Lynn Green

Category: Middle East

  • The Middle East: More Encouragement!

    The Middle East: More Encouragement!

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

     

    I try to stay in touch regularly with several friends in the Middle East.  Over recent years, and contrary to the usual news from the region, we have heard one good story after another.  These have strengthened my faith, so I want to share this one more widely:

    It was a cold wintry Monday morning in the church. 9 Syrians, 2 Palestinians, 1 Egyptian and a handful of YWAMers. We were gathered for our last class of the Shine Women’s Program. Shine is a biblically based women’s empowerment program produced by Hillsong Australia. For the last eight weeks we have been meeting together, looking at our value as women, our strength and our purpose in life. Rania, Nermin, Suhayr, Hayat, Muna, Martha, Lama, Tamara, Abiir, Sabriyya and Sabriin. Names and faces known by God, created by Him and loved by Him.

    Every week we were challenged by Truth and we saw change in the ladies lives. Today, at the final class, they shared what this program had meant to them. What we had meant to them. Hayat said that every week she would go back home after our class and share with her neighbor who was anxiously waiting for the next lesson. Hayat would share with her and she would cry, beginning to understand her worth in the eyes of God. Martha, shared that the course had changed the way she related to her children and her husband, that their whole household had changed. Sabriin shared that her husband was shocked at the change in her when she did not respond in anger anymore in the house, but waited and tried to understand him when they had a disagreement.

    Another lady said that she felt that she had been created a second time – that the revelations of who she was had changed the way she saw herself. Tamara who never left the house before this course said that she had courage now to go out and help her husband in their coffee shop, covering shifts when he could not work in order to bring in more income for her family. Two of the ladies said the course changed their world.

    God’s truth is TRUTH. All of these precious women were changed. They began to understand their worth in the eyes of God. Now we will do part two and meet them in their homes sharing the full Gospel message of their worth – that the God of the universe gave His only begotten Son to die for them, that they would know their eternal worth in His Kingdom. What an honor to partner with God and bring His truth to the marginalized and poor of this world. Thanks for being a part of all of this through your prayers and partnership,

    Lynn Green.

  • Reconciliation Walk

    Reconciliation Walk

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

     

    Tre Sheppard helped me make this video in 1995.  He did a great job of putting it together and I am grateful to the people at ywam.tv for digitizing it recently.  It is still a relevant subject for a few reasons.

    It is very important that Christians in the western nations should understand how many Muslims, and Jews, see Christianity.  There are reasons for their feelings of enmity and we should humbly acknowledge that.  As everyone knows, history shapes the present and if we do not make efforts to address historical sins, there is little hope that the consequences will fade.  This video is a brief summary of the events of the first Crusade and their impact on Muslims, Jews and Eastern Christians—all of whom were victims of religiously inspired violence under the banner of the Cross of Jesus.

    The following year, hundreds of Christians from Western nations journeyed to Turkey to convey a message of apology face-to-face. That initiative continued for over three years, through Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the West Bank.  It culminated in Jerusalem on July 15, 1999, exactly 900 years after the Crusaders breached the walls of Jerusalem and slaughtered all its citizens.  In the context of the twisted understanding of the Roman Church at the time, their actions were thought to be “evangelism”.

    Let us walk in humility!

    Defusing the bitter legacy of the Crusades. Lynn Green retraces the history of the first Crusade and proposes an appropriate Christian response for today. The Reconciliation Walk was an independent initiative led by Lynn Green, an American who has been living in England for 25 years.

    About 3,000 walkers participated over the 3-year period, with people coming and going in small groups, from many different denominations and nations. It began in the spring of 1996, as teams of walkers entered Cologne, Germany, where the Crusades were launched in March-April 1096, led by Peter the Hermit.

    The 2,000-mile three-year walk across Europe and through the Balkans, Turkey, and Syria ended in Jerusalem on July 15, 1999, the nine-hundredth anniversary of a Crusade massacre of Jews and Arabs. Recorded in 1996, by Procla-Media, and captured from VHS in 2019.

    resource: UofN Legacy

  • Sayeed’s Story

    Sayeed’s Story

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    Marti and I have a friend whom we love dearly; she lives in a majority-Muslim nation and regularly sends us stories about what the Holy Spirit is doing.  Most of us read the disturbing stories about terrorism, tyranny and corruption in that part of the world, but there is a lot of very good news.  Here is some:

    This month, I had the privilege of traveling to Djibouti, a 99% Muslim nation in the Horn of Africa. I went to teach on a Discipleship Training School, the students were all Muslim Background Believers. One of the students was Sayeed from Somalia. He was born and raised in a very strict form of Islam. He was sent to Quranic schools and had the whole Quran memorized by the time he was 8 years old. Around that time, his family moved to Kenya as Somali Refugees.

