by Hannah Castro

“Just because there are Christians present in or around the immigrant community doesn’t mean that people will hear the gospel,” says Elizabeth,* an Alliance worker serving in southern Europe.

The Word of God is for everyone, for all nations, for all people—that is the heartbeat of the gospel.

One incredible challenge in ministry is the ups and downs of discipleship, of partnership—often, there is a lack of receptivity, but there’s never a deficit of need. Especially in regions like southern Europe, the demand for community and discipleship—among the immigrant population specifically—is extraordinary.

Last year alone, over 57,000 Muslim immigrants entered the European country Elizabeth and her husband serve in. Immigrants and refugees come to Europe daily, and their needs are extensive—language, medical, health care, education for their children, economic, social, systemic . . . and the list goes on and on.

“The immigrant community will always be in need as long as they’re seen as immigrants,” Elizabeth says. “There’s always felt needs, and on a spiritual level, there will always be a need for evangelism, for the sharing of the gospel, for people to proclaim the faith and hope we have in Jesus.”

There is great opportunity for the Church to respond.

As Seen By God

God’s heart for the immigrant, for the outsider, for the foreigner, is abundant (see Lev. 19:34; Deut. 27:19). Jesus Himself was a refugee—fleeing with His parents to Egypt because of the threat of Herod (see Matt. 2:13–15). The Lord’s heart for His people stretches far beyond the bounds of borders or territories.

We read in Deuteronomy 10:17–19: “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.”

The first person in Scripture, and the only person in the Old Testament, to give God a name was an immigrant woman from North Africa. Hagar had no power or status, yet she was the first to be visited by the angel of the Lord, and she named God El Roi, “the God who sees me” (Gen. 16:13). An immigrant woman had such an intimate encounter with God that she took such a risk as to give Him a name, and God saw her.

God’s heartbeat is for people, and ours should be the same (see Heb. 13:1–3).

An International Church

Elizabeth and her husband host a house church weekly—with people from North Africa, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan West Africa, all with a Muslim background—gathering for a meal, Bible study, worship, and a time of prayer. They share personal stories, mixing in different languages and cultures.

“It’s a very lonely process for anyone that migrates, a very isolating experience for them,” Elizabeth says. “Our burden is simply to share Christ with them and give them the opportunity to respond to the gospel. It sounds very simple, but that’s what we’re called to do—share Jesus and the good news of salvation in Christ.”

Elizabeth feels very strongly about presenting the gospel to lost people. “I think everything we do is to encourage church planting among immigrants and refugees in Europe,” she adds.

For a long time, there were only men coming to the house church, and Elizabeth hoped and prayed that God would bring women to the group who she could see come to faith and walk beside. Some time later, Elizabeth met Nabila, a 37-year-old woman who immigrated to southern Europe when she was just 15 years old. She had found Christ as an adult but soon after reverted back to Islam.

At first, Nabila only stopped by the house church to drop off food—she said she wasn’t going to stay—but she did, and she kept coming back. Though a little reluctant, as she had turned away from God and returned to her old religion, Nabila continued to show up, to witness the consistent faith of those in the church, and her commitment to Christ was reborn.

Elizabeth credits the community of the house church, of those who came from similar backgrounds as Nabila did, sharing their own stories and journeys of how they came to faith in Christ, as what made such a significant impact on her.

Elizabeth’s prayer for a sister in Christ was answered, and God wasn’t stopping there.

As they shared in community, Nabila told Elizabeth about her faith journey—finding Christ, denying Him, and coming back into relationship with Him— and she said, “I honestly feel like maybe God might be calling me to be, I don’t know what you guys call it, like a missionary.” Nabila then shared her burden for her own people, her heart to reach women from her own background and context—God was giving her such an impression for ministry.

But she felt some hesitancy, some fear, and a lack of knowledge of where to even begin. “I felt alone, like my hands were tied,” Nabila says. “[Ministry] was impossible. I couldn’t do it on my own.” She had a missional heart but quickly realized that she couldn’t do life, let alone ministry, alone. Luckily, God doesn’t call any one of us to do such by ourselves.

