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Something new for Sharifaan Posted on 03/31/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (5)

Thank you for praying for Sharifaan. Please continue. She did not come in today. Her husband has left this world. The last weeks have been increasingly painful with every organ in his body shutting down. The doctors were amazed as to where he found strength to rise out of his bed&hit Sharifaan&how he was even able to tolerate cigerettes. People so far gone in any illness do not have energy to do anything. Today the battle was over. He is gone. No one will ever hit her or wound her for reading her Bible or trying to live an upright Christ pleasing life. Just last week she had shown me a bald patch on her scalp where he had wrenched hair out when she had not answered his moaning because she was reading her Bible. 'There is no use calling the Police or having him beaten. It is not him but the EVil One who controls him. This is spiritual warfare because I have chosen to continue to walk with Jesus and not curse God.' Her conviction&strength spoke volumes. I thought of all the articles I have ever read of oppressed women in the Muslim World. Athough Sharifaan&her husband were Christians (him only by ethnicity) we live in a culture where our Christianity has been permeated by Islam, its ways&its spirituality. In these cultures even Christian men who don't not walking with the Lord& are not transformed by the Holy Spirit &the Word, begin to act like Muslims. Sharifaan was not seperated from Islam&its affects.In that context where the rest of the world thinks of women forced to done a black shround&walk ten steps behind their husbands, there are those who find strength to stand up to oppression of society. For a Christian woman there is the recognition that her Father God will go before her&strengthen her by His Spirit&His Mighty Arm. It was in those mighty arms of God that Sharifaan had found guidance, refuge&comfort. And she was able to stand up to a system dictating that women were of no use&were to be subjugated. So when it all went pear shaped&seemed as a woman she had no hope- for a Pakistani woman this was a hopeless situation- Shareefan kept her eyes on the Lord. She knew we love her&are her family. She was strengthened by our fellowship. But it will not be easy. The next few days will take their toll. She will be expected to refrain from an Easter celebration. There will be no family meal on Easter and no new clothes. It will be just a house full of mourners. And one widow expected to feed them and expected to cry because the head of her household has died. Perhaps very few will consider that she was the one who ran the household and was the 'head' in some ways. She made her sister inlaw cross a few weeks ago when she had said that the head of her house was Jesus not her husband who had not followed in Christ's way. I have seen Sharifaan change in her attitude over the years. She always respected him as the husband but when he attacked her faith and blasphemed agianst Jesus she changed. Pray for her. Pray because people will come into her house. It will be like a show - a free for all so to speak! Normally the mourning and the retelling of the story is therapy for those left behind. The crying is part of the grieving process and peopel heal faster than people who do not have a community around them. But I know that Sharifaan's situtaion is different. She was abused and battered up until yesterday. A new road and a new journey lies a head of her. Pray for her as she heals and grieves and - above all- hopes. Perhaps for the first time in months she will sleep tonight!

Faithful to the end Posted on 03/27/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (5)

Only the other side of glory will we really know how many have been persecuted for knowing Jesus. The truth is that if we belong to Him and live for Him then we will all be opposed by the Devil and will be vulnerable to persecution. I am talking more about the persecution that people like Rasheed Masih face. Being hacked to death with a saw by 6 Muslim men who wanted him to convert to Islam and leave Jesus. This is life for many many Christians. Some chose to ignore the requests that gradually turn to threats. Some chose to silently endure, others are clear and vocal in their opposition of such Muslims but some are pressured into converting to Islam. Rasheed and his brother were but farmers. They did not probably have a lot but their strong faith in Christ was a cause for discomfort to the Muslims in the larger area. Pakistani Christians know this is a possibility at all times. Just days ago Baba and Abraham had an argument. He says Baba has got to understand he is not 5 any more. And yes we all know that but Baba also knows that although we have to love our Muslim neighbours and trust the Lord with our lives we must also be cautious not to take unncessary risks. Every one had a story of a Christian child being lured by their Muslim friends into a vulnerable location and abused or violated in some way or other. We all know about a Christian child or other who was doing really well at school or college and had potential to make something of their lives but their lives or their careers were cut short by some act of violence or abuse. What about Nisha. She was 22, beautiful and doing very well at medical college. As I write this she is resting after electric shock treatment which she now required every so often because she was given such a hard time in college. The girls in her dorm would not stand to lose their positions to a Christian girl who was from a charity school. So they started practising blackmagic. When that failed to work on her strong faith they began to steal her clothes and leave them in the boys dorm and spread rumours that compromised her reputation and made it impossible to stay at College. Nisha went into deep depression and has never recovered mentally. Her Aunt and Uncle took her to England where she is receiving psychiatric care. We will never know all that she went through. But we know that the persecution of vulnerable and lonely Christians continues. We know that Rasheed Masih's news on the 22nd of March shook us all. But despite that we cannot give up. We must live in a way that glorifies Christ, which means not stopping with our cross on our backs but keeping on and taking our cross to the very place where they will take our lives, where they will crucify us for loving Him. Our legs and knees grow weary, but Jesus' example is before us and we like Him will not turn our face from the cup God places before us. Rasheed Masih did not- may Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the Muslim World be brilliantly lit by the brilliance of the Christ in the life of those who bear Him.

