From Islamic enforcer and Christian killer to underground church leader: a modern-day Muslim Saul

For years, Zakkir* and his father lived to uphold the many religious rules governing their 100% Muslim country, one of the strictest in the Middle East. They followed Islamic ritual practices fanatically, and if they witnessed anything or anyone ‘out of order’, had no compunctions about resorting to violence. 

While Zakkir’s father served in the often-merciless Islamic religious force known as Muttawa, his son headed up an outlaw gang of angry young militants. All were fully committed to punishing anyone daring to defy the stern laws and practices of Islam.

Taliban religious police beating a woman because she dared to remove her burqa in public

“If anyone passed along the road by the mosque at the time of Namaz [Islamic prayer], our gang would stop and brutally beat them for not attending,” Zakkir explains. 

One day, he noticed some Christians distributing sample gospels and, he says, trying to convert several Muslims. The gang determined to put a stop to the evangelical activities.

“We attacked their office,” Zakkir relates, “and killed three of them.” Pleased with themselves, the men were jubilant when they discovered later that the ‘infidels’ had also been secretly translating bibles into Arabic.

Soon they were back at their post, stopping those passing by the mosque at the time of Friday prayer, insisting they come in.  They pulled over one man in the midst of rushing his sick child to hospital, and refused to take even that as an excuse.

“I dragged him out of the car myself,” Zakkir confesses. But as he did, the distraught father grabbed a gun from his glove compartment and fired off three shots directly into his assailant’s chest. Zakkir fell to the ground, and the man jumped back into his car and drove off.

The young militant’s friends sped him to the hospital. Surgeons managed to remove only two of the bullets, deciding that taking out the third, lodged in a dangerous position in his chest, would mean certain death.

He remained in a coma for several days, and doctors gave up hope for his recovery. Friends and relatives who had been by his hospital bed from the beginning gave up as well, leaving him alone in the hospital to die.

Bibles for Mideast director Pastor Paul ‘just happened’ to be visiting the country with several other missionaries at the time. In prayer for their mission, he received clear instructions about Zakkir and his condition in a vision, even though the two had never met.

“Not only did the Lord ask me to visit him,” he recalls, “but He told me to bring him back with me from the hospital! We fully trust our Lord, so without any doubts we went. My coworkers suggested we take along separate clothes for him, since he would be in a hospital gown.”

He, Pastor Rahim* and two other evangelists headed off to the hospital, found Zakkir’s room, and began to pray over his comatose body.

“At this moment,” the militant remembers vividly, “I had a dream that Jesus Christ came to me and said, ‘I am your Lord and Savior, I have been wounded for you, and by my stripes you are healed. I choose you as one of my vessels to bring many to my fold.’"

He says the Lord then touched his wounds with His own nail-scarred hands. “Suddenly, the remaining bullet jumped from my chest automatically, as I felt new blood flow through my veins!” He opened his eyes to see four people praying over him.

“I thought they were angels of the Lord,” he says. Pastor Paul made clear they were simply servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that they’d been given instructions to come and pray for him. He also explained to him the way of salvation.

“He is the author of life, believe in Him and you will be saved." 

Zakkir hardly needed convincing. He got up, accepted Jesus as his Lord and savior, and surrendered his life to the Lord of Life. The missionaries helped him into his ‘new clothes’, and then secretly whisked him away.

“No one knew about my escape with the pastors,” he explains. As only Jesus could work it, Zakkir now heads up an underground Bibles for Mideast affiliated church in his country.

“I am not worthy to be a pastor of our Lord's Church, for I was persecuting the Church,” he says, sounding for all the world like the Apostle Paul writing to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 15:9**). “But I am pastoring an underground ALG church. We are taking care of the persecuted Christians who were former Muslims.”

Please pray for Zakkir and the Christian colleagues he lives with as they work to spread the Kingdom of Jesus in a dark and restrictive kingdom of this world.

____________________________
* names changed for security reasons
** "I don’t deserve to be included in that inner circle, as you well know, having spent all those early years trying my best to stamp God’s church right out of existence." [1 Cor. 15:9, The Message]

Call for seven days of prayer and fasting for Bibles for Mideast and ALG

Report: Pastor Peter Haneef, President, ALG Church

The Assembly of Loving God Church (ALG) Church of Bibles for Mideast plans seven days of prayer and fasting from October 2 to 8. This will follow baptismal services to be held at all ALG churches.

