He said it under his breath, but I still heard him. “I wish I could just take a year off from work and travel with my family. It must be nice.” How could I begin to explain that my family was not going on a vacation, that the upcoming year would entail the hardest kind of work and intense stress as we traveled not for fun but for the funds to continue our mission? We were gearing up to leave the field for a year of itineration, and clearly my friend with the muffled comment wasn’t the only one to grossly misunderstand these next steps.

She leaned across the table and pierced my eyes and my heart with her words: “I am sitting here with my hijab. You are there with your blonde hair. And yet we can talk like this.”

For the next two hours, we sit together, the group of Muslim women new to our community and the Christian ladies so eager to serve and share Christ.

I’ve been engaged in redemptive conversations among Muslims for many years now. I’ve sipped tea with Muslim women in their Asian homes. They’ve sipped tea in mine.