The Zaraban Breakthrough Ken Harkin and Ted Moore
Ken Harkin and Ted Moore worked together as part of a multiagency team dedicated to seeing a following for Christ established among the Zaraban people. Ted passed away while serving the Zaraban people. Ken and others continue in the work.
The following account of a breakthrough in a Muslim country is told in the words of a fellow missionary, Ted Moore. I (Ken) served in collaboration with Ted and his team of mission workers that has prayed and labored in the Zaraban region since 1991. The events recounted here took place in 1998. The names of the people and the ethnic group have been changed.
One of the first believers from the Zaraban, a man named Abdul, began to follow Christ in the late 1980s. It’s worth noting that most of the Zaraban people group dwell in a remote area that has been very supportive of fundamentalist expressions of Islam. Young men from this area have been recruited and trained to fight in jihad, or Islamic holy war, in nearby countries. One of the key figures in this story is Rashad, one of Abdul’s brothers. At the time of this story, Rashad had recently returned from training as a jihadist warrior in a neighboring land.
Within two years after these events, Ted contracted a disease that was difficult to treat in the region in which he was working. Ted died within a few days. He was in his forties. What follows is an edited version of one of his final news-letters to his supporting friends and family. This letter represents not only the observations of Ted and myself but also some details as told to us by the family in the days and weeks that followed.
When Abdul first came to stay in our home, his father asked me to take a guiding role in his son’s life. I agreed and told him that would include teaching Abdul about faith in Jesus the Messiah, to which the father agreed. Since that time, our vision and prayer had been that the whole family would join Abdul in following the Savior. Likewise, Ken, my coworker who continued discipling Abdul in a period of some months during which Sarah and I were out of the country, had the same desire and vision for the family. Once during a wedding, family members told Ken that they were hopeful that through “ghusl” (baptism) in the name of Jesus they would be freed from the fear of “jinns” (demons).
Over the years we had befriended Abdul’s family, Ken and I had journeyed several times from the city where we live to his family home in a remote rural area. It was especially important to be with his family during the holiday of Eid when an animal is sacrificed to remember Abraham’s willingness to offer his son. What follows is the story of our most recent visit. We had to overcome difficult scheduling conflicts but were finally able to arrive on a Sunday morning—the day before the big holiday. We arrived just in time to discover and participate in what God had already been doing in our absence.
As we prepared for this journey, we had been pondering a letter from Abdul’s brother, Rashad, that I had received two weeks earlier. Rashad had always wanted to become a Muslim religious leader. His letter was full of positive statements about how we prayed, how often we prayed, and God’s answers to our prayers. He mentioned the changes in Abdul’s life and character. At that time he was reading our Muslim-friendly “Biography of Jesus.” He asked some specific questions about the wording of a particular passage of Scripture and ended his letter with the following: “I want to become one of you. Please guide me.” We were unsure what he really meant, remembering some of the heated debates we had with him in past encounters.
Before leaving, Ken and Abdul spent time in prayer. In the middle of prayer, they both felt very inspired to pray for God to move in a special way on the trip. Ken specifically felt led to pray for a miracle that would bring the entire family of sixteen people to faith in Jesus.
Our little car performed its heroics once again, getting us there late Saturday night. Private travel without a sturdy four-wheel-drive vehicle is usually not recommended in the interior of this region. We surprised everyone in Abdul’s family when we arrived at about 6:45 a.m. After breakfast, Rashad was eager to sit us down and talk about the letter he had sent.
He began by telling us about a dream he had just that previous night, while we were still in route. In his dream he saw a man dressed in white with his arms outstretched. The man told him that he had a special gift for him and was sending messengers who would guide him to it. And now here we were before him! Rashad shared many things with us, including the fact that he now believed jihad was wrong and that a way of love was the path of truth and power.
He spoke about things Jesus said in the Scriptures regarding false worship that had impressed him—how our worship is worthless if in the midst of it we remember a brother wronged and don’t leave our worship to be reconciled. He reiterated that he wanted to become one of us, following the path of Christ, and requested that we guide him.
Ken asked, “What do you feel is the next step to follow Jesus?”
Rashad replied that the rest of the family should hear that he was ready to follow Jesus so that they could follow Him too.
Ken and I looked at each other with stares of disbelief and recovered enough to say, “Uh, right. That’s a good idea. You do that and we’ll sit in the other room and pray.” The family—women, children, everybody—quickly gathered and we prayed in another room.
Soon, Rashad returned with the verdict: “Yes, we will all follow the way of Jesus the Messiah!”
After that, Rashad escorted me into town so I could use a phone to call my wife, Sarah. He told me about how he had been gathering some of his friends in the past few weeks explaining to them about the way of the Messiah—especially about real prayer that wasn’t just for show. Many were very interested. More shock.
As we arrived at the long-distance telephone facility in the village, Rashad pointed out the Pepsi sign across the street. Then he said, “You know this name, Pepsi, is more famous around the world than the name of Jesus. We must overcome our weaknesses and compete with them so that His name becomes more famous than Pepsi.” In the meantime, the family who owned the establishment brought us some cold RC cola drinks. Rashad said, “RC is okay, but no more Pepsi for me!”
While we were in the village, Ken took the opportunity to give a brief overview of the Gospel of Mark to the rest of the family (some had never heard much of the story of Jesus’s life before). He explained that “ghusl” (baptism) is one of the first steps of obedience to enter into the way of Jesus the Messiah. He asked each one individually if they understood and were willing to follow this path. Father, mother, sisters, and brothers—all of them said, “Yes.”
