East meets West

Many Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa immigrated to France looking for Jobs and a better quality of life. They brought with them a culture and a religion which was foreign and unwelcome. Well paying jobs were more difficult to find than perhaps they had hoped, but practicing their faith in private, they rarely came into conflict with the native French. However, their children are a different story. They have been born and raised in France, some are now even third generation French citizens. Still, due to their ethnicity and religion, they are regarded as foreigners. When they go to Africa and the Middle East they are considered foreigners there as well. These young people have been raised in poverty and rejection. Not knowing who they are or where they belong, some turn to drugs and drug trafficking, while many others grab hold of Islam in order to give them a sense of identity, unity, and meaning. But unlike the faith of their parents, theirs is a radical Islam. While the Muslims of the East are looking to Europe and the United States, becoming gradually more Westernized by MTV, the Muslims here in France are looking back East. Protruding from the lower working class housing complexes of Paris are scores of satellite dishes, all tuned in to Islamic television programs like Al-Jazeera.

This complicated and volatile social situation was explained to us today as we were given a tour of the East Paris neighborhoods which were the setting of the violent riots of 2005. Our guide was a young man who grew up in this neighborhood as Muslim, but is now a disciple of Jesus and is a strong witness among the Muslim Population here in Paris and throughout Europe. He explained to us that the tensions here are still very high. On the first floor of one of the rundown apartment complexes we swatted flies which swarmed by the ceiling tiles above which traffickers would stash drugs. The mailboxes all bore Middle Eastern or North African names. Just outside in the street one can still see the burn marks in the pavement where police cars were set ablaze; a sobering experience. Our tour guide explained that nothing in these neighborhoods will change until the hearts of the people change, and that, only Jesus can do.

We ate lunch with our tour guide (whom many have referred to as the "Protestant Imam") at one of his favorite Turkish restaurants. He shared with us his experiences of doing ministry among these French Muslims. He has had a great deal of success and has seen many of them come to follow Jesus, and to find their identity in him. There is still a great deal of work to be done here. Please pray for the Islamic communities in France and for our "Protestant Imam" and those like him who are working among them to make disciples.