Narges Mahdi is a second-generation Afghan believer. Born into the Hazara, a Shia Muslim minority in a Sunni Muslim nation, Mahdi and her parents already knew what it was like to be persecuted. When she and her parents converted to Christianity, they became even more marginalized and oppressed.

Mahdi now lives in the United States, and she has hard-won words of wisdom for Christians who want to reach their Afghan-American neighbors.

“We were not welcomed in Afghanistan, or Afghan culture in general, because we were not Muslim,” Mahdi says of her family. “But for Christians [in America], that shouldn’t be the problem.

“Christianity is about opening the door for somebody that doesn’t look like you. That’s what my faith has taught me.”

As you look around at your neighborhood and community, consider what it may look like to open the door for someone yet to know Jesus. Don’t worry about having all the answers. It’s okay to say “I don’t know, but let’s find out together” and to admit that some of Christianity has to be taken on faith.

Sometimes, being able to give an answer for the hope that we have as Christians isn’t a certain statement. Instead, it’s the act of opening the door, just as Christ opened the door for us.