God Saves Posted on 03/27/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (1)

Dadi liked the material! You may remember Dadi was talking to a man with a beard- very 'taliban' looking. I have been some what shaken since . It is just unbelievable even now when we witness the wave of change in my country. As we neared the car Amma stopped to buy some mango juice from the fruit stall. I squinted against the sun to see who dadi was talking to. Something struck me, like a whisper- a promise passed by me, strength from the Lord that would see me through the moments ahead. My once best friend Ahmed was walking away from the car. Ahmed, who in my memories was handsom &gentle was just that -a memory. Ahmed who I had spent hours discussing literature and God with in the first year of College was no longer the clear eyed, youthful face. The beard made him look older&the smile he had given dadi did not even linger in the corners of his mouth seconds later. His eyes looked at me&they did not see me, his friend, he looked at me through two years of experience&change. No smile came to his lips. Only a fleeting sadness passed through his eyes-then it was gone replaced again by the hard unflinching glare under hardened skin on his forehead where he rubbed his head into the hard floor while he prostrated himself in prayer. He purposely ground his forehead that people may know he was 'namaazi' someone who prays 5 times every day. Even I smiled tightly but that whisper I mentioned to you, like a gentle breeze on a hot day, had wrapped itself around me. It was the Holy Spirit filling me with love&compassion for Ahmed- so lost&unaware of God's love for him. He nodded his head&walked away, turning back to look briefly at dadi but not wanting to see Amma. I stared after him. He had changed. Not just the glare&the hard bruise on his forehead. Armani&Gap jeans were exchanged for Arab style long white robe&sandles.The expensive watch still glistened on his wrist&he still wore designer shades but the statment was clear. He was a hardened Muslim. But even the hardened Muslim has stopped to speak with Dadi allowing her to place her hand on his head and bless him. Dadi said his words were almost all Arabic and Islamic but she had seen the old Ahmed smile at her when she told him 'Ahmed no matter how far you have gone from us my son, we always pray for you. You will always have a place in our family'. Dadi was gracious and full of love and compassion. Amma sat quietly, we were all fighting back tears. We all remembered the last time he came to our home. He had asked to pray in our living room&asked if I could take the picture of the Good Shepherd down because he could not pray in front of it. I had not been able to do that. I had known then that a change had happened. He never prayed before. He had been on the verge of accepting Jesus as his saviour. He had left our home and then left college. I heard he had signed up for Islamic School. No one said it but we all knew that the Muslim Association at college did not like his friendship with Christians.They had influenced him over the summer months I was in Dubai. I have never spoken of Ahmed to you before. He was my closest friend. But he has seen Jesus. I know Jesus who began a good work in his life will bring it to completion. There are many Ahmeds who need to be prayed for. Sometimes God takes them out of our lives for a reason - so we can grow and be safe. But God never leaves them. We cannot save our friends only Jesus can and only they can make the decision to let Him.

