“They are so poor, they lack clean water and sanitation,” Nita Kilkenny said, describing the people living in the Southeast Asian mountains.
As an IMB missionary, Kilkenny works with nationals who are dedicated to bringing the gospel to these hard-to-reach areas in the Southeast Asian mountains. This ministry team has access to the communities through drilling water wells, providing water filters and helping families install toilets in their homes.
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Four members of the team are female national partners who started a Bible study with other women in the mountainous communities. The women invited Fatima to attend the study whom they met through offering her household a water filter.
“At first, Fatima was kind of shy, but then she came and was greatly impacted by the Word,” Kilkenny said.
Fatima received a New Testament translated in her language, and when she began to read the Scriptures, she became a new person.
“You could tell it was piercing her heart to hear the Holy Scriptures read in her language,” Kilkenny said.
As she continued to attend the Bible study, Fatima made a profession of faith in Christ, and she was baptized. The women continued to disciple her.
Word spread quickly in the community that Fatima became a Christian. This angered her husband who made her throw away her Bible.
“He pulled her out and said that she could not attend the Bible study,” Kilkenny said. “She was getting so much persecution from family and surrounding neighbors.”
Fatima ended the relationship with the women on the ministry team. It broke their hearts because they could see her life being transformed by the gospel.
For months, Fatima would not have anything to do with the women who led the Bible study. She began to persecute the Christian women as a way of showing loyalty to her husband.
In time, Fatima longed to be in the Word again, and she snuck out of her home to attend the Bible study. The women were happy Fatima came and encouraged her to talk to her husband. Unfortunately, he continued to tell her not to come.
Breakthrough
Then a breakthrough happened. Kilkenny believes it was the result of many praying for Fatima and her husband. Members of the Woman’s Missionary Union in the region were praying for months for God to move, and then they experienced an answer to their prayers.
Fatima started regularly coming back to Bible study, and her husband even allowed her to open their home. “They started to meet in her house, and it softened her husband,” Kilkenny explained.
Though he is not a believer yet, Fatima’s husband continues to allow her to participate in the Bible study. Fatima is now a strong witness to her husband and to her community.
“Fatima is not being secretive about her faith anymore,” Kilkenny said. “She is encouraging other Muslim background women to come to the Bible study and to gather for worship.”
Lacking resources
Something the women in this community lack are resources to provide their children’s lunches for school. The women leading the Bible study decided to teach them how to crochet to make bags that could be sold.
“Our girls took the bags they made to our local Baptist convention and sold them,” Kilkenny said. “It meant something to the women in the community, to feel like they did something of worth.”
Though they didn’t make a lot of money, they had enough to cook fish and rice for their kids’ lunches.
The relationships the Christian nationals made with women in this Southeast Asian mountain range continue to blossom. Fatima has become a leader among these women, and God is blessing this work.
“It all started with prayer,” Kilkenny said. “And then God led the team to this community. They saw needs for clean water, toilets, water filters in their homes, so that gave the team access to those people. God used all of that.”
Kilkenny told how the women are seeing fruit from their ministries. Baptized believers in these mountains are growing in their faith and continuing to reach others.
It’s the result of a team effort. Local churches, Woman’s Missionary Union and the ministry team have prayed and worked to reach the lost in Southeast Asia.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Chris Doyle and originally published by the International Mission Board.
