Monthly Archives: June 2025

Please see the timely announcement at the end of this email. 

John says in his third letter that he has no “no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” I got a little bit of that this week as our “Little Middle” daughter befriended a Muslim girl at their middle school STEM camp. 

There are at least three reasons it’s good for Christian kids to befriend Muslim kids (probably 83!):

1. Connecting with people not like them helps form a deep-down, fundamental understanding that different people see things in different ways. This helps combat the all too common current sentiment that assumes, “The way I see things is the way they are and people who ‘see’ them differently are stupid. . . and probably evil.”

2. If you build a decent friendship with a Muslim kid, maybe you get to the point you can talk about stuff you have in common like Jesus and how great he is, about Moses and what we can learn from him, and how to navigate challenging lives before the face of God.

3. Befriending a Muslim becomes a data point. It doesn’t say everything about every thing, but it does break down some of the weirdness of, “Oh my gosh, that person is different from me. I’ve heard I should be afraid of them and angry with them,” replacing it with, “but I’m not because I have this friend who is frankly amazing.”

Since my A-girl has set such a beautiful example, I’ve got to go this afternoon and meet her friend’s dad. I’ll try to do good like my daughter has done good and befriend him, show him the honor he merits and learn some good stuff from him.

Finally, this nascent friendship gave my daughter a rare and wonderful gift today: She witnessed the relief and joy in her friend’s eyes as she shared that today, after nine years of work, trials and tears, while the kids were at STEM camp, learning about trains and bridges, her mom was at the state capital becoming a U.S. citizen!

Timely Request:
Muslim Connect has always been free and will alway be so. That said, a couple of times a year, I invite grateful readers to donate to help it thrive. This summer, I have a special request: Our family of five is going to Guatemala in October with our church and Healing Nations to care for some overlooked people. You can read about these trips here. If Muslim Connect has helped, encouraged, informed or poked your buttons, please consider giving a gift that will help me, my wife and our three kiddos get to Guatemala. We expect this journey to be extremely formative in the kids’ lives. Anna will continue to help poor and underserved people see better. I’d be grateful for your gift. Click here, select “Healing Nations Trips,” type in “Bennetts’ October Trip.” Thank you to those who’ve given. You’ve been so helpful! We’re almost halfway to the goal!

Please see the timely announcement at the end of this email. 

I put my wife on a plane to Guatemala this morning. (If you find typos in this email, it’s because it didn’t pass under her wise and careful gaze en route to your inbox.) While she’s seeing a ton of patients and helping them see the leaves on a tree or their grandkids’ faces, the kids and I will be here pining for her return. 

We’ll be fine, I expect, but waiting stinks. Sometimes in little ways, like our waiting for Anna’s return. Too often in big and brutal ways: 

A friend waiting for a likely sobering diagnosis or for treatment to commence after getting the report. 

A mom in Gaza waiting to see if her husband comes home with bread or comes home at all. 

Farmers everywhere waiting for the rains to come or to stop. 

Unengaged people groups waiting for the first ambassador of Christ to move into the neighborhood. 

People all over the world waiting to see what Israel will do next, how Iran will respond and whether or not the U.S. will join the fray. 

And finally there is this waiting: My friend’s wife, Miriam, and two team mates recently went to Jerusalem with a message of hope and life in Jesus. Now they’re learning the ins and outs of air raid shelters while they wait for a way out that doesn’t include the closed airport. 

This afternoon she said I could ask you all to pray in these wonderful ways:

For those serving in the Holy Land to have Psalm 91 protection.

For the Christians, Muslims and Jews who live in Jerusalem to be protected by the Hand of ADONAI. (Zephaniah 3:15)

For Persians and Hebrews to reestablish healthy economic & political relations.

And though she didn’t ask, please also pray for Miriam and her friends to quickly find God’s way out of danger, and for my bud as he awaits his wife. His waiting is clearly more challenging than mine. 

