Muslim ISIS Leader Arrested by Jesus While Trying ...

Muslim ISIS Leader Arrested by Jesus While Trying …

I’m sitting in a small room right now, thousands of miles from where I was born.

My hands rest on my knees, and I’m looking at them.



Really looking at them.

These hands have scars, burns from that night.

Cuts from barbed wire when I was running.



But there are older scars, too.

Ones you can’t see unless you know what to look for.

These hands once carried fire.

I need to tell you what happened when that fire met a greater light.

This is not an easy story to tell.



Parts of it still wake me up at night sweating.

My heart pounding against my ribs.

But I’ve learned that some stories must be told.

Even when they hurt, especially when they hurt.

Let me start at the beginning.

Hello viewers from around the world.

Before Rashid continues his story, we’d love to know where you are watching from and we would love to pray for you and your city.

Thank you and may God bless you as you listen to this powerful testimony.

I was born in a village in Punjab, Pakistan.

If you’ve never been there, imagine dust.

Lots of dust.

Red dust that gets into everything.

your clothes, your food, [music] under your fingernails.

We had dirt roads and small houses made of brick and concrete pressed together like teeth.

In the summer, the heat could kill you if you weren’t careful.

In the winter, we huddled around small fires and drank chai until our hands stopped shaking from the cold.

I was a normal boy.

I need you to understand that I wasn’t born evil.

I wasn’t born hating anyone.

I loved cricket.

Every evening after the worst heat passed, we’d play in the street with a taped up ball and a bat someone’s uncle had made from a [music] broken door.

I loved my mother’s cooking.

Her biryani was famous in our neighborhood, and the smell of her spices [music] would drift through the house and make my stomach growl even when I wasn’t hungry.

I loved the sound of the call to prayer echoing from the mosque five times a day, marking time like a heartbeat.

We were poor, but so was everyone we knew, so it didn’t feel like poverty.

It felt like life.

My father worked in construction when he could find work.

My mother took in sewing.

I had three younger siblings, two sisters and a brother.

We shared two rooms, all of us, but there was laughter in that house.

I remember my mother singing while she cooked.

I remember my father’s rough hands on my shoulder, proud when I memorized the new surah from the Quran.

I was 12 when everything changed.

There was violence in our region.

There had always been violence if I’m honest, but mostly it stayed away from our village.

It was something you heard about happening in the cities or in the tribal areas.

Sunni and Shia fighting, Muslim and Christian tensions, political groups and militant groups [music] whose names all blurred together in my child’s mind.

Then one day, the violence came home.

My uncle, my father’s younger brother, was killed in a bombing at a market.

He’d gone to buy vegetables.

[music] That’s all.

Just vegetables for his family.

The bomb was hidden in a motorcycle parked near the stalls.

They said it was sectarian violence.

They said it was retaliation for something someone else had done in another city.

They said a lot of things, but none of it brought my uncle back.

I remember the funeral.

I remember my father’s face.

It looked like stone, like something had frozen inside him.

I remember my aunt wailing, her dupata clutched in her fists, her voice raw.

I remember looking at my uncle’s body wrapped in white cloth and thinking how small he looked, how quiet.

That was the first seed.

You have to understand, it wasn’t planted by evil men in the beginning.

It was planted by grief, by confusion, by a 12-year-old boy who couldn’t understand why his uncle was dead for buying vegetables.

I started asking questions.

Why did this happen? Who did this? Why does Allah allow this? My father didn’t have good answers.

The imam at our mosque had better ones.

Or at least they seemed better at the time.

He talked about jihad, about defending the faith, about how the world was full of people who wanted to destroy Islam and how we had to be strong had to be willing to fight back.

He talked about paradise, waiting for those who gave everything for Allah.

He talked about honor and courage and standing up when others would sit down.

I was 13 when I started going to extra study sessions at the mosque.

My parents thought I was becoming more devout.

They were proud.

My mother would pack me food.

And I’d sit with other boys my age learning.

But we weren’t just learning Quran anymore.

There were new teachers, men who’d come from Afghanistan, from tribal areas, from places where they’d fought the Soviets or the Americans or whoever the enemy was that year.

They had scars and missing fingers and eyes that looked past you through you [music] to something else.

They taught us that the world was at war with Islam, that everywhere Muslims were being killed, oppressed, humiliated.

They showed us pictures, bodies of children in Palestine, in Kashmir, in Cheschna.

They showed us videos of drone strikes and burned villages.

And with each image, each story, something hard grew inside my chest.

The second seed was anger.

By the time I was 15, I barely recognized myself.

[music] The boy who’d played cricket and loved his mother’s biryani was still there somewhere.

But he was buried under layers of rage I’d learned to wear like armor.

I started spending less time at home, more time with the brothers at the mosque.

We’d pray together, eat together, talk for hours about the state of the ummah, about what needed to be done.

They made me feel important, like I mattered, like my life could count for something bigger than poverty and dust and struggling to survive.

When I was 16, they asked me if I wanted to [music] train.

I said yes.

I didn’t tell my parents.

How could I? They would have stopped me.

They would have seen where this path led.

But I couldn’t see it yet.

Or maybe I didn’t want to see it.

The training camp was in a remote area.

I won’t tell you exactly where.

There are people who still need protection, and I won’t endanger them.

But it was far from everything I knew.

mountains, caves, men with kalashnikovs and rocket launchers, and more anger than I’d thought possible.

They taught us to shoot, to build bombs, to plan attacks, to move silently and strike quickly and disappear like smoke.

But more than that, they taught us to stop feeling.

That’s what you have to do.

You see, if you’re going to hurt people, you have to stop seeing them as people, you have to make them into symbols, into representatives of everything you hate.

You have to turn off the part of you that feels compassion, that hesitates, that remembers your mother’s face and wonders if their mother looks at them the same way.

I got good at it.

Too good.

The third seed was numbness.

My first mission was when I was 17.

They sent three of us to bomb a police checkpoint.

The police, they said, were collaborators with the government that oppressed us.

They were traitors to Islam.

They deserved what was coming.

I remember the weight of the vest under my jacket.

I remember my hands sweating on the motorcycle handles as we drove toward the checkpoint.

I remember the commander’s voice in my ear through the cheap phone they’d given me, telling me when to get close, when to press the button.

I remember the explosion.

I survived because I was just delivering the bike, not wearing the vest.

My job was to park it and walk away.

The other brother who rode behind me didn’t walk away.

He became what they called a martyr.

I remember the smoke, the screaming, the pieces of things and people scattered across the road.

I threw up in an alley three blocks away.

Threw up until there was nothing left inside me but bile and shaking.

But then the commander found me.

He put his hand on my shoulder.

He told me I’d done well, that Allah was pleased, that those men at the checkpoint were oppressors, and now they couldn’t hurt any more Muslims.

He gave me money.

He gave me respect.

He told the other brothers that I was brave, that I could be trusted.

And slowly, slowly, the shaking stopped.

That’s how they do it.

That’s how they make killers out of boys.

One mission at a time, [music] one compromise at a time, until the person you were is so far behind you that you can’t even remember what he looked like.

Over the next 5 years, I did things I cannot speak about in detail.

Not because I want to hide from them.

I’ve confessed them to God.

And I’ll confess them again if needed.

But because some things are too dark to drag fully into the light.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

I hurt people.

I killed people.

I became exactly what they wanted me to become, a weapon.

My parents knew something was wrong, but I lied to them.

I told them I was working in Karach in Lahore, sending money home when I could.

My mother would cry on the phone and beg me to visit.

My father’s voice got quieter each time we spoke, like he was talking to a stranger.

I was a stranger, even to myself.

By the time I was 22, I had a reputation.

The commanders trusted me.

They sent me on important missions.

They knew I wouldn’t hesitate.

Wouldn’t hesitate.

That part of me was dead, buried under years of violence and ideology.

And the need to believe that what I was doing mattered, meant something, was for a purpose greater than murder.

I lived in safe houses, moving every few weeks.

I had three different names, four different ID cards.

I memorized routes and backup routes and evacuation plans.

I learned to sleep light, to wake at the smallest sound, to always know where the exits were.

I learned to pray mechanically, words without meaning.

I learned to quote the Quran to justify anything.

I learned to look at targets, that’s what we called them, targets, never people, and feel nothing at all.

This was my life when they gave me the church assignment.

It was supposed to be routine.

A message to the Christian community in a small village in Punjab.

They’d been growing bolder.

The Christians holding open services, refusing to convert.

Some Muslims in the area had complained, wanted them gone, wanted them scared.

So the commanders decided to send a message, burn their church, show them what happens when they don’t know their place.

They chose me because I was local to the area.

Because I knew the region, because I’d never failed the mission.

I prepared the way I always prepared.

I acquired the materials, a large can of petrol, a box of matches.

I studied the church [music] location on a borrowed phone.

I planned my route in and my route out.

I checked the weather to make sure it [music] would be dry so the fire would catch quickly and spread.

I felt nothing about it.

It was just another assignment.

The night came.

It was a Thursday.

I remember that.

Thursday night moving into Friday.

The streets would be quiet.

[music] Most people would be sleeping or preparing for Friday prayers in the morning.

I took a motorcycle from one of the safe houses.

No car, too noticeable, too easy to track.

I strapped the petrol cam behind me, put the matches in my jacket pocket.

I wore dark clothes, nothing distinctive, a black shallwar kamse.

A dark shawl to cover my face if needed.

The drive took 40 minutes through sleeping villages, past darkened shops, along roads I’d traveled as a boy, but I wasn’t thinking about being a boy.

I wasn’t thinking about anything except the mission.

Get in or the petrol.

Light the match.

Get out.

Simple.

