I was a religious girl from my childhood. I was always at the front of the line for Islamic practices such as reciting the Koran, doing namaz [prayer] five times a day, and fasting in the month of Ramzan. I also always kept the tradition of wearing the ‘abaya’ with full head and face covering. [Typically black, the abaya is constructed like a loose robe or caftan and covers everything but the face, hands and feet—Ed.]
My family is a big one, with a father, three mothers and thirteen children including myself. My father has a huge income from several trading and contracting agencies, being their local Arab sponsor.
One of my friends who studied with me in school tried to convey to me the message of Jesus Christ, who was crucified, died and, she said, resurrected. She was the daughter of a pastor ministering with Bibles for Mideast, and gave me a gospel tract. But I never accepted her message and arguments.
After my school education, my father wanted to get me married to an old and rich man who already had three wives and several children. I would have been younger than his youngest child.
One evening, I went to meet my father in his room, where he was talking with one of my step mothers. I pleaded with them not to arrange my marriage now, but send me for further studies. My father denied my request. I argued with him, for I simply could not imagine such a marriage. He refused to listen, so I finally announced I would leave home before the marriage.
My father, enraged, grabbed a chair and hit me over the head with its legs. The blows cracked open my skull, and he and my stepmother were certain I’d been killed.
This seemed to waken their criminal minds. Hiding my death from others, they put my body into a plastic bag, tied it up, and drove a long distance by car through the desert and all the way to a deep well in the middle of a date plantation. The well had no water. (Other family members may well have thought I’d left home because of the marriage plans.)
When they threw my body down the waterless well, I felt my soul going through a terrible darkness to hell. I thirsted deeply for even a drop of water. Yet I knew my soul desired not earthly water, but the Water of Life. I then saw the gospel my school friend had given me in front of me, and it consoled me some. When I tried to grab hold of it, it seemed out of reach. Still though, it somehow led me to an amazing experience.
A strong, healthy and beautiful man stood inside the well. He caught the sack holding my dead body, untied it, and began rubbing my head and body. I opened my eyes like waking up from a dream. I saw nail marks in His hands. He was my Lord Jesus. He then carried me up and out of the well. He said to me, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, though dead, will live” (John 11:25).
Lying prostrate before Him, I said with tears of joy, “Lord Jesus, you are my Lord and Savior! You were crucified and you died for me. You are risen indeed. I am yours. I believe in you.”
When I raised my head to look at Him, He had disappeared.
I didn’t know what to do. But I was so happy. I praised and thanked my Lord Jesus. Within a few minutes, a husband and wife from Bibles for Mideast came to me. They introduced themselves as Christians, and explained that Jesus had guided them to me. I shared my experiences with them. They gave me a bible and brought me to a house where five women laborers of an agricultural and cattle farm stay together.
