Hours before sunrise Mr. Ma, his father, grandfather, and 4-year-old son, Ibrahim, all rise and get dressed. Winter has almost arrived so they pull on their warmest long underwear before slipping into their finest clothes. Mr. Ma slips on black dress pants, a new white shirt and a nice grey sports coat. His son has received new clothes for this special day. He has a new white outfit that resembles traditional Muslim clothing with a colorful prayer cap (skull cap). The Ma men leave their mud brick home and walk down to the local village mosque where they find a tour bus waiting.
A couple days before I took this photo, I read about author Hannah Hurnard and her comparison between a chairlift and faith. The ride looks dangerous, because there’s no earthly support, and falling would be catastrophic. But there is a reliable power, working from above, that’s mostly invisible during the ascent. If the rider abandons control and simply sits in the chair, that overhead power will waft him or her to amazing heights. Nothing is achieved through self effort save abandoning control in the first place.
Though I’m not a Muslim, I was given the chance to learn Surah, or chapter 97 of the Quran in a class at a mosque. During the class, the Imam told a story related to this chapter, The Night of Power (Laylat al-Qadr, ليلة القدر). This was the night Allah gave his revelations to Muhammad for the first time through the angel Gabriel.
It was a freezing morning; the temperature had dropped to -17 degrees Celsius. Yet despite the cold, I was eager to meet one of my friends, a Hui Muslim, who lives in the mosque near my apartment. He lives in a small dorm room in the mosque that contains a couple bunk beds and one small side table.
Maliki is a 45-year-old Imam that I met during a class in a mosque. Once, I shared with him that a righteous God must punish sins rather than just forgive without retribution. In response to this, he said Allah’s forgiveness is always granted if men repent, to which I said that justice and forgiveness must work together to address sin in order to reflect Allah as both a just and merciful God.
The Chinese church is central to fulfilling God’s purposes to rescue the Muslims of China. The Chinese church, similar to Christian’s around the world, must overcome their fear and ethnocentrism in order to bring the love of Christ to the Hui, Dongxiang, and Salar. Cross-cultural training is vital for getting the gospel to all the Muslims of China. In a recent cross cultural training, the teacher gave the students an assignment to interact and share the gospel with Muslims. One of the leaders of a large house church wrote of his first experience trying to share the gospel with Muslims.
