One flower for one soul...

By Stephanie Walker

Sunday, September 28, 2008

One flower for one soul, the perfect end to the perfect evening. Praise the Lord the war has already been won! We arrived on the mountaintop at the exact time that the evening call to prayer began to sound across the city. We were there proclaiming the word of the Lord high and above the voices that rang out below. The wind blew our praises to God all over the night sky into the city. It was such a powerful moment. We gathered in a circle at the very edge of the mountainside and began to randomly lift up our prayers to the heavens. We prayed for Satan to be bound, fear to be removed, for God to move in the hearts of the people below, for the government, for the loved ones of those killed or injured in the car bomb that had exploded earlier that morning, for the Syrian churches, for the Iraqi refugees, for Pastor S, for our loved ones, for those who were on the mountain with us. As we prayed the wind blew and Satan continued to try and distract us with the sound of firecrackers in the background, but as our leader, Mark, said, our battle has already been won, Satan’s attempts are in vain. We were there to fight and we fought hard. The group stood strong, holding hands huddled as tight as possible standing as one in spirit. We prayed for an hour, we felt the Spirit telling us to stop.

After some singing and a few pictures, we all bought cocoa from the very man setting off the firecrackers the whole time we were praying. As we were waiting for our drinks a young man selling carnations approached us, but we all tried to ignore or avoid him. Though we had just prayed that God would stir in the hearts of those on the mountaintop and that He would open doors for His name to be made known and that we would show up and be obedient none of us noticed the open door right in front of us. The man was persistent and would not leave even though we all told him, “la, shokran”, or no thank you; he just stood there waiting for one of us to help him out. Silva finally gave in and bought one carnation just as we were making our way back to the bus. She asked for a white one, and the young man asked, “why?” She told him it was because white symbolized purity. “How?” the man replied.

“The blood of Jesus has washed our sins away, making us as white as snow,” was Silva’s reply.

The conversation continued on back and forth in this manner in Arabic, while Marcos, Jackie, Mark, and I were standing behind Silva, praying for both of them; we didn’t need to understand Arabic to understand the conversation that was going on in front of us. He hesitated, saying, “but I am a Muslim” several times, and Silva told him that Jesus doesn’t want to change our religion; He wants to change our hearts. After a while he asked Silva how to become a Christian. Before we knew it, they prayed together and he accepted the Lord Jesus as his savior, right there on the mountainside. Later Silva gave me the flower because she said to me that it was my prayer that made it happened because she was just trying to get rid of him at first.
This day was the day that began with destruction and ended in salvation.

Who would have guessed that we could gain a soul for the price of a single white carnation?