“It becomes difficult to carry both the discipleship burden as well as the burden for the lost and be in both places at the same time,” says Elizabeth. “It’s much easier and much better teamwork when we can do that together. So, what makes this story so wonderful is that God brought someone who is a growing believer alongside of me so that we can do that outreach together.”

The Gifts of the Body

“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, thought many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us” (Rom. 12:4–6a).

The gifts of one may not be the gifts of another and vice versa—praise the Lord for that, for we could never complete what God has called us to step into on our own or simply by the same efforts. The call of the gospel engages in partnership (see Prov. 27:17; Gal. 6:2). When one is weak, the other can lift them up. We need one another. We can count on each other.

“Nabila knows a lot. She doesn’t struggle with the language here. She has unique cultural insight,” says Elizabeth, “but sometimes her knowledge of where to bring in the gospel, that’s where she feels hesitant and not empowered. That’s where we work well together.” Where Nabila is weak, Elizabeth can come alongside her. Where Elizabeth might not as easily reach those from a different culture, Nabila can carry the load. Partnership is Kingdom work.

After Nabila shared with Elizabeth that she felt a stirring to be a missionary, they started dreaming together about what that could look like. “It felt like such a great privilege to witness what the Holy Spirit was doing in her and also to come alongside her in that process,” says Elizabeth.

Nabila had the idea to start a handcraft workshop with some women she felt were spiritually open and who would engage in conversation. She handpicked a dozen or so women to invite, and Elizabeth found the place, supplied some materials, and set up the program; and once or twice a week, they gathered together, doing handcrafts. Nabila or someone else would teach, introducing different topics to reflect on each week—sowing seeds of the gospel, challenging them to think critically about their worldviews, and sharing the hope of Christ and how He treated women in Scripture.

These meetings eventually evolved into teaching the local language, as they recognized that was more of a felt need, especially for women who just don’t have the same opportunities that men and children do there, predominantly those who have immigrated.

Initially, 10–12 women came to the craft workshop. Now, the group of women is around 40–50. In the 12 months that Nabila and Elizabeth have been ministering to the immigrant community together, they’ve met and interacted with more than 70 women from North Africa.

“There’s so much distance between a North African Muslim and a Western Christian,” says Elizabeth. “And so, in my first contact with women—because of the love of Christ—I want them to feel seen, to embrace them with words, with a hug, whatever is takes to shorten that distance between us.

“But as time goes on, I love to gather people together and create an environment where they feel safe with each other and where we can share things openly together. As we get to know each other, as they see our heart, they trust us more. There’s more openness.”

Through activities, conversation, and partnership, Elizabeth and Nabila have fostered a community among immigrant women that breeds openness and tilled soil. By sharing life together, they’ve reduced the distance between cultures, between beliefs, and have made the ground more fertile to plant the seeds of the gospel. Together, they’re erasing the boundary lines between borders—Nabila with a missional heart to reach her own people and Elizabeth with a missional heart to reach people vastly different from herself.

Partnering With Joy

Witnessing people come to Christ is always a joy-filled experience; partaking in a community and partnering with others in the process only adds to the delight. Elizabeth has found that walking alongside Nabila and gathering women, supporting them on their spiritual journeys, brings her the most joy.

“To have a person to walk alongside, like Nabila, gives me joy—it’s the joy of planting seeds but doing it with someone who’s so different than me; it’s such a privilege,” says Elizabeth.

“I see women from North Africa as very undervalued, and so I feel like it’s important that they hear and see that they are valued. I feel a burden to show them the heart of God as much as I can—that they are important, they’re seen, they’re beautiful, and that there’s a lot of potential in them as women who can impact their home, their community, and the next generation.”

It matters that we reach the immigrant, the broken, and the lost, and it matters that we do so in partnership. We’re better together, as one Body. As the heartbeat of God is for all people, to see everyone reconciled to Himself, let’s walk beside others together, bringing the good news of great joy to all.

*All names changed

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