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Closer prayer by prayer Posted on 06/28/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (4)

We are still waiting for Rani. There are clues and the police have by God's grace been very helpful. Please pray God would guide their thoughts and hearts and that this case would not be distorted and worsened by corruption and depravity. Zulekha's face is etched with deep worry lines and her eyes are swollen and dim. The women at the prayer center are praying for her very much. She is supported and loved. But a mother's heart cannot just stop worrying for a vulnerable daughter. She was not able to stay at the women's prayer center because she felt she needed to be home in case of any news. A mother cannot trust anyone else to take that particular kind of phone call. We awaken each day to pray that God will intercede. We awaken some days to fee her fear that Rani's body has been discovered, other days we awaken to the a sense of helplessness - what can we do for a mother in a predicament such as this. Last night I woke up in a sweat and it was not from the heat. I am not too much older than Rani. Suppose it was me. If I had no brothers to care for me or parents able to walk me to college and back I could have been in Rani's position. She must feel so afraid and so alone. She must wonder how her mother is and if her mother knows what is going on. I pray she will be filled with a sense of trust and hope and her faith in Christ be strengthened as we pray. I think of the praise and worship song we sing in Church 'Step by Step we're move close, little by little gaining ground, every prayer a powerful weapon, strongholds come tumbling down and down and down'. So pray that with each prayer we are taken closer to Rani and with each prayer the strongholds of fear and deception and hidenness be brought down and Jesus name be lifted high. Thank you for standing with us.

Still missing Posted on 06/25/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (6)

Still no news about Rani! Zulekha is going crazy. She is become incoherant. Her memory about the day Rani went missing is being washed away by her tears and she is beginning to hallucinate some what. And there are those who just dont care what Zulekha is going through. They think she is so far gone she cannot hear their murmurings about what happened to Rani. She can hear it. I saw a look pass over her face when two of the nieghbours sat talking about the boy they had seen Rani talking to a few weeks ago. They were older than me so I had to be very careful how I asked them to take their discussion elsewhere. Its like a home in mourning. Normally when someone dies, every relative and neighbour packs into the house and mourns and weeps. Its been like that for days. No rest for Zulekha. She paces up and down her courtyard and then falls into a heap weeping. Her husband died when she was only young and her daughter Rani was all she had. She has been a strict mother, but a a caring mother. I keep running their faces and their relationship over in my mind to see if there was any tension. And the only things were the usual over clothes, necklines needing to be a little more conservative, colours being too grown up, high heals being too high, lip stick being too dark, glasses being changed for hazel contact lens, home work needing to be finished, long phone calls. But then they relished their shopping and their cooking together, coming to Church together, they would dream about her wedding. Their plans were modest but beautiful and filled with love and hope. I had seed Rani grow up. I know she is not the running away type. Amma and I are taking Zulekha to a women's retreat center where she can get some rest. It is very hot and her bill was not paid so her electricity has been cut. The retreat Center is leafy and green, walls are high and so no one can look in, she can cry and weep and pray all she wants and there will be other women to pray with her, women who will not harp on about Rani's 200 Muslim boyfriends (the figure has become grossly exaggerated and her best friend insists her is a christian and she did not run away with him). Zulekha needs all your prayers. Rani needs prayer. Dont stop please.

Missing Posted on 06/23/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (1)

