One night, Fatima had a dream. She was walking on the highway when suddenly a man appeared before her. She couldn’t see his face because it shone like the sun, but he was dressed in white and had a long beard. The man gently picked her up and set her down in the grass. Then she immediately woke up. She didn’t think much of the dream and continued on with her life.

Three years later, Fatima had the same dream with the same man in white. When she woke up from the dream, she felt unsettled and couldn’t go back to sleep. Who was this man and why did he come back in her dreams? She knew something seemed different about this man but could not identify what it was.

After pondering the dream for a few days, she couldn’t bear it anymore. While praying during the evening prayer time, she looked upward and said, “God, I don’t know who You are but I believe in You.” Immediately, she felt a heavy burden lift from her heart. When she told her friend Rida about the dream, Rida explained to her that she had dreamed about a man in white too who had told her His name was Isa al Masih (the Arabic name for Jesus).

Fatima went home and told her husband about the dream and her conversation with Rida, and they began attending a local church together. Fatima studied the Bible daily, hungry to know more about Isa and the God of the Bible. Since then, Fatima acknowledges that she has felt a peace like never before. Her family does not speak to her, but she has found a new family in her Christian brothers and sisters.

Jesus is revealing Himself to Muslims in dreams all over the world. Please pray that many more people come to know Jesus through this and the church around the world continues to grow.

The post Muslim Woman Meets Jesus in a Dream first appeared on Pray For Indonesia.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are answering the prayer of Luke 10:2 in Indonesia. Thank you for raising up Indonesian workers to be sent out into the harvest field.

“He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Thank you for the many ministries that are focused on the unreached and training Indonesians to be church planters and evangelists. Thank you for their boldness, willingness, and faithfulness to proclaim the Good News to their people.

Lord, we pray for more Indonesians to be sent out so that every UPG in Indonesia has a gospel witness. We pray for every man, woman, and child in Indonesia to hear the gospel in our lifetime!

Thankful for Opening the Eyes of Muslims

Father, you are moving among Muslims in Indonesia. Thank you for opening their eyes to the bondage of Islam. Thank you that many hear the gospel, read stories from the Bible and surrender their lives to you.

You are our faithful God who answers our prayers! Thank you for using dreams to lead many Muslims to you. Continue to reveal yourself to Indonesians through dreams, visions, and miracles.

We ask that you would bring millions of Muslims in Indonesia from darkness to light. Would they believe Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life and find abundant, everlasting life through Him.

Thankful for the Bible being Translated into Local Languages

Lord, thank you for the many Bible translation projects going on in Indonesia. There are more than 700 ethnic languages in Indonesia and only 10% have portions of the Bible translated. We thank you that the New Testament was recently translated into the Osing and Tengger languages in East Java.

Please raise up Indonesian believers to start translating the Bible to their heart language. Send Bible translation teams to unreached people groups to learn the language and culture well in order to translate the Bible.

We thank you for ministries like Wycliffe Bible Translators who have a new goal to see a Bible translation project started in every language needing one by 2025! They are starting 30 projects in Indonesia soon. Thank you for YouVersion and illumiNations who are translating the New Testament in every language by 2033. Bless these ministries and provide all the funds so that these translation projects can be completed and put into the hands of the local people.

Thank you that we can confidently approach Your throne and pray alongside your heart. We pray all of this in the powerful name of Jesus, Amen.

The post 3 Prayers of Thankfulness for What God is Doing in Indonesia first appeared on Pray For Indonesia.

In Islam, people don’t believe that God can communicate with them personally because the Holy Spirit isn’t living in them. They ask God for guidance through dreams. That is how Muslims expect to hear from God.

In the Hadith, Mohammed said “The dreams of the faithful are prophetic.” There’s another hadith which says “dreams are 1/46th of revelation.” Islam teaches that the human soul is not limited to this world, but also connected to the hereafter. Dreaming is a form of the soul connecting with other souls or events in a different dimension. This is why dreams and visions are significant to Muslims.

Many Muslim background believers (MBB) share that Jesus appeared to them in a dream before they were believers. In many cases, a Muslim has a dream of Jesus around the time they were evangelized. Dreams and visions of Jesus are a crucial part of many MBBs testimonies.

Common Types of Dreams a Muslim has about Jesus:

• Jesus speaking Scripture to them, even Scripture they had never heard before.
• Jesus telling them to do something. (i.e to go to a Christian friend’s house to hear the Gospel again.)
• A dream or vision of giving them a feeling of peace and calmness.
• A dream of a man in white saying “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

God is moving among Muslims and has revealed Himself to many through dreams. Pray and ask God to send laborers to the harvest (Matt 9:38) to share the gospel with Muslims who have never heard. Pray that more Muslims have dreams and visions of Jesus.

Story of a Muslim Believing in Jesus after He appeared in her dream

 “I am the Way the Truth and the Life”

Hami works as a house helper. One day her employer, Elisa, who is a believer, shared the Good News with her.