I’d done worse things with more complications.

This would be easy.

The village came into view just after midnight.

a small place, maybe 300 people, mostly farmers.

The church was on the edge of the village, a small building made of brick with a corrugated metal roof.

There was a simple wooden cross mounted above the door.

No guards, no lights, nothing.

Like I said, easy.

I parked the motorcycle two streets away, hidden behind a low wall.

I pulled the shawl up over my nose and mouth.

I lifted the petrol can.

It was heavy, full, sloshing inside and started walking.

My footsteps were loud in the silence.

Dogs barked in the distance.

A baby cried somewhere in one of the houses, but no one was on the streets.

No one to see me.

I reached the church compound.

There was a low wall around it, barely waist high.

a simple metal gate, not even locked, just [music] hanging there, slightly open like it was waiting.

I remember standing there for a moment, looking at that gate, looking at the dark church beyond it.

I remember thinking, “This is routine.

You’ve done this before.

Different building, same procedure.

Get it done and get out.

” I reached out and pushed the gate open.

The metal creaked, just a small sound, but it felt loud in the stillness.

I stepped into the compound, and that’s when everything changed.

I pushed open that gate, the petrol can heavy in my right hand, the box of matches pressing against my chest through my jacket pocket.

The compound was small, just packed dirt and a few struggling plants in concrete planters.

The church itself was maybe 20 ft ahead of me.

One story plain brick walls that wouldn’t cross above the door.

This should have taken 5 minutes, 10 at most.

But as I took my second step into the compound, something happened that I cannot fully explain.

Even now, years later, after telling this story hundreds of times, the air changed.

I don’t mean the temperature, though that changed, too.

It got cooler even though it was a warm night.

I mean, the air itself felt different, thicker, heavy, like walking into water, but the water was invisible.

Every step forward felt like I was pushing against something.

I stopped, looked around.

Nothing, no one, just the dark church and the empty compound [music] and the silent village beyond the wall.

I thought maybe I was nervous.

That didn’t make sense.

I never got nervous anymore.

But what else could it be? I shook my head, adjusted my grip on the petrol can, and kept walking.

The heaviness got worse, like the air was pressing against me, like it was aware of me.

I reached the church door.

It wasn’t locked.

That’s what I’d been told, and it was true.

The door swung open with a soft creek and I stepped inside.

Darkness.

Complete darkness.

I waited for my eyes to adjust.

Slowly shapes emerged.

Wooden benches.

Maybe eight or [music] 10 rows.

A simple altar at the front.

And above the altar, mounted on the wall, a wooden cross.

It was crude, handmade.

Two pieces of wood nailed together.

Nothing fancy, but even in the darkness, I could see it clearly.

It seemed to catch what little light there was and hold it.

I moved down the center aisle, my footsteps echoing on the concrete floor.

The petrol can banged against my leg with each step.

I was thinking about logistics now.

Pour it over the benches first.

trail it back to the door, light it from the doorway so I’d have time to get out before it really caught.

Professional clinical routine.

I reached the front, set the can down with a heavy thud, started to unscrew the cap.

That’s when my arm began to shake.

Just my right arm at first, a tremor like I was cold.

But I wasn’t cold.

The shaking got worse.

My hand jerked and the cap fell from [music] my fingers rolling across the floor.

I stared at my arm, tried to steady it, couldn’t.

The shaking spread up my arm into my shoulder.

I tried to grip the can with my left hand to pour it anyway.

But now both arms were shaking violently, uncontrollably.

The can slipped from my grip.

It fell, rolled, and stopped at the base of the altar, right beneath that wooden cross, as if something had caught it and held it there.

My heart was pounding now.

What was happening? Was I sick? Having a seizure.

Then the weight hit me.

Not on my arms, on my chest, like a giant hand pressing down, pushing me toward the floor.

Not painful, but powerful, irresistible.

My knees hit the concrete hard.

The impact sent pain shooting up my legs, but I couldn’t stand, couldn’t move.

The weight kept pressing, pressing until my forehead was nearly touching the floor.

And I was crying.

I never cried.

Hadn’t cried since I was a child.

Since before the training, since before I learned to turn off that part of myself.

But now tears were streaming down my face, soaking my beard, dripping onto the concrete.

Tears I couldn’t control, couldn’t stop.

I tried to speak, to say something, but nothing came out except a sound I didn’t recognize.

A groan deep and broken, torn from somewhere inside me I thought had died years ago.

The weight pressed harder.

My chest felt like it would crack open.

Like something inside me was being forced out, expelled, torn away.

Then I heard the voice.

Not with my ears.

I need to be clear about that.

There was no sound in that church except my own sobbing, my own gasping breaths, but I heard it anyway.

Inside my head, inside my heart, everywhere and nowhere.

A voice that knew my name.

Not the name I’d been using, not my alias, my real name, the name my mother gave me, the name I’d almost forgotten.

And the voice said things I cannot repeat word for word because they were meant for me alone, personal and specific.

But the essence was this.

I know what you’ve done.

I’ve seen every moment, every victim, every lie, every drop of blood on your hands.

I know you better than you know yourself.

And I love you anyway.

That last part broke me.

Shattered something inside that I didn’t know could still break because I knew [music] somehow that this was Jesus speaking.

Not Allah, not a prophet, not a teacher.

Jesus, the one I’d been taught was a good man, but nothing more.

The one Christians worshiped as God, which we said was sherk, the unforgivable sin.

But his voice carried more authority than any commander I’d ever known, more power than any imam I’d ever heard, more weight than all the theology I’d memorized.

And it wasn’t angry.

That’s what destroyed me.

It should have been angry after what I’d done, after the people I’d killed.

It should have been furious, full of judgment and condemnation.

But it was just love, sad love, maybe grieving love, but love so pure and complete that it burnt through me like fire.

And I realized that this was the real fire.

Not the petrol and matches I’d brought, but this this presence.

This this love that wouldn’t let me go.

I saw my life play out before my eyes.

Not metaphorically, actually.

Like a film unrealing in my mind.

Every mission, every victim.

And this time I saw their faces clearly.

saw them as people, as someone’s son, daughter, father, mother.

I saw the police officer at the checkpoint who’d had a family photo in his wallet.

I saw the shopkeeper who’d smiled at everyone.

I saw faces I’d forced myself to forget.

And now I couldn’t look away.

And in each scene, I saw something else.

A figure in the background, always there, always watching, always grieving.

Jesus.

He’d been there all along.

At every bombing, every shooting, every safe house where we’d planned violence, he’d been there watching, weeping, waiting, waiting for this moment.

My mind was racing, trying to argue, trying to hold on to what I’d believed.

I’d been taught that Jesus was just a prophet, that Christians had corrupted the message.

that they were mushriken polytheists because they claimed he was God.

But the presence in that church wasn’t theoretical theology.

It was undeniable reality.

More real than the concrete under my knees, more solid than the walls around me.

I don’t know how long I stayed there.

Minutes, hours.

Time had stopped meaning anything.

There was only this weight, this presence, this voice speaking truths I couldn’t deny.

At some point, I started trying to pray the way I’d always prayed in Arabic.

The words I’d memorized, but they dried up in my mouth.

Not because they were wrong exactly, but because they felt empty now, like trying to fill a cup with sand.

So I just spoke in udo my mother tongue simple words broken and desperate.

I confessed everything every sin I could remember and probably more I couldn’t.

I told this presence about the [music] doubt I’d carried the numbness.

The hate I’d used to hide fear.

I told him about my uncle, about the training camp, about the first mission, and how I’d vomited afterward and then learned not to feel at all.

And the voice kept responding, not with words always, but with knowing, with understanding, with a forgiveness I didn’t deserve and couldn’t earn, but was being offered anyway.

The weight began to lift slowly, gradually, like the tide going out.

I could breathe again, really breathe for the first time in years.

I raised my head, tears still streaming, but different tears now.

My arms had stopped shaking.

I looked at the wooden cross above the altar, and I understood something that I can’t fully explain, but I knew was true.

He’d died there for me.

Even knowing what I would become, what I would do, he’d still died for me.

And he was offering me a way out, a way back, a way home.

I don’t remember making a conscious decision to accept.

It wasn’t like that.

It was more like surrendering.

like I’d been running my whole life.

And I finally stopped, turned around, [music] and let myself be caught.

The peace that came then was beyond anything I’d experienced.

Not happiness exactly, not relief.

Something deeper.

Like every piece of me that had been scattered and broken was being gathered up, held carefully placed back together.

I stood up.

My legs were shaky, weak.

I looked at the petrol can lying at the foot of the altar.

Looked at my hands that had been ready to burn this place down.

Horror washed over me.

What had I almost done? What had I been doing for years? But underneath the horror was something else.

Something new.

Hope.

The smallest, most fragile hope I’d ever felt.

that maybe I could be different.

That maybe it wasn’t too late.

That maybe this Jesus who’d stopped me could also save me.

Dawn was breaking.

Light coming through the simple windows, turning the darkness gray, then gold.

I walked to the door, turned back one more time to look at the church interior, the benches, the altar, the cross.

A voice in [music] my head, my own voice this time, but different, clearer, said, “Remember this.

When it gets [music] hard, remember this moment.

Remember what happened here.

” I stepped outside.

The compound was empty.

The village was waking up, roosters crowing, sounds of movement from houses.

But no one had seen me.

No one knew what had happened in that church.

I left the petrol can where it was.

Walked back to where I’d hidden the motorcycle.

My hands were steady now as I started it.

As I drove away, I walked into that church.

A terrorist, a killer, a weapon pointed at God’s people.

I walked out marked for death, but finally truly alive.

I rode the motorcycle back toward the city in a days.

