Ep. 60 / From Operating Room to Digital Mission Field with Rafik Barsoum

A young Egyptian physician trades hospital corridors for a global pulpit—and discovers that satellites, smartphones and small groups can carry hope when church doors stay closed. In this episode we sit down with Rev. Dr. Rafik Barsoum to unpack how a calling forged in med school, a 40‑day fast and Oxford‑honed apologetics became a digital lifeline for Arabic speakers around the world.

Consider these statistics: 14 satellites beam biblical teaching to a potential audience of 100 million, social media platforms turn broadcasts into online conversation, resulting in nearly a million monthly points of engagement. The secret isn’t just content - - it’s the follow‑up. Dr. Rafik shares the story of a man in a prison cell who found a digital church on a smuggled phone, asked hard questions, watched the Jesus film, and prayed for salvation—proof that thoughtful evangelism plus persistent care can reach the unreachable.

In the conversation we also explore why a “virtual” church is anything but pretend. Weekly services, live interaction and encrypted small groups provide discipleship for those who can’t safely gather. Rev. Barsoum talks about funding “door openers,” the providential push to social media just before 2020 and how decades of upheaval in the MENA region has resulted in a surge of seekers. Through it all, he returns to three anchors: God’s faithfulness, breaking fear and keeping Jesus at the center of every decision.

If you'd like to learn more about Rafik Barsoum's online ministry (Message to All Nations), you can go to the website and follow them on Facebook. 

And please don't forget to share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube! 

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Transcript

Introducing Rafik’s Unusual Journey

Brian Stiller 0:10

Welcome to Evangelical 360. I'm your host, Brian Stiller. My friend Ramez Atala sent a note from Egypt saying, I want you to meet Rafik Barsoum. So we met for breakfast near my home north of Toronto. And it didn't take me long to see that this young medical doctor from Egypt, now an online pastor and evangelist, is not your average Egyptian-turned Canadian. I want you to meet Rafik too. He has a fascinating story, but he's also a symbol of something blossoming globally. Young men and women who branch out from their professions, combining their natural instincts and skills with their vocational abilities to remake church mission, redesign evangelism, and restoke passion for faith. Rafik trained to be a physician, but after graduating from the faculty of medicine in Cairo, he kicked back into an earlier default of being an on-campus evangelist. Much as he loved medicine and wanted to get his professional designation. He and his wife, also a medical doctor, founded a mission agency called Message to All Nations. While running his medical practice at government and medical hospitals in Egypt and writing about infectious diseases, he went on to Oxford and earned a degree in apologetics and theology. Today you can find him online every week, pastoring Arabic-speaking Christians from around the globe. Rafik offers insights, advice, encouragement, and biblical teaching to show how the gospel connects with the Arab world, especially its younger generation. Thank you for joining me today. Please consider sharing this episode with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, please hit the subscribe button. Now to my guest, Rafik Barsoum. Rafik Barsoum, so good to have you here on Evangelical 360.

Rafik Barsoum 2:19

Thank you for having me, Brian. So good to be with you.

From Med School To Mission Vision

Brian Stiller 2:22

I'm very interested in knowing what you're doing and why you're doing it. But I gotta start from the top and ask why a doctor, a medical doctor in Egypt, is now globally an online evangelist and pastor. How did that come about?