Hami was doubtful at first. But a few days after she heard the gospel, Hami had a dream that her employer was calling her name and inviting her to step into the light. In her dream, she saw a light so bright that it woke her up. It felt so real she thought someone had shone a light into her face.

A couple days later, she had another dream. In this dream, she was in a 3-story house with her friends and family. Suddenly, the devil knocked on the door of the house. Hami told her friends and family to run upstairs, lock the doors, and not open the front door. But her friends opened it and were taken out of the house.

Then, the devil came into the house and Hami took the rest of her friends and family to the 2nd floor. She told them to lock the door and not be tempted by the devil. But some family members and friends opened the door and were taken by the devil.

Hami then ran up with the remaining friends and family members to the 3rd and final floor. She begged her parents and her friends to not open the door but instead step into the light – JESUS. She heard a voice in her native language saying “I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life.” Then she woke up.

Discovering Truth

The next morning, Hami asked Elisa where in the Holy Book can she find the saying “I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life.” Elisa showed her John 14:6 in the Bible and Hami asked for a Bible to read. But she told Elisa not to tell her family or other employees that she was reading the Bible.

Elisa and her daughter started to disciple Hami by reading scripture and praying with her. They asked Hami if she wanted to leave Islam and follow Christ and she said yes! One month later after several discipleship lessons together, Elisa and her daughter baptized Hami.

Hami has since returned to her village to get married and take care of her dad. Pray she continues to grow in her love for Jesus and share her testimony with many in her village!

The post Why Dreams & Visions are Important to Muslims first appeared on Pray For Indonesia.

More Prayer for Muslims

As shocking as it sounds, God answers prayer! In the past, prayer for Muslims was unheard of. However, 23 years ago a small band of Christians began praying for Muslims during Ramadan (30 Days of Prayer).  As a result, 87% of Muslim movements in the world have occurred in the past 23 years. God answers prayer!

Now there are hundreds of thousands of faithful Christian intercessors for Muslims. This Ramadan there are almost 100 prayer movements for Muslims happening all over the world. Christians are seeing what God is doing among Muslims and are praying more for the them. Islam has blinded Muslims their whole lives, but now God is leading His lost sheep to Himself. He is using the prayers and evangelism of faithful saints.

Increased Evangelism

As more Christians have been praying for Muslims, they are also sharing the gospel with them after years of fighting with or ignoring them. Muslims are now hearing the gospel from a true believer who loves them. (Not someone who claims to follow Christ and forces them to convert to Christianity.) God is opening their hearts and they begin to live for Christ and trust in Him for the forgiveness of sins.

There are now thousands of organizations sending missionaries to every country. Frontiers and Pioneers are two of the largest ones who focus on reaching Muslims. Local believers are being trained to become church planters among their people. The glory of Jesus is spreading at an incredible rate. People are learning how to share with Muslims and flights are more accessible.

Exponential Increase in Bible Translations

There are now many tools available to help people translate the Bible. Wycliffe Bible Translators completed their first translation in 1951 and their 500th in 2000. Now they have a new goal to see a Bible translation project started in every language needing one by 2025! There are still 1,800 languages that do not have their own Bible.

YouVersion and illumiNations are translating the New Testament in every language by 2033. We have seen the fruit of these faithful brothers and sisters who have spent their lives translating the Bible. More and more people groups have the Bible in their heart language now. That has helped to spread the Word to many Muslims who didn’t have the opportunity to read the Bible before. Let’s pray with these ministries that every language would have a Bible in the next decade!

Technology

Another huge influence for Muslims turning to Jesus is technology. More and more ministries are now using technology and media to spread the gospel. There are radio and television programs sharing the gospel or Jesus Film. In recent years ministries are using social media in unique ways.

Media is a strategic way to spread the Word to many people at once. Ministries such as Media to Movements are using social media to spread the gospel to the least reached areas of the world. They use ads on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc. to share about Christ to hundreds of thousands in a single week. Most people in the world now have smart phones and are able to access information they didn’t have before. Even if someone wanted to know more about Jesus, they could search online and find a plethora of answers.

Intertwining of Muslim and Christian Populations

It is more common now to have populations that consist of Muslims and Christians. In large cities, there are places of worship, neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces that are not 100% Muslim anymore. Many Muslims can say they have friends, neighbors, family or co-workers that are followers of Jesus. They are exposed to Christianity and are able to hear the gospel from someone close to them.

But, there are still 7,414 unreached people groups (~3 billion people) who have very few to no Christians among them. These are people groups that are hard to get to or more resistant to the gospel. Many remote villages, islands, and mountain areas are among the unreached in Indonesia.

The Qur’an

For centuries the Qur’an was only available in Arabic. The Qur’an was revealed in Arabic and says meaning would be lost and the verses wouldn’t be explained in detail if translated to another language. And if We had made it a non-Arabic Qur’an, they would have said, “Why are its verses not explained in detail [in our language]? Is it a foreign [recitation] and an Arab [messenger]?”  (Quran 41:44) Many Muslims were taught how to read and recite the Qur’an in Arabic, but they could not understand it. They only learned about it from the Iman (Mosque leader).

