- [Todd] You'll find plenty
of media reports that present a stereotype of Muslims. JoAnn Doyle says for a believer in Jesus, those reports are very dangerous. - [JoAnn] I think that
Satan is trying to paralyze the body of Christ, he has
paralyzed the body of Christ because we think the
gospel is for everyone but maybe not Muslims. But remember, as followers of
Christ we are the only ones that have true hope in Christ, so if we're not going to
share with Muslims, who will? (upbeat music) - [Announcer] Jesus never
promised His followers an easy path. In fact, He told His
disciples that the world would hate them. He sent them out as sheep among wolves. Jesus' words came true in
the life of the apostles and they're still coming
true today in the lives of His followers around the world. Join host Todd Nettleton as we
hear their inspiring stories and learn how we can help, right now on The Voice of the Martyrs Radio Network. - [Todd] Two weeks ago Tom
and JoAnn Doyle joined us for a conversation on how
Christ is transforming women in the Muslim world. We heard some ways God
is working through women to draw people to Himself. If you missed part one of our conversation I hope you will listen
to it at vomradio.net. You can also find it wherever
you listen to podcasts. Tom and JoAnn are back this week. They have written a book called Women Who Risk: Secret Agents for Jesus in the Muslim World. In the book they write about women who give up everything for Christ, even though it means terrible danger. I asked JoAnn and Tom how these women can stand so firm for Jesus when facing beatings or worse. - [Tom] Their beginning before
they prayed to receive Jesus was with the due questions they were asked before they received Jesus. One, "Are you willing to
be persecuted for Jesus?" If they answer yes, then
you get the next question. "Are you willing to die for Jesus?" So they are ready, they
have crossed that bridge and they're living fearlessly. - [JoAnn] I was with a group
of women in the Middle East and I was so blessed to
go into their Bible study. And I, of course, got there
earlier with the leaders and one by one these women
walked, in the middle of the week at an off hour, to this Bible study. Each of them has their hijabs on, just their face is showing. One by one they come in. When everyone's there they
shut and lock the door and it was a beautiful sight to behold. One by one they took off their hijab. I will never forget one
of the women did say, she is a refugee, so she
lives in a one-room home with her husband and son,
and she said when she first came to Jesus, call to prayer came, she said she got down on
her knees and she just did the call to prayer with her husband. She said, "Now internally,
I was praying to Jesus. But externally it looked
like I was still a Muslim." She was so convicted over
time that she realized, "I am ashamed of Jesus." She even went to those women
in the Bible study and said, "This is what I'm doing.
I know it's wrong." They agreed with her. They've all had their own struggles, too, but she knew that she
had to now not bow down the next time the call to
prayer rang in the streets. So the next time the
call to prayer sounded she did not bow down and
she was beaten for it several times.
- [Todd] But she was willing. - [JoAnn] And she was willing.
- [Todd] To take that. - [JoAnn] And eventually the
beatings got less and less when her husband realized
he couldn't change her. But they do pay a price that
we really cannot understand here in the West. But what happens when
we suffer for Christ, truly you know this here
at Voice of the Martyrs, is that the gospel flourishes, it grows, our faith gets deeper. God does something internally
in our hearts to bless us when we are willing to suffer for Him, and she did experience that. - [Tom] In Gaza we work with Shireen and she came to faith in Christ years ago, and her husband in and out of prison. You know, in her story
she wanted people to pray for her husband, so we just put it in. That's a lot of people. - [Todd] That's a lot of
people reading the book and praying. - [Tom] "Okay, Lord I'm
praying for Mohammed in Gaza," which covers half of Gaza
when you pray that prayer, by the way. - [Todd] That is a very broad prayer. - [JoAnn] I know, right? - [Tom] So they're
praying and do you know, just this week we got a call
from Shireen and she said, "My husband has seen Jesus
in me, he says it's clear, it's unmistakable, he wants
to pray to receive Christ." - [Todd] Wow.