Rafik Barsoum 2:44

I would rewind a bit. Um during my teenage years, I was an avid reader. And though I was brought up in a Christian home, very um devout, godly parents, and I was in my evangelical church since uh my childhood, yet I was yearning to know the meaning of life. Why am I here? What should I do with my life? And searching for that uh through different readings, you know, philosophy, literature, so forth, of course I landed on the real meaning of life, and it is uh living the life with and for my Lord Jesus. And that was kind of the transformative experience that I had in my teenage years, um, right before deciding to go to college. And because so many of the stories that weaved into kind of my reading was for medical missionaries who lived the calling and went to different places and uh preached the gospel using medicine as a platform. And I also heard and I was fascinated by a preacher who was a surgeon and he spoke in a very eloquent way. He preached the gospel elegantly and clearly, so I decided to go to med school. There, of course, kind of the vision was shaped and was pruned and so forth. But the initial vision of going into med school was using medicine in missions, in serving people and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, because this is what missionaries, especially to restrictive nations and hard places, were using. And of course, we know that the gospel of Jesus is uh salvation for the soul, but also uh salvation for um, you know, a transformation of the whole being and the body as well. So going into med school was an expression of um my willingness to serve Jesus and training to become uh a medical servant or a medical missionary of Jesus. Now the story didn't end there. Towards the final years of my medical education, I was yearning, you know, to go into missions. What should I do now? And at that time I was um engaged to my now wife, and we were praying and seeking the Lord and so forth. And the ministry that the Lord has put on our heart then, which is now materialized in the ministry I work for, Message to All Nations, was kind of birthed. So once we were done with our undergraduate medical education, we kind of started with our group of friends and colleagues in putting this into practice. So we gathered, we've done uh seminars and events and conferences to train and mobilize medical personnel into missions, training them in missions, evangelism, apologetics, and discipleship, and kind of creating the momentum for the moon. And this was started alongside with still our medical training and then practice. Um, I had to go to practice in the military. So all during this time, you are still a full-time medical doctor, correct? Internship first and then into full-time practice, but also a thriving ministry that was growing, and in that we are discipling, we're training, and we're mobilizing other medical uh personnel, you know, younger students, but it went further beyond the medical field and to other kind of youth from other backgrounds because there was momentum.

Prayer, Calling, And Leaving Clinical Work

Brian Stiller 6:24

Was there a particular moment when you went from here to here? When you realize that there is a calling that is going to take you away from being a full-time medical practitioner?

Rafik Barsoum 6:42

There was there was a time when right after graduation, I spent time, long time, long, long, very long time in prayer and fasting. How long? 40 days. Uh, you know, the the real deal. Uh, I was young then, and kind of put uh before the Lord everything. And I think this was the real birth of the ministry. At that point, we put everything on the table and for the Lord to use it and to lead it as as he wants. So at that point, I was still doing medicine and ministry, and the ministry started, and it slowly like I I never at that point, um, I never stopped studying or my connection with the medical world, but the ministry commitments increased more and more, and of course, leadership and management and so forth took over because of a thriving and a growing organization. Still, medicine has a crucial role in our organization and ministry, but you know, as a full-time leader and pastor and preacher, I don't do the clinical part, and um I don't miss it so much because what I'm doing, I know that we're impacting so much lives, and we're very grateful for that.

Brian Stiller 7:57

Tracking again, you're a you're a university student, you're studying medicine, you're learning all that a medical doctor's required, which is a fairly intensive study. But during that time, you're also nurturing this inclination to draw people to faith and to encourage them. Was this was this a natural instinct? Was it something you learned in your childhood? Or was it something that that dawned upon you as you as you were in university?

Rafik Barsoum 8:33

Yeah. Brian, you're an amazing um historian, and so you know you you want to know the roots. So um there were many influences in my childhood and upbringing that kind of um influenced me to be burdened about that. I think my transformation in teenage and uh this renewed commitment to Jesus. I I remember those days when I was um we lived right before behind the next to the Cairo Stadium complex, and I would, I used to run and I love running, and I used to run all the stadia and hand out tracts. And um the Bible Society, you know, led by your dear friend, had had uh kind of produced a few tracts on the meaning of life from the book of Ecclesiastes. And that that was my you know, my I I was at home in Ecclesiastes because it's full of philosophy, and that was kind of my intellectual excursion. So I would hand them out to people in the streets, and that opens uh loads of conversations. And I remember, you know, running and walking from a bus station to the other, handing people over those um tracks on, you know, in the streets of Cairo. This is not a commendable uh act, right? So I remember, you know, this is the joy of salvation, Brian, right? Uh and if you're 15, you don't think of the consequences much. So you hand those tracts, and then I go to that bus station and speak with others, and coming back, you know, people have skipped their buses and reading the word of God and that and searching for the meaning, and then we we carry on the conversation. So these early days of uh salvation and the joy and the joy of getting the word out was amazing. And then I guess the major influence in my life was my grandfather, who used to live with us after his wife, my grandmother, passed away. And he was on fire for Jesus. He was a university professor, um, he he taught agriculture, but after his retirement, he studied theology and started writing books. And these books were uh introducing people to Jesus. So I think I caught his fire. So all over all through the university years, in addition to my medical studies, I used to do like short-term missions, serving here and there in Egypt, in the region, and so forth, and and also beyond. So this prepared me and and my fiance, my wife now, uh, to write after graduation to start the ministry that we started.

