Stories of Faith - Episode 71

Birmingham is a post-Civil War city founded in 1871 in response to the discovery of one of the world’s richest mineral deposits of iron, coal, and limestone. The abundance of these raw materials led to a thriving steel industry, and Birmingham became the “Pittsburgh of the South.” In the early twentieth century, the leaders of Birmingham commissioned a statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and the forge, to represent the city at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. Today, Vulcan stands 56-feet tall high atop Red Mountain overlooking the city, a symbol of Birmingham’s history. Colossus-like, Vulcan is the largest cast-iron statue in the world, welcoming thousands of visitors every day from near and far.

But Birmingham is also known for another statue, one less prominent and auspicious. It is not the image of a Roman deity standing tall and proud, looking upward at the sky with a spear in his hand. No, this statue depicts an older man, shoulders slumping, hat in hand, kneeling in prayer. The man is James Alexander Bryan (1863-1941), who was known affectionately as “Brother Bryan.” For more than fifty years he served as pastor of Birmingham’s Third Presbyterian Church. Catherine Marshall once referred to him as “the patron saint of Birmingham.” If anyone ever deserved that title, it was surely he.

Though well-trained at Princeton Theological Seminary, Brother Bryan was not known for heady sermons or church politics. Rather, he was dearly loved as the tender shepherd of the entire city. He ministered to everyone who crossed his path, rich and poor, black and white, the mighty and the meek. He reached out to students, nurses, and factory workers. He was the unofficial chaplain to the fire and police departments. His heart went out especially to the poor, the destitute, the jobless, the hungry, the lonely, the lost. In the spirit of Francis of Assisi, Brother Bryan served those on the margins of society. Born in South Carolina during the American Civil War, he grew up in the era of segregation and Jim Crow laws. He knew injustice when he saw it and he determined to treat everyone he met with dignity and respect. As a minister in the city that later would be called “Bombingham,” Brother Bryan became an apostle of racial reconciliation. He believed that every person was an image-bearer of God and thus infinitely dear and precious in the sight of the heavenly Father.

What was the secret of Brother Bryan’s ministry? By all accounts, it was the spirit and practice of prayer. Hunter B. Blakely, whose book, Religion in Shoes, tells the story of Bryan’s life, reports that “Let us pray” were the words most frequently upon the lips of this beloved pastor. “No man has ever believed more implicitly in prayer than he, and never were prayers more unconventional. Prayer seems to him as natural as for a man to breathe the air. Why not, he would reason, for is God not the most real thing in the universe?”

Brother Bryan was a promiscuous pray-er who prayed with thousands in hospitals, prisons, and halfway houses. He prayed with countless others at weddings and funerals, over the telephone, on the sidewalk, in the mills and factories of the city, and in his pastor’s study, which was known as Birmingham’s “confessional.” It was said that “the fragrance of his prayer life permeated the whole city.” His prayers were often short and to the point, but they were more than pious platitudes. He knew that prayer was a vital component of what St. Paul called “the full armor of God” (Eph. 6:11). Every prayer involved spiritual combat, and one of his most characteristic prayers was this one: “O Lord, help us to fight the devil!”

One of the most interesting prayer stories from Brother Bryan’s life came from one Thursday night when he was walking home alone after dark. Suddenly, a man jumped out of an alley, pushed a gun into his face, and said, “Hands up.” Brother Bryan complied as the man rifled through his pockets, taking his watch and the little cash he had on him. When the robbery was done and before the thief could depart, he heard the minister say, “Brother, let us pray.” As Brother Bryan prayed, the thief lowered his gun and placed the watch and stolen money back into the hands of his victim.

Brother Bryan died in 1941, but his legacy still lives on in many ways: in the church he served, which is still a dynamic center of Christian witness in the heart of the city; in Brother Bryan Mission, which reaches out in Jesus’s name to homeless and displaced persons in Birmingham; and in the silent witness to the power of prayer seen in the statue of Brother Bryan, well placed for all to see at a busy intersection “where cross the crowded ways of life.” Today, in the valley far below the feet of the great Vulcan kneels the humble pastor. His life’s work is inscribed at the statue’s base in bronze and stone: 

Fervent in prayer,

Consecrated in life,

Sympathetic in counsel,

Friend of the friendless,

the sorrowing, the poor and rich:

He went about doing good.

What does the god of fire have to do with the man of prayer? The true God is called a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24, Heb. 12:29). In the Bible, fire and prayer often belong together, as when the prophet Elijah prayed and fire fell from heaven on Mount Carmel, and when the distraught disciples prayed in the Upper Room and Pentecostal fire set the place ablaze. God’s work is done in the context of such prayer. Surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses—including Brother Bryan—God’s people are given to know that, in the words of James, “the effectual fervent, fiery prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 4:16, KJV).

Source: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/01/god-of-fire-man-of-prayer

Stories of Faith - Episode 70

The Man With 2,347 Names on His Prayer List

I’ve come across the account of a man named Ding Li-Mei, whose story will inspire your prayer life. Ding and his family were reached for Christ in the 1800s by the foreign missions efforts of American Presbyterians. As a child, Ding was responsive to the Gospel and was mentored by a woman named Julia Mateer, who wielded great influence over many Chinese students of that time.

When he was in his twenties, the Boxer Rebellion broke out, which was a time of great suffering, especially for Christian believers. Ding was arrested for his faith and carried off to the magistrate, where he was given 500 stripes with a cane that left his back a mass of raw bleeding flesh. Suffering unspeakable pain, he was carried back to his filthy cell to die. But an army of prayer warriors interceded for him, and he was rescued.

