The Great American Ballpark is a perfect venue for the great American pastime. The Cincinnati Reds have been playing baseball in this great American city since 1882.

But when the game’s over and fans stream out of the ballpark, they come face to face with people from the other side of the world. The streets outside the ballpark are lined with taxi cabs that cite their drivers’ nationalities: Salaam Taxi, Musa Taxi, Timbuktu Taxi, Senegal Taxi, and more.

Many of these drivers are immigrants from the West African nations of Senegal, Mali, and Mauritania. If you listen closely, you can hear the Wolof, Fulani, and Soninke tribal languages as the drivers chat on their cell phones.

Similar scenes play out in cities and towns across the American Midwest, where immigrants from some of Africa’s least-reached nations and people groups have settled down and made their homes.

While some American Christians react to Muslims with anger or fear, believers in

Cincinnati and elsewhere are reaching out with love, building genuine relationships, opening their homes for holiday celebrations, and providing Christian resources in person or via social media to people who have never read the Bible before.

“We love Cincinnati, because it is a city of peace,” said one Senegalese community leader. “Peace is everything to our people.”

Pray that Muslims in middle America encounter the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).

• Thousands of unreached Fulani and Soninke speakers live in Cincinnati and other areas in Ohio. Pray that the Gospel reaches more of these Muslims.
• Pray that more churches mobilize to reach unreached immigrants.
• Pray that the Midwest will become more welcoming, loving, and hospitable to our Muslim neighbors (Acts 13:48-49).