Just Keep Sharing: God Brings Fruit Through Perseverance

At age 12, Alyssa* told her mother she wanted to be a martyr. Taking it in stride, her mother replied, “Maybe it would be better to live for Jesus. It’s harder to live for Jesus than to die for Jesus.”

Alyssa took her mother’s comment to heart. Her desire to live for Jesus led her to Bible college and to an internship teaching English in the Middle East, where she first had the opportunity to share the gospel with someone who’d never encountered the good news. She decided, “I'm coming back to this city and I'm going to tell these people about Jesus. Whatever the cost to me, it'd be worth it just for one woman to get an opportunity to know about Jesus.”

For the past 12 years, she’s been telling Muslim friends about the good news of Christ as a Christar worker, first in the Middle East and now among the same people group in the United States, where she lives with her husband and two boys. And, during this time, she’s seen what many workers serving among Muslims have found to be true: For people from Islamic backgrounds, the journey to faith in Jesus is often long.

Muslims who trust in Christ often hear the gospel many times, sometimes over many years, before they believe. And so, though she wasn’t seeing much fruit from her efforts, Alyssa continued to faithfully tell her Muslim friends about Jesus.

“I’d been sharing with my people group for a very long time without much success of anybody coming to know the Lord,” Alyssa shares. So, when a teammate introduced her to Muslim woman named Bethany, Alyssa determined she was doing to tell her about Jesus during this very first conversation.

This teammate has been serving in Bethany’s community for over a quarter century, and years before, he’d befriended her parents. He’d become like a second dad to Bethany, and when, as an adult, she was going through a hard time and needed a listening ear, she knew she could trust him. But he suggested that another woman might better understand what she was facing and connected her with Alyssa.

For six hours at a café, Bethany poured out her heart to Alyssa, confiding in Alyssa about her struggles. As she’d decided she’d do, Alyssa shared the gospel, and she gave Bethany a Bible in her heart language. It seemed as though Bethany might be ready to accept the good news right there.

She didn’t. Instead, she thanked Alyssa and informed her, “To be honest, I'm probably never going to talk to you again. And, if I ignore all your texts, I'm very sorry: I do that sometimes.”

Alyssa wasn’t expecting that. But she assured Bethany it was OK and told her, “If ever you need somebody, even if you've ignored me for months or years, I will forgive you and I will be happy to talk to you.”

Bethany was true to her word. When Alyssa texted her and invited her to get together, her messages went unanswered. Once the better part of a year had passed, Alyssa determined that she had done what she could and that Bethany probably wanted to be left alone.

“But then when there was a Christmas party, I just felt the Lord prompt me to invite her to the party,” Alyssa recalls. Though she didn’t expect a reply, she obeyed.

Bethany responded—but not with an RSVP. Instead, she replied, “If I convert to your religion, will I find God?”

That’s her response to “Will you come to our Christmas party?” Alyssa thought. “I had such a great opportunity, she recalls. “I thought, ‘I don't know if this girl will ever talk to me again, so I just have to tell her.’ And so, I just told her the way to find Jesus, the way to heaven, and laid it all out for her.”

A week went by, and once again Alyssa thought she’d done all she could. But then her phone rang.

It was Bethany, saying she really needed to talk to someone. Though she was juggling numerous tasks at home with her boys, Alyssa invited Bethany over for coffee.

Over another six hours, Alyssa shared the whole gospel. “I felt like the Lord was just speaking through me that day,” she recalls.

At the end, Bethany asked, “Well, when is a good time to believe in Jesus?”

Alyssa replied, “The Bible says, ‘Now, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.’ So, now: Now is the time to accept Him.’”

Bethany agreed that now was the time. Thanking God, Alyssa led her in a prayer of salvation.

For the next year, Alyssa discipled her, helping her better understand and grow in her newfound faith. And, on the one-year anniversary of her “now,” Bethany was baptized.

“I was the one that got the reward at the end of leading her to the Lord,” Alyssa says. But she reminds us that her teammate had first befriended Bethany’s family, showing them love and telling them about Jesus for many years before Bethany responded.

“I want people to know: Keep sharing, don't give up,” Alyssa says. “Perseverance is the number one thing. Just keep sharing.”

Hear more about how God has worked through Alyssa as she’s persistently shared the gospel with her Muslim friends—including one that defied the norm—on episode 13 of the Mobilizing the Gospel podcast: “Just Keep Sharing with International Friends.”