A new ministry center is providing a place to gather believers and train leaders, while the story of one woman’s 20-year journey of faith reminds us that God is always at work—even when we cannot see it.
A new building has been inaugurated for the purpose of providing a safe place for gathering believers and training leaders in a special location in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region.
At a recent gathering, several leaders arrived from areas of ongoing conflict where, for months, their daily routine had been interrupted by the sound of explosions. Many arrived discouraged, but after a time of fellowship and encouragement in the Word of God, they returned to their ministry fields with restored faith and courage.
Elias*, the center's director, knows well how draining it can be when you pour yourself into ministry without being able to see what God is doing behind the scenes—when you don't know when the harvest will come.
Nevertheless, his faith remains strong, bolstered by such provision as the long-awaited ministry center and by the witness of God’s work in the lives of people like Samira*, a woman he encountered several months ago.
Samira was born and raised in a context where the careful practice of her family's religion eclipsed any awareness of other faiths. Then, one night during her teenage years, she had a dream in which she saw a book radiating with light.
Samira had no idea what the dream might mean, but something about it left her with an unexplainable sense of emptiness. By the time she reached university, concerns about her religion's ability to speak to her questions and struggles caused her to doubt her faith.
During a period of studying language translation, Samira turned to satellite TV to practice English and stumbled on an English language channel with religious content. She discovered that it was a Christian broadcast and was impressed by the answers the Bible offered to life’s problems. The more she watched, the more she was captivated by the God whom the Christians worshiped.
As it turned out, Samira had stumbled onto the Adventist channel, 3ABN. Alone, in her own home, with only that channel and her Bible, she began her walk of faith.
In time, Samira discovered that the Bible identified Saturday as God's chosen day of worship, and in a desire to learn more, she cautiously visited a house church run by a Christian she had met. When she asked about the Sabbath, she was met with a resistance she didn't understand. The Bible seemed so clear to her and she felt confused as to why Christians were worshiping on Sunday.
Finally, she made the decision to keep the Sabbath on her own, at home. Over the next twenty years, Samira shared her faith off and on with friends as she continued to watch 3ABN, read her Bible, and occasionally host a handful of friends in her home for church.
Then, one day in 2021, she reached a point where she simply could not go on believing alone any longer. The loneliness had become too much. So she prayed to God: "Lord, connect me with Your people." Remarkably, her prayer was answered within a single day.
Through the same Adventist channel she had watched, she learned of an upcoming online prayer meeting, and — very cautiously — she joined. She was astonished to discover just how many Adventists there were across the entire world. The other participants at the meeting were equally surprised to meet a woman from the Middle East who, guided by the Holy Spirit, had kept the Adventist faith alone for more than twenty years.
About a year after that, through God's leading, Samira was connected with a local worker and began an online Bible study. Then, in the winter of 2025, in a small city near where she lives, Elias finally met her. In spite of the fact that Samira had never once experienced church in the way we usually understand it, she radiated the faith of a deeply mature Adventist believer.
In some countries, nearly every congregation has its own Adventist pastor, but she had never met a single one in her entire life. Nevertheless, she understood the truths of the Adventist faith with striking clarity. She was faithful in her tithe and offering. She was even leading a house church in her own home.
Elias met Samira while engaged in a discipleship training seminar for around ten believers from the same religious background as Samira. As it turned out, her own younger sister and two of her friends were there with her.
Samira had been translating and carefully sharing Bible-study materials from programs she watched on 3ABN, including Amazing Facts and It Is Written. First, she shared the gospel with her closest friend. The two of them then reached out to Samira's younger sister. And then the three of them together had shared Jesus with yet another woman. All four of them were among others baptized last December, joining the Adventist family as disciples of Jesus Christ.
Listening to her long journey of faith, Elias could not contain his amazement at how she had kept her faith alone for so long, and that, despite very real risks, she had shared it with her family and friends.
But beyond that, he was touched by God's relentless pursuit of a single soul. A twenty-year journey no one else had witnessed had led to four baptisms — and it brought him back to a question he had long carried.
"Does my not seeing anything really mean He is not working?"
Many of God's workers carry that same weight — tears and heartbreak over results they cannot see or touch. He no longer sees this as a lack of faith, but as a holy burden they're called to carry. Samira's story made it clear: even when he perceives nothing, understands nothing, God is still at work.
That truth settled into Elias' heart not as a truth extracted from a missiology textbook, but as a deep conviction coming from witness, from having watched it happen in someone's life.
Elias’ daily prayer is that this ministry be carried not as a burden, but with the joy of serving God with the confident hope that He is finishing what He started — until that day when a great multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language gathers before Him, crying, "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb" (Revelation 7:9–10).
Praise God that Samira and many others we have yet to meet will be among them.
*not their real names