In 1982, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia began the project to translate the Qur’an to all the languages of the world. Now the Qur’an is in many Muslim languages and for the first time Muslims are able to understand it. After reading the Qur’an themselves, they realized they were lost and demystified their holy book. Muslims began to search for the truth and ended up finding Jesus.

Trauma from Islamic Violence

David Garrison (author of A Wind in the House of Islam) interviewed MBBs all over the world. He found that the violence that plagued Islam’s religious history traumatized Muslims. Many left Islam after 9/11 (2001), the Iranian Revolution (1979), the Algerian Civil War (1990s), or the Bangladeshi War of Liberation (1971). They saw the true face of Islam by the extremists who were doing what the Qur’an said to do.

Dreams

For some reason, God chooses to reveal himself to thousands of Muslims through dreams. There are countless of testimonies of people who dreamed of a man in white who they knew for sure was Jesus. Some dream that a person would come to them and give them the Holy Book. The next day a Christian gives them the Bible.

A Persian migrant who arrived at a refugee center at 6 a.m., told his story to a Persian pastor. During the night he saw someone dressed in white raise his hand and say, “Stand up and follow me.” The Persian man said, “Who are you?” The man in white replied, “I am the Alpha and the Omega. I’m the way to heaven. No one can go to the Father, except through me.”

He began to ask the Persian pastor: “Who is he? What am I going to do? Why did he ask me to follow him? How must I go? Tell me.”

In response, the pastor held out his Bible and asked, “Have you seen this before?”

“No,” he replied.

“Do you know what it is?”

“No.”

The pastor then opened to the Book of Revelation: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.” The man started crying and said, “How can I accept him? How can I follow him?” So the pastor led him in prayer and peace came over him. The pastor then gave the man a Bible and told him to hide it, since the Muslims in the camps could cause him trouble.

Communicating the Gospel in Non-Literate Means

At the end of 20th century, the West started disengaging their colonial empires. Missionaries then began turning their eyes to the Muslim world. They realized many Muslims were illiterate in their own language. This began the movement to communicate the gospel in non-literate means through the Jesus Film, storytelling, and audio Bibles. Laura and her team are one example of how missionaries communicate the gospel in non-literate means. They share through storytelling among Arab Nomads.

How can we respond?

As you can see there are many factors for why there are millions of Muslims turning to Jesus. God is doing an amazing work among Muslims and He is using us to be apart of it!

If you want to get involved in this movement, you can start today by praying for Muslims. Choose a Muslim country to pray for. Adopt an unreached people group. Pray fervently for Muslims to know Christ. Join the movement to pray for Muslims during Ramadan. Choose a 15 minute time slot to pray each day of Ramadan. Many Muslims are more spiritually open during this time so it is a crucial time to be praying for them!

Be intentional in the city you live in to reach out to refugees, Muslim communities and international students. Show the love of Christ to Muslims around you by inviting them to your home and developing a friendship with them.

If you would like to go on a short-term trip or become a missionary in a Muslim country, there are many organizations who have teams all over the world. There is still so much work to do. Only 10% of missionaries are actually working among an unreached people group. 3 billion people still have never heard about the love and grace of Jesus. Pray today and ask God how you can take part in the Great Commission – to make disciples of all nations, and see more Muslims turning to Jesus!

The post Why are Millions of Muslims Turning to Jesus? first appeared on Pray For Indonesia.

Jesus answered, “I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

Hami works as a house helper. One day her employer, Elisa, who is a believer, shared the Good News with her. Hami was doubtful at first, but a few days after she heard the gospel, Hami had a dream that her employer was calling her name and inviting her to step into the light.

In her dream, she saw a light so bright that it woke her up. It felt so real she thought someone had shone a light into her face. 

A couple days later, she had another dream. In this dream, she was in a 3-story house with her friends and family. Suddenly, the devil knocked on the door of the house. Hami told her friends and family to run upstairs, lock the doors, and not open the front door. But her friends opened it and were taken out of the house. 

Then, the devil came into the house and Hami took the rest of her friends and family to the 2nd floor. She told them to lock the door and not be tempted by the devil. But some family members and friends opened the door and were taken by the devil. Hami then ran up with the remaining friends and family members to the 3rd and final floor.

She begged her parents and her friends to not open the door but instead step into the light – JESUS. She heard a voice in her native language saying “I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life.” Then she woke up.

The next morning, Hami asked Elisa where in the Holy Book can she find the saying “I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life.” Elisa showed her John 14:6 in the Bible and Hami asked for a Bible to read. But she told Elisa not to tell her family or other employees that she was reading the Bible. 

Elisa and her daughter started to disciple Hami by reading scripture and praying with her. They asked Hami if she wanted to leave Islam and follow Christ and she said yes! One month later after several discipleship lessons together, Elisa and her daughter baptized Hami. Hami has since returned to her village to get married and take care of her dad.

Pray she continues to grow in her love for Jesus and share her testimony with many in her village!

The post A Dream Come True: I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life first appeared on Pray For Indonesia.