Recovering from his wounds, Ding enrolled in a Chinese university where, in February 1910, during four days of meetings he conducted, 116 students offered themselves to the Lord for fulltime vocational service. As Ding saw God using his efforts, he realized the Lord was calling him to devote his life to working with students. In the summer of 1910, he was instrumental in forming the Chinese Student Volunteer Movement for the Ministry, and he became its first traveling secretary. His impact on Chinese university students was so great that Dr. John Mott said, “In recent years he has influenced the largest number of students to devote their lives to the Christian ministry ever secured by one mam during the history of the Church in Asia.” He came to be called the “Moody of China” and was said in his lifetime to be “the greatest evangelistic force that missions in China have ever produced.”

In February 1918, Ding wrote an article for The Missionary Review of the World, entitled “The Prayer-Life of Chinese Christians,” which described the prayer habits of Chinese Christians.

“The Gospel has now been preached in China for over a century, in her twenty-two provinces… Christian believers and inquirers number more than half a million. God has opened very wide the door for preaching the Word and for winning men to Him. Western and Chinese Christians alike will unite in acknowledging that the chief explanation of this is to be found in the great volume of prayer for China’s redemption…. The prayer-life of Chinese Christians has commanded my closest attention from my youth up.”

Ding Li-Mei went on to describe some of the prayer-practices of the Chinese church, including how cottage prayer meetings occurred across the nation the first week of every year; prayer retreats held by various Christian organizations; and the personal prayer habits of many godly men and women. He gave the example of an elderly woman named Mrs. Liang who lived in Shantung, and who was uneducated and very poor. When she came to Christ, she was the only Christian in her family or village, but she prayed with exceeding zeal. “Now more than eighty in her family and over twenty others in her village are Christians,” he said.

He told of a Methodist woman in Peking, Miss Pan Yuan Ying, who was much given to prayer. Every morning she prayed for at least 135 people by name. “She has a weekly cycle of prayer which she follows day by day….”

Then Ding wrote:

“That brings me to my own personal testimony. From boyhood I have taken delight in conversing with my friends on prayer and Bible study. Even when in school I joined two or three of my most intimate schoolmates in secret meetings for prayer and the study of Holy Scripture…. I spent three years in theological studies, giving myself wholly for a search for Truth. During these years the number of fellow-pray-ers grew, until by 1899, my prayer list included 105 names. This list has continued to grow until now, in 1917, it numbers 2,347...”

“As I think back over twenty years of experience in intercessory prayer, the longer I practice it, the more its importance grows on me. I do not know all the benefits which others may have received through these prayers, nor does it matter that I do not. I cannot refrain from enumerating ten out of the uncounted blessings which I myself have experienced in the practice of this habit:

1. I am so much with the Lord that He seems my closest Friend.
2. My spiritual life is refreshed like the sprouting grain with rain.
3. Justice, peace and joy constantly fill my soul as the light fills the heavens and I get uncommon strength.
4. When I study the Bible, I seem to see heaven opened, and realize that I am having communion with the heart of Christ Himself.
5. When I talk about the Gospel in private or in public, I have an unshakable confidence that the hand of the Lord is supporting me.
6. My love has steadily expanded until I now am conscious of no man in the universe whom I cannot love.
7. When I fall into sin, whether secret or open, whether great or small, I experience an immediate rebuke of conscience, which drives me at once to confession and repentance.
8. In all my work for the Lord, although the results are not alike evident or immediate, I do not know of any effort that has been in vain.
9. Intercessory prayer has greatly enlarged my circles of friends among God’s co-workers, and through the Lord’s kind care these friendships will never cease…
10. And best of all, I am not the only one who is trying to persevere in intercession. Others in my own and in other Christian organizations, both men and women, in church school and ministry, have likewise banded together in similar covenants of prayer these same twenty years.”

A Presbyterian tract about Ding’s life said, “What is the secret of his influence and power? It is neither scholarship nor rhetoric, but prayer. Hours every day does he spend in prayer. He has a book he ever carries with him, in which he has the names and addresses of over 2000 persons, with whom he has covenanted to pray each for the other by name every day. While sitting on the platform during a service, walking on the street, riding in a rickshaw, boat or car, he uses these otherwise unoccupied minutes to pray for these 2000 people…. While in my home, I had occasion to pass his bedroom; it was long past midnight, and I found the light of his lamp still streaming through the transom. When, the next morning, I playfully chided him for keeping such late hours, he replied, ‘When we separated last night, I still had 500 friends for whom I had not prayed yesterday, and I could not go to sleep without first carrying them, by name, to the throne of God in prayer.’”

In reading about this man, I don’t feel compelled to have 2000 people on my prayer list. But I am powerfully motivated toward greater faithfulness toward those who are on my prayer list and to maintain ever-closer constancy in my walk with God. I’m eager to meet Ding Li-Mei in heaven, though I suspect I’ll have to wait in line a while.

Source: https://www.robertjmorgan.com/uncategorized/the-man-with-2347-names-on-his-prayer-list/ 

Stories of Faith - Episode 69

I Was a World Series Hero on the Brink of Suicide

Drugs had derailed my baseball career and driven me to despair. A chance encounter with a retired pastor changed everything.

It was 1975. I stood in the batter’s box, awaiting the next pitch.

But this was no ordinary baseball game. It was Game 6 of the World Series. My team, the Boston Red Sox, trailed the Cincinnati Reds by three runs in the eighth inning. And we needed to win this game to stay alive.

As I walked to the plate, I was sweating bullets. With two men on base, I could even the score with a single swing. At the very least, I had to avoid striking out. All these thoughts were running through my head with the count at 2-2 and the pitcher readying his next pitch. It was a fastball, right down the middle. I took a swing, heard the crack of the bat, and watched as the ball flew into the air and sailed over the center-field wall. A home run! I couldn’t believe it. As I rounded the bases, I yelled at Pete Rose, the Reds legend, “Don’t you wish you were this strong?”

