In Underground China Wearing a Robe

I was making a phone call to the substitute American school teacher who had recently returned from China. I had met him one time at the Alternative School where I was the Head Counselor. He had thought he knew someone who could do some Chinese translation work for me for a paper that I had written. So I was calling from my wife's Aunt's house to see if he had had any luck in locating a translator. My wife and I had just returned from shopping in the area. This all happened about 12 years ago so I have forgotten his name. So I will call him “Dan”.

The Surprising Telephone Conversation

Tom: Hello Dan. This is Tom Griffith, the counselor you met at Sharples Alternative School.

Dan: Oh, hi Tom; No, it does not look like I will be able to find anyone to help you with the Chinese translation.

Tom: O, thanks for trying, Dan. Good luck to you in your substitute teaching. Sometimes it's not an easy job. If you are ever at Sharples again, stop in and say hello.

Dan: Wait a minute Tom. I have something to tell you. When I met you in the school lunch room, I had met you before.

Tom: Well, I can't imagine where. I've spoken about Islam in a couple of small churches, but you are a fairly large person so I think I would have remembered meeting you.

Don: Well, I met you in an underground church in the Muslim section of North Western China. So that is how I recognized you in the school and knew that you are interested in Islam.

Tom: Come on Dan. The closest I have ever been to Northwestern China is when I was in Okinawa and we went to Hong Kong for four days for R and R (Rest and Recreation), but that is several thousand miles from where you're talking about.

Dan: No, Tom, I met you in a vivid dream in an underground room of the underground church in the Muslim part of China just the night before I met you at the school. Do you want to hear about the short dream that introduced you to me?

Tom: Sure, go ahead if it does not take too long because I am using my wife's aunt's telephone.

Dan: Well, in the vision, a few of us missionary types were having sort of a secret Christian book display for whoever was interested. A few books were spread out on tables in this very dimly lit room in a basement. And we had a lit candle by each individual book so people could see them better. Then you came with a book about Jesus and Islam and stood in the doorway and smiled. And the book in your hand gave off so much light that we no longer needed the candles by each book.

Then I wanted to ask Dan one question that I had not asked one time when I was speaking to a small group in a home. A young soldier had a vision shortly after I had spoken about Islam in Saudi Arabia. In his vision there were a couple of hundred men kneeling with their heads touching the ground. So at that time about 18 years ago there was not much knowledge about how Muslim's prayed so this young soldier did not even realize that there were Muslims who had this kneeling as one of their positions during their prayers. And he said that I was there speaking about Jesus from the book that I had in my hand. Of course the vision was symbolic for no person would be speaking to Muslims simultaneously with them being involved in their devout prayers. But I always regretted that I did not ask the soldier what I was wearing when I was speaking from the book I was holding. So I was not going to make the same mistake with Dan that I had made with the soldier and not ask him about what I was wearing.

Tom: Dan, do you remember what I was wearing while I was speaking to the kneeling Muslims?

Dan: Sure, Tom, you were wearing a robe.

That was basically the end of the conversation and we never had any conversation again. But this whole supernatural China connection through this vision convinced me of this: at some time my writings about the Messiah Isa in the Qur'an will have some type of impact on the Muslim region of the Muslim part of Northwest China. Even now there are very few days which go by that I do not pray for three cities in that region of China.

There are four reasons that I am personally convinced that GOD was the true source of my vision encounter with Dan.

1. I was shocked that in a public school where it is not politically correct to discuss GOD or Christ, Dan walked directly up to me in the lunch room as soon as he first saw me and immediately began telling me, a total stranger, about presenting Christ to Muslims in China. For there was no one in the school who could have or would have given him as much background information about me as he already seemed to have. I did not ask him at that time about where he got the information because he talked in a loud voice so I wanted to keep the conversation short and proceed with eating my lunch.
2. He mentioned that standing at the door in the vision, I had a smile. I happen to be a person who does not smile very often and I joke a lot but do not smile often enough. But the last word that I had added to the booklet that I had just finished: “Will the Qur'an's Messiah Be Allowed to Visit Mecca”, the last word that I had added was the word smile.
3. But what was really amazing was when he told me that I was wearing a robe. For less than thirty minutes before I had made the call to Dan, my wife had bought me a new robe.
4. Dan had no particular reason to not be telling me the truth.

So what part The People's Republic of China will play in my future, I do not know. But I feel certain that my writing will play at least a small part in aiding Chinese Muslims to gain additional ability to joyfully bond with the Qur'an's Risen Messiah.

And significantly the first person to send me an e-mail regarding my website was a person with a Chinese background who over 20 years ago while at Moody Bible Institute, had read my book, “Sound the Alarm from Saudi Arabia”. Then, these many years later encountered my website and sent me an email to encourage me.

An additional encouragement was that I got his welcome email on the same day two elders from my former Plymouth Brethren Church informed me that for using extreme language on my website that is designed for communicating with Muslims and not Christians, I had used the word ALLAH for GOD. So they thought that my website might cause Christian believers in their denomination to conclude that I may be a terrorist even though my website could not be any more against any type of violence than it is. But that China connection email coming on the same day as the Plymouth Brethren rejection was a trade off that brought me encouragement rather than the opposite. So while I received much encouragement from even the now deceased fathers of the very elders who said I was no longer welcome in their church, the vision of the younger people of that church seemed much more ingrown that those who were older. But in China the situation seems to be the opposite. It is the younger people who are having outward vision. So, Hello, China, Hello!