Fremont, California, is home to the largest concentration of Afghans anywhere outside of central Asia, with more than 60,000 Afghans living in and around Fremont. Right after my wife, Lita, and I moved here from Houston, Texas, we became involved in various ministries directed toward Afghans, particularly refugee families. For years, we prayed that the Lord would bring to the Bay Area a compassionate, educated Afghan Christian—a gifted evangelist to plant and pastor the first Afghan Christian church in our area, perhaps one of the first Afghan churches in the nation.
God answered those prayers by bringing Isaac from Afghanistan to northern California a few years ago. I met Isaac when he first arrived at a Persian New Year Nowruz festival at a local park where our local team of church leaders interested in evangelizing Afghans had a booth at the festival. I was immediately struck at how Isaac was able to share the Gospel with Afghan Muslims with sensitivity and clarity while being completely true to the Gospel message without any compromise to Muslim objections. He really is a powerful evangelist. Isaac and I quickly forged a very close friendship and partnership in the gospel that becomes richer all the time.
Lita and I were thrilled when Isaac started an Afghan church based in Fremont and were honored to attend his wedding to his lovely bride, Mary. Together, Mary and Isaac are an Afghan ministry power couple. Having reached 20-plus years of Afghan ministry in this city, I am happy to report that we now have a strong leadership team of various local pastors, church leaders, lay people and others serving in the Afghan ministry with Isaac as our ethnic pastoral leader. Our entire Afghan ministry team looks to Isaac for guidance and leadership as we all seek to bear witness to Jesus Christ. His wisdom on how best to present the gospel to Afghans has been pivotal in our ESL programs, outreach events, volunteer enlistment and basically every element of what has become a powerful Christ-presence among our local community of Afghan Muslims. That is in addition to his pastoral direction of his own ethnic Afghan congregation with its young-in-the-faith community of Jesus-followers.
One of the things that has impressed us most about Isaac is that, in addition to all the ministries with which he is engaged locally and in person with Afghans in our community and with the many times he speaks in local churches to interpret what is happening within the Afghan ministry network here in the Bay Area, Isaac has also developed an effective and flourishing global ministry in which he engages in discipleship with Afghans around the world via the internet. Under his tutelage numerous Afghans who are recent converts to Christianity are benefiting from his teaching and discipleship as they meet with him regularly online.