You might imagine that hitting a clutch home run in a crucial World Series contest would be the defining moment of my life. The truth, however, is that I was totally miserable. I was addicted to drugs—I had even used some before the game. I was dealing with deep insecurities. I thought my father didn’t love me, yet I couldn’t stop seeking his approval. Meanwhile, my marriage was shaky at best, and I was constantly at odds with my managers and coaches.

After my World Series heroics, I spent the next few years bouncing around from team to team until I finally washed out of the big leagues altogether. I was only 32, and my career was over.

Grave Mistakes

Looking to rebound, I returned to my home state of Michigan, where I took cosmetology lessons and opened my own hair salon. I operated the salon for eight years, all while continuing to use drugs. And then the unthinkable happened. A prominent baseball player outed me for having introduced him to cocaine. I still don’t know how I escaped a prison sentence.

When my mother saw my name on the news in connection with the story, she was devastated. I think it broke her heart—and in 1989 she committed suicide. On the surface, I blamed my father, believing he should have been able to stop her. But in my heart I blamed myself. My relationship with my mother had grown ever more estranged since the news came out, and we never really talked again before her death. My father died three months later.

Still grief stricken, I moved to Florida to play Senior Professional baseball. My wife and I bought a home in Alturas, Florida, hoping to settle down. But for both of us, the drugs continued to flow. I finally woke up one day and realized I had to stop or else I would die. I told my wife we needed to slow down, but she refused—and filed for divorce as a result. I wish I could tell you that I finally followed through on my resolution to quit drugs, but it wasn’t to be. Although I stayed away from cocaine, I continued using other drugs and abusing alcohol.

About a year later I remarried, and almost immediately I realized I had made a grave mistake. The relationship was tumultuous, and it bottomed out in a second divorce. During this time, I met a former major leaguer, Dalton Jones, at a swimming pool in Winter Haven, Florida. He told me about Jesus and explained the difference Jesus could make in a life as troubled as mine. I prayed that day, and I believe Jesus began to work within my heart. Even so, I persisted in using drugs, to the point of losing all hope. Sitting in my home, I was ready to take my own life. I felt like I had tried everything, and I was worthless.

Then the phone rang. It was Bill Lee, a teammate of mine when I played for the Red Sox. He connected me with Ferguson Jenkins, another player with whom I had been close. “Fergie,” as we called him, had recently experienced tragedy when he lost his daughter. I couldn’t manage to tell him that I was considering suicide, but he could sense that things were serious. Fergie called Sam McDowell, a former pro pitcher who was working with the Baseball Assistance Team, an organization that helps retired ballplayers. Before I knew it, I was in a rehab facility.

Almost as soon as the doors closed behind me, I wanted out. I insisted that I was ready to go home, but the doctors refused to give me my keys. After suffering a panic attack, I was sent to a hospital in Tampa, where I ended up in a room next to a retired pastor. He asked me if I was an alcoholic and a drug addict. And for the first time, I wasn’t afraid to answer in the affirmative. I had taken other people to rehab and gotten them help, but I had never admitted to needing help myself.

Over the next few days, the pastor spoke with me about the Bible. He taught me about Jesus and how true healing could happen if I would trust in him. As our conversations continued, I grew in my understanding of what it means to live for Christ every day and to rely on him for forgiveness and strength.

On my way back to Winter Haven, I received a call from a friend, Carl Schilling, a former minor-league player who was also a believer. He wanted to discuss the possibility of starting a ministry that used baseball as a platform. This gave rise to the Diamond Club Ministry, which is dedicated to bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to young people and their families through evangelistic baseball camps and speaking engagements. I’ve been actively involved in this organization ever since.

Leaning on God

In 1994, I had one final relapse, which plunged me into a sea of guilt and despair. Then I met Tammy, the woman who would eventually become my wife. She reminded me about Jesus and the atonement for sins that he accomplished through his death on the cross. And I believed once more that his blood was sufficient to cover all my transgressions and that we can depend on him for the grace we need to overcome the strongholds of addiction or any other habitual sin.

This is a truth I would need to relearn again and again as I struggled with different aspects of marriage and family life. When I married Tammy, I also adopted her son, Chris, who was 12 years old at the time. Even though they loved and included me, I was extremely jealous of the relationship Tammy and Chris shared, and I often took my anger out on Chris in the form of verbal abuse. On one occasion, Tammy was on the verge of leaving.

But even as my behavior made everyone miserable, Chris and Tammy showed me the love of Christ. As a teenager, Chris would sit next to me and pray. And Tammy and I learned how to communicate and stay committed to one another. She learned to lean on God for strength and taught me to do the same. We spent hours praying together and seeking God for healing and restoration. We’ve now been married for 26 years, and I’ve been clean the entire time.

Today, I share this story across the nation because I want others to know there is hope! There is a way out of the deadly seduction of abusing drugs. There is a way out of the anger and anguish that life can bring. Not only does Jesus Christ offer the way out, but he also offers the way in to a life more joyful and abundant than anyone could imagine. Truly, our God is an awesome God.

Bernie Carbo played Major League Baseball from 1969 to 1980. He is the co-founder of Diamond Club Ministry.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/november/bernie-carbo-world-series-hero-drugs-suicide.html

Stories of Faith - Episode 68

My conversion story: From atheist to Christian during the pandemic

Many people have really struggled with their faith during the Coronavirus pandemic and been impacted by the loss of in-person church community. Nevertheless, some people have found faith during this difficult time. One of these is Scottish student Eilidh who shares a little of her story of moving from atheism to Christianity.

“I don’t come from a particularly religious household. One of my best friends from school went to church with her mom on a Sunday and we used to go to the Scripture Union school lunchtime club. It was there I heard about stories from the Bible. I was genuinely interested, even though I came from a non-Christian family.