    He continued his schooling in Kenya and one day, in his early twenties, he was on his way home from his studies when he heard a debate on the streets of Nairobi. The debate was between a pastor and a Muslim Leader. As he was passing, he heard one phrase;

    “Muhammad is dead but Jesus is alive – which prophet would you follow?”

    This question hit his heart like an arrow. He stopped and listened to the debate for about 30 minutes. When he got home that night, he spent hours researching Jesus on youtube and became convinced that Jesus was the way, the truth and the life. He decided to follow Him that very day. He didn’t know who to talk to about his new faith so he chose to go to a fellow Somali Quranic teacher and share with him. He said to the teacher; “I have a very important secret, if I tell you, do you promise not to tell anyone? ” The Quranic teacher said yes, I will keep your secret. Sayeed told him that he had become a follower of Jesus and to his amazement the Quranic teacher said;

    “I have been wanting to follow him also for about three years!!!” They committed that day to pursue Jesus together.

    Through a long series of events, their families back home found out and the leaders of their Somali clan found out about their faith and came to find them to either bring them back to Islam or to kill them. Sayeed was captured and tortured several times and each time was able to escape his captors. In the meantime, they persecuted his siblings and even killed his mother because he had brought shame on the clan by following Christ. Sayeed’s latest escape brought him safely to Djibouti and into the arms of the DTS where I was teaching. We spent the week together, sharing stories, crying together, praying for one another and putting our trust in the Father for Sayeed’s future. He wants to eventually be a pastor to his own people back in Somalia. Wow.

    Please pray for Sayeed, his protection, his journey with Jesus and his eventual returning home to bring others to know Christ. He is only 27 years old and has already lived several lifetimes. He is our brother – lets lift him up to the Lord and believe that God will use him mightily for the future of his nation.

    with you for the Kingdom in the Muslim World,

    Martha.

  • An Egyptian Treasure

    An Egyptian Treasure

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    As you probably know, Egypt is full of hidden treasure and archaeologists continue to make new finds.  Egypt has also held much treasure for me. What an unexpected discovery!  My fellowship with Egyptian Christians has enriched me so much.  One of those treasures was particularly well-disguised.

    It began with unwelcome news.

    I had convened a group of international leaders from Europe, the Middle East and Africa and we had decided to meet in Cairo initially and then make the 90 minute drive to a part of the Western Desert known as Wadi El Natrun.  We were being hosted by an Egyptian, who brought me unwelcome news on the first evening in Cairo.  Without asking me, he had invited a Coptic Orthodox monk (more accurately, a celibate priest), to deliver us a lecture on The History of Monasticism.  We had a full agenda for our few days together and I did not want to lose a couple of hours listening to a boring lecture.  But I couldn’t see a way to get out of it.

    Later that evening I saw a very slight man in a long black cassock entering the house and our host whispered to me; “That’s the man who will be speaking to us tomorrow.  He will need a couple of hours.”  My heart sank, even as I managed a weak smile.

    The next day we made the drive into the desert and found Dr. Atef, the man in the cassock, waiting for us.  The moment he began to speak God spoke to me and said; “This man will be a very important friend to you.”  As he spoke to us, it became like “water in a desert land” to my soul and spirit.

    In the years that followed he completed a Discipleship Training School in YWAM and became a faithful and faith-filled and perceptive intercessor for YWAM, for me and for my family.

    In the years that have followed, I have met him in a number of places around the world.  A couple of weeks ago I went to Phoenix, Arizona where he has lived for a few years and also where a growing number of people have gathered round him in a new monastic order.  I made the trip to Arizona just to spend a couple of hours a day for a few days with Dr. Atef.

    As usual, I came away challenged to grow more in Christ and encouraged by God’s love for me.  He gave me three primary teachings and the first one accompanies this article.  I hope and pray that you will also be challenged and encouraged.  Do take the time to dig for the treasure!

    Click on the link below to read the Dr. Atef notes Prayer Life.

    Prayer Life (Different Features)