We arrived back just as Ken had finished giving his quick tour of the Gospel of Mark. Ken and I continued to wear stunned facial expressions. We were beginning to feel the weight of what was about to happen next. An entire people group was about to be significantly penetrated with the gospel for the first time in its long history. What we did in these critical moments would likely be repeated for years among the Zaraban. What we encouraged them to do could either adorn the gospel message or create stumbling blocks for many others who would seek to follow Christ in the future.
We prayed again. Their obedience needed to be simple and direct. It needed to be culturally and linguistically relevant. It needed to be reproducible locally. It needed to be private but communal—within the home, but not as individuals acting alone. It needed to be an act of worship and praise filled with dependence upon the Spirit’s power. So we began to map out our strategy for the next day’s baptism ceremony for the whole family that would happen prior to the Eid festivities.
Abdul had missed out on all of what had just transpired in his family because he had been out of town on an errand. Ken and I agreed not to say anything ourselves until his brother had a chance to tell him the good news. When Rashad told Abdul how the family had all decided to follow Jesus, Abdul was stunned. After his brother left the room, Abdul embraced us and praised God through many tears.
But there were still some issues. Another brother and his wife had not been present during all this. Ken and I began to worry that he might prevent all we were hoping for. So, we urgently told Abdul to go talk with his sister-in-law about all this since the brother was still at work. Abdul gathered his thoughts and went into the kitchen (a mud-walled room with a fire pit in the middle) to talk with her. He began with small talk, played with the baby, and nervously got around to the subject. She answered casually, “Oh yes, your mother and sister have already explained everything to me. I’m part of your family and am ready to do this.” When Abdul returned, his amazed look assured us things had gone well, even before he told us what had happened.
One last person needed to be told—the missing brother. Before we could meet him, we had to first visit Abdul’s uncles. This took a couple of hours. When we arrived at the brother’s shop, Rashad was already there! I suppose we should have guessed. He had already explained everything to him, and he was agreeable but wanted to ask one question in the morning after his evening shift and before the ceremony.
The next morning, we awoke early to prepare the water containers for the baptism. Abdul’s other brother asked his question: “Does this mean we are becoming Christians?”
Abdul knew what he meant. He answered, “No, we will not be alcohol drinkers, pork-eaters, or try to join with a different ethnic group. We will follow the teachings and life of Jesus the Messiah.”
“Oh, good,” he replied.
So we all gathered together for the baptism. Ken and I spoke in the national language, and Abdul translated everything into his local dialect. I told them about the sacrifice of the Messiah and how He offered us forgiveness. Ken told them about the resurrection and newness of life, eternal life. Then Ken asked three questions:
1. Are you ready to follow the path of Jesus the Messiah?
2. Are you willing to obey by faith His command to receive “ghusl” (baptism) and repent?
3. Will you call others to follow this path?
Abdul and Rashad’s father, normally a reserved man, was leading out with the answers: “Yes, Praise the Lord! We will follow this new path! We will receive ‘ghusl.’ We will call others to join us!” All the others joined in heartily.
One of the brothers danced and sang out, “I have a new life . . . I have a new life!”
I explained how baptism symbolizes the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our lives and that it is a step of obedience, an act of worship. We had decided that Ken and I would first rebaptize Abdul so the whole family could see. Then the three of us together baptized all the rest, using proper Arabic terminology as is appropriate in most Muslim cultures in religious matters, even if they don’t speak Arabic.
Ken then told them to change their clothes, and as they did, to picture themselves taking off the old life and putting on the new. This imagery was repeated again and again by several family members over the next two days.
Some more questions came. Abdul’s father asked, “Should we go to the Eid prayers like always or should we stop going?” Abdul answered that now these prayers could be done for the right reason, not as a show to others, not as a means of absolution from sin or duty, but out of love and praise for the God who saves and as an opportunity to pray for our community. We all went to prayer together. Then came the time for the ritual sacrifice of a lamb.
Again, Ken and I, with Abdul translating, explained how we could not have planned a more perfect occasion for entering into the path of Jesus the Messiah than this day of sacrifice. It was such an amazing time.
Later that day, the family called another meeting where they decided which ones among them should receive more training to teach them about their new life. Since Abdul lives and works far away, they picked Rashad to serve them all in this way. He was delighted because he had always wanted to be a spiritual leader. We laid hands on him and prayed God’s blessing on him for this work.
They also decided that Rashad and his sister should come and stay at our house for a week at a time every few months so that the sister would be equipped to teach the ladies as well. That was a very good idea—again, we were totally stunned.
Many other things happened in the course of that day. Some began to share about the peace they had, others spoke, reflecting on their new life. One of the brothers danced and sang out, “I have a new life . . . I have a new life!”
We can’t be sure how many hundreds of prayers were answered in the space of those two days. We had never seen such dramatic changes of hearts in so many Muslims all coming to Christ together at a single time. And so we remain amazed to this day.
The events of this story touched upon many complex issues of leadership and contextualization in a very short span of time. Two things need to be made clear. First, the events in this story were the culmination of more than ten years of hard and faithful work by members of several organizations. Second, these events have been followed by many more years of careful work to: develop leaders, dig deeply into Scripture, and address difficult discipleship and contextualization issues, all the while facing multiple crises. There have been both wonderful breakthroughs and painful setbacks.
But the events in this dramatic story should give us great cause for encouragement. Ted closed his letter by rejoicing in the reality that “the Resurrected One” is present among us and “able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think!” (Eph 3:20).