- [JoAnn] Amazing. - [Tom] We're doing a phone call to pray into the Gaza Strip with him. I think, you know there are
so many things that go into giving them the strength
that they need to stand in the midst of a bad marriage,
husband not a believer, danger, whatever. But I was thinking about
Nadine, and we do videos called, "I Found the Truth," former
Muslims sharing their story. And Nadine was a Muslim from Jordan. She said the first time she
walked into a worship service, women have such a heart
for worship, she said, "I am choking back tears, I'm pushing them down,
I'm just gonna explode." - [JoAnn] Yeah, hearing the worship. - [Tom] "Seeing the joy and the love and hearing the worship,
I've never heard anything like that in my life." - [JoAnn] But there's also
the woman, like Farah, whose husband still is not a believer. - [Tom] Yeah. - [JoAnn] So life is hard for those women. They are counting the cost daily. Her story is very interesting
in that this holy boldness that we keep referring
to came over her when she accepted Christ and her
husband was another abusive man that beat her. But the next time, after
she accepted Jesus, that he went to slap her, she
just looked at him and said, "No, stop it. You cannot hit me anymore,
I am no longer a Muslim. I am a follower of Christ." Now, typically that
doesn't stop the beating. - [Todd] Right, might
get you killed actually. - [Tom] That's right.
- [JoAnn] Yeah, exactly. It kind of intensifies it, typically. But in her case it did not. The Spirit of God came
upon her husband and he did lift up his hand to slap
her and stopped short. And do you know, he
has not beat her since. - [Todd] Wow! - [JoAnn] Which again, is very unusual. But he's also not come
to faith in Christ yet. He sees the change in
her, he's getting closer to finding Christ, but he hasn't. So she still is living,
I mean, that'd be tough, it'd be really hard. She's trying to teach
her kids about Jesus, she refuses to wear the hijab. So he's given her a little bit of freedom, maybe more out of some
fear that God has placed in his heart, who knows. We'll hear is the rest
of the story one day when he comes to faith in Jesus. - [Todd] In the next book. - [JoAnn] In the next book. - So we're praying for him and she's praying for him. But like all of us, we
each have a different story and God is not a cookie-cutter God, He deals with each of us
individually and knows what it's going to take to
bring us to faith in Christ. So, really all we can do is stand with these women in prayer. I love what E.M. Bounds says, that "Prayer is the thin vein
that moves the hand of God." And though we live in another country, prayer transcends boundary
lines, and as we pray for these men and women,
just as what you just shared with Mohammed and Shireen, we have no idea how He's going to work. How those ripple effects of
prayer will affect these lives. And we may not know until eternity. - [Todd] We're talking today
on Voice of the Martyrs Radio with Tom and JoAnn Doyle. They are the authors of a book called Women Who Risk: Secret Agents for Jesus in the Muslim World. I want to encourage you get
a copy and to read the book; it is outstanding. They are also the founders
of Uncharted Ministries. JoAnn leads a portion of
that called Not Forgotten, which is specifically about
reaching Muslim women. Let's talk about, like the
event you just had in Nashville, what does that event
look like, how do people, - [JoAnn] Have one? - [Todd] Have one, get
into one, and what happens as we, as American Christians,
make a conscious effort to see the Muslims around
us and to say hello to them and to maybe have a cup of
coffee or maybe ask them if they would teach us how to
make some of the amazing food from the Middle East? What does that look like? What does that process look like? - [JoAnn] You know, the
10/40 windows come to us, that's the longitude/latitude
on our globe. The most difficult part of the world, they need the gospel desperately, "Send missionaries to the 10/40 Window!" And what did God do? He sent the 10/40 Window to us. The nations are gathered
in every single one of our backyards.
- [Todd] Yeah. - [JoAnn] And the missionaries
that we prayed for is all of us. You don't have to be a
professional missionary. God has called all of us, Matthew 28, to go in and share the Good News. So, a Seen Gathering, meaning, see what life is like behind the veil, is a gathering in your
church, in your home, where we will come, and
you can go to our website, unchartedministries.com,
and learn a little bit more of how to connect with us. But we, for instance, with
Nashville this last weekend, we came, there was about 25 women there. As Tom just mentioned, we give
a little bit of information, a ton of inspiration
and a big fat challenge. So first, we started sharing
stories about how God is moving in the Muslim world, showing
pictures of these women. So you realize these are real people. - [Todd] Yeah. - [JoAnn] And then giving
them just a little bit of Islam 101 so they can
understand what life is like behind the veil and how we can reach them with the love of Jesus. - [Todd] And I think it's key,
a little bit of Islam 101, like you don't have to have
a master's in Muslim studies to do this.
