Imagine yourself growing up in a rural all Muslim village with no electric or running water. Starting at an early age you're taught that Islam is the only religion to follow. If your not farming or cooking you spend your free time literally doing nothing. Schooling is not an option as the closest school is 30 miles away and tuition fee run at about half your parents annual salary. One day you start having reoccurring dreams in which you're approached by two men that claim Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Upon further discovery you realize this is the teaching of Christianity...What do you do?
Below is a true story one of my friends recorded of a man from a similar background of the one you just envisioned. As you will see the price for him to follow Christ is much higher than what we have to pay in America. The question that scares me is...If I was in his shoes would I be willing to pay the price?"
I DIDN'T LOOK FOR CHRIST, HE FOUND ME
‘I didn’t look for Christ, he found me’ is the first statement Ishayaku made when sharing his testimony.
Indoctrinated to hate Christians from a young age, he grew up with no other religion but Islam. During secondary school Ishayaku began having dreams where two people came and started talking to him about Christ. These men were dressed in long white robes with red cord round their waist. Whilst he had never heard the gospel these men explained that Jesus was the way, the truth and the life and shared with him from the book of John. During his time at secondary school this happened three times with the men disappearing as he woke.
As he returned home from school during the holidays he told his mother about the dreams and she was convinced evil spirits had possessed him. She called an Islamic scholar who began to pray for him. As the men wore white and red, the scholar decided that they should sacrifice mixed red and white chickens to ward off these spirits. However even after doing this, these men still kept appearing.
Three days later he decided to become a Christian and upon hearing this his mother cried and started ripping off her clothes. She told him if she had known this from the start when she had given birth she would have killed him. During this time his father was not around, but when he returned his mother told him what had happened.
His father proceeded to disown him saying he would have no inheritance. Then having called over a dog said that it meant more to him than his son. Finally he fetched ash and threw it into the wind to symbolize the end of their relationship.
Over the following weeks his mother tried to poison him three times. God protected him enabling him to see each time that there was something wrong with the food. In one instance the food looked the wrong colour (ie it was green) and in another they had injected his food with an orange poisonous liquid.
Ultimately he was forced to flee home and yet at this point he was yet to meet another Christian. With no where to go and it already dark he entered a derelict building to sleep and was shocked when a man pulled up and told him to get in his car. He didn’t know this man and after getting in fear gripped him because at that time men were kidnapping and killing people for rituals.
Ishayaku was told to keep silent in the vehicle, with the driver making it clear he already knew the situation. Having entered a town in Kano state where there were Christians, the driver took him to a church. It was here that a pastor from the church took him in and after doing so the driver promptly disappeared. While the gate keeper of the church compound had seen the car enter with him no one had left and the car and driver have never been seen since.
The pastor of the church where he was taken decided for his own safety that he should be transferred to the safe house where he could be discipled in the word. It has been a long time since Ishayaku has seen his family but will sometimes speak to his mother by phone. Whilst she is one of the top Islamic debaters in Kano state, she has since admitted that her god is not as powerful as that of her sons as he has protected him through everything she has done. She has also asked who Jesus is, through which he directed her to Koran where there are over 99 verses which talk about Christ.
Although his father has commanded if anyone sees Ishayaku to kill him, he is determined to visit his mother and share with her. For he believes the Bible when it says, ‘Greater is he that is in you than he who is in the world.’ Until it is God’s time to take him nothing can touch him.
Ishayaku has come to know more than many will ever comprehend Psalm 27 v 10 ‘Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close.’
