Ramadan

Tomorrow is the beginning of Ramadan, the 30 days of daytime fast/nighttime feasting observed throughout the Muslim world. It is a season of prayer, where people ask Allah to give them dreams and visions. While we were in Indonesia, we met missionaries working in Java who had fascinating stories to tell about Ramadan. Their work was with the Christian people of Java, but almost every year these missionaries were found by muslim background people who had visions of Jesus during Ramadan! Amazing to see God at work even when there is no interaction with Jesus' people.

Today at church I was so moved to hear the stories of our missionary working in arab-speaking nations. He and his wife had so many extraordinary things to say, some of them quite provocative. They answered many questions from the good-sized crowd, and the interaction was very cool. One of the things they talked about was the growing practice among Christians to pray for our Muslim "cousins" while they are observing Ramadan. Our missionary mentioned this website, and the booklet they produce, as a possible guide for how to pray throughout Ramadan.

I think that even all we do is remember to pray that while they are praying for visions, that those visions would be of Jesus, love and peace. Look at the website, and think about how you can be praying for our "cousins", won't you? I will join you!