed and wept. We wept for Azim, and we wept for his wife who had never had the opportunity to know Jesus. If only I had made a greater effort to meet her! Maybe she would have accepted the hope that is found in Jesus. It broke my heart to know that she had been so close to having that opportunity but was overcome by despair and death before she could meet the author of hope and life.

I then called the AFM office and shared my sorrow. They prayed for me and for Azim and his family. Again I wept. Over and over I thought, “She didn’t know Jesus, and yet I was so close.” I thought of all of the other hurting people within my reach who don’t know Jesus and might die without hope if I don’t tell them.

While at the cemetery, I noticed how far it had expanded and how many new gravestones had been erected since we arrived in Albania. Too many had gone to Christless graves without ever hearing the good news about the Savior, without having access to a Bible, without ever having the opportunity to believe. “For ‘whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?” (Rom. 10:13-15).

I understand that many will choose to reject the Gospel, but what of those who never even had an opportunity to choose? Sure, there are a lot of people here in Albania that now have had that opportunity, praise the Lord. Several have given their hearts to Jesus as a result. Many of you have made that possible with your prayers and support. Yet, how much more could I do by the power of the Holy Spirit if I would just listen better and respond more quickly? I want this woman’s death to always remind me of the urgency of getting the Gospel to everyone.

What about the people dying around you without a clear picture of Jesus? Have you done what you could to reach out to them in compassion? Let’s pray for a heightened sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s promptings and also a heightened sense of responsibility to make disciples as we have all been commissioned in Matthew 28:18-20.

Azim has honored me by giving me the responsibility of finding his next wife in a year or so when he is ready. In Albania, this is usually the responsibility of a father, uncle or brother and is similar to the customs of the ancient Israelites. Azim told me that I am his brother, and he trusts me to find a woman who is suited to him and will be a good mother to his son. I praise God that Azim trusts me with such an important task. Dating is not common here, especially among those of his generation. Azim has made one more request: he wants to study the Bible with me and learn more about my God. I ask that you pray “for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel . . .” (Eph. 6:19).

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