Every so often, maybe only a handful of times per year...
...a man from a different faith will come into the main area of the chapel while our weekly prayer meeting was going on. It would be a spur of the moment thing on his part, usually whenever something is troubling him. And this is what happened yesterday.
Ahmed (not his real name) walked out of the mosque, which is next door to the area where we Christians meet. I suppose he told his fellow Muslims that he was going to use the toilet, but slipped into our meeting instead. As we always do in such instances, we gave Ahmed a warm welcome.
Ahmed came with a friendly smile on his face. However, the look in his eyes showed me that beneath the smile he had a lot on his mind. After a brief exchange of greetings and handshakes, Ahmed said he had come by to ask for prayer. We knew this even before he spoke.
Ahmed humbly requested prayer for his mother, whom he said was very sick. Also for a younger brother who's on drugs and has been "running wild" on the streets of Brooklyn. Like Ahmed, his brother has a gang affiliation, which Ahmed told me he's been trying hard to distance himself from.
We then formed a circle around him, closed our eyes and bowed our heads. We collectively asked the Lord for healing for his mom, and salvation and deliverance for his brother. It was a simple but straightforward prayer which lasted for approximately three minutes. We had to be mindful that, Ahmed had to get back to the mosque before his peers became suspicious.
D.B.
Ahmed (not his real name) walked out of the mosque, which is next door to the area where we Christians meet. I suppose he told his fellow Muslims that he was going to use the toilet, but slipped into our meeting instead. As we always do in such instances, we gave Ahmed a warm welcome.
Ahmed came with a friendly smile on his face. However, the look in his eyes showed me that beneath the smile he had a lot on his mind. After a brief exchange of greetings and handshakes, Ahmed said he had come by to ask for prayer. We knew this even before he spoke.
Ahmed humbly requested prayer for his mother, whom he said was very sick. Also for a younger brother who's on drugs and has been "running wild" on the streets of Brooklyn. Like Ahmed, his brother has a gang affiliation, which Ahmed told me he's been trying hard to distance himself from.
We then formed a circle around him, closed our eyes and bowed our heads. We collectively asked the Lord for healing for his mom, and salvation and deliverance for his brother. It was a simple but straightforward prayer which lasted for approximately three minutes. We had to be mindful that, Ahmed had to get back to the mosque before his peers became suspicious.
D.B.