- [JoAnn] Right. - [Todd] You just need a
little bit of information. - [JoAnn] Honestly, the
less you know the better. Ignorance is bliss. And you know, there's a lot
of forgiveness for people when we make mistakes
talking to a Muslim person. They realize they are in our
country, we don't know a lot. But I will say this, since 9/11
we all know a whole lot more about Islam than we did before 9/11. Terminology and so forth. But anyway, if we just gave
you all that information, and if we just inspired
you, that's just theory. We want this to become a
reality in people's life because we recognize
most of us carry fear. We see women dressed in their
hijab, which is the head scarf that they wear, and we assume that that is their silent
message to us to stay away. But it's not! We have found that Muslims say
the thing they long for most when they move into
the West is friendship. And it's the thing that they
actually get the least of. So then what we do in our
gatherings, we prepare you, we commission you a little
bit, give you that information and then we go with you
to pre-planned locations to go out where Muslims gather. Whether it's a marketplace
or Middle East restaurants or if it's Friday, our
favorite thing to do is to go to a mosque for Friday
prayers and meet Muslims there. Our goal is not necessarily
to share the full gospel, you know, the Four Spiritual Laws. We just want women to learn how easy it is to engage Muslims in conversation. So we took these women,
these 25 women in Nashville, divided up in groups, each one had one of our leaders with them. We went to these different
places to meet Muslim women. So everybody goes out,
their eyes big as saucers, their knees shaking,
they're scared to death, but they're going to do this. We go to these locations
and every single one of us got to have conversations
with Muslim women and then we regather to kind of debrief. Everyone comes in chattering like this, they're so excited, "Oh my
goodness, I met this woman, she was so sweet, she hugged
me, I got her phone number. We're going to get together and cook." All different conversations. And what happened? That wall, that preconceived wall of fear, crumbled down and they realized that Muslim women are women of the heart. They want friendships so badly. So they got phone numbers,
they took pictures and now I've already gotten
texts back that they are meeting with these Muslim women this week. One gal that we met from Iraq said, "I need English, my English so bad." So these gals are coming
to her home this week. She's cooking for them. And they are going to
help her with her English. They've already decided,
"Let's get together every week and we'll help you with your English!" - [Todd] The thing that I want
to encourage our listeners is wherever you live, there
are Muslims around you. You don't have to debate them,
you don't have to, you know, intellectually convince them. You have to say hello, you have
to strike up a conversation. Maybe it's a cooking lesson, maybe it's a cup of coffee together. Maybe your kids go to the same schools or you end up at the same
Little League soccer game and you can sit by them. It is not rocket science. It is just a matter of
being kind, being Jesus, and seeing people. - [JoAnn] Let's flip it around. Let's say that we move to
another country and there are strange languages everywhere we go, maybe we're learning the language, picking up bits and pieces,
but we don't understand it all. "They talk so fast!" or whatever. The food is different, shopping
for groceries is different. - [Todd] The road signs are different, - [Todd And JoAnn]
Everything is different! - [JoAnn] So then, what
if the people ignored you? What if they didn't try to help you when you looked lost in the store? So a couple things I would share
to encourage you listeners, and number one, is I think that
Satan is trying to paralyze the body of Christ. He has paralyzed the body
of Christ, because we think the gospel is for everyone
but maybe not Muslims. But remember, as followers of
Christ we are the only ones that have true hope in Christ. So if we're not going to
share with Muslims, who will? So number one, remember,
God has called you. He's given you a beautiful
embossed invitation to invite them to know who Jesus is. Secondly, don't be ashamed
of the gospel of Christ. That verse goes on to say, "For it is the power unto salvation." So when we start sharing
Jesus, this Holy Spirit power is released, and He's the
one that does the work. So I would say don't be ashamed of Jesus. Now that doesn't mean you jump
into the Four Spiritual Laws, but gosh, almost from
the first conversation I'll let them know that
I am a follower of Jesus. Remember, in Islam, religion, life, everything is mixed together. So if they know that we
