Lying on a shelf in my wardrobe, somewhere between my socks and work out clothes, is a small package, plainly wrapped in aluminum foil. 

Inside it is a homemade mixture of fragrant spices, including, so I’ve been told, a resin called frankincense.

Every time I walk into my closet I smell a delicate perfume that comes from this crumpled little ball of foil.

It was given to me by a young Yemeni woman. I had only recently met her when she grabbed my hand and placed a wrinkled package in it. She was a strikingly beautiful woman; her eyes sparkling, with a wide grin on her face. In broken English, and with the help of an interpreter, she tried to explain what the gift was: “The same thing! They gave this to Jesus!”

It was a couple of days later, that I had the opportunity to sit with her and through an interpreter, listen to her story.

She told me how she first heard about Isa (Jesus) through a school friend, and how she came to believe and chose to follow him.

She shared how she was given in an arranged marriage to a much older muslim man when she was just 9 yrs old. How her continual insistence that “I follow Isa” eventually drove this man to divorce her 6 months later.

She told me of her second arranged marriage in her mid teens. How this husband abused her, beat her, and cut her with knives because she continued to insist; “I follow Isa!” And how he divorced her a few years later.

And then she introduced me to her third husband by arranged marriage, a kind man who she later led to Christ, and told me about their escape from Yemen; of how they fled war and famine and persecution and how they now live as refugees.

This Christmas, as I smell frankincense among my clothes, I am powerfully reminded of the fragrance of the life of my Yemeni friend; of her suffering, her smile, her joy, her determination, and of the long journey she has taken to find and follow the Messiah.

I’d like to ask you for a Christmas gift; Would you take a few minutes, to pray with me for my friend, and for all those like her through out the Arab world, who are choosing, at great cost, to worship the King?

Joy and Peace from our family to your’s this Christmas!

The LoveCompels Team