Stories of Faith - Episode 72

Execution of Three Men by Firing Squad

Colin Chapman, in The Case For Christianity, quotes Ugandan Bishop Festo Kivengere’s account of the 1973 execution by firing squad of three men from his diocese:

February 10 began as a sad day for us in Kabale. People were commanded to come to the stadium and witness the execution. Death permeated the atmosphere. A silent crowd of about three thousand was there to watch.

I had permission from the authorities to speak to the men before they died, and two of my fellow ministers were with me.

They brought the men in a truck and unloaded them. They were handcuffed and their feet were chained. The firing squad stood at attention. As we walked into the center of the stadium, I was wondering what to say. How do you give the gospel to doomed men who are probably seething with rage?

We approached them from behind, and as they turned to look at us, what a sight! Their faces were all alight with an unmistakable glow and radiance. Before we could say anything, one of them burst out:

“Bishop, thank you for coming! I wanted to tell you. The day I was arrested, in my prison cell, I asked the Lord Jesus to come into my heart. He came in and forgave me all my sins! Heaven is now open, and there is nothing between me and my God! Please tell my wife and children that I am going to be with Jesus. Ask them to accept him into their lives as I did.”

The other two men told similar stories, excitedly raising their hands, which rattled their handcuffs.

I felt that what I needed to do was to talk to the soldiers, not to the condemned. So I translated what the men had said into a language the soldiers understood. The military men were standing there with guns cocked and bewilderment on their faces. They were so dumbfounded that they forgot to put the hoods over the men’s faces!

The three faced the firing squad standing close together. They looked toward the people and began to wave, handcuffs and all. The people waved back. Then shots were fired, and the three were with Jesus.

We stood in front of them, our own hearts throbbing with joy, mingled with tears. It was a day never to be forgotten. Though dead, the men spoke loudly to all of Kigezi District and beyond, so that there was an upsurge of life in Christ, which challenges death and defeats it.

The next Sunday, I was preaching to a huge crowd in the home town of one of the executed men. Again, the feel of death was over the congregation. But when I gave them the testimony of their man, and how he died, there erupted a great song of praise to Jesus! Many turned to the Lord there.

Source: https://bible.org/illustration/execution-three-men-firing-squad

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