Frank had been in quarantine due to covid when we arrived here. He was planning to go home to the US last week, but he had to postpone it due to the positive test result. He is finally cleared out of the quarantine and going home tonight.
I technically spent less than 24 hours with him (after he came out of the room) but feel like he is a longtime friend. At the morning meeting today, we only had Frank, Momo and me, due to some urgent situations of the sick children that needed other staff’s attention. Just three of us prayed together and shared stories.
Frank told us about his experience when he shared the scripture with Muiet from Kurdistan, who is the brother of one of the sick children staying at Shevet. They had a chance to visit Jerusalem together, and when they were staying together in an old structure that used to be a Catholic church, the prayer time for Muslims arrived. Muiet told Frank that it is not appropriate for him to pray in the church building.
Frank asked Muiet, who his god is. Muiet told him, his god is the god of Abraham. So, Frank shared Genesis 12 with him that we also believe in the God of Abraham (to show the point that nothing is wrong with his praying in the church building). Muiet told Frank then, “No, No, our god is who created the world and everything in the world.” Frank thus shared Genesis 1 with him. According to Frank, Muiet was then a little disturbed and said, “don’t joke about our faith.”
The nuance might be a little difficult to interpret, because they were communicating with a translation app (Google Translate does not have Kurdish, so some other app it was). I wonder Frank’s using our Bible as the basis of standard made Muiet feel his faith was treated a sort of secondary?? Sharing Gospel needs to be done out of love, and it is difficult what it really means. We might have to be careful that instead of trying to pull them over towards our side, we might have to go to the other side to be closer to them. Maybe we might have to read Qur’an (that is what Brea, one of our coworkers here, is actually doing). Our God did come DOWN to us to BE LIKE us.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us
John 1:14
After all, God is working in Frank and Muiet. When Frank was leaving Shevet for the airport, they exchanged a solid brotherly embrace
English 
Japanese
人間の間の言葉のコミュニケーションというのは足らないし難しいもんだね。創造の業をなした言葉であったイエス様。人となって私たちの間に住まわれたイエス様。言葉の奥深さを考えさせられるな。創造の業をなした力あるもの。私のために命まで捨てて下さった愛そのもの。宗教、経済的社会的階級、偏見、言語などなど無限のもので私たちは縛られているけれど、自由にされて愛と霊の力に動かされて大胆に働きたいね。
ここで奉仕している人たちは大胆に愛と霊の力によってもう働いてるんだわ。私たち身体があってよかった。コミュニケーションの手段が言葉だけしかなかったら、もう大変なことになってるよね。やはり行いは大切だ。Shevetのみんなの働きがますます祝福されますように。
本当だね、ここの子たちはみんな20歳代だけど、奉仕へのの姿勢に学ぶものが多いです。