One day in this club, a guy came in from a Christian organisation. He shared his testimony of how he used to be a drug addict, but Jesus totally turned his life around. I remember him saying that he put the crown of his life on Jesus. And in that moment, that made sense to me. It felt like that was the only reasonable thing for me to do myself.

The catalyst – life in lockdown

Even after that experience as I child, I wasn’t a churchgoer. However, over the lockdown period, I was totally bombarded by questions that kept going around my mind: Who is Jesus? Why am I doing this? What is the meaning of life? It was at this point I found Unbelievable?, which was so useful. It put the Christianity I was looking into, in conversation – literally – with the atheism I was living.

I had been told not to look into Christianity. There was a kind of feeling among my friends and family that it was almost dangerous and that I could be being brainwashed. But I kept looking into it behind closed doors, because I was convinced there was truth to this and it was worth looking into. It all just seemed to come to a head with all the extra time in lockdown.

The beginning of the journey – apologetics

I started looking into apologetics through things like Unbelievable? over the lockdown period. I think I always felt there had to be something more – like I’ll just have to listen to a certain number of podcasts or watch so many videos. I’ve always been an achievement driven person, nothing’s ever enough. But when I first went to church, the minister said something that struck me. He talked about how simple the gospel was. When Jesus said “it is finished”, he meant it.

In some ways I was essentially living as an atheist, but feeling a real pull towards Christianity. It got to the point where I couldn’t deny it anymore. Justin Brierley put me in touch with a pastor here in Scotland and it was the first time I had spoken to somebody, in person, about the Christianity I’d been looking into and how I felt about Jesus. He gave me some pointers, saying I could become part of a course like Alpha or Christianity Explored or go along to a church. He also said that eventually the thing to do was to give my life to Jesus, which didn’t necessarily happen right that second. It was a process.

The aftermath – family reaction

The response of my friends and family has been pretty varied. One of my family members has actually started listening to Unbelievable? They have really enjoyed hearing that Christianity can stand on its own, and just hearing different opinions was really useful to them. Other people are very much of the opinion that we need to get rid of all religion – they’ve seen a lot of fear and guilt coming from religion, which has really impacted their view.

The journey continues – experiencing church

I started going to church during a period when churches could actually meet in person. It was great being in a place where there were other Christians that I wasn’t just seeing on a screen. Hearing that first sermon did consolidate in my mind that this was this was my life. This was true.

After the service the pastor I had been chatting to and I prayed a prayer of commitment. I think it had been an accumulation of all of the searching over the summer. I made the decision that Jesus is enough and that what he did on the cross and resurrection is true and that is what I need as a sinner saved by grace.

In the lunchtime club as a child after hearing the gospel properly for the first time, I did feel a peace that I couldn’t understand or explain. When I went along to the first church service during lockdown, there wasn’t any particular magic! But slowly I can see my attitudes have changed and just a joy, a peace, a wholeness that doesn’t come from me.”

Source: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/unbelievable/2021/03/my-conversion-story-from-atheist-to-christian-during-the-pandemic/

Stories of Faith - Episode 67

Transformation for a Young Man in Laos

Khamla was devastated when his wife left him. One day, as he walked past the Buddhist temple in extreme sorrow, something that looked like a small bird hit him in the chest. He unexpectedly changed; he became violently strong and was suddenly unable to communicate.

His parents and the community were so fearful that they locked him in a cage. His parents made many animal sacrifices to the spirits and invited multiple witch doctors to help him, but nothing worked.

Finally, they turned to the Christians, who sent believers to pray every day. After a month of prayers, Khamla calmly told his father he was ready to leave the cage. Khamla, his parents and siblings all gave their lives to Christ after witnessing his transformation, and many others in the village began to show an interest in Christianity. This worried village authorities, and they declared that Khamla and his family could remain Christians, but no one else in the village could. They also said that Khamla and his family could not lead others to Christ. “Pray they will know what to do and that the Lord breaks down these barriers, as many saw the healing miracle of the Lord,” a VOM partner wrote.

https://vom.com.au/laos-transformation-for-young-man/

Stories of Faith - Episode 66

I Laid Down My Islamic Privilege to Preach Jesus Around the World: How a direct descendant of Muhammad met Christ on a crowded Pakistani sidewalk.

Narrated by Christopher Alam, the author of Out of Islam: One Muslim’s Journey to Faith in Christ.

I was born in a Sunni Muslim home in Bangladesh, where I learned the meaning of stern discipline from my father, a major general in the military with responsibilities in the intelligence service. We lived on different army bases in elaborate quarters reserved for officers and their families. Servants catered to our every need. The business and political elite of Bangladesh and Pakistan frequented social events in our home.

I grew up attending an Islamic madrasa (religious school), where we studied the Qur’an and learned classical Arabic from an imam. My father could trace his lineage back to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (the name derives from Hashem, grandson of the prophet Muhammad’s great-grandfather). His heritage qualified me as a direct descendant of Islam’s founder.

I was respected for my holy ancestry. Yet my childhood was often painful, especially after my parents divorced and my father remarried unexpectedly. I was eight years old, 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 caused them to bleed. Sores peppered my body. My father ignored my pleas for help and beat me for supposedly lying about the abuse.

When I turned 13, I joined a prestigious air force college as a cadet aiming at a career like my father’s. However, I left the military in 1975 when I was 21. Unhealed wounds from my childhood sent me into a downhill spiral. Suicidal thoughts haunted me. Then a seemingly random incident changed my life forever.

