Sleeping in a mud hut and hoping it will stay up during the rainy season and knowing you don’t have the money to produce bricks this year if it falls. Going three to five days at a time with no food until God provides. It’s hard to imagine even though we live among them, and tomorrow when the rooster crows, I will step outside and see the faceless children that will hopefully survive the year.

Even as I share this next post on discipleship compassion wells up in me. I’m thinking about the multiple men and women we have discipled like the one in this story that walk in faith not only to live, but to keep sharing the gospel with neighbors in the midst of their own suffering.

Well if you have been walking along the journey of my last three posts you know when the true process of discipleship begins. Did you take the time to sit with Father God and ask Him what He wanted you to know about that process?

We left off on the story of Vida and him in a moment of having to step into his newly founded faith by praying for his sick little infant brother. Let’s continue there!

Now, the next part of the discipleship process is an essential key and can be done in many different ways.

After this lovely meal and Vida’s amazing revelation, it was time to leave. As they left, Vida asked me if I had a written Bible. Culturally, Muslims reject and are even afraid of the Bible. When he asked me this question, I knew immediately that his heart was changed in such a way that he was willing to be persecuted among his religious peers for searching the Scriptures. Here is what I believe is often missed in discipleship—are you really listening?

First, I invited him to a challenge. Next, I checked to see if he would be obedient, or at the least be teachable and willing to follow my lead. I said that I “normally” suggest reading the book of John first, but I sensed that God was telling me that he should rather start reading from the book of Matthew. I asked him if he was willing to read the Gospel of Matthew and return in a week’s time and share with me what he had read.

It was important that he had the chance to read and hear for the first time the whole story of Jesus’s life. Not just bits and pieces of what a few people shared. We needed to give the Holy Spirit room to show him the whole context of the story just as He had revealed to him who the Savior is! This would answer his questions. It was important that he would return with his own answers regarding who the Holy Spirit said Jesus was. And would you believe it? He returned! Not only with a glowing face but with a testimony. His baby brother was healed the next day!

To my astonishment, Vida did not wait a week before his next visit. He showed up less than 48 hours later. After greeting him, I asked if he read the book of Matthew yet. Eagerly he replied, “yes!” He asked, “what must I do to be saved?” Once again, I answered with a question: “after reading the book of Matthew, what do you think you need to do to be saved?” He simply answered, “I need to believe and follow.” “Exactly!” I replied. Later he revealed to me a dream God had given him the night he came over and the interpretation was that he already had been saved.

I realized that he actually wondered how to receive the Holy Spirit. He was probably curious about baptism as well as Jesus himself modeled baptism in the book of Matthew. I told him that I believe he is already saved, however, it is important that he should go home, confess and repent to God about his old life. After all, Jesus’ first words as He began His ministry were, “repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”

I told him to ask Jesus to give him the Holy Spirit, just as He had promised the disciples. I said, “don’t leave your house until you know you have received it!” He understood and with joy went home to pray. You might be wondering why I didn’t lay hands on him and prayed a sinner’s prayer with him.

The main reason is that he was already encountering God on his own and beginning to hear God’s voice in his life! He didn’t need my extra voice! You see, many people are longing to hear God’s voice for themselves. And they can, if we teach them and allow them to try!

God spoke from the beginning. His first recorded words were, “let there be light!” He desires to illuminate the darkness. The number one thing the enemy of our souls has been trying to stop is our ability to hear God’s voice. Our top priority as a family, here in this foreign country, is to teach people to hear God’s voice for themselves.

Religion often has so many voices distracting us and mediating what we hear and believe. As followers of Jesus Christ, it is important to know that there is only one mediator between God’s voice and our hearts. He provided us with a way for our ears to be opened. If Vida was truly going to follow Jesus, he needed to experience God’s voice first-hand. He needed to experience Jesus for himself with no distractions. I was there to point him to the One who would save him, and then say, “come follow Him with me.”

Blessings and courage until next week!

Friend, if you have been enjoying the stories and journey so far there is a great resource available to you.

You can hear more about our life here in the mission field and be equipped to follow God’s call on your own life by checking it out.

Check out our audio book here!

Also if you would like to experience what we do here in the mission field check out our Youtube channel. This is a video from our first couple months in Mozambique; Watch Now