Ali and His Family

Prayer focus of the day:  Pray for families and households to have their hearts prepared for the Gospel.

Ali is a 17 year old student who comes to our center to learn English. Her mom, Mrs. Yusuf, has been chauffeuring young children from her village to our center for our English program. Sometimes, she comes just to send food to the volunteer teachers. She does this because, as she said, she appreciates the way we help Ali’s  younger brother, Em, learn English. Em started coming to our center since he was 5.

One early morning, Mrs. Yusuf came and asked if we could arrange a special tutorial time for Ali to best prepare him for university. With much delight, we agreed to have him come on Saturdays and Sundays for 2 hours each session. It turned out that the young lad is not only interested in learning English but also in understanding more about spiritual things and anything in life that interests him. “Teacher, you don’t seem to be afraid about anything. Why?” He asked one day. I shared to him my own testimonies of God’s faithfulness in meeting my own needs and in answering my prayers. And each time I share things like that he would just exclaim “Wow, that’s a miracle!”

“Ali, remember this, your religion and my religion cannot save you…. The most important thing is your personal relationship with God…..I’ll be praying for you…”  We have come to a point where I can say things like this without any hesitations. He seems to be very responsive, asking more questions. “Are you afraid of ghosts?”, he asked one day after one of the frames on the wall suddenly fell on the floor. “I’m not afraid of ghosts. I only need to say the name of Jesus and they would all run away.” Ali laughed. I asked if he knew Isa Al Masih. He nodded and spread his arms to resemble the cross.

 Ali  knows Isa Al Masih (Jesus) as the man on the cross. I don’t know yet how much he knows about Him.  He is definitely a faithful young Muslim yet he has many questions about life inside and outside his religion. His secret relationship with her girlfriend is another thing that bothers him much. He is against arranged marriage and he fears that he would not end up marrying the girl he loves. He asked about Christian marriage, my own marriage, and how my husband treats me. “I want my wife to have high level of education so that she could teach our own children the way you do.” These were one of the beautiful words he said the last time I saw him. He appreciates the things I say and do.

• Pray that each time we meet, he would be drawn a step closer to “the man on the cross”.
• Pray for the salvation of Ali  and his entire family. They are a prominent family in their area as they owned an apartment building, a laundry shop and a grocers shop. They could lead many others to Christ.
• Ali is just one of the many Muslim students who come to our center. Each of them has different story to tell but all of them have the same need – salvation through Christ. Thank you for praying for all our students and for all the volunteer teachers who are taking every opportunity to make Jesus and His salvation known to all.