American and Indian, Christian and Muslim, they came from different cultures and spoke different languages; but when the 10 women packed into the small room of a Muslim home, they learned that they share as many similarities as they do differences.
A South Carolina volunteer shares the love of Isa (Jesus) with a woman sitting outside a mosque.They all are mothers, wives, daughters, cooks, and cleaners who know the love and frustration those roles bring. They have all experienced joy as well as pain. And they are all loved by the Creator God who formed them in his image.
Yet, one major difference brought the South Carolina volunteers to India to engage these Muslim women – Christ.
The South Carolina volunteers hope that soon this difference will be no more. They pray that through the relationships they have forged, the Muslim women they have come to love will come to love Jesus as their Savior.
While the South Carolina men sought out Muslim men on the streets, in businesses and at mosques, the women went to where the Muslim women were in the homes. “The first thing that really struck me is that women are the same. I mean, I know women are the same, but the extent to which we’re the same was striking to me,” volunteer Jayde Irving* said. “It was very little things that I noticed. When we walked into one house, I noticed their children draw on their walls. My kids draw on my walls. And the look on the mother’s face – she rolled her eyes, and I was like, ‘That’s the exact face I make!'”
The South Carolina women sent the love of Christ through the deepening threads of the relationships they were building. They took advantage of shared meals, cooking lessons and many hours of fellowship to pour their hearts and their prayers into those threads.
A South Carolina volunteer prays for future ministry among the Muslims of India.“It didn’t matter that I couldn’t speak the language,” South Carolina volunteer Lola Thomas* said. “I could sit there and just be with them, and that was enough. That’s what God wanted me to do at that time – just be with them, just see and experience their lives and learn how to pray for them better.”
The South Carolinians quickly discovered that spoken language is not the only means of communication – far from it. Languages they didn’t even know they spoke poured from the women in wordless conversations with Muslim women they met everywhere they went during their time in India.
“I met a lady at a mosque and I found that I didn’t need to speak that woman’s language,” Irving said. “We held hands. I hold my daughter’s hand and I hold my mother’s hand, and that to me is very special. Indian women love with their hands. Even though their faces are covered, they love with their hands. You’ll see girls on the street holding hands. They’re not going anywhere; they’re just holding hands. That lady at the mosque just held my hand. She didn’t know me, but she communicated with me through that.”
For these Muslim women, the gospel did not come through literature or professional teaching. It came through the hearts of women relating to one another, hearts that bonded as closely as the women packed together in a small room. It came through laughter. Most of all, it came from the love of followers of Christ who followed his call to show his love to the Muslim women.
*Names changed for security reasons. Wynn is a Journeyman serving as a writer in the South Asia region.