Brian Stiller 11:19

And then before we get into the actual work that you're doing, you then go to Oxford to do theology and aparthetics.

Oxford, Apologetics, And Media Doors

Rafik Barsoum 11:26

Correct. So um, as any, like any um young man in Egypt, I was conscripted to the army, and because I was um a medical doctor, so they expected to serve in the army as a physician. Uh, and I had been blessed to have this training, military training, because it helped me in so many ways. And then once I was released from conscription, uh my wife and I went to Oxford and I studied uh theology and apologetics, and then went back to Egypt, started teaching, and I was called to teach in seminaries. Uh, so that I did, putting some, you know, the first uh curricula of apologetics in kind of in in Arabic seminaries, but also that took me to a wider uh kind of popular setting to laity teaching laity and and introducing them to how to defend the gospel and how to preach the gospel and how to handle the objections and so forth. And this got me to the back end of the media world. Okay. I know that you pick up from there.

Brian Stiller 12:28

Well, with that is an interesting beginning. I'm gonna I'm gonna be asking to jump right into an explanation. You now are an online pastor and evangelist. You go over the around the world by way of media every week. Help me understand. Now I'm I'm an old coder, and I've had to figure out the social media and the new kind of global media activity, which uh I was raised with your local television network stations, and then in Canada and North America, your network. So I did a weekly television show that went across a television network, but it was only in places where you could get that network. Now we're in a different world. So here you are doing a weekly program and multiple programs. Help help me understand how how you're able to reach across the world primarily to an Arab-speaking population. How does that work?

Satellites, Social Media, And Reach

Rafik Barsoum 13:32

Yeah, so first of all, um I'm so thankful for the pioneers for your generation because uh your generation has thought out of the box and took the risks to utilize the infomedia revolution at that stage into um an evangelistic tool. We're very grateful, and I think we didn't build from scratch. Now, um back to my story. So when I got introduced to the media world, which I reluctantly accepted, like I was totally hesitant to get into media after so many invitations. That wasn't my world, and I didn't want to go there. I thought, like, the library is my habitat, you know, so so I will not go there. I'm teaching and training those who work at the back and answering the questions. I'm helping people with content. So why would I be in front of the camp? But coming into this world, and and it's it's a story of its own. Um we know that there are different generations now of media, and to make it very simple, and you and your son are experts, and you've seen that developing before you. So there is the traditional media, right? Uh TV, radio, um, cable, satellite, and so forth, where there is um one or few platforms, one or few voices that go to the masses. And of course, the development of this traditional media in the recent years was through satellites. So now it's not dependent on cable or a network, but on satellite, and thankfully, satellites can cover a wider area. So the network that we're partnering with now and we we run our programs with, and I've had the joy of having you on my program a few times, has um their channels or stations on 14 satellites. So they cover the globe. So at any point of time, you can, if anywhere in the world, if you have a satellite receiver, satellite dish, you can get it towards um the particular satellite and receive it on your decoder. Um, that in itself is a revolution because you can hardly um as a government block that. So in many parts of the world, people are dependent upon this for their spiritual content and of course every other thing. But this is to be used that way. Now, thankfully, this is not the only tool that we can use.

Brian Stiller 16:13

So you have all these satellites around the world that you're you're on. So if I'm in Libya or wherever, I if I have a decoder, I can simply listen to that satellite and download your program.

