NETWORK LIFE

Friends for Dinner: Sharing a Meal with Muslim International Students

Hi there. I am a Canadian woman who is blessed to work for an organization that serves international students in Canada: specifically college and university-age students and those who have graduated, who are from many countries around the world.

Over the years, I’ve been blessed to get to know Muslims students from various countries and to maintain friendships with many of them. Off and on, we’ve had meaningful and even spiritual conversations, and many of them seem quite open to talking about God and some have even asked questions about what Christians believe.

Our organization often participates in coordinating a program called “Friends for Dinner”**.  Christian families sign up to host 2 - 6 or so interested international students for holiday dinners, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.  I have always enjoyed participating in this program, and decided to host some students for Easter.  I am blessed to have a husband who loves to cook for guests, so all I have to do is the inviting and other preparations.

A Muslim international student friend of mine signed up and was matched with us: Amna* (not her real name). I remembered that she was fasting for Ramadan–not eating or drinking from sun-up to sun-down, and I realized that may be hard on her, having to sit through an Easter lunch and not get to eat it until around 8pm that evening at home.

So I decided to have a meal on Good Friday evening for her and another international student, Sarika* who is from Hindu background but recently married a Muslim man. Sarika had expressed interest to me in signing up for Friends for Dinner, too, but it was past the deadline, so I was happy to invite this friend to my house as well.

Then I thought, why not invite other Muslim international student friends of mine, since I was thinking I would explain Easter in a way that Muslims would understand, and then many would have the opportunity to hear for my efforts. So I asked a lot of Christians I know to pray that international students would be eager to come and that I would have wisdom and courage in presenting what Easter means.  Then I invited students that had shown some openness before to learning new things and having spiritual conversations.

In the invitation to all the specific students, I told them that we would have an Easter egg hunt, after which I would explain what Easter means for Christians, we’d read a Bible story, and then we would have our meal (with halal meat, of course) at 8pm. I wanted to make sure they knew what they were signing up for, so that I felt I had permission to explain Easter and read the Bible with them. I was so excited that all of them expressed keenness to come.

I again asked a lot of Christians to pray, since one of the young ladies I had invited before had been unable to come twice because of health issues. But this time, everyone that said they would come did, including that lady!  So there were two couples and 3 single young ladies, and I knew this was an answer to many prayers.

We first had a fun time doing the Easter egg hunt. One man,  Adnan*  kindly asked what the significance of the egg hunt was, and I explained that it was not so much a specifically Christian activity, but the egg can mean “new life”. Then we all met in the living room to see who “won” the egg hunt competition. 

Next, I used a white board I had prepared ahead of time with a timeline written on it–from the creation of the world to the second coming of Jesus Christ.  I had learned through certain resources*** that Muslims believe a lot of things that Christians believe, such as that God created the world, that Adam and Eve then fell into sin, that there were prophets such as Abraham, Moses and David and that Jesus is the Messiah.  

Amazingly, they also believe that Jesus was taken up to heaven and that he will come back one day to judge everyone and to bring the kingdom of God. Many of them have never read these stories in the Bible, but they know the concepts as explained briefly in the Koran. The thing that they have been taught is NOT true, is that Jesus died on the cross. Muslims have usually been taught to believe that the authorities wanted to kill Jesus, but then God replaced him with someone else on the cross, because he would never let his prophet be killed like that. They also, of course, have been taught that Jesus is not God, but instead a sinless prophet.

So, I introduced the timeline by saying that I knew that Muslims and Christians believe many of the same things, as shown on the timeline. But I said that the Easter story itself is something we have different beliefs on, and I wanted to just explain what Christians believed about that so they could better understand.  I said they could correct me if I explained something about mutual beliefs that was incorrect and that they could ask questions.