Timely Request:
Muslim Connect has always been free and will alway be so. That said, a couple of times a year, I invite grateful readers to donate to help it thrive. This summer, I have a special request: Our family of five is going to Guatemala in October with our church and Healing Nations to care for some overlooked people. You can read about these trips here. If Muslim Connect has helped, encouraged, informed or poked your buttons, please consider giving a gift that will help me, my wife and our three kiddos get to Guatemala. We expect this journey to be extremely formative in the kids’ lives. Anna will continue to help poor and underserved people see better. I’d be grateful for your gift. Click here, select “Healing Nations Trips,” type in “Bennetts’ October Trip.”

Please see the timely announcement at the end of this email. 

The World Cup is arguably the most viewed sporting event on the planet (1.5 billion people watched the final match in 2022), it’s no wonder given the spate of recent U.S. immigration actions that there’s intense speculation about the next edition scheduled for the summer of 2026 in North America. Is it possible that FIFA, the sport’s governing body, will shift the matches currently scheduled for U.S. venues to co-host countries, Canada and Mexico?

The online claims, while vehement, seem so far to be baseless. But it makes you wonder. 

Out of the gate, the Trump administration froze the U.S. refugee program, thawing it slightly to allow in 59 refugees from South Africa. 

Temporary Protected Status has been terminated for Afghans in the U.S. among many others groups. 

Foreign student visa applications for study in the U.S. are currently halted while the State Department considers how to vet social media accounts of applicants. 

And two days ago a new travel ban went into effect forbidding travel to the U.S. from seven Muslim majority nations. (12 countries are banned and another seven face restrictions.)

For Christians this poses questions in two areas:

What are the mission and ministry implications of these actions? For starters, is this the way an ostensibly Christian country behaves? More specifically what do these policies mean for outreach to international students? For morally appropriate care for the most legit of refugees?

And what about my bud Ken? Somehow the country of Chad made the travel ban list. A country to whose citizens the U.S. issued less than 1500 travel visas last year, now gets none! Why? Because 750 of those visa recipients overstayed their welcome. Is this a national security threat?

Chad responded to the ban by saying, “Back atcha!” So now Ken, who has had amazing ministry, partnering with Chadian believers to engage previously unengaged peoples, may not be able to return. 

The second question might not be limited to Christians: What’s the end game here? Will the U.S. ever be finally secure? Will the bans and deportations and immigration limits stop at some point? Will they stop before they reach your friends? Your extended family? You?

God have mercy on us. And, God, please continue to extend mercy through us. 

Honest Request:
Muslim Connect has always been free and will alway be so. That said, a couple of times a year, I invite readers to contribute to the cost of its production. This summer, I have a special request: Our family of five is going to Guatemala in October with our church and Healing Nations to care for some overlooked people. You can read about these trips here. If Muslim Connect has helped, encouraged, informed or poked your buttons, would you consider giving a gift that will help me, my wife and our three kiddos get to Guatemala? I’d be grateful. Click here, select “Healing Nations Trips,” type in “Bennetts’ October Trip.”

Back in the olden days, I went to Morocco for the first and only time (So far!) to visit a cultural research team we had working in Casablanca. By the grace of God and the whims of the Islamic calendar, I was there for Eid Al Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice. 

This celebration, one of the two biggest of the Muslims’ year, commemorates God’s call to Abraham to sacrifice his son and God’s provision of a ram in the son’s place. The Bible says “Isaac,” while the Quran simply says, “son.” Muslims assume it was Ishmael.

Some of the team took me with them to a family celebration. They, like many in Morocco, had a sheep on their roof, waiting to serve as a special guest in the festivities. 

I experienced two things for the first time that day: I ate sheep liver, which turns out is a delicacy offered to guests. I also participated in helping the sheep transition from cute fuzz-ball to flame-grilled delicacy! (Although, tbh, “participating” consisted mostly of triumphantly not throwing up. Same with the liver.)

You don’t have to be Hudson Taylor or Samuel Zwemer to sense the cultural, biblical and missiological connections flashing like a neon sign in this celebration. We should be the son taking the knife, but God provided another sacrifice. 

Eid al Adha starts today (June 5th) and runs through the weekend. May that Moroccan family (or their descendants, it’s been a minute) sense the reality of Jesus’s gracious, redeeming sacrifice. 

May Muslims all over hear whispers of “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1.29), and join in the eternal chorus, “saying: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” (Rev. 5.12)