Posted by Paul Williams

Andy’s text read, “OOOOH. GOD HAS HIS HAND ON OUR DEAR FRIEND. HE IS THE ULTIMATE SEEKER! SUCH GREAT TIME JUST NOW. HALLELUJAH. HE IS NOT FAR FROM THE KINGDOM.” Andy had just dropped a dear Kurdish friend back home and spent some time talking to him about what he’d learnt during our time together that evening. A few months earlier we started to host a seekers’ group at our home every Saturday. Each week we share the Bible message from start to finish, using stories from each point of salvation history. 

Our friend had first suggested that we did ‘church’ in our house little knowing that we had ambitions for the same. When I asked him what it would like for Kurds to do church he explained that we would have a simple meal sat on the floor, then over black tea we could listen to and discuss the bible. Quickly accepting his advice we invited him to our home. Since then this Kurdish friend has faithfully come each week with a hunger to hear the truth. Quiet and unassuming, with a gentle nobility about him our friend is taking his quest for truth very seriously. He listens to every word of the stories we share, soaking in the details, retelling the story, giving the crucial points the emphasis they demand.

More and more he is identifying with us as a community, taking ownership over our time together and even sharing what he has learnt with other Kurdish friends who come along. In this way he may well be the ultimate seeker. 

On the advice of some church planters out in Kurdistan and influenced by churches in the US who work in disadvantaged communities we have chosen to use an ‘orality’ approach to sharing the good news. Unlike a traditional bible study we only have one bible and that is only used to reinforce the fact that the stories we tell are from God’s word and not of our imagination. With the bible in hand one of us will tell the story we have learnt from memory. Prior to learning the story we will have done some work on translating the story into a more oral form; not changing the events or facts but simply some of the wording. We have found this approach engaging and challenging.

The first time we met as a group we shared the story of the Road to Emmaus. The story brought us all under its influence. The grieving women at the tomb challenged by the angels to remember what Jesus had said would happen. The confused followers who meet the stranger on the road who called them fools for not remembering what all God’s prophets had said would happen. The frightened crowd of friends who saw Jesus return to them and who again had the scriptures explained so they understood what had to happen. We find ourselves in the story, so rather than a debate around facts and doctrine which can tend to characterise Christian-Muslim dialogue, we find ourselves having to explain the different character’s reactions. Ultimately the story forces us to meet Jesus.

We now have five Kurdish friends attending this weekly group. Our first friend who suggested that we did church together is still very much engaged and he will often read ahead in the bible he has at home. Questions are asked, answers given and they’re digested and then believed. As each week goes by we begin to understand more of what must have happened to Jesus, and in that we find a remedy to our ills. This friend has welled up with tears as we’ve talked about his experiences in the past, the suffering he has known is not often spoken of but you see it; you see it as he holds a friend’s newborn and his mind clearly drifts off to the family members he has left behind. You see it when hiking through the countryside with him he wistfully describes the landscape of home and his sentences trail off left incomplete. He like all the Kurds who come to our group has a heart full of sorrow but they are all finding a remedy in the stories they hear.

Like the friends walking on the road to Emmaus, our Kurdish friends are encountering the risen Jesus as the scriptures are explained. As our Kurdish friend explained to Andy, “It’s like my heart is about to burst out of my body. It’s like my heart is about to burst.” When hearing this he is not the only one who is thrilled by the power of God’s word.