The heat is just unbearable! You have a shower just to bathe in perspiration again. The electricity is gone so often that the air conditioning will blow so we keep it switched off till the night time to cool the rooms. The coolest spot is in dadi's room which is shaded by trees so does not get the scorching afternoon sun. We have been waiting for news. The boys are out in the middle of the day, in the killing heat, out with a bunch of young people from Church looking for a girl who has gone missing. Her mother is a teacher at a local school. She has no idea where her girl has gone and what is making things worse is that the rumour mongering has begun. Some say she ran away with a Muslim boy, others say she has was kidnapped and raped, others that she has mental health problems. Zulekha is a single mother who has worked very hard to bring Rani up. At 18 Rani is like any teenager. She probably did fall in love with someone and although I hope she did not run away with a Muslim, and I pray she was not kidnapped and raped, amma and I are praying that God will just bring her home safely or show us where she is so we can know if she is safe. If she has run away then she is very vulnerable. If she has been kidnapped, the likelihood of forced conversions in such cases is extremely high. The boys are out looking. Zulekha (her mother) was reluctant to turn this into a police case incase her daughter got picked up by them and then further abused. There is so much at stake when a girl is involved. Please pray for Zulekkha as she sits with her eyes on the road looking for her daughter and for Rani who may be in so much danger, may be getting abused and hurt and will be so frightened and sad at the moment. Even if she ran away- I do not believe she is happy knowing it will sadden her mother. She and her mother had such a great relationship. But if she did run away and she is found alone and penniless, she is so vulnerable to Drug Lords, Pimps and others. Please pray that she be returned home safely and that God will protect her and Zulekha. Please pray she is not picked up by extremists who force her to convert or hurt her. The boys went to a well known shrine yesterday to look for her. Many kidnapped girls are taken there and given into the spiritual care of the saint before being initiated into a life of prostitution or abuse. Please pray for safety for the boys as well. Seeing Christian men looking for a girl like Rani could anger these people. Lord give us wisdom to knwo where she went!

Ayesha's tears Posted on 06/15/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (3)

I had my suspicions but I decided to keep out of it but when she cried to me- could those pleas for comfort &compassion fall on deaf ears. Ayesha is like an increasing number of Pakistani Muslim girls. Her father wears a well clipped beard& has angry sternly set eyes. He stares warily at the boys&never looks at the girls. He acknowledges the presence of her girl friends, either by nodding in acceptance of the greeting coming from a ‘hijabi’ (one who wears the hijab, covers her head or wears the Burqa) or then gets an expression of disgust over his face for the rest of us turning away to pretend he never heard us&our ‘Salam’ (a greeting wishing peace). Ayesha has worn the hijab since she was 16. Now she even wears the niqab which is the veil across her nose & mouth. She is so beautiful&although I know it all to do with Islam & honour, I still thank God that I do not yet have to do that for the best part. Pakistan is changing but I am still not compelled to cover my head & face. As long as I am modestly dressed,do not expose my legs& cover my chest with a dupatta (scarf) I am ok. As a child I took it for granted, but now every time the breeze blows (its hot these days & hardly any breeze)I revel in it blowing through my hair&being able to look shamelessly at the sun, turning my chin upward&exposing my neck! Perhaps in the days ahead, that little freedom may be taken away from me. After speaking to Ayesha though, once again God gave me a reality check. Freedom my friends is not about the right to let my hair fall on my shoulders or let the world see my new earrings dangle from my ears or even the gold cross&chain I wear glimmer in the sunshine. That is not the freedom Jesus came for. Yes it is a blessing&a privilege but it is not the yardstick of my freedom. My freedom is being able to reach across the heavy black material that weighs on my friend’s body&to hold her as she cries&my soul is free to communicate with Christ&seek His heart for the aching heart that is being placed in my care. Freedom is saying, I am collecting the tears of my friend on the cotton dupatta that I drape around my neck. Freedom is to say ‘Ayesha, I will ask Jesus to help you&me and show us a way through this’. Freedom is to know love as Jesus loved us. Ayesha has none of this. She is not crying because of her Hijab, nor is she crying because she wants to become a Christian, nor that her father has hurt or abused her (on the contrary she says he is a very loving&caring father), nor that she cannot use nail paint as it will mean she is not clean for prayers. She is not even crying to be able to read the Koran in a language she understands. Ayesha was crying because she is in love. In love with a class mate who also loves her. But she is betrothed to her cousin. Ayesha is crying because the man she is in love with is a Shia and she is a sunni. Ayesha is crying because her mother said, no matter how many prayers she prays and no matter how many good things she does, if she goes against her parents, she will go to hell. Ayesha is crying because she does not have the freedom to seek God and know. How many maarias are in the situation where an Ayesha is weeping on their shoulder&needs help? What can a Maaria do? We are but despised Christians. Perhaps I cannot help her elope. I too believe in honouring one’s parents. But I believe in my heavenly Father too. And I believe He will show me how to share His love, more forbidden than the love of Haider (the shia boy) with Ayesha. There are many Ayeshas and He loves them all.