Willing to die

While walking in Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city, to buy an electric water heater, I noticed a Caucasian man on a street corner giving out gospel tracts. Wearing scruffy jeans, he looked like a hippie. He was well over six feet tall and stood out from the normal rush of shoppers, honking autos, weaving motorbikes, three-wheeler taxis, donkey carts, and pungent aromas from food vendors. Curious about his demeanor, which radiated inner peace, I approached him and asked, “Who are you, and where are you from?”

He said he was a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ from England. He belonged to a street evangelism team from the Jesus People movement, known for traveling around the world during the 1970s. From my Muslim upbringing, I had only encountered Jesus as a prophet who appeared before Muhammad. And I didn’t believe he had died on a cross—the Jews, we were told, had crucified Judas instead.

After exchanging a few words with this English man—later, I learned his name was Keith—I walked away, about 50 yards or so, before returning. Although I believed in Islam, I wanted to know more about his own faith. Keith told me Christ would set me free and give me a new life. Though I doubted his God was interested in my despair, or even existed, I bowed and prayed to receive Christ on the crowded sidewalk in front of a shoe store.

I sensed this was what I had been waiting for all my life. It felt like a huge boulder had been lifted off my back. I saw everything in technicolor, and I wanted to sing and laugh.

Keith and I arranged to meet the next morning at the Lahore YMCA so I could learn more about the Christian faith. I waited there for several hours, but he never appeared—and he didn’t show up the next day either. Returning to the YMCA on the third day, I sat in the lobby for a while before spotting a couple sorting and arranging the same tracts as Keith had. They were from the same evangelism team, I learned. When I asked about Keith, they told me he had left the country straightaway because of a family emergency. I never saw him again.

After I related my encounter with Keith, we enjoyed a wonderful conversation. They encouraged me by reading from a burgundy leather Bible and asked me to hold it. Initially, I refused because Muslims cannot touch a holy book with unwashed hands.

The couple stressed Luke 9:23–25, where Jesus explains the meaning of denying yourself and taking up your cross. They challenged me: “If you are not willing to die for Jesus, then you are not fit to live for him. He wants you to take up your cross every day.”

I did not realize that within a few weeks, those verses would seriously test my new faith.

Under house arrest

As a new convert, I joined the evangelism team. They discipled me and gave me a pocket-size New Testament to study. I sensed their love and genuine concern. While alone one afternoon, amid a grove of trees away from the congestion, I heard an audible voice: “This is what you will do for the rest of your life. I will take you around the world and you will tell people about Jesus.”

Although fear gripped me, I believed it was God speaking.

By denying Islam, I knew I was courting disgrace from my family and risking an honor killing. At the time, I lived with friends in Lahore who turned furious when I admitted I had accepted Jesus into my life. They wrote to my father, a devout Muslim who prayed five times daily facing Mecca and was discipled by a holy man. Enraged, he rushed to Lahore to confront my apostasy. He enlisted friends to harass me and force me to recant. When that didn’t work, they committed me to a mental facility.

Isolated in the hospital’s psychiatric ward for two weeks, I was sedated and guarded by soldiers. Even so, I gained comfort from covertly reading my smuggled New Testament, and I was able to lead several people to Jesus. God intervened when a psychiatrist verified my sanity and discharged me.

My father was furious. He kept me under house arrest at his home in Multan, in Pakistan’s southern Punjab region. While armed sentries stood guard outside, I was confined for several weeks before I could escape by bus to Christian friends in Lahore. When I learned the police were searching for me, I fled to Karachi to join an evangelism team. Even under duress, my faith grew as I devoured the Bible, memorized Scripture, shared my testimony, and distributed tracts.

Our street evangelism flourished until my father demonstrated his political power in early 1976. The police arrested five of us for anti-Islamic activities. Jammed into a tiny, filthy cell, we slept on vomit-caked blankets on a brick floor and shared a small can for our toilet.

Four of my Christian brothers were from other countries, and they were released within a few days and deported. But my ID card and passport were confiscated. I was warned, “You will leave a Muslim or die.”

The jailers moved me to a ward for political prisoners, where I spent almost one year. Despite the shame and isolation, the Holy Spirit sustained me along with the New Testament I had smuggled in and hidden. The glory of God filled my cell many times. I felt especially encouraged while reading Acts 16:25, which recounts Paul and Silas praying and singing hymns in prison. It was mind-blowing that God counted me worthy to suffer for Jesus.

After threatening my father with litigation in Pakistan’s supreme court, I was released to his control. Under the terms of the settlement, I remained a political prisoner and could not leave the country, own a Bible, or associate with Christians. Living with my father wore me down, especially after getting arrested again for hiding the New Testament under my mattress. (I had occasionally managed to sneak out for fellowship with Christians, despite fearing retribution.)

In 1977, with my father’s pressure to renounce Christianity as relentless as ever—he would threaten to have me beheaded for apostasy—I made the fateful decision to flee Pakistan. There was no other choice.

Underground Christians risked retaliation by hiding me and providing travel funds (I was penniless at the time). They helped me obtain a new passport and visa to Afghanistan. Although the army and police were tracking me, I was able to pass through the Afghan immigration checkpoint, aided by an army officer two Iranian diplomats. I walked across the border in old jeans, lugging a backpack and guitar. The generous Iranians drove me to Kandahar and paid my bus fare to Kabul.

During my seven-month escape journey, God always provided. Openhearted brothers and sisters supported me generously. From Kabul I passed through Turkey, Russia, Belgium, Holland, and finally to Sweden. After I endured some bureaucratic hassles, the government finally granted me political asylum.

Call to missions

Sweden became my new home. I learned the language and joined an evangelical Lutheran church where I met my wife, Brita, whom I married in 1979. I attended Torchbearers International Bible School in Holsby before moving to Uppsala, where I ministered to Muslim immigrants. Brita worked as a nurse, and I found a janitorial position in an office building. I learned God could use me even while I cleaned bathrooms and floors.

