Take Care of My Unicorn…

Have you ever felt like someone has brought you a unicorn and said, “Could you please take care of this for me?”  What a gift, what a responsibility!  That’s how I feel these days…the someone is God, and the unicorn is a Somali believer named Farsa!  When we moved into our San Diego neighborhood in 2016, one of the things that brought me joy was the proximity of our apartment to a significant community of Somali immigrants.  I had hopes of making Somali friends, sharing the Good News, and seeing God work redemptively in the neighborhood.  But in the years since, while I have met many Somali women, I have only made one good Somali friend, and none of them have been open to deep discussions about faith.

Somali believers are like unicorns because they are so rare.  The Somali immigrant community is close-knit and holds tightly to Islam as a source of their identity, especially as a minority in the US.  But here and there, we see glimpses of God at work!  We’re part of a loose network of people in ministry to Muslims across the US, and when a member of this network reached out from the Midwest to find someone to connect with a Somali woman who was moving from there to San Diego, I eagerly volunteered!  A few weeks later Farsa and I met in person.  That was last fall, and we have been meeting almost weekly ever since.

This is the story of Jesus and the woman at the well in the Discovery Bible Study app, which we use in English and Somali.

Somali believers are like unicorns because they are both strong and beautiful!  Farsa came to the US as a teenager with her family, and has been through many ups and downs over the years.  She’s a single mom who works full time and manages not only to provide for her son but to send money back to her relatives every month as well.  She’s been a believer for a little over a year, and is still discovering what walking out her faith looks like.  It’s a joy to read Scripture together each week and to see how God is speaking to her and growing her faith.  We pray together, and lift up her needs and her family members in different parts of the world.

A second Somali woman has joined our study; she became a believer many years ago, moved away, and just recently moved back.  It’s a gift to them both to support each other in friendship and prayer.  And what a gift to me, to have these rare and beautiful women in my life!


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