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Ed Bell, a Mission Society board member, tells the story of his experience discussing Jesus with Muslims in Egypt. Bell, an attorney in Sumter, South Carolina, attended an International Mobilization Conference with The Mission Society in Kenya last year. Here he shares how what he learned through The Mission Society’s teaching helped him to cross cultural barriers with the love of Christ.

Last year, I went to Kenya and attended an International Mobilization Conference with The Mission Society. On my way home, I was going through Egypt and something happened to the plane and I was stranded in Cairo for two days. (It was about three to four weeks before the uprisings.)

I was in a hotel, and I called downstairs and asked them to suggest a tour guide. They called someone, and this woman arrived to show me around Cairo.

We got into a taxi and she asked me, “Would you like to go see the pyramids?” I said, “You know, I’ve never seen the pyramids, but I would like to go and visit some local neighborhoods. I’d like to go to the local grocery store. I want to do what you do every day.”

After we drove around the city for a while, she looked at me and she said, “Are you a Christian?”

I’d just been through this training and I said, “I’m a follower of Isa.” Isa, as I learned, is how Jesus is referred to in the Quran.

I asked the taxi driver if he had a Quran in the front seat, and he passed it back to the tour guide.

I said, “Did you know that your Quran says that Isa speaks the true word of God?” She said, “Well, I didn’t know that.” I said, “Well did you also know that Isa is the most revered of all the prophets, the most holy of all the prophets?” She said, “I didn’t know that.” I pointed her to the verses because I wrote them down on my iPad during my study. I said, “Do you believe that Jews and Christians are infidels?” She said, “Yes, I do.” I said, “Well, let’s look at chapter such and such.” It says that the followers of Jesus and Jews are not unbelievers. I said, “I’m a follower of Isa.”

All of a sudden, we had this conversation. What was supposed to be a two-hour tour turned into a 10-hour tour.

We rode by a big square and there was the largest mosque in Cairo. I said, “Would I be allowed to go in that mosque?” She said, “Yes you would.”

Women are not allowed in the mosque, so she gave me directions to a restaurant where I could meet her later.

I walked into the mosque, and a man behind the counter immediately asked me, “Are you a Christian?” I said, “I am a follower of Isa.” You could see him beam.

Then I said, “I would like to have someone help me pray. Could you ask someone to help me?” He said, “Well, may I do that?” I said, “Yes, I would appreciate that.” I said, “What is the appropriate way to pray?” He said, “If you’re not Muslim you normally don’t kneel. You stand or sit, but you hold your hands out with your palms up.” He taught me how to pray. We talked, and I said, “I have read the first prayer in the Quran and it is a beautiful prayer, but I’ve never heard it prayed in Arabic. Would you pray that for me?” He did.

I stayed there for two hours. There were maybe 100 men who came and surrounded us, and we talked. I had my iPad from the notes I had taken and from my study, and we talked about Isa, and we talked about His being a prophet. We talked about the Injil (the Gospels). The Quran says that the Injil are one of the four holy books. They contain the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, which the Muslims revere as holy.

Muhammad taught that Jesus was born of a virgin (chapter 9), worked miracles (chapter 3), had no sin (chapter 19), and was the true word of God. All of a sudden, one man in the back said, “Why did you come to this mosque?” I said, “I think you are my neighbor, and I want to know my neighbor better.”

As I was leaving the mosque, this group of men followed me outside. One man said, “Why don’t more Americans come here like this?”

I learned how to have conversations like this through The Mission Society. God will plant the seeds, and He will make them grow.