I went through the timeline, explaining that after Adam and Eve sinned, God already made a promise that he would send a Messiah–a Rescuer–who would save people from sin, destruction and death.  I briefly explained about the sacrificial lamb–which Muslims also understand and practice on a certain holiday–for the forgiveness of sins. And how the prophets talked about the Messiah that was coming, but how many Jewish people were confused, thinking that the Messiah would simply rescue them from human oppression. And then, pointing at a picture of a cross and empty tomb, I told them how we believe Jesus died to take our punishment on Himself and that after 3 days, he came alive again. 

It was really neat, because all of the international students were listening so intently and respectfully during the whole presentation and I thought I even heard a bit of a gasp from a few when I mentioned Jesus coming alive again. Muslims believe that Jesus raised others from the dead, and so I explained that just like he raised some others from the dead, he too was raised from the dead. 

And then I explained that Christians believe we have a choice to receive his sacrifice for ourselves and receive forgiveness of sin and shame, and then we are given new life from God. I also said that if they see people outside saying they are Christians but they live knowingly sinful lives, it’s unlikely. (I wanted them to understand that Christians are called to live pure, loving lives, because some Muslims think that Hollywood movies represent what Christians are–people who receive forgiveness, but just keep on sinning with no care about it). 

After the presentation, the students clapped respectfully. Then two of them–actually the two husbands who were in attendance–had some respectful and good questions.  One of them said that he had been reading the Bible (I believe the gospels) when he was on bedrest earlier this year.  I didn’t know this and was pleasantly surprised. He asked, “Wouldn’t it be better for Jesus to live a good life that we could imitate, rather than dying?”  I tried to explain again that Christians believe that God must punish sin, but then he decided to take the punishment Himself for us so that we that we can choose to receive His sacrifice for us and forgiveness.

They had listened quite awhile and I decided to ask them if they preferred to play some games now or if they wanted to read a story that the Bible says happened after Jesus’ resurrection and before the ascension. I was thrilled that the other man immediately said, “I would like to read a story about that” and no one said otherwise, so I passed out copies I had printed out with the story about “The Road to Emmaus”. The neat thing about this story is that it says that Jesus opened their eyes to what the prophets had said about Him–that he needed to suffer before coming into glory–exactly what I was hoping would happen to these precious Muslim people.  One of the young ladies volunteered to read it outloud and then the men again had a few questions while everyone listened intently to the answers.

We then had dinner. Although I had to bring my kids to bed and did not talk further about it, when I thanked some of them on Whatsapp later for coming, one of them said, “Thank you for sharing the amazing stories.” 

So I would love to ask for your continued prayers that I can get together with each of the people/couples that came to the Easter dinner and that God is placing questions on their minds and helping them seek Him and His Word for answers. Please pray that God will be giving them dreams of Him and that they all want to study the Bible further. I am very interested in doing Discovery Bible Study with each of them, which is a wonderful way for them to discover the story of God for themselves and share it with others.

Thank you for your prayers!

*All names of international students and their spouses in this story are not their real names, for their privacy and protection

Here are a few principles that I’ve been learning in my training about reaching Muslims and others:

1. Ask for lots of prayer from Christians before getting together with unbelievers--prayer that God will help seekers want to befriend you. 

2. Build genuine friendships over time and seek to get to know them and bless them.

3. Ask God to deepen your conversations over time. Pray that God will reveal if they are seekers and that they will be interested in hearing what You believe and reading Bible stories together.

Would you like to befriend an international student? Here are some possible ways:

1. International students need your prayers. Develop the habit of praying for them by signing up here for “Uplift: Texted requests to pray for international students”. You’ll receive a weekly text with the prayer request of the week. There are also often included ideas on ways to meet and serve international students, if you feel led. (You can unsubscribe any time.) 
2. **Learn more about the Friends for Dinner program here. If the program is already going in your city, perhaps you or your church would like to participate. If the program is not already in your city, maybe your church would be interested in coordinating it.
3. ***Here is a course I enjoyed called “Inviting Muslims to Follow Jesus”. It  has helped me better understand how to build trust and genuine friendship with Muslims and how to use our similar beliefs to help them be more open to hearing more of what we believe. You can take the course yourself, or even better, buy the rights to facilitate it with a group of Christians: https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/invitemuslims