Rafik Barsoum 16:27

Exactly. So you can you can put your dish, satellite dish towards that, you know, satellite in the in the space, and with your decoder, you can see it. Of course, you know, you've been to many places in in um the greater MENA and the 1040 window. MENA means MENA, Middle East and North Africa. Thank you for that. And the 1040 window, which is you know, the the block as far west as Morocco and as far east as uh Indonesia and so forth, where you know the gospel is not yet uh pronounced and there are so many unreached peoples. Now, thankfully, the density of satellite presence is huge because people might not have a new refrigerator, but they definitely have a TV and a satellite, right? And that that in itself is a great opportunity because that's their only way of leader. They don't go out, they don't go out. You go you go by satellites.

Brian Stiller 17:25

So what's then you go by you you're you go out through the social media as well.

Engagement, Follow‑Up, And A Prisoner’s Story

Rafik Barsoum 17:29

So that's which is that's the second uh generation of media now that we're using, and it's the new media where media is becoming interactive. So it's not just few voices and few platforms, it is still few platforms, but so many voices. So everybody can have a platform on social media, right? A platform means everybody can have a voice on the platform. So the platform would be the social media engine, like Facebook, YouTube, whatever, right, right? TikTok, whatever. Um, but then you can have thousands of voices, millions of everybody can have a voice on these platforms. The characteristic of this is that it's it's interactive, people can engage with you, and that's what we are maximizing. So it's not just broadcast, it's engagement now. So among our different platforms, we have voices on those platforms, right? Pages on those platforms, and we have almost a million engagement a month. So people are engaging, reflecting on the content, uh, commenting, asking questions, uh, feeding, uh giving us feedback, um, inquiring, threatening, rebuking, whatever, everything all over the spectrum. So the sad, like, do you know what numbers of people that are watching your your program every week? Um, so with a satellite, you you can't, but you can estimate the number of audience. So they say that uh upon uh because of the coverage, the potential audience is a hundred million. How many see? That we can't know. It's it's uh it's so expensive to get sure to get uh that's the satellite. But the potential audience is 100 million. So this is what we can do. And the social media? But that we can definitely know because we we know that let's say for YouTube, we had uh around 10 million views, seven to ten million views over what period of time? Over the last three, four years. Um we had, and this is not as exciting, as 200,000 watch hours. So 100,000 what 200,000 watch hours. Watch hours. So my watch hour means somebody who watched your content for an hour. Okay. So that means that people are not just you know clicking, bruising, that means that people are engaging, sitting down. So imagine like this you are in a stadium uh of maybe uh ten thousand people. Right, and they come every week. So every week they have a service for one hour that's 10,000 hours a week. That's kind of the way you can see. Um, but with that, there is a back end of follow-up, and that is the bread and butter of using social media in um engagement for evangelism discipleship. The follow-up is an amazing component, and this was kind of my um cup of tea, because these are the people that are responding firsthand. So, so if you are a person on your own, and I I'll I'll tell a story now. If if you are um on your own in a prison cell in a country where it's an open-air prison, I'll leave unnamed. And this person had his sentence almost over. He had been in crime, in alcoholism, in um a very, very um evil life. He was sentenced to a life sentence, and towards the end of his um time in prison, he was almost gonna be released. He was uh a phone was smuggled to him, and now he's asking life's major questions. Why am I living? What should I do with my life? How can I get forgiveness of all my sins and blemishes and so forth? Now he lands on our digital church, and I'll come to the word digital church later. And he starts attending online from his prison cell. His situation is a bit loosened because he's he's you know an oldie and he's getting released soon. So the the restrictions are being uh waived. He would listen and he would interact and ask questions, and then the follow-up team in the back end will come back to him with either answers or further questions. So, have you ever read the Bible? Right? So it's it's a conversation opener and and continuing. So they send him the Jesus film. He watches some, he asks back, and then they ask him to uh watch the or attend the online church. So over the time, he has some of his questions answered, and the Holy Spirit transades in his life, and this is remotely. He's in a prison cell in a country that is very restricted, very uh like with very high index of persecution, and there he would receive the gospel, receive Jesus in his heart, and come to a saving knowledge of Christ and pray the salvation prayer on his phone with a follow-up team from a prison cell. Okay, so I I want to follow that up, but let me let me go back up to your audience.