The sun was fully up now, harsh and bright, making me squint.

Everything looked different.

The same roads, the same villages, but I was seeing them with new eyes.

It was like I’d been colorblind my whole life and suddenly could see the full spectrum.

I was terrified, not of being caught, though that should have been my first concern.

I was terrified of what had just happened, of what it meant, of what I’d felt and heard and experienced in that church.

You have to understand, I’d spent 5 years being certain, certain of my beliefs, certain of my mission, certain of who the enemy was and what needed to be done.

That certainty was my foundation, my identity, my reason for existing.

And in one night, in less than [music] an hour, all of that certainty had crumbled.

I couldn’t go back to the safe house.

Not yet.

The others would be expecting news of the fire.

They’d want to see smoke on the horizon, hear reports of the Christians fleeing in terror.

How could I face them? How could I explain what happened? I couldn’t explain it to myself.

I pulled off the main road into a grove of trees near a field, killed the engine, sat there with my hands on the handlebars, staring at nothing.

My whole body was shaking now, but not like in the church.

This was shock, reaction, the adrenaline draining away and leaving me hollow.

I thought about the petrol can I’d left behind, physical evidence, my fingerprints on it.

If anyone found it, they’d ask questions.

But I couldn’t make myself care.

Something bigger than operational security had happened.

And I couldn’t ignore it no matter how hard I tried.

I sat in that grove for 2 hours, maybe three, watching farmers work their fields in the distance, watching normal life happen all around me while my own life had just exploded into pieces.

Around midm morning, [music] a truck passed on the road and reality crashed back in.

I had to make a decision.

I couldn’t sit here forever.

The safe option would be to disappear.

Take the motorcycle, ride to another city, vanish into the crowds.

I’d done it before.

I knew how.

But something inside me that knew something that had been born in the church said no.

Said I had to go back.

Had to tell someone what happened.

Had to find Christians who could help me understand what I’d experienced.

My hands started the motorcycle before my mind fully agreed to the plan.

I headed back toward the village, toward the church.

This was insane, stupid, dangerous, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

I reached the village around noon, parked the motorcycle in the same spot as before, walked to the church compound on foot, my legs feeling like they might give out with each step.

The gate was still open.

I pushed through it, and this time the air felt normal, just hot, dusty afternoon air.

No weight, no presence.

Or maybe the presence was inside me now instead of pressing down on me from outside.

I don’t know how to explain it.

The church door was closed but not locked.

I opened it slowly, stepped inside.

Someone was there.

An old man, maybe 60, maybe older, was sweeping the floor near the altar.

He looked up when he heard me enter.

His face went through several expressions in quick succession.

surprise, fear, then something else, something like recognition.

Though we’d never met, we stared at each other for a long moment.

I realized I still had the shawl pulled up around my face.

Slowly, I lowered it.

His eyes went to the petrol can, still sitting where it had rolled the night before.

Then back to my face.

He spoke in uru.

His voice was quiet, steady.

He asked if I was the one who brought the can.

I nodded, couldn’t speak.

My throat was too tight.

He asked if I had come to finish what I started.

I shook my head, found my voice rough and broken.

I told him I came because I didn’t know where else to go.

That something happened here last night, that I couldn’t burn the church because Jesus stopped me.

I expected [music] him to run, to shout for help, to grab something to defend himself.

Instead, his face softened.

He set down the broom and sat on one of the wooden benches.

Gestured for me to sit as well.

I sat, kept my distance, still aware of what I was, what I’d been, even if something had changed.

He asked my name.

I told him, my real name, the one I hadn’t used in years.

He told me his name was Emmanuel, pastor of this small church for 30 years.

Then he said something I’ll never forget.

He said that he’d prayed last night, woken up at midnight with a strong feeling that he needed to pray for this church, for protection, for the people in the village.

He’d prayed for an hour before the feeling of urgency lifted, and then he’d gone back to sleep.

He said he’d found the petrol can when he came to open the church that morning.

Had been praying over it, asking God what it meant.

When I walked in, he asked me to tell him what happened.

So I did.

Everything from the mission to the shaking to the weight to the voice.

I probably sounded insane.

I felt insane.

But I couldn’t stop talking once I started.

Years of sealed up words pouring out.

Pastor Emanuel listened without interrupting.

When I finished, I was crying again.

Seemed like all I could do now was cry.

All those years of not feeling anything.

And now I couldn’t stop feeling everything.

He let me cry.

Didn’t try to comfort me with empty words.

Just sat there present, waiting.

When I could breathe again, he spoke.

He said that what I experienced was real.

That Jesus still appears to people, still stops them in their tracks, still offers forgiveness to anyone who turns to him.

He said he’d met several Muslim converts over the years, and many of them had similar stories of encounters they couldn’t explain or deny.

Then he said something that frightened me more than anything else that day.

He said that if I really meant to follow Jesus, I needed to understand the cost.

That in Pakistan, converting from Islam to Christianity was a death sentence.

That my own community, my own family, my former associates would all consider me a traitor worthy of death.

That I would lose everything.

I already knew this, had seen it happen to others.

But hearing it spoken out loud made it real in a new [music] way.

He asked if I was sure, if I understood what I was choosing.

I told him I didn’t feel like I was choosing.

I felt like I’d been chosen.

That Jesus had grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let go.

And I didn’t want him to let go.

Even though [music] I was terrified of what came next.

Pastor Emmanuel nodded.

He asked if I wanted to pray with him.

I did.

We knelt there on the concrete [music] floor where I’d collapsed the night before.

He prayed in udo, simple words thanking God for pursuing me, for not giving up on me, asking for protection and wisdom for the road ahead.

Then he asked if I wanted to confess faith in Jesus.

Everything in me said yes.

But I was also aware of the magnitude of this moment.

This wasn’t just changing my mind.

This was changing my identity, my eternity, my entire existence.

I said yes anyway.

The prayer was simple.

I told Jesus I believed he was who he said he was.

That he died for my sins and rose again.

That I wanted him to be my Lord, my Savior, my everything.

I asked him to forgive me for all I’d done to make me new.

I don’t remember the exact words, but I remember the feeling when I finished speaking like a door closing behind me and another door opening ahead.

No going back now, only forward.

Pastor Emanuel embraced me, actually hugged me.

This old man who had every reason to fear me instead welcomed me like a son.

He told me I couldn’t stay in the village, that I needed to leave immediately, go somewhere the organization wouldn’t find me.

He said there were safe houses for converts, a network of Christians who helped people like me escape.

But first, he wanted me to meet a few others from the church.

just two or three trusted people who could pray for me before I left.

I agreed, though every survival instinct screamed at me to run now, not wait.

He made a phone call on an old mobile.

[music] Within 20 minutes, two men arrived.

One was about my age, the other older.

Pastor Emmanuel explained briefly what happened.

They looked at me with a mixture of caution and wonder.

The younger one asked if I was serious.

If this wasn’t a trick, I couldn’t blame him for asking.

I would have asked the same thing.

I told him I wished it was a trick.

That would be simpler.

But this was real and I was terrified and I needed help.

Something in my voice must have convinced him.

His expression softened.

The four of us prayed together.

They laid hands on my shoulders and prayed for safety, for faith to sustain me, for God to guide each step.

They prayed that my family would somehow come to understand.

They prayed that I would be strong in the persecution to come.

That word persecution, it was real now.

Not something happening to other people, happening to me.

When we finished praying, Pastor Emanuel handed me a small book, a New Testament in Udu.

He said I needed to read it to learn about Jesus, not from what I’d been taught, but from his own words and the accounts of those who knew him.

I took it, held it carefully like it might burn me.

In a way, it would.

This book was illegal for me to possess.

Now, physical evidence of my conversion.

The older man gave me a phone number.

He said it was for a contact in Lahore who helped converts find safety.

I memorized it, didn’t write it down.

Then, Pastor Emanuel said I needed to go now.

Before anyone in the village noticed a stranger at the church and started asking questions, he walked me to the gate, stopped there and looked at me seriously.

He said that I would face many tests, that there would be times I doubted what happened in the church, doubted if it was real, doubted if Jesus was worth losing everything for.

He said to hold on to this moment to remember that God had pursued me first that this wasn’t my choice alone but God’s choice of me.

He said he would pray for me every day for the rest of his life.

Then he did something strange.

He asked if I wanted the petrol can.

I stared at him.

Why would I want it? He smiled.

Said it might serve as a reminder of what I was going to do.

of what Jesus stopped me from doing, of how far grace can reach.

I took the can.

It was empty now.

The petrol had leaked out during the night.

But he was right.

It was a reminder, a memorial stone like the ones in the Old Testament stories I’d read years ago.

I walked back to the motorcycle carrying an empty petrol can and a New Testament.

If anyone saw me, I don’t know what they would have thought, but the roads were quiet.

I rode toward [music] Lahore.

It was a 5-hour journey, maybe more, and I had time to think.

Too much time.

The initial shock was wearing off, and reality was setting in.

I’d just committed apostasy.

The punishment for apostasy in Islam is death, not metaphorical death.

actual execution.

And I hadn’t just converted quietly.

I’d done it in front of witnesses in a church after failing a mission.

The organization would find out.

They always found out.

My handlers would realize I didn’t complete the assignment.

They’d try to contact me.

When I didn’t respond, they’d start investigating.

They’d talk to informants.

Maybe someone had seen me return to the church this morning.

Maybe Pastor Emmanuel or the others would be questioned.

And my family, what would happen when word reached them? My father would disown me.

My mother would cry.

My siblings would be shamed by association.

I almost turned around.

almost decided to go back to pretend the church encounter was a hallucination to burn another church somewhere else to prove my loyalty.

