Five years ago, my wife and a teammate led a local Muslim woman, ‘Bisharra’, to follow Jesus. They had led her and some other women in her family through our set of ten health lessons and ‘Prophet Stories’ (Bible stories from Adam and Eve to Jesus). 

With discipleship and coaching, Bisharra led two other women from her extended family to follow Jesus through the same process. All three are illiterate and either widows or estranged from their husbands. 

Bisharra and her two relatives continued to share concepts from the health lessons and the Bible stories in their daily lives, both verbally and from SD cards on their phones - at the market, at the well, at their homes with visitors and at their neighbours’ homes. Soon, word spread to an outlying village where they have additional, extended family. The women in this village invited them to teach them too!

Bisharra and her two disciples talked with my wife and our teammate about this opportunity. ‘We need you to come with us,’ they pleaded. At this point these three ladies had been disciples for at least a year, Bisharra for five.

“No, you are ready to do this on your own! You know all the lessons and all the stories! Besides, it will make a scene if we, as outsiders, come to this rural village. They might miss the importance of the message. You will be much more effective than us!” my wife told them.

Reluctantly, these three illiterate women, virtually irrelevant in the world’s eyes, began as bold ambassadors for Christ. They travelled six hours every weekend to share with their extended family. They were well received, and they completed the entire lesson set, demonstrating important basic health concepts and sharing the truth about who Jesus really is. They explained what happened on the cross, and prayed for the other ladies in the group, urging them to share with family and neighbours, just as they had done. They then urged them to keep joining the women in this village for Discovery Bible Studies, just like my wife, teammate, and Bisharra did. 

These women could have never overseen a mission hospital, or a budgeted development project - these would have been too complex and unsustainable. But they could share basic, enduring concepts about health that give their communities more power over their lives, as well as sharing the truth about Jesus in a reproducible way. We hope that it will expand into Disciple Making Movements and transformative health changes within their Muslim community.