i was born in a Sunni Muslim home in Bangladesh, where I discovered the meaning of stern discipline from my father, an incredible everyday within the armed forces with obligations in the intelligence service. We lived on distinct army bases in elaborate quarters reserved for officers and their families. Servants catered to our each want. The company and political elite of Bangladesh and Pakistan frequented social movements in our home.
I grew up attending an Islamic madrasa (spiritual school), the place we studied the Qur'an and discovered classical Arabic from an imam. My father could trace his lineage again to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (the identify derives from Hashem, grandson of the prophet Muhammad's notable-grandfather). His heritage qualified me as an immediate descendant of Islam's founder.
i used to be respected for my holy ancestry. Yet my childhood became commonly painful, specially after my folks divorced and my father remarried abruptly. i was eight years historical, feeling abandoned and missing my mother.
My stepmother regularly abused me mentally and physically. Screaming curses, she would hit me with a cricket wicket or dig her sharp fingernails into my ears, which brought about them to bleed. Sores peppered my body. My father ignored my pleas for support and beat me for supposedly mendacity about the abuse.
once I grew to become 13, I joined a prestigious air force faculty as a cadet aiming at a profession like my father's. although, I left the military in 1975 when i was 21. Unhealed wounds from my childhood despatched me right into a downhill spiral. Suicidal strategies haunted me. Then a apparently random incident changed my lifestyles perpetually.
willing to diewhile jogging in Lahore, Pakistan's 2d greatest metropolis, to buy an electrical water heater, i realized a Caucasian man on a street nook giving out gospel tracts. donning scruffy denims, he gave the look of a hippie. He was well over six feet tall and stood out from the common rush of consumers, honking automobiles, weaving motorbikes, three-wheeler taxis, donkey carts, and pungent aromas from meals vendors. inquisitive about his demeanor, which radiated inner peace, I approached him and asked, "who're you, and the place are you from?"
He noted he was a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ from England. He belonged to a street evangelism team from the Jesus individuals flow, wide-spread for touring everywhere during the 1970s. From my Muslim upbringing, I had most effective encountered Jesus as a prophet who regarded before Muhammad. and that i didn't accept as true with he had died on a go—the Jews, we have been advised, had crucified Judas as an alternative.
After replacing just a few phrases with this English man—later, I realized his name turned into Keith—I walked away, about 50 yards or so, before returning. although I believed in Islam, i wanted to know extra about his personal faith. Keith instructed me Christ would set me free and give me a brand new existence. although I doubted his God changed into interested in my despair, and even existed, I bowed and prayed to receive Christ on the crowded sidewalk in entrance of a shoe store.
I sensed this changed into what I had been waiting for all my lifestyles. It felt like a big boulder had been lifted off my back. I saw every thing in technicolor, and that i desired to sing and giggle.
Keith and that i arranged to satisfy the next morning at the Lahore YMCA so I could be taught more concerning the Christian religion. I waited there for a number of hours, but he not ever looked—and he didn't exhibit up the following day either. Returning to the YMCA on the third day, I sat in the lobby for ages earlier than recognizing a couple sorting and arranging the same tracts as Keith had. They had been from the equal evangelism group, I discovered. after I asked about Keith, they informed me he had left the nation straightaway as a result of a household emergency. I under no circumstances noticed him once more.
After I linked my encounter with Keith, we enjoyed a phenomenal dialog. They inspired me via analyzing from a burgundy leather-based Bible and requested me to hold it. in the beginning, I refused as a result of Muslims can't contact a holy publication with unwashed palms.
The couple stressed Luke 9:23–25, where Jesus explains the which means of denying your self and taking over your move. They challenged me: "in case you don't seem to be willing to die for Jesus, then you definitely are not healthy to are living for him. He needs you to take in your move each day."
I did not understand that inside just a few weeks, these verses would seriously check my new religion.
below house arrestAs a brand new convert, I joined the evangelism team. They discipled me and gave me a pocket-measurement New testomony to analyze. I sensed their love and genuine issue. while by myself one afternoon, amid a grove of bushes far from the congestion, I heard an audible voice: "here is what you will do for the leisure of your lifestyles. i will be able to take you all over and you'll inform people about Jesus."
although worry gripped me, I believed it turned into God speaking.
through denying Islam, I knew i used to be courting shame from my family unit and risking an honor killing. at the time, I lived with friends in Lahore who turned furious when I admitted I had permitted Jesus into my life. They wrote to my father, a devout Muslim who prayed 5 times each day dealing with Mecca and become discipled by means of a holy man. Enraged, he rushed to Lahore to confront my apostasy. He enlisted chums to bother me and force me to recant. When that didn't work, they dedicated me to a mental facility.
remoted within the medical institution's psychiatric ward for two weeks, i used to be sedated and guarded by means of soldiers. on the other hand, I won comfort from covertly reading my smuggled New testament, and that i was capable of lead a number of americans to Jesus. God intervened when a psychiatrist verified my sanity and discharged me.