But I couldn’t.

That door was closed.

I’d felt Jesus in that church.

Heard his voice, experienced his presence.

You can’t unknow something like that.

You can’t un meet someone who changes everything about how you see reality.

I kept riding.

Lahore appeared on the horizon as the sun was setting.

Massive, crowded, chaotic.

Easy to disappear in a city that size, but also full of dangers.

The organization had networks there, informants, safe houses.

I’d operated in Lahore before, knew the areas we controlled.

I had to avoid those areas now.

I found a cheap hotel in [music] a crowded neighborhood, paid cash, used a fake name from my old collection of identities.

The clerk barely looked at me, just took the money and handed me a key.

The room was tiny.

One bed, one window with a broken blind bathroom down the hall, but it had a lock on the door.

And right now, that was all I needed.

I sat on the bed and pulled out the New Testament Pastor Emanuel had given me.

Opened it randomly.

My eyes fell on words in the Gospel of Matthew.

The passage talked about counting the cost of following Jesus, about how it would divide families, turn people against each other, about losing your life to find it.

My hands started shaking again.

Not like in the church, just trembling with exhaustion and fear and the weight [music] of what I’d done.

I read until I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

Then I slept with the light on the New Testament under my pillow and woke up every hour from nightmares [music] of being discovered, captured, killed.

Morning came.

I was still alive, still free.

I found a pay phone in the hotel lobby, dialed the number the man at the church had given me.

It rang four times, [music] 5 6.

Then someone answered, a woman’s voice, cautious.

I said the code phrase I’d been told to use, said I was a friend of Emanuel.

There was a pause.

Then she gave me an address, told me to come alone, to watch for anyone following, to arrive before noon.

I took two different buses to get there, changing directions multiple times to make sure no one was tailing me.

The address led to a small house in a modest neighborhood, Christian area, based on the crosses I could see on some of the doors.

I knocked.

The door opened.

The woman from the phone stood there, maybe 40.

Tired eyes that had seen too much.

She looked me over, asked my name.

I gave her my real name, not the aliases.

I was done with those.

She let me in.

Inside, there were three other people, two men, one woman, all roughly my age, all with the same expression I probably had.

fear, confusion, determination.

The older woman introduced herself, said she ran a safe house for Muslim converts to Christianity, that this wasn’t the main safe house, too dangerous to bring everyone to one location, but the meeting point.

She asked me to tell my story.

I did.

shorter version this time, hitting the main points, the mission, the encounter, the surrender.

When I finished, one of the other men spoke up, said he’d had a similar experience, not in a church, but in a dream.

Jesus had appeared to him, called him by name, told him to follow.

He’d thought he was losing his mind [music] until he met other converts with similar stories.

The woman shared hers.

She had been searching for truth for years, reading the Quran, but finding no peace.

Then a Christian friend had given her a Bible.

And when she read the Gospels, something broke open inside her.

She’d known immediately that this was what she’d been looking for.

The second man had converted after his daughter was healed.

She’d been dying of an illness the doctors couldn’t treat.

A Christian neighbor had asked if they could pray in Jesus’s name.

He’d been desperate enough to agree.

The daughter recovered within days.

He couldn’t deny what he’d seen.

All of us had lost something to be there.

Family, career, safety, home.

But all of us also had gained something that made the loss bearable.

We prayed together.

It felt strange at first, praying in a new way to Jesus instead of in Arabic formulas.

But it also felt right.

Like coming home to a place I’d never been.

The woman who ran the safe house told us what came next.

We’d need new identification, new locations.

Some of us would need to leave Pakistan entirely, seek asylum in other countries.

The process could take months or years.

We’d need to stay hidden, stay quiet, [music] stay alive.

She asked if we understood the danger, if we were committed to this path despite the cost.

We all said yes.

What else could we say? We’d already jumped.

Now we were in freef fall, trusting that Jesus would catch us before we hit the [music] ground.

Over the next several weeks, I moved between different safe houses in Lahore, never staying in one place more than a few days, learning to live carefully, always watching over my shoulder.

I spent hours reading the New Testament started from the beginning, Matthew’s Gospel.

Read about Jesus birth, his teachings, his miracles.

Read about how he welcomed tax collectors and sinners.

How he touched lepers and ate with outcasts.

Read about how he forgave the people who crucified him.

That part broke me.

I’d killed people who’d done nothing wrong.

And here was Jesus forgiving the ones who killed him.

Asking God to forgive them because they didn’t understand what they were doing.

If he could forgive them, maybe he really could forgive me.

I also started learning to pray differently.

Not the ritual prayers I’d memorized, but conversations.

talking to Jesus like he was present because he was telling him my fears, my doubts, my guilt over the past, my terror about the future.

And slowly, slowly, I began to sense responses, not audible voices, but impressions.

Peace that came when I was most afraid.

strength when I wanted to give up.

Small confirmations that I wasn’t alone.

One night about 3 weeks after the church incident, I got a phone call, the safe house coordinator.

Her voice was urgent.

She said word had gotten out.

Someone had talked or been captured and tortured until they talked.

The organization knew I’d converted.

They had my name, my photo.

They were actively looking for me.

[music] She said I needed to leave Lahore tonight.

She had contacts who could get me to Karachi, then possibly out of Pakistan entirely.

I asked about the others from the safe house.

She said they were being moved too, scattered to different locations.

I had 1 hour to pack.

I owned nothing except the clothes I wore, the New Testament, and the empty petrol can I’d kept.

That’s all that fit in a small bag.

A man picked me up in a car with tinted windows, drove through the night, didn’t speak except to tell me to keep my head down.

We reached Karachi at dawn.

He dropped me at another house, different neighborhood, different people.

The coordinator there was an older man, a pastor who’d been helping converts for decades.

He had scars on his arms from an attack years [music] ago.

He’d survived.

Many others hadn’t.

He told me the situation was worse than expected.

My face was being circulated.

There were bounties on Muslim converts and mine was higher than most because of my background with the organization.

They wanted to make an example of me.

He said my best option was to try for asylum in another country.

He had connections with churches abroad who helped Pakistani Christians and converts.

But the process would take time.

I’d need to apply through the UN refugee agency, go through interviews, background checks, wait for approval.

Could take a year, maybe more.

I asked what I should do while waiting.

He said, “Survive, stay hidden, pray constantly, and trust that if God had saved me from burning a church, he could save me from what came after.

” I wanted to believe him.

Some days I did, other days the fear was so heavy I could barely breathe.

But I kept going because the door behind me was closed.

And the door ahead, though uncertain, led toward Jesus.

And I’d [music] rather die following him than live running from him.

The first time I heard my mother’s voice after converting, I thought my heart would stop.

I’d been in Karach for 2 months, hidden in a network of safe houses, moving every week or sometimes every few days.

The pastor helping me had warned against any contact with my family.

Too dangerous.

They were certainly being watched, their phones monitored.

Any call could give away my location.

But I was weak, homesick, desperate to hear a familiar voice.

I borrowed a phone from someone at one of the safe houses.

Went to a busy market where the noise would mask my voice, where crowds would hide me, dialed my family’s number with shaking hands.

My mother answered on the third ring.

I almost hung up, almost couldn’t speak.

Then I heard her say hello again and something inside me cracked open.

I said her name.

Just that one word.

The silence that followed felt endless.

Then she started crying.

Not loud, not dramatic.

Just quiet weeping that cut deeper than any scream.

She said my name, asked where I was, if I was safe, if I was eating enough.

all the normal mother things.

Even though nothing was normal anymore, I told her I was safe, that I couldn’t tell her where I was, that I was sorry for everything, for leaving, for the shame I’d brought on the family, for the pain I knew she must be carrying.

She cried harder.

Then her voice changed, got stronger.

She said there were people looking for me, that men had come to the house asking questions, that my father had told them he had no son by my name, that my brothers and sisters were being harassed at school in the neighborhood, that the whole family was suffering because of my choice.

She said the word slowly.

Choice like it was foreign, incomprehensible.

She begged me to come home.

Said we could fix this.

Said if I recanted, if I came back to Islam publicly, people might forgive.

Might let [music] me live.

I was crying now, too.

Standing in a crowded market in Karach, phone pressed to my ear, tears streaming down my face while people pushed past me on all sides.

I told her I couldn’t come back, that what happened to me wasn’t a choice I could unmake, that I’d met Jesus and [music] he was real.

And I couldn’t deny that even to save my life.

She went quiet again.

When she spoke, her voice was flat, dead.

She said my father had declared me dead to the family, that my name wouldn’t be spoken in their house, that if I ever came near them, they’d turn me over to the authorities or to the men looking for me.

Then her voice broke again.

She said she loved me anyway, that she’d always [music] loved me, that she prayed to Allah to forgive me for going astray, that she hoped I’d come to my senses before it was too late.

Before someone killed me, she meant she told me not to call again.

It was too dangerous for everyone.

Then she hung up.

I stood there holding a dead phone, surrounded by strangers, feeling more alone than I’d ever felt in my life.

That was the last time I spoke to my mother.

It’s been years now, and I don’t know if she’s still alive.

Don’t know if my siblings grew up, got married, had children.

Don’t know if my father’s health held [music] out.

He had heart problems even before I left.

I lost my family that day in the market.

Lost them even though they were still alive somewhere [music] breathing the same air living in the same country I was desperate to escape.

That loss was its own kind of death.

The weeks in Karach stretched into months.

I was registered with the UN refugee agency, had my first interview with officials who asked endless questions about my background, my conversion, why I couldn’t just stay in Pakistan and practice Christianity quietly.

I tried to explain they didn’t understand.

How could they? They saw religious conflict as a political problem.

