Guest Blogger: Dick Brogden
Greetings From the Land of Smoke,
A Christian handed a Bible to a Northern Sudanese Muslim Arab who declined to receive it saying, “I have a smoking problem. If I take the Bible, I will just rip out the pages, make cigarettes, and smoke them.”
Thanks be to God, the distributor did not stand on niceties and responded, “No problem, go ahead and rip the pages out to make your cigarettes. But before you roll them, make sure to read the page you ripped out.”
The Muslim man agreed, took the Bible and began to contemplatively smoke his way through the Gospels. Daily he would rip out a page, peruse it, then roll it into a cigarette and puff away. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all were read and then immolated. By the time the smoker had inhaled his way into John, the Holy Spirit had begun to draw as well. John 3:16 was the clincher—it was after smoking that chapter and verse that this Muslim man gave his heart to Jesus.
I guess it goes to prove that where there’s smoke, there is fire!
Dick Brogden and his family have served as missionaries in Sudan for 15 years.
Craig T. Owens 