One in a Million Mom

To meet the One in A Million Mom, we’ll need to go to Turkey.

Over 76 million people live in Turkey. Of those, there are only 0.03.% evangelical Christians. This dear lady falls into that 0.03%.

Her name is Fatma.

I don’t know many of the details of her testimony, all I know is that she called on the name of the Lord and she became a Christ follower. Because of that decision, her husband divorced her; her two sons abandoned her. For protection, she moved away to a different city. Still to this day, there is NOT one known believer who is native to this city.

Now at 65, she still lives alone in a government retirement building surrounded by unbelievers in a city of unbelievers.

I marvel at the faithfulness of our God! The first thing you notice about Fatma is the joy of the Lord all over her face. Proverbs 31:25 was true, “she is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.”

This describes Fatma, that’s why I chose her to be my “one-in-a-million” mom. Even though she didn’t have much, she had a Bible and she had Jesus Christ to sustain her all these years.

I also chose her because I want to inspire you to pray for the 0.03% of evangelical believers in Turkey. Who are they? What kinds of adversity might they face? Christ has not forgotten them, nor can we! We must pray for them. We pray a victor’s prayer because God is building His church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

It is hard for us to even imagine of a city of over 145,000 people where there has never been known to have a church.

Where does one even start? Well here is one way. Through a simple internet ministry, we fish! We offer free Bibles as bait. If someone requests a Bible, then we follow up by asking if they have any prayer requests. The church planter that I was visiting, said it is the most successful evangelism he has experienced in over 20 years of hard laboring in Turkey.

Well, through this internet ministry, a university student received Christ. He led his friend to the Lord. Our Crossover church planter and his ministry partner began to drive an hour each week to disciple and pour into these two young men. Later two African believers, who also happen to attend this university, started to come. They were joined by an American young lady, a believer, who came to teach English at their university.

While all this was going on, through an amazing string of events, God helped Fatma to meet this little group of believers. They meet to worship, study the Word of God, and encourage one another.

…..this is when my words fall short. I cannot describe the following moments. Fatma’s face. Her joy. Her hugging me. And then….

…..I had to leave her….

I did the only thing that I could think of, I hugged her one more time, pulled off my pearl ring and I placed it on her wedding finger to remind her that she is the ‘bride of Christ,” the Pearl of Great Price. I had the translator tell her about the parable. I told her about the Mixe Indians in Mexico who promised to pray for those I give a pearl to, and I told her about my church and the believers who would remember to pray for her.

With that final hug, Fatma did what she does best; she smiled.

With that we drove away, yes, it is true, a one-in-a-million mom is “clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come." Proverbs 31: 25