They didn’t understand that this was life and death.

That quiet Christians disappeared in Pakistan.

That converts were found in ditches with their throats cut.

The waiting was torture.

Every day wondering if this would be the day someone recognized me.

Every knock on the door sending my heart racing.

Every police siren making me freeze, ready to run.

I prayed constantly.

The New Testament was falling apart from how many times I’d read it.

I’d memorized whole chapters, found comfort in passages that talked about persecution, about endurance, about God never leaving or forsaking his people.

But comfort and safety aren’t the same thing.

6 months after the church incident, I was moved again.

This time to a Christian area in Karachi that was relatively safe.

There was a small church there, maybe 40 members, mostly poor families who had been Christian for generations.

They welcomed me carefully.

They’d seen converts before, knew the dangers we brought with us.

But they also knew that Jesus commanded them to help the widow, the orphan, the stranger.

And I was definitely a stranger now.

Stranger to my own culture, my own family, even to myself.

I started attending services.

It was strange at first.

the hymns in Udu, the prayers offered freely in conversational language rather than Arabic ritual, the Bible reading and teaching that took up most of the service instead of just repeating memorized verses.

But it was also beautiful.

People worshiped with freedom, with joy despite living under constant threat.

They sang about Jesus like he was present among them.

They prayed like God actually listened.

And slowly I began to feel it too.

Not just the encounter from the church that first night, but an ongoing presence.

Jesus with me in the waiting, in the fear, in the loneliness.

The pastor at this church was younger than Emanuel had been, maybe 40, with a wife and three children.

He invited me to his home for dinner one evening.

His house was small, cramped, but filled with laughter, with life.

His children ran around playing.

His wife served food with a warm smile.

And for a few hours, I could almost forget I was a fugitive.

After dinner, the pastor and I talked while his wife put the children to bed.

He asked me about my journey, not just the facts, but how I was doing internally, spiritually.

I admitted I was struggling, that the initial encounter with Jesus had been so powerful, so certain.

But now, in the daily waiting and hiding, doubts crept in.

What if I’d imagined it? What if I’d misinterpreted something? What if I’d thrown away my life for a delusion? He listened.

Didn’t rush to correct me or give me easy answers.

Then he told me his story.

He’d been born into a Christian family, third generation.

His grandfather had converted in the 1940s, faced terrible persecution, lost everything.

His father had grown up poor, despised, barely able to get an education because of discrimination.

He himself had been beaten multiple times growing up just for being Christian.

His sister had been kidnapped at 14, forced to marry a Muslim man, never seen again.

His church had been attacked twice.

He’d buried friends, church members, innocent people killed for their faith.

But he’d never left Pakistan, never stopped pastoring, never stopped believing.

I asked him how how he kept going when the cost was so high.

He thought for a moment.

Then he said something I’ve never forgotten.

He said, “Faith isn’t about never doubting.

It’s about choosing to trust even when you doubt.

” That doubt is normal, human, even healthy sometimes.

But beneath the doubt, there has to be something deeper.

A knowing that isn’t based on feelings or circumstances.

He said, “I’d experienced Jesus, really experienced him.

That encounter would be tested, would be challenged, would feel distant sometimes, but it was real.

and the reality of it would sustain me through the wilderness.

Because this was my wilderness, my testing, my time between Egypt and the promised land.

His words helped, not because they made things easier, but because they gave me permission to struggle without thinking I was failing.

Months continued to pass.

My refugee application moved at a glacial pace.

interviews, background checks, more interviews, waiting, always waiting.

During this time, I met other converts.

Some had been hiding for years.

One man had been in the UN system for 5 years, still waiting for a country to accept him.

He was starting to lose hope that he’d ever leave Pakistan.

Others were newer, their conversions recent, their terror fresh.

I tried to encourage them the way the pastor and others had encouraged me.

Tried to share what I was learning about endurance, about trust, about taking it one day at a time.

But inside I was just as scared as they were.

I found work off the books, helping at a small Christian run shop.

The pay was minimal, but it gave me something to do.

Kept me from drowning in my own thoughts.

The work was simple.

Stacking shelves, sweeping floors, helping customers, but it was honest work, and after years of villains, there was something healing about ordinary tasks done in peace.

One afternoon, a customer came in who looked familiar.

My heart seized.

I ducked behind a shelf, watching carefully.

He was older now, heavier, but I recognized him.

One of my former associates from the organization, not a highranking member, but someone who would definitely recognize me.

He browsed the shop slowly, bought cigarettes, left.

I don’t think he saw me, but I couldn’t be sure.

That night, I told the pastor what happened.

He said I needed to move again immediately.

I was so tired of moving, tired of running, tired of being afraid every moment of every day.

But I packed my small bag, still just the clothes, the New Testament, the empty petrol can, and moved to another safe house on the other side of the city.

This pattern continued for over a year, moving, waiting, praying, surviving.

I celebrated my first Christmas as a Christian in a tiny room with three other converts.

We had no decorations, no special food, but we read the nativity story from Luke’s gospel.

And we sang hymns quietly so the neighbors wouldn’t hear.

And we thanked Jesus for being born so he could die, so we could live.

It was the best Christmas I’d ever had.

My second interview with the UN went better than the first.

They seemed more convinced of my story, more aware of the dangers I faced.

They said they’d forward my case to several countries for consideration.

More [music] waiting.

I turned 24 during this time.

Spent my birthday alone in a safe house reading Psalms.

found comfort in David’s words about God being a refuge, a strong tower, a present help in trouble.

Wondered if David ever got tired of needing refuge, if he ever wanted to stop running and just live in peace, probably.

But he kept trusting anyway.

Kept praising anyway.

Kept believing that God was good even when life was hard.

I tried to follow his example around 18 months after my conversion.

I got news that rocked me.

Another convert I’d met, a young man about my age, had been found and killed, shot outside his safe house by men on a motorcycle.

They left his body in the street as a warning.

His crime was the same as mine.

leaving Islam for Jesus.

I attended his funeral.

It was small, quiet, mostly other converts and a few brave Christians willing to be associated with us.

We buried him in a Christian cemetery.

And the pastor spoke about how this brother had finished his race, how he was with Jesus now, how no one could hurt him anymore.

I wanted to feel that peace, that assurance, but mostly I just felt afraid that could be me, probably would be me eventually.

But then I thought about the church that night, about the voice I’d heard, about the love that had broken through my [music] hatred and changed everything.

And I realized that even if they killed me tomorrow, I’d still made the right choice.

Better to die belonging to Jesus than to live serving the darkness I’d escaped.

That thought shouldn’t have been comforting, but somehow it was.

More months passed.

I was moved to a final safe house.

This one run by an organization that specifically helped asylum seekers prepare for departure.

They said several countries were reviewing my case, that it looked promising.

I didn’t let myself hope too much.

Hope had hurt too many times before.

But then one morning, I got called to the office, told to sit down.

They said Canada had accepted my refugee application, that I’d be leaving in 2 weeks, that I’d have help resettling, finding housing, learning to navigate a new country.

I stared at them.

Couldn’t process the words.

I was getting out.

Actually getting out, I started crying.

The coordinator, used to emotional responses, let me cry, then handed me papers to sign, instructions for what came next, information about what to expect.

The next two weeks were a blur.

Medical checks, final interviews, paperwork, preparation.

I was given new clothes donated by a church in Canada.

I was given a small amount of money to start with.

I was given lists of resources, contacts, people who would help when I arrived.

I felt like I was dreaming.



Like any moment I’d wake up, still hiding, still running, still trapped.

But the day came.

Early morning, I was driven to the airport by a security escort.

rushed through a private entrance to avoid public areas where I might be recognized.

Taken to the gate.

I’d never flown before, had barely left Punjab before all of this started.

And now I was about to board a plane to a country I’d only seen in pictures.

I called Pastor Emmanuel from the airport, used a borrowed phone one last time.

He wept when he heard my voice.

Said he’d been praying for me every single day like he promised that he’d known God [music] would make a way.

I thanked him.

Told him I’d never forget what he did.

How he risked his life to help me.

He said that’s what Christians do.

We help each other.

We carry each other because Jesus carried us first.

Then he prayed for me over the phone.

blessed me.

Send me off with words from Joshua.

Be strong and courageous.

The Lord your God goes with you.

He will never leave you or forsake you.

I boarded the plane with those words echoing in my mind.

As we took off, I looked out the window at Pakistan disappearing below.

the country where I was born, where my family still lived, where I’d learned to hate and then learned to love.

I was leaving behind everything I’d known.

My language, my culture, my identity as a Pakistani man, but I was carrying something new.

A faith tested by fire.

A Jesus who’d proven faithful through the wilderness.

a hope that had survived despite everything trying to kill it.

The flight was long.

I slept in fits, unused to the altitude, the recycling air, the strangeness of it all.

When we landed in Toronto, it was winter, snow on the ground, a cold I’d never experienced before.

I walked off that plane into a new life.

a refugee, a convert, a former terrorist now following Jesus.

Still scared, still scarred, still struggling with guilt and grief and trauma, but alive, free, and learning to trust that the same Jesus who had met me in a church I’d come to burn would be with me in whatever came next.

The cold hit me like a physical blow when I stepped out of the Toronto airport.

I’d been warned about Canadian winters, but you can’t really prepare for something you’ve never experienced.

The wind cut through the donated jacket I was wearing like it wasn’t even there.

I stood there shivering, waiting for the church volunteer who was supposed to pick me up, wondering if I’d made a terrible mistake.

A woman approached holding a sign with my name on it.

She was maybe 50, bundled in a thick coat, smiling warmly despite the freezing temperature.

She introduced herself and led me to a car that was blessedly warm inside.

