During the peak of the war in what was formerly Yugoslavia, I (Neil) was training Croatian pastors in a Christian refugee center. Listening in was a Bosnian refugee named Mohammed, who was raised in the Islamic tradition with all its fatalistic legalism. After listening to me teach for four days about the gracious love of God and how we could be free in Christ, he asked through an interpreter to see me. That night I had the privilege of leading him to Christ. He asked to be baptized, and the next day he was baptized in the Adriatic Sea.

Mohammed had arrived at the refugee center just a week earlier with his two daughters, who appeared to be deaf, either physically or psychologically. They had seen their mother blown up before their eyes by a mortar attack. They also had always been told that Christians were their enemy. The day after their father was baptized, these two little innocent girls, ravaged by war, said with wonder in their eyes, “Jesus loves me!” I will never hear those words uttered again by anyone without realizing the power of that truth to transform lives. N r , r

Taken from: The Common Made Holy by Neil T. Anderson & Robert L. Saucy. Copyright © 1998 by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, OR, p. 253-254. Used by Permission