This is not a movie review.  I haven’t seen the movie or even read anything about it.  However, during a flight back home with a team a few days ago a little teaser for EAT PRAY LOVE on the cover of the inflight magazine caught my eye.  As soon as I saw it my mind turned to the Bongay of Central Asia.  These three words succinctly describe how we live out Christ’s love among these rural Muslim people.

EAT  It seems counter-intuitive to Americans but they only way to accomplish anything in Central Asia is over a long, slow meal.  As Joel Rosenberg, author of Inside the Revival, states, "The Muslim culture is an Eastern culture, not a Western one.  It is based on relationships and storytelling and on people spending long periods of time with one another.  People in Eastern cultures are not so worried about schedules and quotas and sales figures and returning emails and phone calls quickly.  They are interested in firm handshakes and good food and strong coffee and sweet tea and looking in a man's eyes to see if he is a good man or a bad man and whether he can be trusted or not."

With this principle in mind we must first slow down, drink some tea, eat some goat.  And then we drink some more tea and eat some more goat.  And then we drink some more tea and eat some more goat.  And then…well you get the point.  It is the hardest thing for most Americans to do but the first step in demonstrating Christ’s love is to slow down, get to know them and let them get to know us.

PRAY  Prayer is the key to opening the Bongay’s hearts to Christ’s love for them.  We believe that the most effective way to pray for them is to meet them in their villages, stay with them in their homes, see firsthand the challenges they face.  As Frank Laubach, early missionary to the Moro people in the Philippines, says, “I do nothing that I can see except to pray for them, and to walk among them thinking of God.”

We pray for the Bongay.  We pray for God to open their minds and hearts to his love for them.  We pray for them to see Christ’s love on our faces, in our actions and in our words.  We pray before we arrive.  We pray silently as we first arrive, as we meet new people, as we enjoy tea and a meal together. 

We also pray openly with the Bongay.  By the time we have shared a meal together they understand that we are followers of Jesus.  In most cases they gladly accept our offer to pray for them and openly share about needs in their lives. 

LOVE Christ loves the Bongay just as he loves me and you and everyone else in the world.  It is this love of Christ that compels us to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations”.  It is this love of Christ that is drawing the Bongay to Christ in spite of all the odds against it happening.  It is this love of Christ that is now in the hearts of the first few Bongay believers to ever call on Christ as Lord and Savior.

Won’t you come join us as we EAT PRAY LOVE among the Bongay and other unreached people?