As we drove through the city, I pressed my face to the window like a child.

Everything looked impossible.

The building so tall and clean.

The roads so organized.

Cars following traffic rules.

People walking on sidewalks covered in snow, dressed in more clothing than I’d ever owned.

It felt like landing on another planet.

The woman, her name was Margaret, talked as she drove, explaining things I’d need to know.

where the apartment was that the church had arranged for me, how to use the heating system, where to buy food, how the buses worked.

She said it gently, kindly, but I could hear the unspoken truth underneath.

You know nothing about how to function here.

Everything [music] will be difficult.

She was right.

The apartment was in a building full of other refugees and immigrants.

Small, just one room with a tiny kitchen area and the bathroom, but it was mine.

My first space that belonged to me alone in years.

Margaret showed me how everything worked.

The stove, the shower with running hot water, the heater, light switches.

She stocked the refrigerator with basic food and showed me how to use it.

Left me a phone with important numbers programmed in.

Then she left me alone saying someone from the church would come by tomorrow to take me shopping for essentials.

I stood in that empty apartment after she left, surrounded by silence and strangeness, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

So I did both.

I was safe.

Actually safe.

No one was looking for me here.

No one knew my past.

No one was coming to kill me.

The relief was so intense it made my knees weak.

I sat on the floor.

There was no furniture yet and just breathed in and out, steady, alive.

But underneath the relief was something else.

A grief so vast I couldn’t name all its parts.

grief for my family I’d never see again.

For my country I’d left behind.

For the boy I’d been before.

Violence and ideology destroyed him.

For all the years I’d lost to hatred and hiding.

I pulled out my New Testament, battered now, pages falling out, stained and worn from being read a thousand times, and opened it randomly.

My eyes fell on words from second Corinthians.

Paul writing about being hardpressed but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair.

Persecuted but not abandoned.

Struck down but not destroyed.

I thought that’s me.

That’s exactly me.

Hardpressed by culture shock, perplexed by everything in [music] this new world.

Struck down by grief and loss.

But not destroyed, not abandoned.

Jesus was still here, still with me, even in Toronto in winter, in an empty apartment where I knew no one and understood nothing.

That first night in Canada, I couldn’t sleep.

The bed the church had provided was too soft, the heating too warm, the silence too quiet.

I was used to multiple people in small spaces, to street noise, to calls to prayer marking the hours.

I got up, looked out the window at the city lights reflecting off snow.

Wondered what I was supposed to do now.

I’d spent 2 years just trying to survive, to escape.

Now I’d escaped.

What came next? The morning brought Margaret back with another church member, a man named David.

They took me shopping, an overwhelming experience.

The grocery store was enormous, clean, filled with food I’d never seen before.

They helped me choose basics, showed me how to read prices, explained currency I didn’t understand.

Everything cost so much.

I kept converting to Pakistani rupees in my head and feeling dizzy.

How did people afford to live here? David explained about the government assistance I’d receive as a refugee, about language classes I’d need to attend, about work permits and social insurance numbers and all these systems I’d have to navigate.

My English was functional but basic.

I could understand more than I could speak.

Reading was easier than listening.

But Canadian English sounded different from what I’d learned, and people spoke so fast.

Over the next few weeks, I began attending English classes for newcomers.

The class was full of refugees from everywhere.

Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Congo.

All of us displaced, traumatized, trying to build new lives from nothing.

I made friends with two other Pakistani Christians there.

Both converts like me, though their stories were different.

One had converted after his wife became Christian.

The other had been searching for years, reading religious texts from many faiths before encountering Jesus in the Bible.

We became a small community.

helping each other navigate government offices, interpret confusing letters, understand cultural rules we’d never learned.

They became my brothers in this strange new land.

The church that sponsored me was kind and well-meaning, but there was a gap between us I couldn’t bridge.

They meant well, but they couldn’t understand what it was like to lose everything for faith.

Their Christianity was comfortable, cultural, safe.

Mine had cost me a family, a country, nearly my life.

I didn’t blame them.

How could they understand? But it made me feel isolated even when I was surrounded by people.

I found myself drawn to a smaller church in my neighborhood, one filled with immigrants and refugees from Muslim [music] backgrounds.

The worship was louder, more passionate, the prayers more desperate.

These were people who understood suffering, who knew what it cost to follow Jesus.

I started attending there instead.

The pastor was from Iran, had been in Canada for 10 years.

He welcomed me warmly, introduced me to others who’d walked similar paths.

This became my new family.

Not blood family that was lost to me, but chosen family.

Brothers and sisters who understood without needing explanations.

But the adjustment was brutal in ways I hadn’t anticipated.

Simple things became mountains.

using public transportation, shopping alone, job applications, banking.

Everything required knowledge and skills I didn’t have.

I took whatever work I could find.

Cleaning offices at night, washing dishes at a restaurant, manual labor, the jobs that didn’t require perfect English or Canadian experience.

The work was hard, the pay minimal.

I sent money back to Pakistan sometimes to pastor Emmanuel’s church to help other converts who were hiding and waiting like I had been.

It was all I could do for them.

The first winter nearly broke me.

The darkness, the cold, the isolation.

I’d gone from heat and dust and crowds to this frozen, ordered, lonely place.

I struggled with depression.

Some days I couldn’t get out of bed.

Couldn’t see the point.

Couldn’t remember why I’d fought so hard to survive.

Those were the days I’d pull out the empty petrol can.

Look at it.

Remember what I’d been about to do.

Remember the weight pressing me to my knees.

Remember the voice that called me by name.

And slowly the darkness would lift enough that I could take the next step.

Get up, pray, keep going.

I started seeing a counselor through a refugee support program.

She was patient, gentle, understanding trauma in ways I hadn’t expected.

She helped me start processing everything I’d experienced, the violence I’d participated in, the losses I’d endured, the ongoing fear that even here someone might find me.

She explained PTSD, told me my nightmares, my hypervigilance, my panic attacks were normal responses to abnormal experiences.

That I wasn’t crazy or weak.

That healing would take time.

Time.

Everything here took time.

Learning English, building credit, making friends, healing from trauma, understanding Canadian culture.

All of it measured in years, not days.

I was impatient.

Wanted to be useful, productive, stable.

Wanted to stop feeling like a burden, like a victim, like someone who needed constant help.

But gradually things improved.

My English got better.

I found better work at a warehouse, then at a community center, helping other refugees navigate settlement services.

My counselor helped me work through layers of guilt and grief.

I started dating awkwardly badly at first.

Christian dating was confusing.

The rules were different from what I’d known in Pakistan, but also different from the western dating culture I saw around me.

I made mistakes, had my heart broken, broke a few hearts myself, I’m [music] ashamed to say.

Then I met Sarah at the refugee church.

She was from Iran, had converted from Islam 5 years before, had been in Canada for 3 years.

She understood my story without needing it explained.

Understood the cost, the grief, the complexity of living between two worlds.

We became friends first.

Spent months just talking, sharing our journeys, praying together.

When romance developed, it felt natural, right? She’d lost her family, too.

Her father had told her she was dead to them.

Her mother had wept and begged her to recant.

But she’d encountered Jesus in a dream.

He’d appeared to her, called her by name, told her she was his beloved daughter, and she couldn’t deny what she had experienced.

We understood each other in ways [music] I don’t think non-converts could fully grasp.

The particular grief of choosing Jesus over family.

The guilt of bringing shame to parents who’ loved and raised you.

The terror of knowing there were people who wanted you dead simply for believing.

We married 2 years after I arrived in Canada.

Small ceremony at the refugee church, maybe 30 people, no family on either side, but brothers and sisters in Christ, many of them also converts, also refugees.

They were our family now.

Our wedding was both [music] joyful and sad.

We celebrated our love, our new beginning, but we also grieved our losses.

The parents who should have been there.

The siblings who would never meet our children.

The traditions we couldn’t observe because they came from a culture that had rejected us.

The pastor who married us acknowledged this in his sermon.

Said that following Jesus means gaining a family that transcends blood.

That we were living proof of that truth.

that our presence was testimony to a love stronger than death.

I thought about my mother during the ceremony, wondered if she was alive, if she ever thought about me, if she still prayed for me in her own way.

Sarah and I started building a life together.

Both working, both still healing, both helping others navigate the refugee journey we’d walked.

We volunteered at the church, mentoring new arrivals, sharing our stories to give them hope.

About 3 years after arriving in Canada, I was invited to share my testimony at a church conference.

A gathering of several churches, maybe 200 people.

They wanted to hear from someone who had encountered Jesus [music] in a dramatic way.

I was terrified.

My English was better, but still imperfect.

Public speaking made my hands shake.

And I’d have to talk about the darkest parts of my past in front of strangers.

But Sarah encouraged me, said my story could help people, both Christians who needed their faith rekindled and Muslims who were searching for truth like we had been.

So I agreed.

Standing in front of those 200 people, notes trembling in my hands, I told them everything.

The radicalization, the violence, the church I’d come to burn.

The encounter that changed everything.

The wilderness of waiting and [music] running.

The new life I was learning to live.

I watched faces as I spoke.

Some people cried, others looked shocked, some looked skeptical.

I could see it in their eyes, the doubt about whether my story was real.

But others looked hungry, like they were searching for something authentic, something real, something that proved God still moves in powerful ways.

When I finished, the room was silent for a long moment.

Then people started clapping.

standing.

Some came forward afterward to thank me, to ask questions, to tell me their own stories of encounter and transformation.

A Muslim man approached me.

He’d come with a friend who was Christian.

He said he’d been searching for truth, that my story had moved him, that he wanted [music] to know more about Jesus.

We exchanged numbers, met for coffee the next week.

