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Chana tutoring a Rohingya refugee child
* Pseudonyms
“You’re back!”
As Chana closed the car door and walked into the park in the Little India neighborhood of Chicago, the Moody Bible Institute junior heard a familiar voice calling for her attention. As she turned, she saw Zurah* sprinting her way through the crowd on this humid August evening. Within seconds the 8-year-old girl jumped into Chana’s arms and embraced her.
“You came back!” Zurah blurted, squeezing Chana tightly with the biggest bear hug a tiny third-grader could muster.
With a wry grin nearly as wide as Zurah’s, Chana replied, “Yeah, of course I came back.”
Her smile fading, Zurah grew serious and confided, “I wasn't sure if you would come back.”
Beginning in August 2022, Chana had provided in-home tutoring for Zurah’s family, the Mahmuds*, while serving in Moody’s Practical Christian Ministry (PCM) with Devon Oasis, an evangelical organization caring for refugees and other vulnerable people in Little India. The Mahmuds are members of the Rohingya, a primarily Muslim minority group. More than 700,000 Rohingyas fled Myanmar for Malaysia and other neighboring nations during a mass genocide in 2017. The Mahmuds eventually assumed refugee status in Chicago in 2021.
After developing close-knit relationships with Zurah and her four siblings, Chana didn’t see them for three months after Chana had returned home for summer break at the close of Moody’s 2023 spring semester. A whole summer apart made their reunion an emotional experience, especially for Zurah.
“That was a powerful, unguarded moment,” Chana says. “It was both heartbreaking and beautiful in the sense it confirmed what I believed, that consistency would be really important for them, and me coming back would be really meaningful for them. It was also heartbreaking to see they’ve struggled with people coming and leaving.
“But it was beautiful to see her joy. This girl does not give hugs very often, so that was a beautiful moment for me.”
Chana first met the Mahmud family in 2022 during the spring semester of her freshman year. Majoring in Applied Linguistics—where she is learning to collaborate with speakers of minority languages—with an eye toward missionary service overseas, Chana sought PCM experience working with families from other countries. With her father employed by an aviation agency, Chana spent seven years of her childhood living in Indonesia, which boasts the largest Muslim population of any nation in the world. After returning to the US in high school, she served the refugee population in her hometown of St. Louis, Missouri.
“When I came to Moody, my plan was to teach English in the Middle East somewhere and serve there in that context,” Chana says. “I would still be interested in that. But I’m also interested in a lot of things, and I recognize I could serve here in Chicago with refugees or immigrants. So I’m pretty open to whatever and wherever the Lord leads.”
For her PCM assignment, Chana offers homework support for two of the Mahmuds’ five children. Since 2022, she has traveled one evening a week from Moody to the family’s small apartment in Little India, a multicultural neighborhood comprised primarily of immigrants and refugees representing more than 135 countries.
Besides Zurah, Chana also tutors Anita*, now in eighth grade. Zurah’s only brother attends an Islamic boarding school. Her oldest sister attended the same boarding school before enrolling in another school in 2024, and her youngest sister is three.
Chana’s assistance with Zurah and Anita’s schoolwork is essential. The girls have learned English, but their mother only speaks Rohingya, and their father works long hours to support the family and fund tuition for the Islamic boarding school.
“I didn’t even meet their dad for nearly two years until [last] Easter when I visited their home and brought fruit and snacks for them,” Chana says. “He works very late, so they almost never see him. Their mom is a very devout Muslim. Sometimes she’ll be reading her Quran while I help with homework.”
Zurah, Anita, and their toddler sister didn’t immediately warm to Chana. Chana’s background and appearance seemed worlds apart from theirs.
“When I first got there to their home, they were all super rough around the edges, like full of insults,” she says. “The youngest little girl would hide behind her mom the whole time I was there. She always seemed kind of sad. I’ve been with them for a while now, helping them with homework and we memorize Bible verses. Building that trust allowed me to see the girls in their unguarded moments and helped them recognize how much I care about them by consistently seeing them every week.”
Chana in Chicago’s Little India neighborhood
After two years of patiently investing in the girls’ lives, Chana now receives warm welcomes when she arrives at the family’s apartment. She hears the girls share their feelings in conversations about school, friends, and the challenges of their daily lives.
“One of them actually wrote a note to me and gave it to me last night,” she says. “It says, ‘Dear Chana, you are so nice and sweet, and I hope I have you next year.’”
