A Muslim man from Afghanistan asked his Christian friend: “I’ve heard that the Bible has words about wisdom in it. I’m curious to read this Bible. Where could I get one?”

Image not of person in story

The Muslim man lives with other Afghani men in a regional town in Western Australia. His Christian friend gave their household two Bibles–one in Persian, the other in English. Now, two Afghan men are reading the Bible for the first time in their lives.

The Christian man asked: “what would happen in Afghanistan if you had a Bible?” His Muslim friend replied: “the government would kill us.”

The story was told to Eternity by Jana*, who began her journey as she stood in a queue at Centrelink.

A Muslim couple stood in front of her, struggling to communicate. Jana had been an immigrant herself in Sweden and China, and just the day before had landed back on home soil, burnt out and exhausted. She felt their plight.

“The Lord just put into my heart – reach out to these people,” Jana explains. “I knew that’s what God wanted me to do.”

In 2011 she made friends with a Chinese immigrant, and they began to meet regularly. Jana noticed that TAFE was already doing a good job teaching English to migrants in her town.

Her role, she realised, would be to start an English conversation group. But who would come? “God, if you want me to start this thing you’ll have to help me meet some more migrants,” she prayed. Two minutes later, her phone rang. It was a Thai woman who she had never met, asking for help with a Centrelink form.

To this day she doesn’t know how the woman received her phone number, but God’s direction was clear.

Jana approached her local TAFE about starting a group and received a warm welcome. She spent two weeks handing out flyers to students, on the street and at the early childhood centre.

And so Supporting Migrants in Learning English (SMILE) began, first in a room at Jana’s church then at the Salvation Army hall close to a number of Afghani refugees.

SMILE meets weekly to practise English conversation. They cook together, share their lives and discuss a range of topics, like parenting skills. It is an environment designed to be comfortable and friendly.

“We get to know them and through that we build friendship and hang out together outside of that group time as well,” Jana says.

“It is a joyful place to come and belong. It’s become like a family for lots of these people because they’ve left everything behind.”

Recently, a men’s group began too. Like the women’s group, it is mainly attended by Muslims. Jana and her husband, also a leader with SMILE, are supported by mission organisation Pioneers Australia. There is a lot of trust between the SMILE leaders and the group, and this makes it easy to talk about matters of faith.

“We’re able to share the way we might do things as Christians,” Jana explains. “The important thing is that we’ve built relationships. We’re very open about the fact that we’re Christians but we make it clear that we love them as people and we’re not just there to convert them,” Jana says.

If Muslims in the group come to faith, they will be discipled and helped to start their own Christian group within their own context. “In no way could they get hold of a Bible in their homeland… If we think about the sovereignty of God, he’s bringing these people to our doorstep.”

* Name changed to protect identity

Image: Chris Marchant via Flickr