I shared the gospel with him nervously, imperfectly, but honestly told him about Jesus, not from theology I’d memorized, but from personal experience of his presence and love.

3 months later, he gave his life to Christ.

I had the privilege of baptizing him in the same church where I’d been baptized.

That’s when I realized something.

God hadn’t just saved me from my past.

He’d saved me for a purpose to reach others, especially Muslims, with the truth that had set me free.

I started speaking more often at churches, at conferences, at refugee organizations.

My English improved with practice.

My confidence grew and every time I shared, someone responded.

Someone asking questions.

Someone ready to investigate Jesus.

Someone already converted but hiding in fear who found courage through my story.

Sarah and I began hosting a small group in our apartment for Muslim background believers.

A safe space to worship, to study scripture, to pray in Udu [music] and Farsy and Arabic.

A place where people could ask questions they couldn’t ask anywhere else.

Our group grew from five people to 10 to 20.

We had to split into multiple groups meeting in different homes.

Young converts fresh from conversion.

older believers who’d been following Jesus for years but still faced unique challenges living between two cultures.

We celebrated together, prayed together, grieved together when we heard news of converts being killed back home, supported each other through family rejection and cultural isolation and spiritual warfare that never fully stopped.

Life wasn’t easy.

Money was always tight.

The trauma didn’t disappear.

Some nights I still woke up sweating from nightmares about being found, captured, killed.

Some days the grief of losing my family hit me so hard I could barely function.

But there was also joy.

Deep hard one joy.

the joy of salvation, of freedom, of purpose, of community, of a love both human and divine that had proven stronger than everything trying to destroy it.

Sarah and I welcomed our first child 5 years after my arrival in Canada, a daughter.

We named her Grace because Grace was what had saved us both.

holding her in the hospital, looking at her tiny face, I wept.

Wept because she would never know her grandparents.

Because she would grow up without the extended family that gives life its richness in Pakistani culture.

Because my mother would never hold her, never sing to her, never feed her the biryani that had filled my childhood with such wonderful smells.

But I also wept with [snorts] gratitude because grace would grow up free.

Free to worship Jesus openly.

Free to choose her faith without fear of death.

Free to become whoever God made her to be.

She would never have to hide, never have to run, never have to choose between following Jesus and staying alive.

That freedom was worth everything I’d lost.

As our daughter grew, I watched her toddle around our small apartment, babbling in English.

And I thought about legacy, about what I was passing down to her.

Not wealth, we had little, not status or comfort or security, but faith tested, tried, [music] proven real.

A faith that had survived fire and fear and exile.

A faith strong enough to build a life on.

And stories.

stories of what Jesus can do, how far his love can reach, how even a terrorist with the can of petrol can be stopped, saved, transformed into a servant of the god he’d been trying to fight.

I began writing everything down.

Not well, my English writing was still clumsy, but honestly, so Grace would know.

So other converts would know they weren’t alone.

So Muslims searching for truth would know there was a way forward.

And so Christians comfortable in their faith would understand what it truly costs some people to follow Jesus.

That while they were deciding which church service time was most convenient, there were believers around the world deciding if today was the day they’d be martyed for his name.

I wanted [music] to bridge that gap to help western Christians understand the persecuted church wasn’t an abstract concept but real people with real [music] faces and real stories.

People like me, like Sarah, like everyone in our small group who’d given up everything to gain Christ.

The writing became a discipline.

Every evening after Grace was asleep, I’d [music] sit at our small kitchen table and write, sometimes in English, sometimes in Udo, then translating, recording every detail I could remember, of the church encounter, of the wilderness years, of the new life being built one day at a time.

Sarah would read what I wrote, correct my English, encourage me to keep going.

She said the story mattered, that it needed to be told.

One day, a friend from church who worked in publishing read some of what I’d written.

He said it was powerful, that it should be published, shared more widely.

I was skeptical.

Who would care about my story? But he persisted, connected me with people who helped shape the writing, who understood [music] how to communicate to Western audiences.

Slowly the manuscript took form and always through all of this, the speaking, the writing, the mentoring, the parenting, I kept that empty petrol can.

Moved it from apartment to apartment as we upgraded living spaces.

kept it on a shelf where I could see it, a reminder, a memorial stone, a testimony written in rust and dense and emptiness.

This was what I’d carried intending destruction.

This was what Jesus had stopped me from using.

This was the instrument of death that had become a symbol of life.

People who visited would ask about it.

Why keep an old gas can? And I’d tell them every time the whole story because that can represented the greatest truth I knew.

There is no one beyond the reach of God’s grace.

No sin too great for his forgiveness.

No life too broken for his healing.

No heart too hard for his love to penetrate.

If he could save me, terrorist, killer, destroyer, he could save anyone.

That was the message I’d carried from a church in Pakistan to a new life in Canada.

Through wilderness and waiting, through loss and grief and learning to [music] live again, Jesus saves completely, powerfully, undeniably, and he never lets go.

It’s been over a decade since that night in the church.

A decade of learning to walk with Jesus, of building a new life from ruins, of discovering that grace really is amazing because I’m living proof.

My daughter Grace is seven now.

She speaks English with a Canadian accent.

Knows nothing of Pakistan except the stories I tell her.

She’s learning about Jesus in Sunday school.

singing songs about his love, drawing pictures of Bible stories with crayons.

She has no idea what it costs for her to have this freedom.

Not yet.

Maybe when she’s older, I’ll tell her everything.

Show her the petrol can.

Explain what her father almost did and what Jesus did instead.

But for now, she just knows I love Jesus and that’s enough.

Sarah and I have been married 8 years.

We still work with refugees, still host the small group that’s now grown to three different groups meeting across the city, still see people encounter Jesus, still walk with converts through the dangerous transition from Islam to Christianity.

The work never stops.

Every month brings new arrivals, new stories of persecution escaped, new believers needing community and support, and someone who understands what they’ve lost and why it’s worth it.

And I [music] keep telling my story over and over in churches, at conferences, in refugee centers, in universities, sometimes to dozens of people, sometimes to thousands, sometimes in person, sometimes through video that reaches across the world.

Each time I tell it, I’m amazed all over again that it happened, that I survived, that Jesus really did stop a terrorist and transform him into a testimony.

People ask me questions after I speak, always similar questions.

They ask, “Are you sure it was really Jesus? Could it have been something else?” I tell them, “I’m more sure of that encounter than I am of my own name.

I know what I experienced.

I know who spoke to me.

I know the presence I felt.

You can’t fake that.

You can’t imagine that.

You can’t reduce that to psychology or coincidence or anything less than supernatural intervention.

They ask, “Do you ever regret it converting losing everything?” I tell them honestly, “I regret the pain I caused my family.

I grieve the relationships I’ve lost.

I miss my mother every single day.

But regret following Jesus? Never.

Not even on the hardest days.

He’s worth everything I’ve lost and more.

They ask, “What would you say to Muslims who are curious about Jesus?” I tell them, “Don’t trust what you’ve been taught about him secondhand.

Read the Gospels for yourself.

Ask him to reveal himself if he’s real.

Be brave enough to follow the truth wherever it leads, even if it costs you everything.

Because knowing Jesus is worth any cost, they ask, “What would you say to Christians?” I tell them, “Wake up.

The spiritual war is real.

People are dying for their faith while you’re deciding which coffee to drink.

Support the persecuted church.

Pray for converts from Islam.

Don’t take your freedom for granted.

And share the gospel boldly but wisely.

There are people desperate for the truth you carry so casually.

But there are deeper things I’ve learned.

Things that don’t fit neatly into question and answer sessions.

Things I’m still learning.

I’ve learned that conversion is just the beginning.

that the Christian life isn’t about one dramatic encounter, but about daily choices to follow Jesus when it’s difficult, boring, painful, or inconvenient.

I’ve learned [music] that trauma doesn’t disappear when you find Jesus.

That I still carry scars, physical and psychological, from my past.

That healing is a journey, not a destination.

that some wounds won’t fully heal until heaven.

I’ve learned that following Jesus doesn’t make you perfect.

I still struggle with anger sometimes, with fear, with doubt, with the lingering effects of years spent in violence and ideology.

I’m not a hero.

I’m just a saved sinner learning to walk in grace.

I’ve learned that family isn’t only blood.

That the church, the real church, not this building, but the people, becomes family when your own family rejects you.

That brothers and sisters in Christ can fill some of the emptiness left by lost relationships, even if they can’t fill it completely.

[music] I’ve learned that God’s timing is perfect, even when it’s slow.

that the two years I spent in hiding waiting for asylum weren’t wasted.

That God was working on things in me during that wilderness that couldn’t have been worked on any other way.

I’ve learned that purpose comes from pain.

That God doesn’t waste our suffering.

That my story, painful as it is, has become a bridge for others to cross toward Jesus.

that my past which Satan meant for evil, God has used for good.

And I’ve learned that Jesus is enough.

Not easy, not comfortable, not safe, but enough.

Enough to build a life on, enough to die for, enough to lose everything else for and still count it gain.

Let me tell you what that night in the church taught me about God.

I learned that he pursues people actively, personally, relentlessly.

I wasn’t seeking him.

I was trying to destroy his church.

But he came after me anyway.

Stopped me.

Saved me.

That’s who he is.

The god who leaves the 99 to find the one.

Even when the one is carrying a weapon, I learned that his love isn’t based on my worthiness.

I deserved death, judgment, condemnation.

I’d killed people, terrorized communities, served evil willingly.

But he loved me anyway, called me by name, offered me forgiveness I didn’t deserve and couldn’t earn.

That’s grace.

Unmmerited favor shown to the least deserving.

I learned that he sees us completely and loves us anyway.