are a follower of Jesus but don't talk about Him,
they think that our faith doesn't mean that much to us. So don't be afraid to talk
about Jesus, that you love Him. Just as a natural conversation would flow, don't leave Jesus out. - [Todd] We're talking this week on The Voice of the Martyrs Radio
with Tom and JoAnn Doyle. They are the founders
of Uncharted Ministries. To learn more about their
ministry, I hope you will go to their website,
unchartedministries.com. We'll also give you a
link in the show notes at vomradio.net. They have also just
released a brand-new book, Women Who Risk: Secret Agents for Jesus in the Muslim World. We recorded this conversation
a couple of weeks ago and I asked Tom and JoAnn
how we can pray for women in Muslim countries. We didn't know at the time that a crisis was about to unfold in Afghanistan. So as you listen to the
rest of today's program, keep in mind what John Weaver
shared with us last week, specifically about
praying for Afghanistan. Pray that the Taliban will
allow foreign aid workers into Afghanistan to
serve the people there. Pray that God will use the
situation in Afghanistan to draw people, even
Taliban members, to Himself. That Muslims there will be
dissatisfied with the violence and threats and find peace in Jesus. And our guests this week, Tom
and JoAnn Doyle, will share some other ways that we can be
praying for the Muslim world. - [Tom] I think right off
the bat, Todd, you and I both know that today in the Middle East everything is just up for grabs. All of the countries are
struggling, their governments. I mean look at Lebanon's
government collapsed, look at Israel had four
elections before they could patch together a government. Syria, they had an election,
and it's faked, and nobody believes the results, but it's
just a time of instability. So when there's cracks in the
foundations of people's lives they start to look up: "God, help me!" So we're praying with all
the confusion and COVID and the government problems,
that people would start seeking answers elsewhere
than where they normally have. And they're not going to
find them in the mosque. They're gonna find them with
Jesus as they meet believers, as they see, like we've
been talking about, the fruit of the Spirit come
out on their countenance, they're going to see the answers. So pray for them to have Jesus encounters, that Bibles get in,
- [JoAnn] Yeah. - [Tom] That teams go in. That Americans will look at
the fearlessness that they see in Where Faith Is Forbidden
or Women Who Risk and say, "I can do that; I'm gonna go!" So this is the time. I think if we look back in
10 years if the Lord tarries and realize we missed this opportunity, it will be a crying shame. - [Todd] It'll be a tragedy. - [Tom] They have never been more open. 70% of the Middle East under 30, they are open to the gospel
and as one of our leaders, Jamal, recently led a
Muslim to faith in Christ, he said to this man, and
again, his name was Mohammed, he came to faith in Christ, it really was. He said, "Mohammed, I am just amazed at how open the Muslims are." And Mohammed said back to Jamal, "We've always been open,
but remember the door to us has a handle and it's on your side." - [Todd] Wow!
- [JoAnn] Convicting. - [Tom] You have to
open it and go through. - [Todd] Very convicting. This is right after he
prayed to receive the Lord. He understood that and
had that discernment, so the door is there. Open the handle, go
with Jesus, go reach out to Muslim people here. - [JoAnn] Praying against that fear. - [Tom] And pray for
the Middle East there. - [JoAnn] In addition I would also say, Tom mentioned the Word of God, praying that the Word of
God gets into the hands of these Muslims. What's happening in Iran, for
instance, in some of these forbidden countries,
I'm discipling a woman over FaceTime who lives in Saudi Arabia, - [Todd] Wow! - [JoAnn] Getting the Word of God to them, and what's happening in Iran, sadly, is false religions are getting in. Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness,
that's a problem in Iran. So praying that the true Word
of God will get into the hands of not only the new believers,
but those who are seeking. God knows whose hearts are prepared. The Scripture says that
He draws us to Himself. So praying that the Father
would draw people to Himself, Muslims, and they'd get
a copy of God's Word into their hands. - [Todd] Amen. And Voice of the Martyrs
is a part of that. In fact, I just got a picture yesterday of one of our Bible-smuggling teams
just after they had crossed into a forbidden nation. They said, "Praise the Lord,
they were scanning bags but they didn't scan ours." - [JoAnn] Wow, praise God!
