Jo’s daily life is making disciples in the Middle East

God used the pandemic to put the Middle East on Jo’s mind, connecting her with Muslim people in her home town who would go on to become close friends. And some of them had family in the Middle East. 

After a couple of exploratory trips to the Middle East, she took unpaid leave from her job in the US to spend three months visiting various locations in the region. She used that time both to start learning Arabic and to search for a job. 

She says: “Just as the three months were coming to an end, friends of mine asked if I was interested visiting the small medical clinic in their city. 

“I learnt by heart the Arabic for ‘Hi, I’m a medic from America and I would like to work here. Do you have any jobs available?’ and went along the next day. 

“Of course, they thought I could speak Arabic but I quickly showed that I couldn’t! Anyway, they took my CV and I got a call from the owner the next day and he offered me a job.” 

It was some months later that she was finally able to move and is hugely grateful to SIM, who helped her along what was an unusual path.  

“I wanted the support and community of belonging to an organisation,” she says. “And SIM were fantastic in the way they were so flexible in allowing me to move at my pace and not always in strict accordance with their systems and processes.  

“They usually like to start everyone in one country to learn language, but they allowed me to start language classes in my soon-to-be country of residence so I could focus on the local dialect.” 

The contract she signed saw her employed for 20 hours a week, leaving 20 hours a week for language-learning. But as all of her work has been in Arabic, she has been learning language all day, every day since she arrived. 

“Some of my deepest conversations are at work.”

And the joy of living in the Middle East is that she is among people with a strong religious faith, who are very happy to talk about God. 

She says: “Some of my deepest conversations are at work, with patients and colleagues. They know I am a Christian and that I pray – they are interested in what I believe and want to know more. As a single woman, and as a foreigner, people want to care for me. 

“Some of my patients have invited me into their homes for a meal, or to join family celebrations, and that has been a real joy.” 

Her passion for making disciples has never dimmed and she still sees that as her life’s work, even though she has moved on from our organisation. 

She says: “I really want to encourage people to think about how they could be making disciples. Yes, they could be doing that at home, but they could also be doing it overseas, in places where there are very few Christians. You don’t necessarily need any special training, or to be gifted theologically – you just need to be prepared to use the gifts God has given you, be happy to take a regular job and be confident that you can trust God completely. SIM is a great organisation to be part of along the way.” 

Jo is still no more certain of the difference between a disciple-maker and a mission worker – but she is utterly certain that God wants her in the Middle East, using her gifts and telling people about Jesus. 

*Names have been changed.