Jesus knew everything I’d done.

Every victim, every sin, every dark corner of my heart, nothing was hidden.

And he loved me not despite knowing everything, but while knowing everything.

That’s what overwhelmed me in the church.

Being fully known and fully loved at the same time.

I learned that spiritual transformation is real.

I didn’t just change my mind or adopt new beliefs.

Something fundamental shifted in me that night.

The hatred that had defined me for years began to dissolve.

The capacity to feel, to love, to grieve, to hope that I’d killed in myself came back to life.

That’s the new birth Jesus talked about.

It’s not metaphorical.

It’s real.

I learned that God is both gentle and fierce.

Gentle in his love, patient in his pursuit, but fierce in stopping me from destroying myself and others.

Fierce in his commitment to save me.

That weight pressing me down wasn’t punishment.

It was rescue.

Sometimes love has to pin us down to keep us from running off a cliff.

And I learned that he keeps his promises.

He said he’d never leave me or forsake me.

And through everything, hiding, fleeing, culture shock, loss, grief, trauma, he hasn’t.

I’ve felt distant from him.

Sometimes I’ve struggled to sense his presence.

But he’s been there always, even when I couldn’t feel it.

These truths sustain me.

When the speaking is done and I’m alone with my thoughts.

When the nightmares come.

When I get news that another convert has been killed.

When I miss my mother so badly it physically hurts.

When the weight of living between two cultures feels unbearable.

Jesus is enough.

Let me talk to different people listening to this story.

To Muslims who might be hearing this, I was you.

I understand your devotion, your sincerity, your desire to serve God faithfully.

I know what it’s like to pray five times a day, to fast during Ramadan, to seek to please Allah with every action.

I know the peace that comes from ritual, from community, from belonging to something bigger than yourself.

But I also found something I never had in Islam.

A personal relationship with God.

Not a distant deity to be obeyed, but a loving father who knows me and loves me.

Not a system of rules to follow perfectly, but grace that covers all my failures.

I’m not asking you to take my word for it.

I’m asking you to investigate.

Read the angel, the New [music] Testament.

See what Jesus actually said about himself.

Ask him to reveal himself if he’s real.

Be honest in your seeking.

Don’t let fear of consequences keep you from pursuing truth.

I know the cost.

Believe me, I know.

But I also know what you gain is infinitely greater than what you lose.

To Christians who are hearing this, please don’t take your faith for granted.

Don’t treat Jesus like a lucky charm or a tradition you inherited.

Really know him.

Really follow him.

Really count the cost and decide he’s worth it.

And please remember the persecuted church.

We exist.

We’re not ancient [music] history or faraway stories.

We’re real people facing real danger for confessing the same Jesus you [music] worship freely.

Pray for us.

Support organizations that help refugees and converts.

Advocate for religious freedom.

Use your voice and your freedom to help those of us who have neither.

And please share the gospel boldly but wisely.

There are Muslims all around you who are searching, questioning, desperate for truth.

They need to hear about Jesus from people who actually know him and follow him.

Don’t be silent out of fear or political correctness.

Love demands we share the truth that sets people free.

To converts from Islam who might be listening, you’re not alone.

I know it feels like it sometimes.

I know the isolation, the grief, the fear.

I know what it’s like to lose your family, your culture, your identity.

But you’re part of a family that transcends blood.

A family that spans the globe and includes people from every nation, tribe, and tongue.

We’re your brothers and sisters now, and we understand.

Hold on.

Keep going.

The wilderness won’t last forever.

Jesus is faithful.

He will sustain you.

He will provide.

He will heal.

It won’t be easy or quick, but he will be with you every step.

And your story matters.

Your testimony is powerful.

When you’re ready, share it.

Help others find the same Jesus who found you.

To people who are doubting or struggling, I understand.

Faith isn’t always easy or clear.

Doubt is part of the journey.

Questions are okay.

Struggles are normal.

But beneath the doubt, there has to be something deeper, an anchor, a knowing.

For me, it’s that encounter in the church.

I can doubt many things, but I can’t doubt that experience.

It’s the bedrock I return to when everything else feels uncertain.

Find your bedrock.

The moment when Jesus became real to you, the experience you can’t deny or explain away.

Hold on to that when the feelings fade and the questions multiply.

And keep showing up.

Keep praying.

Keep reading scripture.

Keep gathering with believers.

Faith isn’t about never doubting.

It’s about choosing to trust even when you doubt.

Now let me tell you what’s happened recently.

What’s still happening? My family in Pakistan.

I still don’t have contact with most of them.

My father passed away 3 years ago.

I found out through a mutual acquaintance.

I wasn’t at his funeral.

Couldn’t have gone even if I’d known in time.

But I grieved him, prayed for his soul, forgave him for disowning me because Jesus forgave me for so much worse.

My mother is still alive as far as I know.

I think about her constantly, pray for her daily, hope that somehow someday she might understand why I made the choice I did.

That she might even come to know Jesus herself.

I don’t know if that will happen, but I can hope.

One of my sisters reached out to me secretly two years ago.

Found me through social media.

We’ve been in careful, infrequent contact since then.

She says she doesn’t understand my faith, but she still loves me.

That she misses me.

That the family doesn’t talk about me, but she thinks about me all the time.

It’s not much, but it’s something.

A thread of connection I thought was permanently severed.

The organization I used to work for, they’ve largely forgotten about me.

Or maybe they’ve decided I’m not worth the effort of tracking down in Canada.

I still get occasional warnings from contacts in Pakistan that my name appears on extremist websites, that bounties still technically exist, but no one’s actively hunting me anymore.

I can walk the streets of Toronto without looking over my shoulder every second.

Can worship openly.

Can tell my story without fear of immediate retribution.

That freedom still feels miraculous.

The church I came to burn that night, it’s still standing, still holding services.

Pastor Emmanuel is retired now, but the church continues.

They know my story.

I’ve sent them messages of thanks and support over the years.

They pray for me and I pray for them.

That church is a monument, not to my story, but to God’s grace.

A place where destruction was planned but redemption happened instead.

A building that should have burned but stands as a testimony to Jesus’ power to stop evil and transform it into good.

And the petrol can I still have it, still keep it visible.

My daughter asks about it sometimes.

[music] I tell her it’s a reminder that daddy made very bad choices once, but Jesus gave him a chance to make better ones.

Someday I’ll tell her the full story.

Show her the scars on my hands and explain where they came from.

Tell her about the grandfather and grandmother she’ll never meet and why.

[music] But I’ll also tell her about the grandfather she will meet someday.

The father in heaven who loved her daddy enough to stop him from becoming a murderer that night.

Who pursued him relentlessly.

Who saved him completely.

Who transformed him from a weapon into a witness.

That’s her heritage.

Not wealth or comfort or easy stories, but faith that’s been tested and proven real.

Faith that’s worth dying for and therefore worth living for.

Let me end where I began.

I’m sitting here looking at my hands.

These hands that once carried fire, that once hurt people, that once served evil.

But these hands also held my daughter when she was born.

These hands help refugees fill out asylum applications.

These hands hold my wife when she grieavves her own losses.

These hands carry that empty petrol can whenever I speak, holding it up as evidence of what Jesus can do.

These hands are proof that redemption is real.

If you’re listening [music] to this story and you’re far from God, maybe you’re Muslim like I was, maybe you’re atheist, maybe you’re just lost.

I want you to know something.

Jesus is looking for you right now.

He’s not waiting for you to clean yourself up or figure everything out or become worthy.

He’s pursuing you in your mess, your sin, your confusion, your rebellion.

[music] He stopped a terrorist.

He can reach you.

If you’re listening and you’re a Christian who’s grown comfortable or cold, I want to challenge you.

Remember what it cost Jesus to save you.

Remember what it’s costing believers around the world to follow him.

Don’t treat your faith like a hobby or a tradition.

Let it be what it is, the most important thing in your life, worth everything, worth anything.

If you’re listening and you’re a convert from Islam, hiding somewhere, terrified and alone, I want to encourage you.

Jesus knows where you are.

He sees you.

He hasn’t forgotten you.

[music] And he’s working even in the waiting, even in the fear, even in the losses you’re grieving.

Hold on.

Keep going.

[music] It’s worth it.

He’s worth it.

And if you’re listening and you’re wondering if my story is true, if this really happened or if I’m exaggerating or if there’s some natural explanation for what I experienced, I can only tell you this.

I was there.

I know what happened.

I know who spoke to me.

I know the presence I felt.

I know the transformation that occurred.

I know the life I lived before and the life I’m living now.

I can’t prove it to you in a laboratory.

I can’t produce physical evidence that will satisfy every skeptic.

All I have is my testimony, my transformed life, and 10 years of walking with Jesus that have confirmed what I experienced that night was real.

You’ll have to decide for yourself what you believe about my story.

But I’m standing here alive, free, following Jesus, at peace despite all I’ve lost as living evidence that something happened in that church that can’t be explained by anything other than divine intervention.

Jesus met me there, stopped me, saved me, changed me, and continues to work in me every single day.

That’s my testimony.

That’s my truth.

That’s my reason for still being here, still speaking, still believing after everything.

Because I came with fire to burn a church.

And the fire of heaven found me instead.

I came with hatred to destroy his people.

and his love destroyed my hatred instead.

I came as a weapon pointed at God and he turned me into a witness pointing others toward him.

If Jesus can save a terrorist with petrol [music] and matches at the altar, he can save anyone, even you, especially you.

The door is still open.

He’s still calling.

He’s still pursuing.

He’s still offering the same forgiveness [music] and transformation he gave me.

Come home.

The father is waiting [music] and he loves you more than you can possibly imagine.

I’m living proof.