All the while, he was preparing me to fulfill the mission he had revealed back in Lahore, to preach Jesus all over the world. We moved to America for further Bible training and returned to Sweden a year later, after which I taught at the Word of Life Training Center in Uppsala for four years.

I was also active in the church and with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, doing street evangelism and praying for the sick. My call to missions solidified in 1983 in Poland. I accompanied two couples driving a van there loaded with food for needy families. I was asked to preach at Catholic youth camps. Invitations to return followed, setting the stage for large 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 America. In 1993 we moved our headquarters to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Over the past 40 years I have been privileged to preach in more than 75 nations and plant churches in Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa.

In the account from John’s gospel of Jesus miraculously feeding the 5,000, the original 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 people—to dramatic effect. When I first became a Christian, my only ambition was doing street-level evangelism and giving out tracts. I’m humbled to see how God has multiplied these efforts, ensuring that more and more people can taste the Bread of Life.

Source: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2021/april-web-only/christopher-alam-direct-descendant-muhammad-islam.html

Stories of Faith - Episode 65

William Tyndale: Father of the English Bible

How many Bibles do you have in your house? For most of us, Bibles are easily accessible, and many of us have several. That we have the Bible in English owes much to William Tyndale, sometimes called the Father of the English Bible. 90% of the King James Version of the Bible and 75% of the Revised Standard Version are from the translation of the Bible into English made by William Tyndale, yet Tyndale himself was burned at the stake for his work on this day, October 6, 1536.

William Tyndale was born near the Welsh border of England in 1494. Forty years earlier, two important events occurred in Europe which would have a great impact on Tyndale's life and work. In May, 1453, the Turks had stormed Constantinople, and the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire fell to the Moslem invaders. Greek scholars fled westward and brought with them a scholarship which had been almost forgotten in the West. Greek language studies of the classics increased, and the Scriptures began to be studied in the original Greek, rather than the Latin Vulgate. The invention of the printing press in 1454 was a second important development. The printing press would eliminate copyist errors and make the Scriptures more easily available in quantity editions. But to have the Bible in English was illegal.

In an attempt to restrain the influence of Wycliffe's followers, in 1408 Parliament had passed the "Constitutions of Oxford" which forbade anyone translating or reading a part of the Bible in the language of the people without permission of the ecclesiastical authorities. Men and women were even burned for teaching their children the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments in English. William Tyndale, however, had an unquenchable passion to make the Bible available to every Englishman.

Back in the fourteenth century, John Wycliffe was the first to make (or at least oversee) an English translation of the Bible, but that was before the invention of the printing press and all copies had to be handwritten. Besides, the church had banned the unauthorized translation of the Bible into English in 1408.

Over one hundred years later, however, William Tyndale had a burning desire to make the Bible available to even the common people in England. After studying at Oxford and Cambridge, he joined the household of Sir John Walsh at little Sudbury Manor as tutor to the Walsh children. Walsh was a generous lord of the manor and often entertained the local clergy at his table. Tyndale often added spice to the table conversation as he was confronted with the Biblical ignorance of the priests. At one point Tyndale told a priest, "If God spares my life, ere many years pass, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow shall know more of the Scriptures than thou dost."

It was a nice dream, but how was Tyndale to accomplish this when translating the Bible into English was illegal? He went to London to ask Bishop Tunstall if he could be authorized to make an English translation of the Bible, but the bishop would not grant his approval. However, Tyndale would not let the disapproval of men stop him from carrying out what seemed so obviously God's will. With encouragement and support of some British merchants, he decided to go to Europe to complete his translation, then have it printed and smuggled back into England.

William Tyndale Follows God's Will to Germany

Tyndale went to the Bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall, to seek permission to translate the Bible into English. Tunstall refused. But while in London Tyndale came into contact with several merchants who were smuggling into England some of Martin Luther's writings from Germany. They encouraged Tyndale to go to Europe to translate. They would help smuggle the Bibles back into England.

In 1524 Tyndale sailed for Germany. In Hamburg, he worked on the New Testament, and in Cologne, he found a printer who would print the work. However, news of Tyndale's activity came to an opponent of the Reformation who had the press raided. Tyndale himself managed to escape with the pages already printed and made his way to the German city Worms where the New Testament was soon published. Six thousand copies were printed and smuggled into England. The bishops did everything they could to eradicate the Bibles -- Bishop Tunstall had copies ceremoniously burned at St. Paul's; the archbishop of Canterbury bought up copies to destroy them. Tyndale used the money to print improved editions!

King Henry VIII, then in the throes of his divorce with Queen Katherine, offered Tyndale a safe passage to England to serve as his writer and scholar. Tyndale refused, saying he would not return until the Bible could be legally translated into English. Tyndale continued hiding among the merchants in Antwerp and began translating the Old Testament while the King's agents searched all over England and Europe for him.

Tyndale fled England to translate the Bible on the Continent. Even there he had to be careful to avoid English spies and informers, as well as European opponents of the Reformation. His whereabouts are often difficult to determine, but he spent time in Hamburg, Wittenberg, Cologne, Worms, and Antwerp. In 1525 his New Testament was printed and smuggled back into England. It was the first translation of the Bible from the original Greek into English --indeed, it was the first translation of a Greek book into English.

Tyndale's Betrayal and Martyrdom

In 1534 Tyndale was betrayed by a false friend near Brussels, arrested by imperial forces, and thrown into prison. Tyndale was finally found by an Englishman who pretended to be his friend but then turned him over to the authorities. After a year and a half in prison, he was brought to trial for heresy -- for believing, among other things, in the forgiveness of sins and that the mercy offered in the gospel was enough for salvation. He was accused of maintaining that faith alone justifies.