Blessing the enemy Posted on 03/21/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (6)

I feel afraid. For the first time I am beginning to see a shift in the way people think. For the first time I think we are more at risk than we thought. We were very close to a taliban take over last year. You remember the night I told you baba and I tore up and destroyed letters and confidential material which could have been evidence of secret Churches. I often think back to that night. I think of the night the boys came home late and had been held up by the police. We are becoming increasingly fearful of the situation and as Christians we are more vulnerable than the others. But something else struck me today. We cant take cars even close to the market place. Amma wanted to buy dadi some summery fabrics. It is hard for Dadi to walk too far so we took the car as far as we could. I thought maybe I would ask the shopkeeper (I have done this for the last couple of years) if I could take out a strip of fabric and show it to her in the car and see if she liked it. That was not going to happen. We had to park really far away from the shops. So dadi stayed in the car and Amma and I went to see what we could pick out. We more or less know what dadi will chose but if you chose the very same thing for her she will find something wrong with the shade of pink or the yellow speck that we did not even see in the fabric but she sees it and when she does it seems like a blob and not a speck. Amma and I never got too far. There is hardly any decent summer fabric in the shops. The shop keepers dont want to bring out their best stuff in case of a bomb. They say they would lose some of their best material and it would be too much loss. They want people to go to their warehouses outside the city where they think it might be safer. This used to be so much. Buying pretty summer prints and making the transition. This year summer has come way before we have been able to get to the shops. It was 40 degrees (Centigrade)! This is only March. Eventually we found a pretty pale green fabric with a darker green leaf motif printed on it. It was the prettiest thing in the shop! We just hoped she would like it. She did. She was very sweet about it but I know it must not be easy to feel like a stranger in your own city. She is not only dealing with getting old. It is also the whole stress of explosions and bombs. We had to take her out; she needed fresh air and she has been in too much. What we did not tell Dadi was that the material cost what just a few months ago was the price of three pieces of fabric. Things have become so expensive. Shops have no customers and so they have to hike up prices to make ends meet. Amma and I walked sadly back to the car with her fabric. But there was Dadi with a big smile on her face talking to some young man with a huge beard down to his chest. Amma and I must have looked confused but in our hearts was the joy that even amidst all this stress dadi can still smile when talking to a suspicious looking character. And we both knew it was Jesus in Dadi who fills her with joy and reaches out and brings a smile to a Mullah's face. He reached into the car and Dadi placed her hand on his head as a sign of blessing. A Mullah receiving a blessing from a Christian. That was interesting. Friends there is hope even in the midst of this horrible fear and stress. Even in the midst of this we can bless and show the love of Jesus to Muslims. You can too and we can bring many more to know Him before He comes again.

Please pray for today Posted on 03/14/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (8)

I am up earlier than the rest so I can send this out before I help Amma with Sunday morning breakfast before Church. This is just to ask you to pray for us. For protection and safety for Churches and Christian schools. Today we have been warned. We were warned that there was every possibility of attacks on Churches. The police suggested we dont go to Church today. But that is not happening. Please pray for us. Pray for protection of Churches across Pakistan and for safety as people go to Church and the families of pastors who will stay behind in their homes which are normally attached to the Church property. We are going to worship and glorify the name of the Lord. Thank you for being there for us.

Jesus Heal Posted on 03/12/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (3)

My beautiful land. I cannot help but weep as I write this. Imagine if every second day a place you knew was blown up, if every second you feared for the lives of your family. Going to get bread and eggs has become risky business for those us in Pakistan who want only to live simple lives. We used to smile at each other, we used to enjoy a joke with a complete stranger, our lives were connected when we met at the butcher's shop and waited for him to prepare cuts of meat for his customers, when we chatted at the tailors shop or swooned over materials in the market place and fought a man in the street for having stared at us. Now no one has time. Every one wants to go to the safety of their homes. This is war is it not? When the Taliban say that if we do not stop fighting them in the North they will unleash 3000 suicde bombers onto us. I worry about Sharifaan in the mornings when she comes to us. But she insists she does not want to stay at home because God has called her to serve the many who walk through our doors. I worry about the boys when they go out but boys will be boys. They are careful though. I worry about Amma and Baba and they about us. The praying continues. The trusting continues. My heart is broken. Jesus heal my land. Jesus heal the Taliban. Jesus heal those people who were injured in those attacks. Jesus heal the families who lost people in these attacks. Jesus heal me and help me to forgive. Jesus save us all.

Sharifaan's trial Posted on 03/08/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (5)

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.