During my language studies in Indonesia, one of the first books we interacted with was the Indonesian Bible. Although I was surprised to find the word “Allah” in the text, my teacher was not. In fact, when he went on to discuss the verses we were studying, he kept using that word as he expressed his own thoughts and experiences. My surprise was due to the fact that I understood Allah to be the Muslim god. I knew that Muslims recognized and valued many of the same prophets as Christians, but I hadn't considered the possibility that they might worship the same God as I do.

We have been amazed by the growth of Encountering the World of Islam (EWI) this year. In addition to launching networks in Nigeria and the republics of Georgia and Ukraine, multiple classes were held in China, Korea, the United Kingdom, and the Middle East. In these latter places, EWI classes are being run without our continued assistance! We also held 13 courses around the U.S. during this fall session.

Many of us have experienced how a significant event can shape our lives, especially if the event takes us out of the context in which we normally live and move. In the world of missions, we see this happen at a conference like Urbana (which is coming up this year - don’t miss it! www.urbana09.org) but even more often on short-term trips. In fact, this is probably the best argument to spending money on short-term mission trips: they change participants’ lives.

One US seminary has invited a Muslim to team-teach a course, but the surprising part is that this Muslim professor encourages seminary students to “be more Christian.” The call is similar to the challenge many students feel when they read David Shenk's article that begins with a Muslim asking the question, "Why don't Christians follow the way of Jesus?" (see Lesson 4 in Encountering the World of Islam, pp. 133-141).

In September and October, several of the Encountering the World of Islam (EWI) Team traveled to Ukraine and Georgia to test the Russian translation of our materials.Christians in this region desire to respond to the fact that there are Muslims all around them. For example, Julia works with a campus ministry about ten hours from Kiev.