Another unexpected tool that has enabled Chana to connect with the girls is her sense of humor.
“I remember the first time I made a sarcastic joke, and they were really shocked,” she says. “But I think it also opened a door because I think a lot of Moody girls they met before were super focused on just being sweet and kind. But when you have kids who are full of language and have a tendency to lie and be kind of insulting, there wasn’t really a common ground between them.
“I appreciate sarcastic humor. One time I made kind of a sarcastic remark. And they were like, wait, you’re sassy, too; you get us. Being able to find common ground and be real has allowed them to recognize that they can let their guard down around me as well.”
Located in Little India, Devon Oasis was founded in 1986 by Moody Theological Seminary graduate Dr. Bob Andrews ’04 MDiv to meet the tangible needs of refugees, immigrants, and those in poverty, and particularly the need for a relationship with Christ. To this end, Chana consistently prays for the Mahmuds and looks for opportunities to share her faith.
“I try to bring up things when I’m able to,” Chana says. “One time one of the girls wanted to go to the gas station and spend some money on a piece of candy for herself and her sister. I said to her, ‘I'll buy it.’ Then I had the opportunity to tell her I have chosen to set aside money to give to other people, and as a Christian that's really meaningful to me because Christ has said to be a generous giver. I could see she was interested and excited about that.
“There was another time where I mentioned in passing that I prayed for them, and then one of them said, ‘Wait, how do you pray?’ And so there have been some moments of curiosity.”
With an hour-long commute on public transportation to the family’s apartment, Chana has plenty of time to pray for them.
“I pray that they’re able to do well in school, that they would encounter Jesus in their lives in a changing and saving way, and just recognize the beauty that I’m not the ultimate person that loves them but that Christ is the ultimate Person that loves them. I’m just a vessel of that.
“I pray they recognize I’m coming to see them because of Christ, not just because I love them but out of His love too. I pray that their mom would also be able to feel she’s able to succeed and have community. Her English is very minimal, and so she feels isolated. And there is some disrespect from the kids about that language situation. I pray for that dynamic and for their financial situation, as well as for their education and for their relationships as a family.”
Chana’s commitment to serving Christ through the Mahmuds isn’t easy. She travels two hours round trip each week to visit the family while pursuing a challenging major.
“There are some weeks where, especially because of the long commute, I don’t want to go to PCM, but I go because I love the kids. These kids are why I’m here. This is why ministry exists. This is why I’m even coming to Moody in the first place, and it’s often those weeks when I go out of reluctance that I find are the most rewarding. I anticipate connecting with these girls again, and being able to recognize the joy I bring to their lives also brings me that joy.”
Chana’s real-world ministry training is also readying her for future vocational ministry. In the summer of 2023, she took part in a summer camp operated by a local pastor in the Middle East. Her internship focused on teaching conversational English to predominantly Muslim children.
From her service to the Mahmud family to her Middle Eastern internship, Chana knows these opportunities would not have been possible without the instruction God has provided through her professors at Moody.
“If I can pick a single professor, Travis Williamson, my program head, translated the New Testament into a tribal language of Ethiopia before coming back to his alma mater to teach, and he still goes back to Ethiopia during the summers to help with the continued work in the Old Testament,” she says. “As one of his students in linguistics, I’ve watched him pour himself out for his students joyfully and consistently both inside and outside of the classroom. He and his wife have welcomed me into his home on various occasions, prayed for me, and encouraged me in my personal and vocational walk with Christ.
“His consistency in loving those God has placed in his life to serve, though they are only around for a short time, has been a personal model for me in my life.”
The most valuable lesson Chana has learned in her PCM training may be her fresh perspective on how to effectively communicate the gospel.
“A lot of times we have this perception that evangelism has to be a one-time thing; you preach the gospel and that’s the end,” she says.
“I now recognize there is a unique strength to just living life with people and showing them what the power of the gospel is in your own life. It can also be more meaningful when I’m demonstrating how much I care about them on a regular basis over a long period of time. That can say more and pave the way for a 30-minute conversation specifically about the gospel. That can share the love of Christ in an incarnational way.”
Jeff Smith is creative director of Marketing Communications with Moody Bible Institute. After earning a BA in Journalism from Eastern Illinois University, Jeff worked for 11 years in the newspaper industry as a news reporter, sportswriter, and sports editor before serving for eight years as editorial manager of Marketing and Corporate Communications with Awana Clubs International.