Perilously Faithful

For what it’s worth, working in television is not half as glamorous as most people suppose, especially if it’s Adventist television, which mostly operates on donated dollars. When you know the money belongs to God, you treat it very carefully. To that end, I used to aim to record anywhere from nine to eleven shows in a day, driving down the per-episode cost substantially. When I would later watch the programs, I could easily tell which was the first show of the day and which was the eleventh: I looked decidedly more tired after nearly a dozen shows.

One day a new person joined the makeup department, and we hit it off immediately. Zahra^[1] came from a predominantly Muslim nation, and she was fascinated by Western Christianity. Her sister had recently become a Christian and had been dragging her to a charismatic church every Sunday.

She had questions. Lots and lots of questions.

“Why do Christians eat meat that is haram?”^[2] she asked as she brushed powder over my eyelids. “Not all of us do,” I replied. “The Bible is pretty clear when it comes to unclean animals, and I would never eat any of them.” That took her by surprise. She whisked off the barber cape that was protecting my shirt; I hopped out of the chair and dashed back into the studio.

During the next break she peppered me with more questions. “At my sister’s church they talk in tongues and do all kinds of things I find strange, and it makes me uncomfortable. Why do Christians do that stuff?”

“Not all of us do,” I replied, quietly realizing that God had lined up a serious Bible study interest for me. I explained where the New Testament differs with modern charismatic interpretations of spiritual gifts, and she found it immensely interesting.

Before the day was out, we had touched on the Sabbath and the state of the dead, too. Normally I try to slow the pace a bit when it comes to new information—most people need time to absorb what they’re learning and absorb it into their worldview—but Zahra was driving the process with a never-ending string of very good questions. All the right questions, in fact. The more she asked, the more it seemed obvious that God had orchestrated our meeting and that I was to make the most of it.

Before the day was out, she told me that she was on her way back to her home country soon, and asked if I had any Bible study resources. “You can take those into your country?” I asked. No, of course she couldn’t. I decided to spend my evening creating a CD-ROM (you can now date the story) filled with all kinds of science files: math, chemistry, physics, biology–thousands of them. I scattered the Bible lessons throughout the material, making them nearly impossible for a border inspector to find.

Zahra was thrilled.

It wasn’t long after she returned home that 9/11 hit. A couple of months after the Twin Towers fell, and right before our next studio session, I found a semi-garbled voicemail from Zahra. “Shawn, it’s Zahra. I’m in ——, and I . . .” And then it cut out.

I was immediately worried. Was she in trouble? Had she been caught with her illicit Bible studies? Was she trapped in her home country, unable to return? Was she letting me know that she couldn’t be there next time?

Next to the gospel, she counted her life as nothing. She’d risk anything to share what many of us take for granted.

It took some doing, but eventually I tracked her down. I was relieved to hear her voice on the phone. “Are you OK?” I asked. “Do you need some help?”

“Oh, I’m fine!” she gushed. “I just wanted you to know that I’m going to be there in time for your next taping—and that those Bible studies really paid off!”

“How?” I asked. “Tell me about it.”

“Oh, I started sharing what you gave me with a few friends, and then they invited a few more friends, and wouldn’t you know it, I’ve got a secret church started up with dozens of women attending.”

“What happens if you get caught?” I asked.

“Oh, they’ll kill me,” she replied. “But what does that matter?”

Stop reading for a moment and absorb that answer: Next to the gospel, she counted her life as nothing. She’d risk anything to share what many of us take for granted.

I suddenly flashed back to all those meetings in which getting someone to help with an outreach project felt as if I were pulling teeth. I could hear the complaints of church members. It’s so expensive. Four whole weeks? Who has time for that? You can’t expect us to be there every night!

I don’t need to continue. You’ve heard them all, I’m sure. I’m human; I’m guilty of muttering about a few things myself. But at that moment I had never had to actually put my life on the line for the sake of preaching the three angels’ messages. (A few years later I did—but that’s another story for another day.) A former Muslim woman was teaching me something important about the value of this message, and in that moment she had better demonstrated the heart of Christ than I had. I was willing to spend a few hours burning a CD-ROM; my investment was a couple of dollars and a little bit of time.

My problems? A bad audio system. An awkward room layout. A handful of offshoot troublemakers who stand in the lobby after the evangelistic meeting to try to glean a few interests for their cult. Anti-Adventist flyers on windshields. A nasty ad in the newspaper. None of it was particularly fun, but none of it was the death penalty, either.

As I get older, I find myself saying noto things far more often; 30-plus years of breakless work have taken a bit of a toll on my body. I fully understand why driven people struggle with saying no, but I’m finally learning to do it. It’s OK to say no. (I even found that hard to type!) But before I do it, I usually hear Zahra’s voice on the phone, letting me know that she was quite happy to be murdered by her own family if it meant her friends could find Christ.

^[1] Not her real name.

^[2] Haram is the Islamic term used to describe unclean meat—it means “unlawful” or “forbidden.”