My father became livid. He kept me beneath condominium arrest at his domestic in Multan, in Pakistan's southern Punjab vicinity. whereas armed sentries stood preserve backyard, i used to be constrained for several weeks before I could escape by way of bus to Christian chums in Lahore. after I discovered the police had been attempting to find me, I fled to Karachi to be a part of an evangelism crew. Even under duress, my religion grew as I devoured the Bible, memorized Scripture, shared my testimony, and allotted tracts.
Our highway evangelism flourished until my father confirmed his political vigour in early 1976. The police arrested five of us for anti-Islamic actions. Jammed right into a tiny, filthy cellphone, we slept on vomit-caked blankets on a brick ground and shared a small can for our lavatory.
4 of my Christian brothers have been from different countries, and they had been launched within a couple of days and deported. but my id card and passport have been confiscated. i was warned, "you'll depart a Muslim or die."
The jailers moved me to a ward for political prisoners, the place I spent basically 365 days. despite the disgrace and isolation, the Holy Spirit sustained me together with the new testomony I had smuggled in and hidden. The glory of God filled my mobilephone many times. I felt especially inspired whereas analyzing Acts sixteen:25, which recounts Paul and Silas praying and singing hymns in penal complex. It turned into staggering that God counted me valuable to undergo for Jesus.
After threatening my father with litigation in Pakistan's supreme courtroom, i used to be launched to his manage. below the terms of the settlement, I remained a political prisoner and will now not leave the country, personal a Bible, or affiliate with Christians. dwelling with my father wore me down, peculiarly after getting arrested once again for hiding the new testomony beneath my mattress. (I had from time to time managed to sneak out for fellowship with Christians, regardless of fearing retribution.)
In 1977, with my father's force to resign Christianity as relentless as ever—he would threaten to have me beheaded for apostasy—I made the fateful decision to flee Pakistan. There became no different alternative.
Underground Christians risked retaliation through hiding me and presenting shuttle cash (i used to be penniless on the time). They helped me achieve a brand new passport and visa to Afghanistan. however the army and police were tracking me, i was capable of move during the Afghan immigration checkpoint, aided by way of an army officer two Iranian diplomats. I walked across the border in ancient jeans, lugging a backpack and guitar. The beneficiant Iranians drove me to Kandahar and paid my bus fare to Kabul.
all the way through my seven-month escape adventure, God at all times provided. Openhearted brothers and sisters supported me generously. From Kabul I passed via Turkey, Russia, Belgium, Holland, and finally to Sweden. After I persevered some bureaucratic hassles, the executive eventually granted me political asylum.
name to missionsSweden became my new domestic. I realized the language and joined an evangelical Lutheran church where I met my spouse, Brita, whom I married in 1979. I attended Torchbearers overseas Bible school in Holsby before relocating to Uppsala, where I ministered to Muslim immigrants. Brita worked as a nurse, and i discovered a janitorial place in an office constructing. I learned God may use me even whereas I cleaned bathrooms and floors.
all the while, he became preparing me to meet the mission he had published lower back in Lahore, to preach Jesus in all places the area. We moved to america for further Bible training and lower back to Sweden a 12 months later, after which I taught on the word of existence practicing center in Uppsala for four years.
i was also energetic in the church and with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, doing highway evangelism and praying for the in poor health. My name to missions solidified in 1983 in Poland. I accompanied two couples riding a van there loaded with meals for needy households. i used to be asked to evangelise at Catholic adolescence camps. invites to return followed, environment the stage for gigantic audiences and many young people making commitments to Christ.
shortly thereafter, I founded Dynamis World Ministries, a precursor to conducting mass evangelistic meetings in Asia, Africa, and Latin the usa. In 1993 we moved our headquarters to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. during the last forty years I have been privileged to evangelise in more than 75 nations and plant church buildings in Asia, eastern Europe, and Africa.
within the account from John's gospel of Jesus miraculously feeding the 5,000, the long-established loaves and fishes come courtesy of an unknown boy (6:9). The story reminds us that God can use even the smallest things—and the unlikeliest individuals—to dramatic effect. when I first became a Christian, my simplest ambition was doing road-degree evangelism and giving out tracts. I'm humbled to look how God has increased these efforts, ensuring that more and more individuals can taste the Bread of existence.
Christopher Alam is the author of Out of Islam: One Muslim's journey to faith in Christ. Peter k. Johnson is a freelance author living in Saranac Lake, manhattan.
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