We welcome prayer warriors around the world to join with us—in your church, your home, or anywhere. Please pray for Bibles for Mideast and the ALG Church, its pastors, evangelists, other workers, believers, seekers, all of their families, and for those who receive the word of God through our bible distribution. Pray also for the Lord’s protection of the candidates and ministers as they prepare for baptism.

Those joining in will avoid food and water till the afternoon, or be adopting Daniel’s way of fasting (vegetables and water) as described in Daniel 1:8-17.

The ALG now includes 204 underground house churches worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ in Spirit and Truth in Asia, Africa and Middle East. All will be participating in the week of fasting and prayer.

Saved by Jesus from scheming friend, debt, doubt and suicide

Dominique and his Muslim friend Rahman* had known each other since boyhood. So as young adults, they decided to go into business together.

As plans for the business progressed, a friend of Dominique’s invited him to a Bibles for Mideast prayer meeting. A nominal Christian, Dominique figured some prayer for the business certainly couldn’t hurt and may even help, so went along. As the meeting drew to a close he approached the leader, Pastor Paul, for prayer.  He was hardly prepared for what he heard.

“Your Muslim friend Rahman will cheat you in business, and try to get you out of the partnership,” the pastor told Dominique he felt the Lord saying. “Your life is also in danger. Be careful, and look to Jesus before you do anything!” He then prayed for him.

Dominique walked away incredulous. He could not believe such nonsense about Rahman, he told the Christian friend who had brought him.  

“All these praying Christian people of whatever denomination are just frauds—trying to brainwash poor people and take advantage of them!” he proclaimed. Refusing to believe the warning, he chose to believe and trust Rahman instead. “He is a true Muslim,” he explained. “He prays Muslim prayers five times a day. He won’t cheat me.”

So the two friends started their company and, for the first two years, all went well. When profits began to decline and they had to borrow from a private bank at high interest rates, the business still languished. As debts grew, the bank took legal action against them. Soon, all and everyone seemed against them.

Hopelessly discouraged, the men devised a suicide pact. They would lie on a railway track face down, and wait until the train came to end their lives and their misery. They’d put stoppers in their ears and cover their eyes with pieces of cloth to block out the sounds and sight of death coming.

All seemed to be going according to plan. But before the train arrived, Dominique felt himself forcefully dragged off and away from the railway tracks.

“You have no authority to take your own soul and spirit!” a voice boomed. “That is my gift to you! I, Jesus your savior, am saving you from hell and from debt!”

Dominique pulled the stoppers from his ears and the cloth from his eyes and leapt to his feet. Glancing around he saw no one … not even Rahman. He watched the train roar by. His friend must have been killed, he figured, but where was he? Not finding the body on or near the tracks he decided the train likely dragged his body further along the track.  He ran along the line, but could see nothing.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he spied Rahman, mostly hidden behind a tree, watching him. He tried not to show he had noticed the so-called friend, and Rahman remained unaware he'd been seen.

Obviously, after the two had lain down on the tracks, Rahman had removed the ear and eye coverings and run to safety. Dominique immediately connected the dots, realizing the man had been a traitor in business as well, stealing money and creating false accounts.

He headed straight from the railway tracks to where he knew he could find some Bibles for Mideast pastors. Telling them what happened, he openly and willingly confessed his sins and accepted Jesus as his personal savior and Lord.

As the pastors prayed for him, Dominique again heard the voice of Jesus . .. no longer thunderous, but now full of gentle love.

“You are not a man of debt,” Jesus assured him. “I forgive your debts, for you are my son and I am the richest man in all the world. You, and all my children, are my hidden treasures before my Father.”

Dominique progressed quickly in his walk with the Lord. He has been diligent in prayer and study and now serves with Bibles for Mideast as a pastor in North India. He married a young Christian woman, and they have one child. Please pray for him and his family.