- [Tom] Praise the Lord, that's great! - [JoAnn] That's so awesome. - [Todd] So those Bibles are getting in. One of the things you mentioned, as we pray for the Middle East,
there is no substitute for having been there, or being
there, praying on the ground. I know part of what you
guys do is you take people. How do people connect with you
if they are listening to this and say, "Man, I want
to go, I want to see, I want to meet some of these ladies." How do we do that? - [Tom] Yeah, they can just
get on Uncharted Ministries and contact unchartedministries.com. Contact us. We don't post the trips there,
that would be too dangerous. - [Todd] That's wise. - [Tom] But, yeah, people
can, once we vet them, we have had some Muslims
that through their language we could tell they were not believers. They're just trying to
ferret out the believers in their country. So, yeah, you can get in touch with us, we'll set up a conversation and talk, and we schedule trips to go
stand shoulder-to-shoulder with some of these
front-line saints and I think truly some of the most
amazing trips are the trips with women, they really are. We do all of them, young
people, our sons Tommy and Josh do Uncharted Adventures
where the Great Commission meets the great outdoors. I mean, they'll trek three
hours in to meet a Bedouin group in Israel. So all of those options are there, and you can be used out
in the mission field. There's not a gift that
can't be utilized out there. - [Todd] Okay, so unchartedministries.com if you're interested, if the
Lord kind of picks your heart with that idea. Contact them, get in touch with them. Last question I want to
ask, we talked about praying for the Middle East, how do we pray for us and for the Muslims
that are in our schools, that are in the next
cubicle down the hall? How do we pray for what
God is doing among Muslims - [JoAnn] Here.
- [Todd] in the US? - [JoAnn] Well, interestingly
enough we have found that it's easier to reach Muslims
in their own country. There's more of a desperation. They come here and life
is not quite as difficult. You know, they can get a
job, for the most part. They're doing a little bit better, they don't live under
such a cloud of fear, so they're not quite
as open to the gospel. So the first thing I would
pray is that God would continue to stir their hearts for truth. That He would appear to
them in dreams or visions or healings or the miraculous
like He does over there. Then that God would stir
our hearts that that fear of engaging them would just dissolve, that would be shattered and that we, as believers in America, would
seek to build relationships with them, with a holy
boldness, just as they have, a holy boldness to share
the truth of who Jesus is. So important. - [Tom] They're ready and waiting. We meet so many Muslims that came here: this is the land of the free,
I'm gonna have the best life! And then they find out they're ignored. And they retreat into what they know, which is their religion. Some of them actually
even get more fanatical. We need to welcome them. We need to thank them. We worked with a church
in Spokane and there was a big problem in the city
council about Muslim refugees coming and there were churches
even standing up saying "We don't want them, we don't want them." There was one church that decided, "We're going to do something different." They got the schedule from
the city on when these plane loads of refugees would arrive and they would go to the
airport and have signs there in Arabic: "We're glad you're
here; welcome to America." - [Todd] Wow!
- [Tom] "We're your friends." Now that's what we need to
do as the body of Christ and have that, like in John
13, that foot-washing spirit where we're ready to just
serve and love them to Christ. Really, that's important. We can love Muslims to Christ.
- [Todd] Yeah. - Tom and JoAnn, I love
every chance we get to have a conversation. I love it when we get to
share it with our listeners. I love the book, I'm so
thankful for you guys and thankful for these stories. Thank you for being our guests. Thank you for being our
co-worker in the gospel and bless you for being a part of Voice of the Martyrs Radio. - [JoAnn] Todd, thank you. That goes both directions,
we feel the same about you and Voice of the Martyrs; we are honored. - [Tom] We truly are, we're
humbled to partner with you. A lot of times, we haven't
had this ministry too long, we'd say "Uncharted,
reaching the unreached, standing with the persecuted." "Oh, no, I've never heard of you." "We do some partnering
with Voice of the Martyrs." "Oh, great!" - [JoAnn] We're automatically liked. - [Tom] Thank you for being
the "Good Housekeeping" seal of approval. - [JoAnn] That's right, that's right. Oh man. - [Todd] I am thankful
that we get to do that and stand with ministries like you guys, ministries that are
reaching into Iran and Syria and all across that region of the world. Thank you for being with us,
thank you if you're listening. I would encourage you, visit
our website vomradio.net. We'll give you a link
where you can get a copy of Women Who Risk. I would also encourage you to
contact Uncharted Ministries, contact Tom and JoAnn,
unchartedministries.com is their website. Next week we're going to have
a conversation with two women whose husbands were killed
as they were serving God on the front lines of ministry. Yet both of these women had
the grace and the courage and the eternal perspective to forgive their husbands' killers. You'll be challenged and encouraged, so don't miss next week's
conversation right here on The Voice of the Martyrs Radio Network.
