Healing in a Mosque

A little long, but totally worth it! This blew me away as I was reading it in a book on prayer walking. I think it gives me encouragement to pray for things in obedience, not even sure what I'm doing. It encourages me that God will always do what needs to be done. Also, I'm struck by the opportunity Bethea had because he cultivated good relationships with the religious leaders. So many lessons to be learned here. Why don't we do this more often?

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A man named Ralph Bethea was a Southern Baptist missionary to Mombassa, Kenya. He felt called to the Muslims in that city. He tried every evangelistic technique that he learned in seminary to win Muslims in Mombassa - but he didn't win anybody. So he said he'd better start trying some things that he'd never tried before. He started brainstorming in his own mind and among his friends, and he decided that he had to attract attention somehow. So he got on a bridge over a river and advertised that if any Muslim would allow him to tell them about Jesus Christ, he would jump off the bridge. After jumping off the bridge a few times and still seeing no Muslims come to Christ, he began looking to the Lord. God said to him, "I want you and your team to pray for three months."

They organized a team, and they had enough people so that they went into prayer twenty-four hours a day for three months. They obeyed the Lord. Part of their prayer was to go out into the community and bless people. They went down the streets of Mombassa - not to evangelize or pass out tracts or jump off bridges - but to bless the Muslims in the name of Jesus. They got the reputation of being people who had a heart for the Muslims and who blessed them in the name of Jesus. One day Ralph got a telephone call from the main leader of a mosque. He was about eighty years old, and he said, "I'd like to know if you'd come to our mosque and bless our people in the name of Jesus."

This Muslim leader had asked us to come and pray for his people in the mosque because he had heard there was such power in the name of Jesus. I told him, "Sir, do you know that I'm a Baptist missionary?" He said, "I don't care what's wrong with you. I just want to know if you will come in the mosque. I don't want you testifying or preaching or spreading any of that heresy in my mosque. I just want you to come in to pray in the name of Jesus for the blessing of Jesus upon our people. We have heard there is such power in His name." I was amazed that the Holy Spirit would open up such an invitation.

We went and began to pray for various people gathered there for various things. The men were all sitting in their place. The women and children were all up in the balcony with their black robes. There was such an expectation there - you could sense it. My inner prayer was, "Lord, this would be a great time for you to do some miracle to show them that you are alive."

I'll never forget when a man in the back stood up, a very distinguished-looking man, in his long white robe. He left the main area and returned through the door with a black bundle in his arms. The bundle was a little girl. He brought her down to the front of the mosque, and in doing so was breaking the very strict rules of conduct in a mosque. Females aren't permitted there. But in respect for him, nobody stopped him. He told me, "This is my eight-year-old girl. Will you pray for her?"

She was a gorgeous little girl, with big brown eyes. He pulled back the covers from her legs. They were just withered limbs. "My little eight-year-old girl has never walked. We have heard there is such power in the name of Jesus."

I felt the leadership of the Holy Spirit to pray for her healing. I said, "I'll pray for her healing, but it has nothing to do with power that I have or any power, just the Lord Jesus himself. He loves you and He wants you to know His love. Whether he will heal your daughter's legs today or not, I don't know. That's up to His healing power. But I will pray for that because I know He wants His love to be shown to you and that He is the God of miracles and He is alive."
He said, "I have heard about you Christians believing that he rose from the dead; we don't believe that and teach that to our children. But will you pray for her?"

And I did. There was such an incredible air of expectation there in the mosque. People stood to their feet as we prayed, and, boy, my heart was just going. "Lord, if there was ever a time for even a small miracle, now would be the time." I remember being so disappointed when nothing happened. I remember even taking the little girl's legs and trying to pull them out, to move them some. The little girl hollered and screamed, and both the man and I were embarrassed. He was very disappointed. He thanked me in polite Muslim fashion, and he turned and started walking off.

The little girl was looking back over her daddy's arms. It just broke my heart. I remember my heart being burdened and yearning for her. If somehow she could have that chance to clearly hear the gospel. "Lord, surely you can break through in this situation."

The man turned and came back up, and he said simply, "I would like you to pray that the blessing of Jesus would be on me and my family." I was amazed because what had just happened seemed to confirm what they had said for years - that there is no real power in Jesus' name. But here he was turning around saying "We want to know Him and His blessing on us." We prayed for the blessing of Jesus on his family. He again thanked me and turned and walked down the aisle.

I watched them, weeping for them there at the front. As he walked back, all of a sudden this little girl shoved her daddy back. And she shoved him again. People started looking around, and she kept pushing him back. The long black robes hung down over the carpet, and she kept pushing him back and pushing him back until he had to lower her down. All of a sudden his eyes got as big as saucers. He felt the weight of that little girl taken off his arms. It was incredible to see as they reached this little girl was standing there on her own power, [though she] never stood before in her life. They all knew her. Somebody stood up and said, "Jesus is God! Praise be the name of Jesus! Jesus is alive!"

The man lost control. God brought a movement, people falling on their knees and calling out to the Lord. The love and power of God reverberated all across that Shiite Muslim mosque. Some of the Muslim leaders got real agitated and ushered me out. "Thank you for coming but please leave." This old Muslim who walked me out to the car was awed by the glory and power of God. He said, "I've never seen the power of God like that before." I started telling him, "Neither have I."

(Ralph Bethea, from rural Oklahoma, now works with several interdenominational mission groups. At the time of this story he served with the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board.)