Cape Town Day Six Recap - Abdul

It's hard to believe the conference is over.  What a whirlwind / mountaintop experience.  Had great times the past few days with Joseph Cumming, Ligon Duncan, Michael Oh, Chuck Van Engen, Jason Mandryk, and so many others.  But here are just a few things that will really stick out in my mind as I travel home:

1. The absolute passion with which the Believers from a Muslim Background serve Jesus in their contexts.  These brothers from all over the Muslim world are on fire for Jesus, and unafraid to share it.
2. The picture of Palestinian and Jewish Believers in Jesus praying together for peace, and for the Prince of Peace to reign on the earth in and through their lives.
3. Lindsay Brown's closing address, in which he said some of us may not be at the next Congress because of martyrdom.  He told the story of the Somali leader who was there in 1989 and after turning down a job at the UN in New York to stay in Mogadishu and serve his people, was martyred the next year.  He should have been here at Cape Town, but he is with the Lord now.  It was a call for endurance in suffering.
4. Taking communion tonight alongside a brother from Russia in a wheelchair.  I prayed for him as I cried with him.  Then a Jewish Believer came alongside us and hugged him and cried with him too.
5. Listening to my sisters from Uganda praise the Lord in every circumstance this week, even (especially) when something wasn't perfect, they chose to praise!  One of them, Sarah, was healed from AIDS and has an amazing testimony.
6. Listening to the Gospel being read in Chinese with an aching heart for the 250 Chinese delegates who were detained at the Beijing airport and unable to come.  Just wait until Lausanne IV, there will be so many believers in China by then that the whole Congress will be in Chinese instead of English!

I am sure I will have more reflections as I travel home - some of them might be worth posting.  But if not, just know that I will come away from this conference with an absolute and rock solid confidence in the beauty of what God is building in his global church, along with a sober reminder of the suffering that is yet to come before our Lord returns in glory on that great day!  It was truly a little piece of heaven tonight as believers from almost 200 nations worshiped together in loud celebration of the grace of God displayed in the Crucified and Risen Lord!  Indeed, for this will will worship him forever!  And that is why I do what I do - because I want multitudes of Muslim people who have so little chance to hear the TRUTH about Jesus to be there with us.