Brian Stiller 22:56

Uh who is obviously you you you speak Arabic, uh that is your your background, your mother language, and that is the community that is the most unreached in the world. So is that your audience?

Rafik Barsoum 23:15

Again, it depends upon the different um platforms. So for the social media speak on media, yeah. So I speak Arabic for the most part. We have some new English programs for the second generation, uh, but then in social media, because we can target into countries, so we take this content, and there are teams that are working, so they put it into Turkish, into Persian, into French for the North African second generation, and so forth. So the primary target audience for the social media would be the greater MENA region, the Middle East and North Africa, the greater one, or the 1040 window. And um, the languages will follow kind of the target audience. Now there is also diaspora component that is very well covered by the media.

Brian Stiller 24:04

Diaspora meaning?

Rafik Barsoum 24:05

Meaning those from the greater MENA that are scattered all over the world.

Brian Stiller 24:09

So those from the Middle East or North Africa that are everywhere.

Rafik Barsoum 24:14

Everywhere. Everywhere. And this is very well covered by the traditional media, by the TV and satellite, because we literally cover the globe.

Brian Stiller 24:21

So you have this, you have the disability by way of uh satellites, by way of social media, uh where people listen to your program, or social media where they can interact. You tell the story how this one prisoner comes to faith in Christ, then you have people who follow up. Then you have what's called what's called the digital church?

Building A Digital Church For The Persecuted

Rafik Barsoum 24:42

Yes, indeed. So, and that came out of necessity. So the question is now praise God, there are people coming to know Jesus from media and social media, but they are not able, and probably sadly so, and they cannot go to fellowship with a local body of believers in person for now at least. So, where will they go? Are we um making spiritual orphans that would know Jesus on their own and live their faith in silo? Because we know quite well that no believer can live alone. Discipleship happens in community and the Christian growth only happens in community. So the idea of the digital church came from another particular country, the Persian Church, and they utilized, and that was back in the early um 2000s, you know, earlier in this century, where they utilized all the chat um the chat rooms to have a virtual community for their believers or their newly believers. Now, this has developed a great deal, and of course, COVID came in, and so much technology has been invested into that so that we're able to mimic um the virtual kind of expression or the virtual reflection of a church. And I don't like the word virtual because it it kind of denotes uh that it's not real. No, it is real. So it's it's the digital reflection of a church where we can mimic the fellowship, the evangelism, the discipleship, the growth in a way that would support this growing body of believers, hopefully, until they are land, they they land to a local church or they are handed to physical groups in different places where we are able to connect them through different networks and mission um work on the ground. But if not, and until then, we're not losing them and we're not lay raising them as spiritual orphans. So we walk the journey of discipleship with them through the digital means.

Brian Stiller 26:50

And how often is that?

Rafik Barsoum 26:51

So that's that's a full-scale church every week and every day we have the the discipleship and the and the and the response and so forth, and there are discipleship groups every you know every often and so forth.

Brian Stiller 27:07

Do you have any sense of as as to what numbers of people are attending this digital?

Rafik Barsoum 27:11

Correct. So at any given week, um without like special events, we have between 2,000 and 3,000. With special events, of course, this can go to five to 10,000 people. Um, but in the last like few months, we have received potentially around 2,800 requests for discipleship and joining groups. So the numbers and the requests um are like we're maxed out in terms of uh fellowship groups and and uh people who are able to disciple, and the requests are always larger than our capacity to handle. So thank God.

Brian Stiller 27:56

How did you begin to fund this when you when the idea came, you leave your medical profession, which is your source of income, and you develop a mission, and then you begin to build your technology and all the stuff associated with that. Where did the bridging funds come from? It's a great question because now we are a very developed organization with all the ducks in a row, and that's now you're sitting in your little office in your home, you got a screen in front of you, you've got you've got a wife and children, and you're

Rafik Barsoum 28:32

not not yet. I I didn't have a children yet, but I had every commitment under the sun. We were hoping, yeah. Oh, yeah, we were hoping. Um, it's honestly a great journey of faith where we have seen the Lord just opening amazing doors, sending people who tell me about that. Oh my. I can relate it to this 40 days of prayer and fasting in uh May.

Brian Stiller 28:58

And who came to you're a gift and saying, we're gonna help you?

Rafik Barsoum 29:02

Okay, that's great. I I wouldn't name him because this family are very uh precious, and I know that they would not uh want to be named, but a family that knew about us. Um and they lived in the Gulf back then, moving back to North America, and they are from Europe, I mean from the UK and and England, and they just heard about this ministry that is starting. And through a friend, I've never seen them before, Brian, and this is after prayer. I shared that I, you know, I have this desire to start this ministry full-time to a friend who shared, and he was living in the same country back then in the Gulf, and he shared that to a group of his friends, and this family thought they want to invest of a full year of support to support our ministry, and that was the start. A full year of a full year of support to cover the expenses of the ministry.

Brian Stiller 30:03

So they would cover your full support. They write it up. So one person would would provide your funds for that year.

Rafik Barsoum 30:09

That that's back then, before you know I had staff, before I had teams, before I had all the expenses and so forth.

Brian Stiller 30:16

It's a wonderful story of what I call door openers. I was a university student, was asked to preach at a church in Toronto. There was a businessman that was there that night. He told the pastor, you needed a so you need someone to help you in this church. They said, We can't afford it. He said, You hire that young man that preached tonight and I'll pay his salary. Door openers. Door openers, enablers. You just never know who provides.

Funding Miracles And Scaling Teams

Rafik Barsoum 30:49

So And since then, Brian, and and you you've been leading so many um thriving and growing organizations, actually, you kind of um scaled them from failing institutions to what they are now, which we're very grateful. And since then, I mean, so you you have uh practiced this firsthand and trusting in the Lord and having you know the right mechanisms in place and so forth, sharing the vision, having people back it up. But since then, I can testify to the Lord's faithfulness in a remarkable way that he sends people and he would burden people that I don't know. And I I never know that our ministry would reach out to them, and we don't intend it because you know the more you're visible in this world, the less you're credible. So you want the credibility would come from the impact, not from you know, your self-talk, right? Or you're talking about your ministry. Um, and they would come. So the idea, the whole idea of social media and us having platforms on social media came from a foundation that said you guys need to have platforms on social media. You're your con they were supporting our programs through other media networks. And I said, your content deserves to be on social media. You guys need to have it. We will train your team, we will give you the

Brian Stiller 32:10

so somebody comes along and sees what you're doing and says, we will provide you the funds to do this. Exactly. And and they came to you, you didn't ask them?

Rafik Barsoum 32:18

No, it's it's because they they have seen the you know, they studied the market. It's a foundation that is burdened with uh funding ministries. So they resourced ministries to do this and they saw a great potential here. And little did they know that this social media would start in time in uh summer of 2019, and we had you know our people trained and so forth, but we officially launched it in Feb 2020. And Feb 2020 was the time where everything switched to social media. We were there, you know, with maybe a year of planning and having content and having our team. So the me the ministry just you know took another turn and the impact was huge.

Brian Stiller 33:02

Okay.

Rafik Barsoum 33:02

Same thing happened with the digital church. You guys are ready, the numbers are overwhelming. How can we help you in this? Why don't you pray and consider starting a digital church? Now, with every you know, opportunity like this, we need to spend time in prayer because I don't want to you know put my feet into something that we don't know. And we had a year of prayer and the work started, and now it's growing and booming. So I'm very grateful for that.

Brian Stiller 33:27

Your message going out across satellite, going across digital. You have this digital church, you have follow-up, you have discipleship programs. Uh in these years, what have you learned about doing ministry? You you have this innate gift as an evangelist pastor that seems obvious as you worked your way through medical school, and that became your default. You when you ran, you gave out tracks. I love that story. So, what have you learned? What what are the issues at stake in doing ministry this way, and what have you learned from this experience?

Lessons On Faith, Fear, And Integrity

Rafik Barsoum 34:13

You know, I turned 40 a few months ago when I spent time in reflection and tried to, you know, outline what are the major lessons I learned. And of course, this uh the journey in ministry was the most recent and the most impactful in my conscious years, right? So I think uh, first of all, that God who the God who calls is faithful. As long as uh we're doing his work his way, he is so faithful to put his hand of blessing on the work beyond what we ever thought or imagined, and provide for every need. So as we scale, and we are scaling now, uh partly by intentional plans and partly by and and mostly by you know God's hand of blessing that goes beyond that. But as we scale, I think now I developed the trust that though the boundaries and the territories are stretching, that He's enabling us to reach that. So that God is so faithful and we need to keep faithful. But then one lesson I learned from military that I think helped me all through. So in the military, they teach you that your greatest enemy is fear, you know. And I had a few mentors uh that were um drafted at different stages of their lives. One of them is Michael Green, who was drafted in the World War. I you know, I never knew that. And one of my American um friends was drafted into Vietnam. And it's the same thing all over, it's the military life all over, right? And the greatest enemy is fear. And the moment you break your fear, nothing can break you. And um, I was in the military at a time where the country was sliding into a revolution that could have been a um uh a huge local conflict. In fact, uh it could have been a civil war. And the military stepped in in the right time, in the right place, and restored balance and security in the country. You visited Egypt right around this time, so you remember. But our army barracks were being shot at. Um, going into the military train, into my unit, our train was shot at. The response I saw in the military generals and and uh officers, like the ones I dealt with on a daily basis, of how they overcame any fear for the sake of the people, kind of showed me that once you overcome fear, nothing can break you. And I think you know, trusting in God and walking in the faithful faith or the fearless faith, trusting that he is in control, he is sovereign, and nothing can break you, and nothing can derail you from his plan if you fully surrender to him. I think this had been very helpful in allowing us to go and to have courageous, to take courageous steps and to go into areas where we don't know and to venture into these places and deal with hard countries and have these bold steps of faith, and the Lord is there. So that that might be another very important thing. The third thing, I guess, um, over the years of my ministry, and we've you know, I'm not I'm not very old, but I have enough experience to say that I've I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, right? And and you've seen much more than that. I think it all matter, you know, when it's all when all is said and done, what's done for Christ will last. When I have this day when I stand before Jesus and um give him my account, and this day is always in the back of my mind, I'll always be faithful and always have Jesus as the top, the one and only whom I serve and whom I'm willing to honor and glorify. Because there are so many temptations here and there, there's so many pressures, there's so many obstacles, but having Jesus before me all the time and looking at Christ as my ultimate goal, um, my encourager, and my chief example, I think that's all that matters.

Brian Stiller 38:52

Your global concentration, it's it's wide, but it is a concentration, is on Arab people. That's your community. But over the last few years in the Middle East, that many of components of that larger world have been chaotic. You have the enormous migration out of Syria, uh, from Iraq, uh, from Afghanistan, and you have the Persian community moving from from Iran. So that's that's your world. What are you learning about ministry to people who are living in or have emerged out of chaos?

Ministry Amid Chaos In MENA

Rafik Barsoum 39:36

Especially in a very shifting and moving, well, yeah. True. And right after this time, actually, of the revolutions, what they call sadly the Arab Spring, because it's not spring at all. It's just uh chaos, I guess, in in the most part. And I'm not talking politically, I'm talking more um the demographics and the socio socioeconomic. demographics and the the the general kind of um feel and impact on the populations so that has created um big chaos huge trouble but also has opened opportunities that were never open before so for many countries uh things have surfaced that were never on the surface before so in many countries like Egypt Saudi Arabia and many countries of the Gulf for example atheism surfaced so we had to teach the church how to respond to their friends who are becoming uh uh like avid atheists just upfront this was never you know the case in many other countries they were questioning their the pillars and the fundamentals of their faith because they have seen what the extremist regimes would do so they are now denouncing or at least questioning or wondering what what led to that and and whether there is really an intrinsic good in what they believe in or or maybe it's a delusion. But then it opened amazing opportunities for the church to be the hand and feet of Christ with love and peace in places where nobody else has shown this love and peace. Love and like act of love practical love.

