How do missionaries go to Muslim nations? Here's one story - a man I'm getting to know. He shared his story with me this week. Of course we have to keep his identity secret.

I was born and brought up in a very strong orthodox Muslim family. My parents were very good and pious Muslims. I was taught all the tenets of Islam right from my childhood. I was taught to read the Qur'an and also to adhere to the rites and rituals of the religion.

The First Encounter
I first heard about Jesus when I was 15 years of age, from one of my school teacher who was a Hindu earlier. The sudden changes in her made me question her new found faith. The religious piety inside of me refused to accept that "Jesus is God" since the Qur'an only says that "Jesus is no more than a prophet". Unable to answer all my questions, the school teacher challenged me saying that one day I will meet Jesus and that she will be praying for that day. And she prayed for me from that day on.

"Try me I am Jesus"
December 1990,  as I was sitting in a nearby park in the late evening, contemplating suicide due to the problems in my family and an uncertain future, that I heard the voice of Our Lord Jesus calling out to him saying  "Try Me, I am Jesus". The voice spoke again and again. My mind was now flooded with a host of questions as to why this voice was speaking, who is this Jesus, why should I, a Muslim, follow Jesus, who is a Christian God, and so on. I then was reminded of my school teacher who had shared the gospel to me earlier. I went to her house that evening and there gave my life to the Lord.

Persecuted
I was not able to keep my new found "way of life", a secret. When my parents knew about it, all of the Muslim community came to know about it including my friends and relatives. Most of my friends started avoiding me. My relatives and the people from the mosque first tried talking to me and persuading me to "return to Islam", later tried force and some even tried to threaten me and planned to kill me too. My mother tried witchcraft against me. But the lady who tried the witchcraft against me  acknowledged that a greater power was protecting me.

My father laid all the riches and the luxuries amounting to millions, that could only be imagined, before me and asked me to choose between Jesus and the Riches. I resorted to seek the Lord. The Holy Spirit spoke to me through Philippians 3:7, "I consider it loss...for the sake of Christ". As the Lord spoke, I made my decision to follow Christ and not the worldly riches.

My father denounced me as his son publicly. My friends and relatives forsook me. My mother and sister were against me. It is through the paths of disaster, hunger, affliction, poverty, rejection that the Lord chose to take me through. Yet the Lord was with me and never forsook me at all.

I am presently evangelizing Muslims and also conducting seminars for the church believers on Reaching Muslims for Christ. God spoke to me recently asking me to proceed to a country on the Arabian peninsula to share Christ.