Joy Loewen - Woman to Woman: Sharing Jesus with a Muslim Friend

What a great book! I strongly recommend it.

from the foreword by Brother Andrew, founder,
Open Doors; author, Gods Smuggler

This is such an important book! Five words come to mind: Important.Urgent. Visionary. Relevant. Grace-awakened. Please dont get one; get ten and get them into the hands of friends.

George Verwer, founder, Operation Mobilization

Gods love triumphs over the fears of Islam! Joy Loewen effectively reveals the spiritual battle for the lives of Muslims and the power of Gods love through His people to draw Muslims to salvation. I applaud Joy as she displays Gods heart and instructs us in His love through her testimony in this challenging and compelling book.

Diane Moder, Islamic Awareness and Education
Director, Aglow International

Riveting, with every page and story smelling of gun smoke and lavender. From story to story, Joy guides her women friends as they taste the salt and see the light of Christ. She also crams the book with practical illustrations. This book is more than delightful; it is a must-read for men as well as women. Why? If we fail to grasp the message of this book, we will never really understand Muslims or their culture. So whatever good books are on your reading list, move this one to the front. It will be worth it!

Ed Hoskins, M.D., Ph.D., author, A Muslims Heart

This is a must-read if you want to introduce your Muslim friends to Jesus. You will read it over and over because Joy Loewen not only includes fantastic how-tos from her experiences in Pakistan (where we were co-workers) and in reaching out to Muslim friends here in North America, but she shares personal stories of how God led her step by step. In my epilogue to Begum Bilquis Sheikhs story I Dared to Call Him Father, I emphasize how important it is to honor our Muslim friends. In this book Joy shows us how to love them into the Kingdom. Enjoy and learn!

Synnove Mitchell, long-time missionary to Pakistan

This book shares the feelings of many Christian women who long to be understood by their Muslim friends. The book challenges the reader to take bold steps in humility to share Christs love. Excellent material from a seasoned practitioner whose lifelong goal has been to bring the Gospel to Muslim women. I believe this book will revolutionize our approaches in reaching Muslim women with the genuine love of Christ.

Samuel Naaman, D.Miss., Department of World Missions
and Evangelism, Moody Bible Institute, Chicago

There is nothing so compelling as a true story. Through the authors countless connections with Muslim women, the reader is given an insiders view both of the difficulty of Muslim women coming to faith in Christ and of their increasing responsivenessespecially as we in the West befriend them as Joy does.

David Lundy, D.Min., international director,
Arab World Ministries

Muslim women will shape the next generation of Muslims. Read this book and reach out and connect with one of them, and let her see the beauty of Jesus in you.

Nabeel T. Jabbour, Th.D., author,
The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross

WOMAN
TO WOMAN

2010 by Joy Loewen

Published by Chosen Books
A division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.chosenbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-0783-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked NIV is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.

Appendix text, The Kings Gift, is by Charlene R. Hoskins. Used with permission. Author may be contacted at twit53@gmail.com.

Dedicated to my
Emergency Prayer Community,
which has stood by me
in the battles and victories
to see Muslim women come Home.

Contents

T here is no such thing as a clash of civilizations. Not even a clash of religions or of holy books. There is only fear, and this wonderful book deals with that subject eloquently.

The apostle John said perfect love casts out fear.

Joy Loewen deals with this very theme. Faith and fear do not live in the same heart... and yet Christians fear Islam, Muslims fear the judgment and we all fear each other and the future. Everything becomes black, and then, all of a sudden, here is this book.

Yes, there is definitely a way out. The Way.

Touching, spiritual, personal and, therefore, costly. I did not say there is no price to pay.

Please, read this book.

Then pray.

Then go and do the same. The harvesta broken world, reallyis all around you.

What a great book! I strongly recommend it.

Brother Andrew
founder, Open Doors; author,
Gods Smuggler and others

T wenty years ago few Americans were aware of the presence of Muslims in our homeland, and even fewer were informed about Islam, the religion of Muslims. But 9/11 changed all that overnight. Suddenly the world was shaken by a group of people, relatively unknown, who flew airplanes into the Twin Towers that fateful morning, killing the pilots, the passengers and thousands of innocent people going about their work in the targeted buildings. All around the world the word Muslim became equated with terrorism.

I cried that day for a couple of reasons. First, I cried with you, my Christian reader, in deep sorrow for the people who had senselessly lost their innocent lives and for the suffering families left behind, grieved and bewildered, still trying to recover from the horror.

Second, I cried for the many Muslims with whom I had developed friendships by the time 9/11 occurred. I watched as one after another my Muslim women friends, who perceived they had become individually and collectively odious in the sight of non-Muslims, retreated in fear and shame. Some of them stayed indoors for a few weeks, not brave enough to face the outside world and its judgments against them. I even knew some who wanted to change their childrens names. I tried to imagine being in their shoes. I tried to reassure them of my love for them and that I was not blaming them personally for a tragedy that did not come from their own hands. It hurt me to see them viewed as dangerous and despised people. My friends had done nothing wrong. They were not involved in the planning or execution of the attack. Their fault was simply that they were Muslims.

Since 9/11 the Church has been going through both a declension and an ascension in regard to Muslims. Although today we Christians are not as ignorant of Islam and its followers as we were twenty years ago, some of us have developed a growing fear of them. Some of this fear has been fueled by the media, who have rightfully and of necessity informed and warned of the radical, dangerous groups of Muslims but have not always given a balanced picture of moderate or secular Muslims. Consequently the perception that Muslims are terrorists, or at least dangerous and worthy of fear, has lodged in some Christians hearts and minds. Some of us would even admit that we view Muslims as untrustworthy or even as our enemies. Because of this fear of Muslims, some Christians want to run away from them. We share the same homeland with millions of Muslims, but we do not feel at home with them.