Foreigners Meet Moroccan Christian on the Beach in Morocco.

The beach in Tangier, Morocco

One summer a young man was with a group of international people who were a part of a short term summer outreach. They were on the beach in Tangier, Morocco and they were trying to conduct a discrete “open air outreach” on the beach. They got into a circle with their guitar and we were singing some Christian worship songs in English and also in Arabic. No one was paying any attention to them or what they were doing. The leader thought to himself, "What are we going to do?" Off in the distance he saw two young men. One was beating on an upside down bucket like a drum and the other one was using a broken tennis racket as a guitar. They are singing at the top of their lungs and doing their thing. So the team leader called them over to come and join the group. They did and they started beating on their bucket and singing with us and making noise. All of a sudden, they got the attention of the people on the beach!

Before they knew it, they had a crowd of over 100 people gathered around them, looking to see what was going on. The crowd was a little too big and sure enough the police came running and told the people to go away. The team leader asked the police if it was a problem with the people around us. The police said, “We are trying to protect you. It is a problem for us because we don't want our people harassing tourists.” So lots of people left, but there were three or four Moroccans sitting with the group who didn't leave. A discussion began about religion and the Christian faith.

The team leader was in a discussion with one young Muslim Moroccan man and another young Moroccan man sitting next to him jumped into the conversation defending Christianity. The first young Muslim man then said to him, “Are you a Christian or something?” The other Moroccan man said, “Yes, I am.” Wow, that took the Muslim man by surprise! This was the first time the team leader had heard a person publicly express they are a Christian to a stranger in a Muslim country, and it was the first time for this Muslim as well!

When they were finished with their discussion, the team leader told the young Moroccan Christian, “Can we get together tomorrow and talk?” He was about 18 years old and had been listening to the Arabic Christian radio programs from Monte Carlo and had sent away for the Bible correspondence courses. He became a believer and follower of Jesus and so did his two friends! The only believers they knew were just the three of them. They had actually baptized each other in a river! The team leader was was the first Christian they had actually met. A few months later, the team leader and another friend visited these new Moroccan believers in their village to do discipleship work with them and to teach and encourage them. It was a great time of fellowship and also they were part of the discipleship camps that some of the Christians arranged every summer for new Moroccan believers.