In August 1536, he was condemned; on this day October 6, 1536, he was strangled and his body burned at the stake. His last prayer was "Lord, open the King of England's eyes." The prayer was answered in part when three years later, in 1539, Henry VIII required every parish church in England to make a copy of the English Bible available to its parishioners.

Source: https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1501-1600/translator-william-tyndale-strangled-and-burned-11629961.html

Stories of Faith - Episode 64

Paul Gindiri, as he was popularly known in northern Nigeria, was a confrontational preacher from his conversion to his death in 1996. He saw himself as an Apostle Paul to his generation. As such, he hardly used his surname, Gindiri, the name of his hometown, or his native name, Gofo, given to him by a Fulani neighbor.

Paul Gindiri was one of the greatest Christian revivalists of all times in northern Nigeria. His revivalism came at an auspicious time. The Gindiri spiritual revivals of the 1970s spread like wildfire on the Plateau and throughout central Nigeria. The churches were hungry for the Word and huge crowds gathered at Paul Gindiri’s crusades. Many Christians in northern Nigeria owe their spiritual renewal to these crusades.

Paul Gunen Gindiri was born to Gunen Saidu Sedet and Magajiya Naru on March 3, 1935 in Punbush (Kasuwan Ali), a village near Gindiri among the Pyem of Mangu Local Government area of Plateau State in central Nigeria. Magajiya Naru was Sedet’s second wife. Paul Gindiri was the second son among fourteen children (seven boys and seven girls). Both parents were traditionalists.

The Pyem (or Fyem) are proud of their history. They consider themselves immigrants from Gobir in Sokoto emirate in the northwest of Nigeria. They emigrated from there and settled in Bauchi but then the jihad spearheaded by Usman dan Fodio in the early nineteenth century pushed them out of Bauchi. They then settled in Pyangiji and dispersed to various other locations. One of their principal settlements is Gindiri where the SUM missionaries began to settle in 1934. In the pre-colonial period, the Pyem were middlemen in the slave trade between their immediate neighbours, especially the Maghavul and the Ron, and the Hausa/ Fulani of the Bauchi emirate. Paul Gindiri’s father and his siblings had Maghavul names because their ancestors had moved out of Gindiri and settled among the Maghavul in Kumbun. Later some of Paul Gindiri’s clan returned to Gindiri while the others stayed back and were assimilated into the Maghavul ethnic group. Before Paul was born, his father had moved from Gindiri and resettled in Punbush.

Paul Gindiri probably heard the gospel from the first Pyem converts, Akila Wantu Nachunga and Mallam Tagwai. He enrolled in the mission primary school where he studied for only four years because his father refused to continue to pay his school fees, preferring that he stay at home and help him on the farm. After Paul dropped out of school he took an appointment in the mission compound as an apprentice mason. Richard Bruce has shown how the Pyem converted to Islam or Christianity through social contacts in colonial times. We are not certain if Paul Gindiri became a Christian through his apprenticeship in Gindiri but, in any case, permanent spiritual transformation took place later. Not satisfied with his apprenticeship, Paul confided to his mother that he was going to the city to learn driving. He arrived in Jos in 1949.

With no money to pay for driving tutorials, Paul took a mining job in the Amalgamated Tin Mines of Nigeria (ATMN). While working there he enrolled in the driving school and not only learned driving but also automobile mechanics, skills which were invaluable assets to him later on. He got his driving certificate in 1951. As a motor mechanic/driver, it was not difficult for him to get a job. He worked for big organizations such as the National Institute of Trypanosomiasis at Vom, a few kilometres southwest of Jos, and later the Tin Mining Association, a tin mining camp southwest of Jos with headquarters in Barikin Ladi.

Paul Gindiri was a good mixer; he soon got involved with non-Christians, especially Hausa/Fulani Muslim youths. His association with these Hausa youths helped him to improve his Hausa, which he spoke more fluently than his mother tongue. He probably became a Muslim himself, though probably only a nominal one because he also became a heavy drinker. Paul also had problems with womanizing, smoking, and occult practices.

In 1960, Paul decided to marry Lami, his fiancée, whom he had courted for six months. He brought Lami to Jos. Lami had been raised in a strong Christian home, so as soon as she realised that her husband was not a Christian, she started to pray for him intensely. Paul Gindiri did not attend church, but Lami began to attend the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA), the first ECWA church in Jos called “Bishara 1” (in Hausa) which was close to their home.

Eventually Lami was baptized in the church and became very active in the women’s fellowship. Every fellowship period, Lami would ask the other women to support her in prayer for her husband. The turning point in Paul Gindiri’s life occurred when he was working with British Engineering West African Company (BEWAC) as a driver and a salesman. He had gone to Minna, one of the major towns in northwestern Nigeria. The first night in a hotel in Minna, Paul Gindiri, under the influence of alcohol, almost killed a rival over a prostitute by smashing his head with a bottle. Luckily, the man did not die; otherwise Paul might have spent the rest of his life in jail.

When he returned to Jos, Paul Gindiri vowed not to drink. The resolution was perhaps strengthened by a dream he had one night. In the dream he saw Jesus who told him,

Listen. I am Jesus. I had earlier appeared to you and called you to become mine. Now I am appearing to you for the second time. I was the one who brought to life the man you hit to unconsciousness in order to give you a chance to repent. From today onward, you should never again drink alcohol beverages. All the sins you have been committing must be stopped forthwith. Failure to repent will make me appear a third time and I will take your life and cast you into hell fire.

Paul Gindiri took the message of this dream very seriously, and his life never was the same after that.

