It was no coincidence...

It was no coincidence that we bumped into "Arif" (not his real name) on the street near The Oasis last Thursday night. Our "cafe night" had just started up, and a few of us went out to invite people to it. We started walking towards the refugee camp, Arif was just leaving the refugee camp, and so looking back I can see the Lord´s hand in the timing of things. As we crossed paths with him on the sidewalk, we said hello to him and asked him which language he spoke, and since he could speak German and Farsi, our Farsi translator was able to tell him all about The Oasis and invite him to our cafe night. Thankfully, he accepted our invitation just like that, and joined us for some tea at The Oasis. It turns out that he came here from Afghanistan four years ago, but only just last Thursday, the day we met him, was his wife able to join him here in Austria. But, since he has already been granted asylum here in Austria, he was no longer allowed to stay overnight in the refugee camp! His wife was exhausted, and so there he was, leaving the camp at 7 pm, just as our cafe night was starting. However, they were going to be moving to a refugee facility in Innsbruck the very next day together. SO, we were super thankful to have the one evening with Arif, and he did accept our invitation to watch The Jesus Film in Farsi, praise the Lord. We watched the film with him, and about five other guys, and it was followed by a good Question and Answer session afterwards as well. And since Arif had mentioned to us that he could not read, we gave him an audio mp3 player in Dari, his mother-tongue, which was donated to us by Faith Comes by Hearing. He accepted it with thankfulness, and it seemed clear to me that this was an evening in which we experienced the Lord directing our steps. Pray for him, that the Lord would continue to speak to him and remind him of all that he saw and heard last Thursday night, and that even both he and his wife would listen to the mp3 of the New Testament that he received. Thank you for praying for us here at The Oasis, for we continue to see the Lord at work in the lives of the refugees we meet!   -Ken