Islamists beheaded a pastor in Somali… but Jesus’s miracle shook the whole country
My name is Fawad. I’m 34 years old. And on October 18th, 2017, al-Shabaab militants dragged me to my execution in the Somali desert.
They forced me to kneel in the sand as their leader raised a machete above my head.
The blade was inches from my neck when the impossible happened. It all began 3 years earlier in 2014 during what I thought was just another ordinary prayer session in my small church office back home.
I had been pastoring a comfortable congregation for 8 years. Settled into a routine that felt safe and predictable.
My wife was content. My two young children were thriving and ministry felt manageable. But that Tuesday morning, as I knelt beside my desk with my Bible open to Isaiah, everything changed.
The vision came without warning. Suddenly, I wasn’t in my office anymore. I found myself standing in what looked like a vast desert landscape, and before me stood hundreds of faces, men, women, children, all with dark skin and eyes filled with desperate hunger.
Not physical hunger but spiritual starvation. They were reaching towards me, their mouths moving in silent please.
I somehow understood without hearing words. Behind them I could see the outline of a war torn city.
Buildings scarred by conflict and an overwhelming sense of danger that made my heart race even in the vision.
Then I heard the voice clear as if someone was standing right beside me. Yet I knew it came from heaven itself.
Go to Somalia. My people are waiting. When the vision ended, I was back in my office, trembling and covered in sweat despite the cool morning air.
For weeks, I tried to convince myself it was just my imagination. Maybe something I ate or stress from recent church challenges, but the vision returned night after night.
Each time those faces became more real, more urgent. I began researching Somalia and what I discovered terrified me.
It was one of the most dangerous places on earth for Christians. Al-Shabaab militants controlled large territories and had made it their mission to eliminate any trace of Christianity from the region.
Pastors who dared to minister there often disappeared. Their bodies found weeks later bearing signs of torture.
The more I learned, the more I wrestled with God. During one particularly intense prayer session, I found myself arguing with the Almighty like Jacob wrestling with the angel.
Surely you don’t mean Somalia, Lord. There are safer places that need pastors, too. What about my family?
What about my congregation here who depends on me? But each time I tried to negotiate, the vision returned stronger and those desperate faces haunted my sleep.
When I finally told my wife about the calling, her reaction was everything I had feared.
She broke down in tears. Not the gentle weeping of someone touched by God’s call, but the desperate sobbing of a woman who realized her husband might be walking toward his death.
“Fouad, please,” she begged, gripping my hands so tightly her knuckles turned white. “We have babies.
They need their father. I need my husband. Surely God wouldn’t ask you to abandon us for such a dangerous place.
Her words cut deep because part of me agreed with every syllable. When I looked at my 5-year-old daughter practicing her piano lessons or watched my three-year-old son building towers with his blocks, the thought of leaving them felt like betrayal.
How could I explain to them that daddy was going to a place where people kill Christians?
How could I kiss them goodbye knowing I might never return to tuck them into bed again?
My mother’s reaction was even more intense. When I shared the vision with her, she actually became angry with God.
I didn’t raise my son to throw his life away on some religious fantasy. She declared during a family dinner that grew increasingly tense.
Somalia is a death sentence. Fouad those militants don’t just kill Christians. They torture them first.
Make examples of them. You have responsibilities here. You have people who love you and need you alive.
The family pressure was overwhelming, but it was nothing compared to the internal battle raging in my soul.
Every logical part of my mind agreed with my family’s concerns. I wasn’t a young single man with nothing to lose.
I had built a life, established relationships, created stability. The rational choice was to ignore the vision and continue serving God in the safety of familiar surroundings.
But the vision wouldn’t leave me alone. Have you ever felt God calling you to do something that absolutely terrified you?
Something that made no sense to anyone around you, including yourself? That’s where I found myself for months caught between human wisdom and divine calling.
Between family love and spiritual obedience, between safety and faith. The breakthrough came during a missions conference where a speaker shared about Hudson Taylor’s call to China in the 1800s.
He spoke about how Taylor’s family and friends had similar reactions. Um how the logical arguments against going were overwhelming, but how Taylor realized that disobedience to God’s clear calling was far more dangerous than any physical threat he might face in China.
That night, I knew I couldn’t run from what God had shown me. The final conversation with my wife was the hardest thing I had ever done.
We sat on our back porch after the children were asleep and I took her hands in mine.
