A group of us set out on Sunday to advertise the Backyard Bible Club which the Church At Affton was hosting. We were canvassing in the neighborhoods around Mathilda park. One of those doors we knocked on belonged to a girl named Fahima. She greeted us with a huge smile on her face, remembering some of us from last year, and we encouraged her to come to the Backyard Bible Club we were putting on. The next day we unfortunately got rained out, which caused a delay in our meeting time at the parks. A few of us went to the park to put up a sign with the time changes. She was at the park when we arrived and we got to greet and talk to her about her home life, culture, and her aspirations, and we encouraged her to come later in the day. When we arrived at the park later that afternoon, she came back and we got to play games, paint, and engage in some spiritual conversation. Dezi Tartaglia asked her about what she believed and if we should share what we believed. We briefly shared the gospel with her and got to talk through some things.
The next day, Fahima brought her older sister, Madar with her to the park. Mr. Tartaglia led us through the first few chapters of Genesis during our time together. Fahima read the text intently over my shoulder. After we had finished, we were led in a time of prayer. During that prayer, I prayed that I would be given an opportunity to share about the gospel with Fahima. As soon as that prayer was finished, Fahima looked at me and said, “I find it so interesting how religions are so similar… Islam, (what she identifies as) Catholicism, Christianity…” I was taken by surprise for a second at how quickly God answered my prayer and tried to think of a way to respond to her. We quickly dived into some of the differences between the beliefs of a Muslim and a Christian. Soon, Audrey Rainer and Dezi Tartaglia joined into the
conversation. We discussed the structure of the Bible, what books we recommend she start with, and discussed deep and hard topics such as The Trinity and Jesus being fully God and fully man. We shared that all sin is worthy of condemnation and how we can’t be saved by any amount of good works we may accomplish…only by the precious blood of Jesus! She was very interested and open to discussing these topics, which of course, was a huge blessing! Another blessing is that during this deep conversation, Madar, her sister, was sitting behind us listening in on the conversation. She turned to Page Wheeler and asked her a question about what she was hearing. Page and Scarlett Turner jumped right in to explaining.
While Fahima was very interested, it was still difficult to get across how important the differences between our religions are, and that there is only one true gospel. Though they may hold similarities, there is only one way to get to heaven, through Jesus. In her religion, Fahima believes by being a good person and performing good deeds, that is what gets you into heaven, and we dove into explaining how very imperfect we all are and how we commit sins daily. There is no way we could ever be perfect and avoid all sin, and that is why the hope of Jesus is so, so important!
We were so excited to be able to dive into these topics with these girls, and we praise the Lord for giving us such a special opportunity. We are in prayer for Fahima and Madar, along with the rest of her family. We pray and trust that God will use our time with her and her sister to plant a seed, or water one that already remains inside of those precious souls.
Written by Kendall Keller, Dezi Tartaglia, Audrey Rainer, Scarlett Turner
UBC Missions 