Who does Maaria belong to? Posted on 06/10/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (3)

Friends I am sorry for my last rather weepy message. These are hard times. No one is really comfortable. The country is riddled with fears of all kinds of disaster. There is ofcourse the fear of bombs and explosions. One never knows what awaits one through the day. I don't know what has happened to us. We used to have so much fun. The fruit venders and butchers in the marketplace were our friends. No time for socialising at the stalls in the market place. You ask for what you want, you are told to come back and get it. No one wants a crowd gathering. Crowds attract attention and some one may say something that starts a fight and no one wants an argument to get out of hand. There is fear of the new budget. Everything is being taxed and no incentives for schools and colleges so there will probably be no subsidies on text books, computers etc... The fear of believing or spiritual growth. Perhaps something that is out of the norm will be frowned upon by the extremists. I see all the time. Our class was split down the center in those early days when Facebook was banned. Some were furious that facebook was banned and that their freedom to surf and develop their faith was being curbed and they were treated like naughty children. Another group was furious that someone had tried to be so blasphemous about Mohammad. How could they even think of drawing Mohammad. It was agianst their faith and so the whole world should accept that. They were angry, they treated me as though I was the one who had actually drawn something and won the competition for it. They said the government had done well to block facebook. Then there were those who sat quietly saying nothing. Too afraid to side with either one, to afraid of being caught in the crossfire. Then there was me. I did not really belong to any group. I was not the Liberal Muslim, because the liberal Muslim in my class - well I dont believe in the Islamic creed so I am not a Muslim, and I am not into smoking weed, popping the odd pills or dressing in a way that will not glorify Jesus- at least I try to glorify Jesus with my life and my language- which is another way young people try to prove they are 'liberal' and 'cool'. Gosh one would think there is nothing nice left to say in English, except the F word or swearing to high heaven. Listening to it all the time makes it hard to keep one's own expression clean. No wonder we need to spendas much time with the Word of God to cleans our hearts. There there are the more fundamentalist Muslims in my class. Like Ghanni. I dont belong with the guys- that is for certain. To them I am the one whose feet are the 'goal' for their spit! They wont spit at me, but every time I walk past, Adil, one of the newly sprouted beards, takes aim, like Leonardo Di Caprio in Titanic and spits close to my feet. My friends are a mix of the groups, but many are the quiet ones who say little. They dont make their opinions known. So its easier to work with them. I dont belong to a group. But God deisgned it that way, because I can move in and out of groups and be Jesus to all of them and protect myself from too much influence. I am also known as 'Maaria everyone's friend'. They all know I will help any one who needs help. But when it comes to the Prophet Mohammad and Islam, then I am 'Maaria- the Christian - the friend of the West' and that changes everything.

In these days of tears Posted on 06/03/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (8)

For three days now I have sat in front of my computer to write to you. Only tears stream down my face as I look at the blank screen in front of me. My aunt is sick and we have had to bring her away from the village because it is not safe for her to be there alone. She is not taking the city too well and news of all the unrest in the country is distressing her. Every day there is something new. The believers are under threat. I dont know where to begin and what to share with you. I am afraid of sharing too much because when the ban on facebook was revoked all the settings went hay wire so we had to call the local cabel operator to fix things and I think he was trying to interfear with our settings. He also gave us a huge bill. I understand most cable operators tooks the opportunity to make a fast buck. I spoke to Saiqa today. She is an old friend of mine from school. After school her family moved to Lahore. She is Ahmadi. She was sobbing uncontrollably because although her father and brother had not gone to the mosque that day her uncles had and she lost many family members. Where will this end? She thanked me for my email of concern and said it meant so much to her because none of the other friends from school had been in touch. Obviously they do not think it necessary as people are mixed on their feelings about Ahmadis. We even had one debate about whether it was correct to call it a 'mosque' as they are not really Muslims. People seem to have gone crazy. Please pray that in the midst of this God would give us wisdom, protection and guidance in winning many more for Him. Pray for Secret Believers a man hunt seems to have been stirred against them. Please keep this matter in your prayers. Forgive me for my silence. I know I should have written and said thank you for your prayers. But I am just so hurt by what is going on in my beautiful country where once every one smiled and people cared for one another, grieved with one another, stood up for one another. We have changed so much. The Church is being tested in these days. Please pray for strength for us.