"If it's you who started this, you need to get out of Syria" - Read the final instalment of Mohammed's storyThe Phantom Intercessor - 30 Jan 2015

Below is part 3 of Mohammed's story. You can check out part 1 here, and part 2 here

Despite the miraculous ways Christ was touching the lives of Syrians, Mohammed felt increasing stress as a result of the growth of his networks...

Bombings in his hometown began forcing many of his groups to flee as refugees to Turkey, Lebanon, or other parts of Syria. With his family in danger, Mohammed began to wonder whether he should hand the leadership over to one of his young disciples and lay low for a while. I told him that we should pray and ask God to speak.

God spoke quickly; Mohammed had another dream. 

This time he was sitting in a small walled garden with a Bible on a table at his side. In the sky behind him there was darkness, but in the sky in front there was incredible light. In the middle of the light he could see Christ in the distance, sitting on a throne radiating glory. He heard a knock on a wooden door leading out of the garden. He opened it and saw a Lebanese pastor standing there, and over his shoulder a vast crowd of Syrians.

“What do they want?” Mohammed asked the Lebanese man. “They want to read the Bible with you,” the man replied. “Then let them in.”

The few who could fit entered the small garden. They sat at Mohammed’s feet and he began to read to them from the Bible. As he read, wings began sprouting out of the backs of those listening. As the wings grew, they took flight and flew into the glory of Jesus. And once they were gone, another group came and sat down in front of Mohammed, eager to listen.

Mohammed had his answer. Moving his wife and two children to Turkey for safety, he returned to Syria, basing himself close to the border.

Over time, those first six men he had disciple had become his core team - zealous 20 something’s eager to turn the nation upside down. However, on returning to their town, he couldn’t locate any of them. He soon learned that a radical group had discovered these young men and hat put them, along with others they had been teaching, into prison. 

“They are still looking for the one who stirred this whole thing up,” Mohammed was told. “If it’s you, you need to get away from here fast.”

Since that day, six months have passed...

It has taken time, but Mohammed’s heart has recovered. He blamed himself for the incident; though I encouraged him he was only doing God’s work. He has since obtained news that the young men are alive, but still imprisoned at the hands of the radicals. His other groups are still out there somewhere, but the war has scattered them, making follow-up difficult.

At one of his lowest moments, Mohammed was in Turkey visiting a sick relative in hospital. Sat in a waiting room, he began making small talk with a young woman who he soon discovered originated from the same city in Syria. As they spoke, to Mohammed’s surprise, the woman pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket, upon which was scribbled the creation story from the book of Genesis, and she began asking him the same questions he had taught so many others to ask. This girl, he later discovered, had come from the discipleship group started by the young jihadist woman he had met all that time before.

In this time of great discouragement, this disciple of his disciple was reaching out to him.

Through all his setbacks, Mohammed has continued to believe. “2015,” he told me, “is the year we will really see something happen.”

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Mohammed is just a small peek into the way Jesus is moving in Syria and the Middle East, even as we speak. This is the time for a new generation of leaders in the region, Muslim background leaders whose hearts long for the Kingdom to come in their lands among their peoples.

As the church prays for the Middle East in this time of crisis, it is for Mohammed and the hundreds God wants to raise up like him that we must pray.

God’s answer to our desperate need is always to change the world through simple, ordinary men and women who hear His voice and dare to say yes.

All images are used by permission in accordance with commons copyright license terms: Feature image is a derivative of the images 'Syria Grunge Flag' by Nicolas Raymond, 'Storm...' by Julia and 'Food distribution in Hatay Turkish-Syrian border, August 29, 2012 (15)' by IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation