I had another dream, not too long after my first one

• (please see “Do Your Homework“).
  • This time, my family consisting of
  • my wife,
  • my teenage daughter,
  • my 8-year old son,
  • and me.

• We live in a house in a third world country
  • in an upstairs flat,
  • with an open floor plan
  • in my dream.

In my dream, the country

• is in the tropics;
• the windows and doors were mostly open,
• we could see neighbors through our windows,
• power supply was minimal,
• there was no central air or heating.
• we also hung our clothes out to dry
  • on the baloney of the house.

The society around me was overwhelmingly Muslim,

• but not exclusively so.
• I just know that as a Christian
  • I was among the small minority in the population.
• The government was Muslim,
  • not overtly anti-minority, but also
  • not openly defending minority faith communities.
• As a family we were known to be Christians,
  • but we kept our heads down and stayed out of trouble.
  • In my dream,
    • I don’t remember my occupation, but
    • I know I wanted to be
      • a witness to the population.
    • I was not a missionary in the strict sense of the word.

In my dream,

• There was a young woman across the street.
  • There were rumors
    • that she was seeing multiple men
      • as her profession.
  • She kept to herself but,
    • these rumors had taken hold
      • in the community
      • whether true or not.
• On this day,
  • in my dream
  • a mob of young men had come to her house.
    • They were banging on the door, insisting that it be opened.
  • There was violence in the air.
  • As we looked through our window and down onto the street level,
    • (we were on the second floor)
    • we sensed that the mob
      • was thirsty for blood.
        • I told my family
          

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  • to move back from the window;
  • to stay quiet, and
  • to not draw attention to ourselves.
• We waited quietly
  • for what seemed like half an hour.
    • It was noisy and rowdy outside.
  • Our house was quiet.
    • Listening!
• We could not tell
  • whether they had seized the woman next door, or
  • what they had done to her.
• Suddenly,
  • we had a knock at our door.
  • Someone was asking to be let in!
• Before we knew it,
  • that person walked right into our ‘living room’.
  • (I had forgotten to lock the front door,
    • but that is normal in many third world countries and
    • we were trying to be hospitable and welcoming,
    • as part of our witness)
      • in my dream!!
• The man who came in was about forty-five. He was
  • was well dressed
  • seemed reasonable,
  • well cultured,
  • educated,
  • but at the same time
    • part of the ‘extremist’ movement; but
    • appearing ‘above’ it
      • with his own agenda,
    • not fervent,
    • not a devotee
      • just convincing to the followers.
    • He was the leader of this group.
  • He walked right to up to the window
    • through which we had been looking down onto the street.
      • (They knew we were there all along,
      • they knew who we were, and
      • they knew we were different:
        • not one of them!
  • His ‘greeting’ to us was curt, dismissive, somewhat cold, non-committal!
    • He was not eager to make conversation.
    • This was not a friendly visit.
      • neither overtly threatening, nor peaceful.
        • It could go either way.
      • We were on a knife edge.
• Then about six other young men of the mob burst through our door.
  • I did not see what they had in their hands, but
    • I imagined
      • that they had knives,
      • machetes, and
      • sticks.
    • I remember thinking,
      • “This is not good!”
• My wife was at the kitchen
  • (we were all in the same ‘open floor plan’ space).
• My daughter
  • was half-way between me and my wife, and
• my eight year-old son
  • was playing on the floor,
  • behind the leader of the group,
    • but in a different line of sight,
    • kind of like a triangle,
      • between my wife, myself and the leader of the group.
• My wife had a knife in her hand
  • which she was using to prepare food in the kitchen.

When the young men burst in, they shouted at their leader.

• What were his instructions?
  • About us!
• Where was this going?
• I was ready to shout to my wife
  • to defend out daughter and
  • I could see that she was ready
    • to lay her life down
      • for her babies, and
    • yet nothing had been decided yet.
• Where was this going ?

Then I woke up!

The dream was very clear.

And I thought,
“What is the lesson here?”

1. Pray for missionaries who serve in hostile mission fields around the world.
2. Pray for Christians in places where they are  minorities and may face danger.
3. Pray for all innocent persons who are minorities facing a hostile majority.
4. Mob mentality is very difficult, even impossible to
   1. predict, or to
   2. control or to be
   3. reasoned with.
5. The Mob is often
   1. enabled
   2. led
   3. manipulated by
      1. the highly educated,
      2. the politician and
      3. the astute businessman
         1. for their own ends.
6. A rampaging mob may turn on
   1. otherwise innocent bystanders,
   2. even those who think they are safe, and
   3. everyone and anyone
      1. who is not part of the mob.

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Exodus 23:2 (NIV) “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd.”