One of the persons saved was a teacher. He had come with his wife from another village. Both of them accepted the Lord and went back to their village. And so the Word spread.
Another man, after watching the Jesus movie, asked, “What do I need to do?”
Abaza said, “Repent and believe in Jesus.”
He did and Abaza gave him a Bible and the “Jesus” film on CD. He went home and started showing it to everybody.
His daughter had four children—each fathered by a different man. His sons were on drugs. Jesus came into his house, and they all accepted Jesus. The village people saw the change in their lives. Now there is a church meeting in his house.
“A lot of people are hungry for the Lord,” Abaza said.
Harvest in Crimea
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| Workers stand in the field in Crimea. |
It was harvest time and Abaza and some Christian friends felt led of the Lord to help a certain family harvest their wheat field.
“We can’t pay you,” the farmer said.
“We don’t want any pay,” the Christians said. We just want to help you.”
Word quickly spread throughout the whole town. “These people will help you with your harvest, and you won’t have to pay them.”
After the day’s work, one of the women invited them to her house for dinner. She had come to Christ a year before. After supper, Abaza asked her, “Is there anything you want us to pray for?”
She said, “Yes, please pray for my husband. He has been bedridden for seven years.”
Abaza and his coworkers went into his room, shared the gospel with him, laughed with him, and prayed. Then they put on their shoes and left. [It is the Turkish custom to remove one’s shoes when entering a house.] They had hardly gotten into the street when the one they had prayed for put on his shoes and came out into the street and started walking with them.
Today a group of believers meets under the guidance of a trained leader in this area.
Mountain in Macedonia
Once Abaza and a companion drove into a rural area of the Republic of Macedonia, stopped, got out of his car, and walked for two-and-a-half hours up a mountain. Eventually they came to a house, and Abaza knocked on the door.
A man opened the door and, with an amazed look on his face, said, “I know you.”
“How can you know me?” Abaza said. “I have never been here before.”
“I know you because two nights ago I had a dream, and in that dream I saw two men coming to my house bringing books; one of them was you.”
“Yes, we’ve brought some books,” Abaza said. Abaza gave the man a Bible.
That was the beginning of a house church in that area. And there is more.
Prayer from a minaret
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| Abaza prayed from this minaret in Macedonia. |
In another area of Macedonia it had not rained in six months. People were desperate and the local imam began sacrificing a lamb every day to pray for rain.
Abaza went there and asked the imam, “Please, may I pray for rain?”
“Quick, go get a lamb,” the imam said. “This man wants to pray for rain.”
“No,” Abaza said. “I do not need your lamb. We already have a Lamb, and he was slain 2000 years ago. Our Lamb is sufficient, and we will pray in the name of our Lamb.”
There was a tall minaret there, shown at left, and Abaza said, “I will go to the top of the minaret and pray in the name of our Lamb.”
“If you do that, the imam will kill you,” a villager told him.
But he went, anyway. When he got to the top of the minaret, he prayed a very short prayer: “Lord Jesus, give the rain they need.”
Then he came down from the minaret. Within 20 minutes it rained.
The people stood in utter amazement and rejoiced as the rain fell. Even the imam joined their gladness and was open to what Abaza had to say.
Abaza started going door to door, and every household welcomed him. God has a way to open closed doors.
House groups now meet in the name of Jesus on a weekly basis under the tutelage of one of two missionary families working in the area.
Divine direction in Greece
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| Abaza and a friend walked down this street and met a woman who had received Christ as a child 50 some years earlier. |
Another time Abaza and an associate went to a small town in Greece. The next day they climbed a mountain, and from the top they could see the whole town. God impressed on Abaza to go to 9th Street. He started walking down the street (shown at right) until he came to a certain house. He was impressed to go up to the house and knock on the door. A woman, about 60, opened the door. 