Unfortunately, Rahman learned nothing from his mistakes. He went into another business partnership, with a Jain man this time, and the enterprise followed the same pattern:  a year or two of profit, then rapid decline and increasing debt. Rahman’s underhanded thievery again drove both the business and the friendship into the ground.  The partner by then had heard about the earlier business failure, and the two became sworn enemies.

A few months ago, Rahman died when a truck rammed into his motorcycle, crushing his head. Some reports are that the Jain man hired the truck driver to ‘cause’ the accident, but this cannot be confirmed.

__________________

UPDATE: Pastor Peter Haneef, President of the Assembly of Loving God Church (ALG) Church of Bibles for Mideast, has just returned from ministering at a three-day gospel convention at Dominique's church in North India. He reports that several Muslims and Hindus have joined the Kingdom of Jesus! 

____________________________
*Name changed for security reasons

A young Muslim meets Jesus at the holiest time of year for Islam, the Festival of Sacrifice

(Sept. 6, 2017, with reporting from Pastor Paul of Bibles for Mideast)

Just last week, about two million Muslims made the pilgrimage to Mecca called the Hajj. Central to their faith and one of the ‘five pillars of Islam’, every able-bodied follower of Islam is expected to do the Hajj once in his or her lifetime, if they can afford to. The promise is a cleansing of their souls and a deepening of their relationship with Allah.

The Hajj climaxes with Eid-al-Adha, the holiest time of the year for the world’s 1.8 billion (as of 2015) followers of Islam. Also known as the Festival of Sacrifice, Muslims from every part of the world are duty-bound to observe the annual celebration, usually lasting four days.

The Festival of Sacrifice commemorates Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son. Muslims consider the son to have been Ishmael, Abraham’s older son born to Sarah’s servant girl Hagar*. Christians and Jews of course consider the ‘son of promise’ to be Isaac, born to Abraham’s wife Sarah (Genesis 22). In both versions of the story, God provides a ram as a sacrificial offering instead, and considers Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his own son a supreme act of obedience.

As that annual Festival of Sacrifice wrapped up around the world last week, a Bibles for Mideast pastor living and working in central Asia experienced a dramatic encounter with some Muslim men getting ready for the time of animal sacrifice.  Since minority Christians have been and are continuing to be brutally persecuted in this country, names have been changed.

Omar and Salahi, strong young men trained and working as butchers, were leading several cows to the slaughterhouse early last Thursday morning in preparation for the next day’s celebration. Pastor Masih and two other Bibles for Mideast evangelists ‘just happened’ to meet them along the road and joined them on their walk:  a so-called chance encounter similar to Philip’s meeting the Ethiopian eunuch on a dusty road in Africa (Acts 8:26-40).

Sheep being led to slaughter

In the biblical story, the Ethiopian had been reading: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opened not his mouth. In (his) humiliation justice was denied him. Who will tell of his posterity? For his life is taken from the earth.”  Philip, entirely led of the Lord, asked his fellow traveller just the right leading question. We can't help thinking Pastor Masih was similarly led!

“Why are you killing animals for the Eid al-Adha?” Pastor Masih inquired. As a former Muslim living in a Muslim-dominated country he well-knew the answer.

“It is cow qurbani, the sacrifice for Allah as our forefather Abraham taught us to do,” Omar replied.  [Qurbani , as referred to in Islamic law, is the Arabic word for the sacrifice of  an animal during Eid al-Adha. The word is related to the Hebrew קרבן‎ corban, or offering.—Ed.]

Cow qurbani in Africa

“He tried to sacrifice his older son Ishmael, son of Hagar, as Allah told him to do,” Omar went on. “But later Allah did not allow him to kill his son, so he sacrificed an animal instead. We are doing the same thing with our cow qurbani.”

Pastor Masih was ready with his answer. “According to the word of God, we don’t need to sacrifice any animals or birds for our salvation,” he explained to the men. “That’s because Jesus Christ, the son of our Most High God alone, did this sacrifice once, to make all other sacrifices unnecessary. By his sacrificial death on the cross of Calvary and his resurrection from the dead, we are being redeemed and becoming God’s own children. Believe in Jesus and leave these hopeless qurbanis.” He pulled no punches, but Omar and Salahi were suddenly more than ready to.

