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Sharifaan's trial Posted on 03/08/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (4)

I come to you with a prayer for my very precious Sharifaan. Most of you know she is a precious friend to my family with such a ministry of love&care to us. How could we manage to minister hospitality&discipleship to the many God brings to us were it not for the support we get from Sharifaan in the kitchen. Between her&amma there is always something being chopped, mixed, sliced, spiced, grated, boiled, fried&curried. They come up with the most nourishing meals we could ask for&even Amma can come home to a hot meal&someone to share her heart with if we are not home. Sharifaan is always there for us. She takes so much care of Dadi&their share their hearts with one another. She loves Jesus so much. She wants to serve Him with her life&she would love to be able to do more ministry&go to more prayer meetings&Bible Studies but when she goes home in the evenings after being with us all day life becomes difficult. As much as she is a blessing to us, it is also a gift from the Lord to Sharifaan that she is able to come away in the mornings&meet with other Christians who love her&appreciate her. Her home situation is so sad. I may have mentioned before that she has a very sick husband. But Sharifaan's husband is not just sick because of a physical condition. He has not asked Jesus into his life. For many many years Sharifaan has been praying for him, asking Jesus to bring him into salvation that he would accept the Lord. Through out his illness she has strived to be a faithful, good wife. It has been hard. Before Sharifaan came to be with our family she was driven into horrible poverty because he does not work&spends all their money on cigerettes&sweets which are poison for his body. He is a serious diabetic&the smoke from his cigerettes caused his eye surgery to go wrong because he removed his bandages too early&the smoke from cigerettes got into the lens&destroyed them. Her husband has refused to accept Christ. What rages in Sharifaan's home is not a physical illness alone but a spiritual battle. He never liked her to go to Church. There was a time he used to let her go, but over the years as his health deteriorated so did his patience of her faith in Jesus. Now he seems physically traumatised and paralysed, everytime Sharifaan picks up her Bible to read it he is able to reach out, grab her hair, hit her or push her&hurt her. She continues to persereve in her vows&promises as a wife but she is so deeply hurt within. The doctors say that he could die any day. She longs for him to have salvation. 'Beta'(it means daughter) 'he has never told me he loves me. Not even when I had our son. He has never said one kind word to me or our children. I would hold on to some assurance that he loves me. But I do not think he does. He has never even shown he is aware of all we do to care for him'. This is a spiritual&physical struggle. We love her dearly. It hurts us to see her ache. Will you pray for her. That God will strengthen her. Sometimes I think she feels guilty because in the deep darkness of the night every one is asleep&her wounds still cry out she wishes God would end the misery for one of them.Then guilt sets in.What kind of woman thinks like that. I ache so much for her. I struggle to type her exact words about wishing it all ended. Because I know it would shame her if she knew others knew. So I would like to keep her confidence. Please pray for her. She loves Jesus so much.Jesus has chosen to test her. She is standing strong. She needs the prayers of believers that she may stand strong&long&see His

An mistake Posted on 03/06/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (0)

Friends, just to apologise for an error I made in my previous blog! My cousins are called David and Solomon and so I kind of have those two connected and I did not realise I had typed it like that. I meant to say 'David and Jonathan'. I apologise for that mistake.

Friendships Posted on 03/04/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (4)

Abraham&I watched Ben Hur last night. We always try to make time during lent to think about the cross’ impact! As a little girl I would close my eyes and imagine I was there. When Judah is at the oar on the battleship my heart would pour out through my eyes and I would always wait for the end when it was not his blood but the blood of Jesus that would heal him and bring his family together. The great happy ending! When I was little there were no cable channels& everything came through the wire antennae on our roof. Every now&again they would show Ben Hur. No clear digital image but while it was playing I remember dadi praying that those who were watching it would be touched by the story of Jesus so beautifully interwoven into it. The saddest scenes for me though were of a lost friendship. I was always acutely aware of the story of two friends who become bitter enemies. They did everything together as young boys &loved each other. The opening scenes invoke a memory of David&JOnatha's friendship&love. David&Jonathan built their friendship on all that was good&truthful, both believed in Yahweh& that was why their friendship stood the test. Judah (The Jew)& Messala's (The Roman) friendship did not. When they greeted each other after years nothing seemed to have changed. Yet both men had become symbols of all their communities held dear. They had come to believe with a passion all their worlds stood for& nothing would make them budge. It was passion&conviction that would test these two friends. This is a story of man a Pakistani Christian at school who has close Muslim friends. We start out child like in our approach, oft times unaffected even unaware of the complexities around us. Then very quickly we learn the differences& cautions. Contexts change dynamics of friendships. But we cling to things that are beautiful in childhood as long as the grown up world does not breathe the heat&anger of their experience upon us. The play ground, literature, music& sports become common fun. All this until one friend realises they are more powerful than the other, have more rights than the other &one day they actually do become more powerful than the Christian. With rights come ease & power& with marginalisation &restrictions come a different kind of conviction. Then the ones with power begin to watch us for signs of weekenss&need. There they bring invitations to convert, become one of them& acknowledge they are stronger than us & more able to help us in our hour of need. Then they swoop in as heroes&we are indebted to them for not thinking that we are sweepers& making us untouchables their friends. Is that not what Messala wanted? Many Christian young men stand as Judah did. Many are forced to compromise or turn a blind eye to what is wrong and cruel because if not they will face the fate of Judah Ben Hur. He was a prisoner for long but his faithfulness to his God&his land was rewarded. Pakistani Christians will tell you what is unsaid&yet our reality. We know there is not always an adoption&freedom, we know there is in all probability no reward in this life if we are accused of blasphemy or conversion. That is why it is so hard to follow the example of Judah Ben Hur. Judah Ben Hur became a prisoner for defying Rome. Pakistan's Christians will either be forced into self exile or killed instantly for defiance of Islam. How then do we keep our friends and show them the love of Jesus when we know that every one is a potential Messala and I must always be a potential Judah Ben Hur? Christ's blood and love is our happy ending.