Brian Stiller 41:34

I remember that Presbyterian church just off Tiger Square in in Cairo where the pastor a medical doctor turned the church into a medical field unit.

Rafik Barsoum 41:47

Correct correct and and that's exactly the witness you want you want the church to be the only uh not the only I mean you want the church to be deeply involved in the needs of the society reflecting the love of Jesus that is practical and the truth of Jesus that is saving, right? So I think this has opened huge opportunities, especially with the influx of um those terrorist things and and the the rise of refugees and so forth. So the opportunities were great. However you know we don't encourage chaos the the Christian community is always the salt and light so and I and and we believe rightly I guess that they are Christians are always everywhere the salt and peace the the the the reason why God is preserving those society because people are praying people are witnessing to Jesus and are reflecting the light uh into the world.

Brian Stiller 42:44

Perfect just the the few minutes that we have left someone is watching listening to you and uh they may be in a a profession you were in a medical profession. Uh they may be young they may be uh middle aged and they wonder what might I do what might God choose to do in my life and as they're thinking about that maybe praying what would you say to them?

Rafik Barsoum 43:16

First of all be very close to God walk very closely what does that mean? That was a question I had in my teenage years again Lord how would I hear your voice how would I do your will what is the will for my life how to uh how would I spend my days and how how to take decisions what is my calling so actually this was the first series that we had on social media 70 some episodes and now they are in five languages so they are also in English English French Persian and Turkish I guess so you can um go watch them you have to start with following God's so so the way I framed it was this um we want to know God's will but before knowing God's will we need to be very close to God's heart and to follow his ways because as as I'm very close to his heart my life is transformed my life is changed I am learning his ways and doing everything his way so that it's easy to follow his steps. Sometimes God asks huge steps from you and sometimes he asks to be faithful to your next door neighbor right it's it's not sometimes it's it's like the case you don't have to cross continent to become a missionary. You are light whatever you are so in in major steps of life if I'm not trained in everyday obedience I wouldn't be able to take those major steps of faith or start a ministry or or do something that is remarkable. And and so walking close to God is is kind of the fundamental thing. But then the second thing when when I come closer I guess God works on my heart and motives and he imprints the image of Jesus in me so that what I'm doing for him is really for him and not for anything else. So my motives are purified and all I desire is the glory of God and and that you know that Christ is exalted among the nations and he will show me miracles. He will do things that beyond I think or imagine. So that that work of purifying my heart and cleaning my motives and making me more like Jesus is a lifelong process. And you know without those there's no magic hocus pocus formula to following and jumping. But next and next don't dare to take um don't be afraid to take huge steps of faith for Jesus. He is so faithful and he will if he asks you to do something he will guide he will provide and he will render your work fruitful how does he ask yeah if if you go back to the series then no coming up how does God how do we hear God asking again I think you if you're close enough to God and you are listening to his word every day and obeying you will clearly define that.

Brian Stiller 46:19

So the inclination becomes it's it's kind of it's almost spiritually it's almost intuitive you begin to think about it opportunities present yourself.

Rafik Barsoum 46:28

Yeah I know you interviewed Nicky Gumbel and um I like the way he uh presents it as the five s the commanding scripture the compelling spirit the common sense the community of faith and the the circumstantial evidence or whatever and also in my episodes I have you know expanded on that um and there are just ways that God guides you and um and leads you in the way.

Brian Stiller 46:55

Rafik you have a remarkable story one of great interest and thanks for joining us in Evangelical 360 today.

Rafik Barsoum 47:01

Thank you for having me Brian

Guidance For Vocational Calling

Brian Stiller 47:04

thanks Rafik for letting us in on your world and the fascinating community you have helped to create through your ministry of outreach and encouragement and thank you friend for being a part of the podcast. Remember you can share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube. If you'd like to learn more about today's guest check the show notes for links and info. And if you haven't already please hit the subscribe button thanks again for joining me until next time don't miss the next interview be sure to subscribe to Evangelical three sixty on YouTube