“How dare you, you bastard and infidel, tell us this blasphemy against Allah!” they shouted, brandishing their butcher knives. “We will kill you now as well!” Pastor Masih and his evangelist friends managed to flee to safety.

The butchers continued on their journey to the slaughterhouse. Once there, they and their assistants began preparing an ox for sacrifice. Tying its front and back legs with strong rope, they pushed the animal down. Omar drew his knife and aimed for the beast’s neck. But the ox simultaneously shook its head, causing the blade to miss the neck and slice through the rope securing its front leg instead. With a limb suddenly freed, the ox kicked Omar solidly in the chest, throwing him to the ground. His chest collapsed and blood began spurting out.

 His helpers rushed him to hospital. By the time he arrived he had lost most of his blood. Doctors declared him 95% dead, and told his friends they had no hope for him. All they could do was admit him to the critical care unit and provide him with some blood.

For three days Salahi sat outside the hospital and prayed to Allah for Omar. If he dies, he thought, it would certainly be considered a sacrificial death before Allah and he will go directly go to heaven. That had to be so, he tried to tell himself.

But he couldn’t sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Omar’s collapsed chest, and the blood gushing out of him. As the fourth day dawned, he was doing the required purification ritual before the Islamic early morning prayer time. As he washed, he looked up to see an angel standing before him.

“Turn from these worthless things to the living God who created heaven and the earth,” the angel told him. “Worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. He sent His only Son to save the world. He is Jesus Christ, the son of Most High God and the seed of David who was raised from the dead. This is the Gospel.”

Salahi could barely believe what he was seeing and hearing. He knew the imam described the ablution practice as preparing for ‘an appointment before God’, but could it really be so?

The angel spoke again.  “Come with me. I will lead you to the Lord’s prophets. They will guide you.”

The angel began walking away. Salahi abruptly ended his ritual washing and followed.

Salahi still isn’t sure whether he actually walked or if the angel carried him, but when he did become aware of his surroundings, he found himself standing before Pastor Masih and others at their underground ALG house church. They were in a prayer meeting, and the Lord had already let the pastor know of Salahi’s imminent arrival, and that they were to receive him. By then the angel had vanished, never seen by the pastor and not to be seen again by Salahi. Salahi explained what had happened. The pastor, a former Muslim, told his own story and explained more about Jesus Christ and the salvation possible only in Him.

It was Sunday morning, so the group prepared for the Sunday worship service. During the service, Salahi accepted the Lord Jesus as his personal savior and Lord, declaring before the church his newfound faith. Church members rejoiced and prayed for Omar..

That evening, Pastor Masih, Salahi, and a few other believers went to visit Omar in the hospital. The pastor could only pray silently for the injured man’s healing and salvation because of the dangers Christians face both in the hospital and the entire region. As the church members stood beside his bed, Omar opened his eyes but was unable to speak.

Salahi now stays with Pastor Masih. They church continues to pray and believe that not only Omar, but the whole nation will be saved. Several groups actively promote terrorism in this region of central Asia, and reports are that the government does nothing to stop them. Please join with us in praying for these people.

____________________________
* God did promise Abraham he would make a ‘great nation’ out of Ishmael's descendants. He has tremendous plans for them; we must keep them in our prayers. Samuel Whitefield of the International House of Prayer has written excellently on this.

Jesus rescues young woman from Buddhism, black magic and being buried alive

Chauchan (not her real name), 28, lived with her husband in a small Thai village where, as in most of Thailand, Buddhism prevailed. While most Thai citizens claim to be Buddhist, all are equally if not more aware of their ancestral animistic beliefs.  Black magic, rituals and spells ruled the national psyche long before Buddhism arrived from India, and they remain firmly entrenched in Thai society.

Even government leaders have fallen to the spell, as England’s The Telegraph reported in a 2008 article entitled Bangkok protesters adopt witchcraft to topple Thai government.

Despite missionary efforts dating back to the 16th century, Christianity has made few inroads into Thai society. Only about one percent of the population call themselves Christians, although mission organizations working there are finally seeing more fruit (OMF Thailand, with its history rooted in J. Hudson Taylor’s astonishing early work in China, is one of several doing increasingly fruitful work there).

