Visiting Bandar Abbas, Iran Is Like Visiting Abraham's Time

Bandar Abbas is a strange place. The people are spiritually far behind and even physically clumsy. It’s as if I stepped back into the past into Abraham’s time. God must have had to forget them for awhile. The Persian Gulf is just before me, mountains jutting up out of the plain. In the stillness of evening I stood in the middle; no sounds reached my ears. The land is certainly arable and when full development begins, water will raise crops here. We are moving into summer soon. The temperatures will begin to climb to 130 degrees and the humidity 95. They say this is one of the hottest places on earth.

The last holiday found us in good spirits and our children more grown. It’s really amazing how they pray with us, do things with us and they don’t even realize God’s will yet. If these people love you they’ll do anything for you. It’s just a matter of time; they need to see regularity and constancy then their trust comes. The Islamic way of prayer is to recite the same thing three times with a special bow (kiss a special stone or touch it to your head) and this is done 3-5 times a day. With us it’s so different and they struggle to know what to say. But they’re really sweet. Our landlord is young and he spent 8 years in California. He and his new wife are friends. They ask us to sing and pray before dinner — even at their house. They really don’t know much but they’re very accepting.