How Will They Go If No One Sends? (Women’s Center in Jordan)

By Angela Rice, Short-Term missions Coordinator

I met Nada at the Women’s Center in Jordan.

Nada is from Syria. Her teenage son was out one day in the city and got caught in a demonstration. Though he was not a part of the group of teens demonstrating, he was shot and killed. Her husband went to talk to the officials about it, but he was put in jail and tortured because of his questions. After four months, he was released, but their families, concerned that they were being put in danger, told them they had to leave. Nada, her husband and their two daughters ended up in a Bedouin community in Jordan. Since her husband was unable to work, Nada looked for ways to support their family and visited several places that provide help for refugees. At last, she found the support she needed at the Women’s Center in Jordan, a ministry of Zarka Baptist Church and BMA Pastor Sam Jordan.

Depressed and broken, Nada found love and people willing to help her. Since most Syrian women are uneducated and don’t typically work outside the home, she had no job skills. Nada found herself needing to support her family in a country that she did not know. Through the help of the Women’s Center, she found healing, love and friendship. She also found a way to earn money by making soap. Nada now makes and sells different types of soap to support her family. They have been able to move into an apartment, and her children are able to attend school. She is not yet a Christian but has found acceptance and support at the Women’s Clinic in Jordan. She sees the love of Christ daily. I know that one day, because of the love she has found, she will come to know Christ as her Savior.

There are Nadas all over the world, people who are hurting and seem hopeless. Many are underserved medically. Baptist Medical Missions International uses the needs and problems of people as an entry point into their lives to show them the love of Jesus Christ. People will hear what we say when they know we care for them. It also gives an entry point for the local missionary to continue that relationship after we are gone.

Because 98% of Jordan’s population is Muslim and 2% are Chirstian (any non- Muslims), they go about ministry in a different way. The strategy: Church planting doesn’t work here because Muslims would not come to church, the BMA raised money to start a medical clinic in Zarka. It meets a need and includes evangelism. There is also the Women’s Center, a safe environment for Muslim women to come and be exposed to the gospel. The Syrians say they come here to get things like food and clothes, but they leave with Jesus!

During the BMMI trip to Jordan in November 2016, volunteers ministered to 784 patients in three days. On that same trip, they went to a clinic in the Bedouin community and supplied medicine and food boxes that feed a family for one month. This is not unusual. Baptist Medical Missions International serves people all over the world, helping meet basic needs in order to open the door for people

to hear the gospel. In 2016, BMMI traveled to nine countries and served over 9,000 patients. Many of them accepted Christ at the clinic, some did not, but all of them heard about Jesus and his love for them, and the seed was planted.

During this trip, these words came as an extremely urgent message: “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach, except they be sent? even as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans ).15-10:13

As Christians, we should all be praying for missionaries on other fields, and we are commanded to be missionaries in our communities. This verse clearly states that we should go and we should send. I am convicted. I saw the message of Romans 10 and the urgency of this message in a different light today: How will they hear if no one goes? How will they go if no one sends? I need to GO and I need to SEND. Who will join me? No amount is too small. Our missionaries need our support.