Bibles for Mideast began a work in one of Thailand’s least-reached provinces last year, sending a missionary pastor and his wife to live among and reach the locals.* The couple now lead a vibrant underground  Assembly of Loving God (ALG) house church, but suffer untold hardships and resistance from locals and, especially, from black magic practitioners.

One day just two weeks ago, while visiting the market, Chauchan was approached by a couple from the ALG house church. She listened quietly as they presented the Good News of Jesus—a confusing idea for most Buddhist people. For them, it is all about their own good deeds and misdeeds here on earth which, if the math works out, might mean a better time in their next incarnation. The idea of a creator God sending His son to die and then rise again, for all of humanity, seems not just too easy, but irresponsible.

But the couple spared no details in witnessing to Chauchan.

“Jesus is the living God, the Son of the most high God of the universe,” they told her. “He was born of the virgin Mary as a faultless son of man and came to save humanity from sin and death. He was crucified on the cross of Calvary and died as a ransom for our sins, for your sins. On the third day he rose as our living savior and Lord. If you believe in Jesus as your savior, you will be saved,” they assured her, and handed her a sample of the gospel to take home. “Read this good news about God to know more about Jesus.”

Chauchan, taking their literature, headed back home. She was surprised to find a chief sorcerer from the village waiting for her, with her family gathered round. She could easily read the anger in their faces and demeanour.

The sorcerer told her his god had revealed to him what she had done: listening to the Christian missionaries, and receiving gospel literature from them.  So he had come to tell her husband and other family members. Whether he got the information from someone else at the market or by the power of Satan, God only knows.  But the fury was real.

Sorceror by statue of buddha

As the sorcerer questioned and accused her, she denied the charges. Her husband then reached into her shopping bag and pulled out the gospel tract. Enraged, he slapped her violently, and then burned the gospel along with the worst household waste.

The sorcerer performed some black magic over the family as a ‘remedy’, and left them all feeling relieved.

That night, Chauchan’s husband ran a high fever. In the days that followed, the fever, and his condition, worsened. So they called on the sorcerer to work his healing magic. Arriving with two others, he began to perform his rituals and cast spells, carrying on for two days while staying with the family.

But her husband died. It had to have been Chauchan’s fault, they were sure. If she had not listened to the missionaries and brought that sample Christian gospel home, he would still be alive.

So they decided to bury her alive with his dead body. [Burying the dead, let alone burying a live wife with her dead husband, is by no means a Buddhist practice, but clearly the influence of black magic—Ed.]

They brought her to an isolated area for the burial. She screamed loudly as they pushed her into the grave, but her cries were ignored by them and unheard by others. They placed her dead husband’s body over her, added a concrete slab, and then shovelled earth and stones overtop until the screams were silenced and the bodies covered.

The ALG Church members happened to be praying and fasting at their house church while all this was going on. The Holy Spirit began to move powerfully over them. Someone prophesied that a valuable woman who unknowingly believed in Jesus had been buried alive with her husband’s dead body.  While another person prophesied, the pastor’s wife had a vision: she saw that it was Chauchan, and that she was still alive! They prayed through till the evening for further guidance.

As night fell, the pastor, with a group of men from the church, went to the graveyard—its location also revealed as the church had prayed—and found the new grave. They prayed again, removed the soil, and pulled out the heavy concrete slab. They found the dead body of a young man. Removing it, they found Chauchan, her heart and pulse still beating. Pulling her out immediately, they began massaging her and praying in the name of Jesus. As they sprayed some water on her face, she slowly opened her eyes.

The pastor and church members buried the young man’s body again and brought Chauchan home with them. The next day, they called another fasting and prayer meeting and it was there she openly accepted the Lord Jesus as her own savior and Lord. They knew that if she stayed with them, both she and the church would be in even more danger, so they decided to send her to another ALG church a long distance away.

Chechuan now knows she is a new creation in the Lord Jesus. Please pray for her. Pray also as Bibles for Mideast plans to appoint dedicated missionaries to other provinces and regions of southeast Asia.

____________________________
* For security reasons the missionaries’ names and the province they settled in cannot be revealed. Doing so would mean certain persecution, even death threats.