⇐ A Life Changing Step of Faith
The time working for my church colleague came to an end after a couple of months with no other consultancy work in view. So, what next? Once again, I felt the Lord seemed to be in complete control of the situation. A fellow professional by name of Adem, contacted me. Adem had previously attended some of the short courses I used to give when in full time employment as Technical Manager of a micro-electronics company. I am not sure how this all came about but he wanted me to go to Turkey and travel around giving lectures at various engineering companies. I was to go on a short-term mission, two months in fact, sponsored by the United Nations International Labour Office whose headquarters were in Geneva, Switzerland. Adem was a very devout Muslim from Ankara the capital of Turkey and who worked for a Turkish engineering consultancy firm. I did take up this offer and subsequently travelled to Turkey via Geneva to complete relevant documentation and briefings.
I mentioned earlier that Adem was a devout Muslim, and for the whole of the time he was in the UK, he would quietly excuse himself, take his prayer mat, orientate it towards Mecca and religiously perform his prayer ritual. He also shadowed me everywhere. I would pick him up each morning from his hotel and return him in the evening. He came and had meals at home with us and generally we got on quite well together. We talked about Islam and the Koran in particular, the Bible also. I had an English translation of the Koran which I had previously read and out of respect made sure it was always placed in the bookcase above all the other books and visible when he came to visit us. We made a pact that he and I would read the others ‘Holy Book’, I the Koran and he the Bible. I explained the format of the Bible to him and attempted to guide his reading. I made no attempt to ‘Convert’ or ‘Preach’ in any way – obviously I am not an evangelist in the accepted sense of the word!
It was customary for me to play Christian Worship cassette tapes in the car, but I would always turn then off when Adem was with me, I was careful not to offend in any way. One morning when I went to pick him up from his hotel, I sensed something deep within my spirit prompting me to play a Vineyard worship tape. This I did but made sure the volume was so low it was barely audible. I loved the music and lyrics of those tapes. They simply drew me into Worship.
On this occasion I felt there was maybe something else going on, I seemed to sense a different atmosphere in the car. Adem was not exactly a chatter box but this morning he seemed so quiet. Suddenly he broke the silence with a request to turn up the volume. He had obviously been listening intently and commented that he had not heard such beautiful music before. In Turkey he was a member of a male voice choir, loved to sing and generally enjoyed classical music. The music seemed to speak to his innermost spirit like none other, “so peaceful” he commented. Not only was the music speaking to him, but the words also, “Who is this, Lord?” he asked. I remember on this journey I completely lost my way quite unintentionally, and what should have been a ten minute, well known and travelled route, took more than thirty or forty minutes, just enough time to explain and introduce him to ‘Jesus as Lord’ rather than simply as ‘prophet’ as Muslims believe.