I know this makes no sense, I whispered, my own voice breaking. I know it looks like I’m choosing ministry over family.
But I believe that if I don’t go, if I disobey what God has clearly called me to do, I’ll become a man you won’t respect and my children won’t be proud of.
I’d rather die following Jesus than live safely disobeying him. Through her tears, she finally nodded.
Not because she understood, but because she knew the man she married well enough to recognize when his mind was made up by heaven itself.
6 months after arriving in Somalia, I had established a routine that felt almost normal despite the constant undercurrent of danger.
I had been working under the cover of being an aid worker for a small humanitarian organization which gave me legitimate reasons to move around Mogadishu and build relationships in the community.
The underground Christian network had welcomed me cautiously at first, but as trust grew, so did the opportunities for ministry.
By October 2017, we had three house churches meeting regularly with about 40 believers total scattered across the city.
These weren’t the comfortable church buildings I was used to back home. We met in basements, back rooms, and sometimes even in abandoned buildings, always rotating locations to avoid detection.
The believers were hungry for God’s word in a way that both humbled and inspired me.
Many had converted from Islam at great personal cost. Knowing that discovery could mean death not just for them but for their entire families.
October 18th started like any other ministry day. I woke at 5:00 in the morning in my small rented room, a sparse space with just a bed, a desk, and a window that I kept covered with heavy curtains.
My morning routine had become sacred to me, perhaps because I knew each day could be my last.
I started with 30 minutes of prayer, followed by reading from the Psalms. That morning I read Psalm 23 and the words, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me,” seemed to leap off the page.
At the time, I thought it was just encouragement for another day of risky ministry.
I had no idea how prophetic those words would become. After my devotions, I prepared for what we had planned to be our largest gathering yet.
12 believers were coming to the safe house for communion. Something we hadn’t been able to do together since my arrival.
The location was a small residential compound owned by brother Samuel, one of our most trusted local leaders.
He was a former Muslim cleric who had converted three years earlier after having his own supernatural encounter with Jesus.
His house provided good cover because neighbors knew him as a religious man, though they assumed he still practiced Islam.
I spent the morning preparing communion elements and going over my message from John 15 about remaining in the vine.
The irony wasn’t lost on me that I was teaching about staying connected to Jesus while surrounded by people who wanted to kill me for that very connection.
But these believers needed to understand that their faith wasn’t just about personal salvation. It was about bearing fruit that would remain even through persecution.
Before leaving for the safe house, I sent what would become my final text message to my wife.
It was simple. Pray for us today. Communion service with the family. We had developed a code language for our communications.
Family meant the church. Visiting relatives meant evangelism. And feeling sick meant there was danger.
She would know that today was significant because communion services were rare and required everyone to take extra risks to attend.
The gathering itself was beautiful in a way that people in free countries might never understand.
When you know that simply sharing bread and wine together could cost you your life, every element becomes precious.
Brother Samuel’s wife had baked fresh bread despite the additional risk of unusual activity in their home.
Another believer had somehow acquired grape juice, a minor miracle in a country where anything associated with alcohol was strictly forbidden.
As we sat in a circle on the floor sharing testimonies before communion, the presence of God felt tangible.
Sister Fatima, a young mother who had lost her husband to al-Shabaab violence, spoke about how Jesus had become her husband and provider.
Brother Ahmed, barely 18 years old, shared how reading the Bible had given him hope for Somalia’s future.
The intimate details they shared about God’s provision and protection created an atmosphere of worship that I had rarely experienced even in the comfortable churches back home.
We had just broken bread together and were passing the cup when we heard the vehicles.
Multiple engines moving fast coming directly toward the compound. In Somalia, you learn to distinguish between normal traffic and the sound of trouble.
This was definitely trouble. Brother Samuel immediately moved to the window and his face went pale.
Military vehicles, not police. This is al-Shabaab. The room erupted into controlled panic. Our emergency plan had been rehearsed, but executing it while armed militants surrounded the building was different from our practice sessions.
The congregation scattered according to our predetermined escape routes. Sister Fatima and three others slipped out the back window into an alley that connected to the next compound.
Brother Ahmed and two of the younger men attempted to blend in with a group of neighbors who had gathered to see what the commotion was about.
Others simply ran in different directions, hoping speed and confusion would provide cover. I should have run too.
Every instinct and all my training told me to escape while there was still time.
But as I watched these precious believers fleeing in terror, something inside me refused to abandon them.