After the dream, Paul Gindiri bought two Hausa Bibles and two Hausa hymn books, for his wife and himself. ECWA Bishara 1 had a revival service and Lami invited her husband. The preacher that day seemed to speak directly to Paul who thought Lami had gone and talked to the preacher about him. The next Sunday another preacher said similar things that convicted him. He could hardly wait for the altar call and was the first and only one who raised his hand in response. After his conversion, Rev. Kure Nitte, the pastor of the church, discipled him. To show his conversion was genuine, Paul Gindiri publicly confessed his involvement in occult practices. One particular Sunday, Paul Gindiri brought all the objects he had used in his occult practices and they were burned on the church premises. Turning to Muslim passers-by who had stopped to watch the fire, Paul Gindiri roared at them, “It is your religion that has cheated me and led me into all these evil deeds. Your religion has no truth and unless you repent, you are bound for hell fire!” Paul Gindiri was subsequently baptized into the ECWA Bishara 1 in 1962. He became an elder in the church ten years later and acted most of the time as treasurer until his death.

Later Paul Gindiri enrolled for private tutoring in evangelism under Rev. J. A. Jacobson, an SIM missionary. He was trained in basic Arabic. With this basic training, he began to preach in the streets of Jos specifically to Muslims. On weekends, Paul Gindiri would preach in Muslim communities and in the Jos market where there were many Muslim traders. He was glad to learn that there was an SIM missionary, Dr. Andrew Stirrett, whose passion was the conversion of Muslims and who had made the Jos market his preaching center from the 1920s until his death in 1948. Paul Gindiri also found the newly established New Life For All (NLFA) suitable for his type of ministry to Muslims. The NLFA was founded by the Rev. Gerald Swank, another SIM missionary, for mobilisation of all church members in the churches in northern Nigeria for evangelism, especially to Muslims. Paul Gindiri founded the Gospel Team as a branch NLFA and which was under his control. NLFA became synonymous with Paul Gindiri to such an extent that he was called Sabaon Rai (i.e. New Life). A song was created and sung at all preaching sessions. This song became Paul Gindiri’s favourite. In Hausa

Rai domin kowa (Life for all)

Ku zo ku karbi Sabon Rai (Come and receive New Life)

Kaka ni ma zan yi domin (What shall I do)

Nima in sami Sabon Rai (To receive this New Life)

Idan ka mutu ka kare (If you die, you are gone)

Ina zaka? Gidan wuta (Where would you be? Hell fire)

Ni na tuba zan bi Yesu (I have repented I’m following Jesus)

Yesu bani Sabaon Rai (Jesus, give me New Life)

Paul Gindiri was so full of zeal to preach the gospel to everyone, especially to Muslims, that he resigned from his job with BEWAC and began his own private transportation business. The transportation business was so successful that it gave a birth to a stone crushing company, which developed into a multi-million naira venture. This self employment gave Paul Gindiri the opportunity to preach whenever he wanted rather than just on weekends. The business also provided him with the financial resources to fund the activities of the Gospel Team. For instance, virtually all the motor vehicles used by the Gospel Team for outreach were bought by Paul Gindiri.

Paul Gindiri was a polemicist. Whenever he preached to Muslims, he had the Bible in one hand and the Qur’an in the other, trying to prove to them that Islam was a false religion. Sometimes Muslims would listen to him in silence, sometimes they would react violently. Paul Gindiri was always happy when he was “prosecuted” by Muslims because that made him a modern apostle Paul. Like the Paul of the Bible, Paul Gindiri would triumphantly list the number of times Muslims had persecuted and stoned him. Most of the time when he was in Muslim dominated cities, Paul Gindiri would ask permission to preach on the premises of the emir’s palace. His requests were often granted, but soon his confrontational preaching would invite violent attacks from Muslim extremists.

Many Christian leaders opposed Paul Gindiri’s method of evangelism which they felt was not diplomatic or tactful. But in spite of his tactless preaching, Paul Gindiri had Muslim converts, one of them Mohammed Davou Riyom, who wrote Paul’s biography. Most Muslims in Jos and elsewhere in northern Nigeria might have disliked Paul Gindiri’s manner of preaching but they admired his honesty, his transparency in business, and his high moral integrity.

Christian leaders also disagreed with Paul Gindiri’s refusal to obey the government’s ban on public preaching made to curb inter-religious violence. According to Paul Gindiri no government could stop the preaching of the gospel of Christ. He further argued that if any preachers needed to be banned, it was the Muslim preachers, especially the members of the Izala sect, who instigate trouble while preaching.

Paul Gindiri was also a critic of inept governments and institutions in Nigeria, especially the military. He was fearless in his attacks against corruption in government and in the church. He was agitated by what he saw as the government’s manipulation of religious sentiments to create tension and by the plans by Muslim military leaders to turn the country into an Islamic state. So his messages to Muslims always oscillated between their depravity and need for salvation through Jesus and a condemnation of evil government machinations to Islamicize Nigeria. His fearless attacks on falsehood and dishonesty in government and the church earned him respect and admiration from many, Christians and Muslims alike.

Paul Gindiri and Lami had seven children named Musa, Iliya, Dauda, Yakubu, Joshua, Victoria, and Wudeama. Their only daughter, Victoria, was killed in a motor accident while traveling with her father to one of his preaching outreaches in November 1990. Musa, Paul Gindiri’s first son, has not only taken over the family’s business, he is also an evangelist (2004).

Paul Gindiri enjoyed good health until March 31, 1993 when he had a stroke which paralyzed him. He recovered but while he was undergoing physiotherapy he was diagnosed with prostate cancer that led to his death on April 8, 1996. At his funeral, Nigeria’s Head of State was represented by the second most powerful person in government, Lieutenant General Jeremiah T. Useni, among other top government functionaries. Lami Paul Gindiri also had a stroke on April 6, 1999 and died April 27.

Culled from https://dacb.org/stories/nigeria/gindiri-paul/