A. and M. A | Serving in Bangladesh
In the Bible, God has given signs to express His will. In Matthew 21:1-3, we find an account of one such event. “As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”
Jesus sent two of his disciples to untie a donkey with her colt and bring them to him from someone else’s house for his triumphal entry to Jerusalem. It was a bit strange. We know that bringing someone else’s belongings without their permission is called theft. But here Jesus sent his disciples to do the work. It must have been risky. However, Jesus did not send them to steal; instead, he is displaying his divine knowledge and authority in this verse by instructing his disciples to bring a donkey and a colt for his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. He did not tell them to go from house to house to find a donkey. Instead, he gave a sign to his disciples to go to a particular home and find a donkey. This act symbolizes the fulfillment of the prophecy in Zechariah 9:9, where the King of Zion would come riding on a donkey, signifying humility and peace. God, to this day, sometimes uses signs to indicate his will in our lives if we are seriously asking him with full trust and faith.
Our journey with the Evangelical Friends Mission was just such a divine sign. Following the divine sign, we left the Campus Crusade to join the Evangelical Friends Mission in July 2005. My wife, M., and I are extremely grateful to Dr. Chuck Mylander, who prayed to God for five years to start the Friends Ministry in Bangladesh through us. We started from zero. We started our newly planted Evangelical Friends Church in Bangladesh with only five people. It was on Sunday, July 3. These five people who attended the worship service were I, my wife, M., my elder son, S., my mother-in-law, R., and my sister-in-law, A. We used a room in our house as a church. This house was rented. It’s also the result of our prayer.
When we started the church ministry, we thought that since the majority of the people in our country are Muslims, we needed to leave the Christian area and live among the Muslims. So, we wanted to rent a house where we could live, worship on Sundays, and do church activities on other days of the week, such as Bible study, training, and a children’s ministry. Almost every day, we prayed and went out searching for a house, but we came back disappointed. We liked many houses, but many landlords refused to rent them to us because we were Christians. They said, “We don’t give rent to Christian families.” Again, few landlords are somewhat flexible. They wanted to give us the rent on their house, but they didn’t want us to do Christian worship and other church activities there. We were almost frustrated and planned to stop looking for a house in Muslim areas. I finally decided to make one last attempt. We prayed hard and asked for help to get a suitable house to stay in and do ministry.
That night, the Lord gave me a vision and a sign. I saw in a vision that we would find a house where we could live and worship God openly. The sign was that the landlord of the house would say to us, “I have a landline. You can use the phone if you want”. We didn’t have any land or cell phones back then.
The next morning, M. and I set out with our blue 50cc motorcycle to look for a house in a residential area inhabited by a Muslim majority. We searched for a house according to the sign given by the Lord. The Lord took us to the end of Road No. 1 of Phase 2 of Sonadanga Residential Area. It had a brick street and a quiet environment. I saw a To-let sign hanging on a house at the end of the lane. It was a two-story house. The landlord lives upstairs, and the ground floor will be rented. We climbed upstairs and pressed the button on the calling bell. The landlady opened the door. She asked us what we wanted. We said, “We’ve come to rent the house.” She let us sit in the drawing room. The landlord has two little sons and a little cute daughter. The landlord was a customs officer. He was a government employee. When he asked us who we were, we told him that we were Christians. We are looking for a home where we can live and run our church. We want to worship, sing, and pray to God with an open mind. He listened to us attentively and said, “We have no problem with you doing your religion”. He demanded a very minimum rent that was within our budget. But one thing was still ringing in my mind: whether it was a God-chosen house or not. I waited to be sure. The landlord’s wife had already brought us tea and snacks. At one point in the conversation, the landlord told us, “I have a landline at my home. If you take this house, you can use it as you wish.” As soon as I heard this, I was confirmed that this was the house that God had chosen for us. I thanked God in my heart. Without further talk, we advanced some money to rent that house. For 19 years, from July 2005 to November 2024, we lived in that house with dignity and continue to run our church.
There have been many other events in our lives that have revealed God’s mercy, protection, faithfulness, and guidance. Pray for us that we may serve this mighty and faithful God all through our lives on this globe. Blessed is the name of the Lord.
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