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Chosen to pray Posted on 06/25/2012 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (3)

Nothing is working. The regular power cuts and electric fluctuation have burnt out two of our computers and the freezer. So there is no ice for drinks and the temperatures are ugly at close to 50 degrees centegrade. I love the heat, I love the silence when the lights go out but I hate it when there is no water to wash with and really in this heat you need multiple baths. It is a draining and tiring heat. My cousin's getting married in Canada and asked me to send her some clothes for the event, I dont even want to go near those fabric shops that line the sides of the roads. The hot high powered bulbs make it impossible to stand beneath their glare. And everyone is sticky so small places are not pleasent. especially if the power cuts out when you are in a public place, the risk of being attacked, mugged, robbed and not treated very nicely is very high. In fact boy does it happen! Please pray for our nation. You may say 'summer' has nothing to do with the government and the uncertainty of having our prime minister fired and a new acting PM brought into place. But if only we have a better form of government, if only things were less 'pear shaped' and if only our political leadership got its act together. But in the midst of this I experienced the most beautiful Church gathering ever. Brothers and sisters who moaned and complained about the heat came together a large high ceiling auditorium to pray for Pakistan and our voices lifted the Church's ceiling higher as we prayed, praised and worshipped, swapping our frustrations for the hope of Jesus. Yes we were all smelly and horrible, but we were all making a joyful noise trusting the Lord that despite all the tensions and difficulties of our lives in Pakistan, we are a chosen generation, a priesthood! What more could we want. Give thanks with us for God is good and his mercy endures forever. But none of this do we take for granted. We have a sister. A beautiful sister Aasya Bibi. In prison even now after 3 years - pray that she may know the peace of Jesus and the joy of the Lord. Pray for a miracle of cool breeze to blow through her cell, pray for a miracle of clean water to be taken to her and pray that she would know Jesus name is being called on for her. In the midst of this pray for our brothers and sisters in Egypt. Pray for love and grace, for faith and hope. Pray that God will help them to endure. As one priest said 'We know the gates of Hell shall not prevail agianst us- these is ministry beyond this election - pray for us to serve and to serve in love' . So let us pray and serve alongside our Egyptian brothers and sisters in love and in hope.

Jesus in our lives Posted on 06/19/2012 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (4)

How many times has it been that we have felt a nudge from the Lord to do something and we have ignored it? More importantly how many times have we done it and seen an amazing work of God flow out of it? I just spoke to Sarah my friend. She and I were good friends when we were about 10. We spent the summer drawing, being silly and just generally having fun. Sometimes the topic of faith would come up and she would say to me 'Maaria why do you believe in 3 gods'. I remember that conversation as though it were yesterday. I remember looking up from the daisy chain we were making and looking at the sky and sending up to Jesus a quick prayer. I even remember the prayer 'Jesus help me answer her well so she wants to follow you'. Then I had explained to her that we did not believe in three Gods but in 1 God and that he had shown himself to us in three ways and had three personalities. I remember saying 'It is like your dad, he is your dad, your mum's husband and your grandmother's son and your auntie's brother. Does not make him 4 people'. She nodded, looked like she was close to an 'aha' moment and then continued to make her daisy chain. Then one day she asked me why I believe God would let his son die - and I got to send another urgent prayer to the Lord and said something. It was long ago and it still makes my tummy churn. Wow! Now she likes everything I write on facebook. Every verse of scripture, every Christian thought about God or loving God, every Michael W Smith or Jars of Clay or other Christian song I put up- she likes it. First I was uneasy and wondered if she was facebook stalking me - then I realised she does not do it to anything else. No photos, nothing - just what is comforting. I never write anything about religion or Islam on my page- just scripture and thoughts that relate to me and my brokenness and sin. Will you pray for her. She has been exposed to the West - was a student in another country and came back to live and work in Pakistan. Will you pray for those who are students in the West that they will be met by praying men and women like yourself and come to know Jesus -not because you answer their questions but because they see Jesus in your lives? Will you pray for Sarah. I want her to come to Jesus. Please Jesus.

The faces of persecution Posted on 06/09/2012 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (3)

No sleep again. Not because of the heat. Not because of the electricity. This is perhaps one of the hardest blogs I have ever written. See in Pakistan and a lot of the Middle East, being a Christian is an ethnic identity. That is why books like Secret Believers tell so well the work of the Church in the midst of the wilderness of faith and teaching. Many are persecuted for their faith without even knowing what their faith is about and what really the Jesus deal is. That is Sania's story. She used to live for sometime by Sharifa's home where Christians live. The area has become somewhat a club culture with alcohol, drugs, prostitution and crime being rife. Amma tried to arrange for Sania to go to a literacy project where they teach Christians to read and write and put them in touch with God's word, but she was severely aching and very aggressive against any show of healthy love. She had a Muslim boyfriend about 8 years ago and he encouraged her to steal a man's entire month's salary. Instead of reporting her to the police, the man had kindly asked her to leave. She had been a housekeeper in his home. She has since followed a life of crime. He did not report her to the police because she would be beaten and severely abused. As a Christian she would be the bottom of the 'food chain' so to speak. I heard of another crime she committed recently in which she hurt someone I love very much. And while I cannot believe this little girl who I played with as a child has grown up to be a criminal, and I love the person who she attacked recently - I am torn. I know that she has fallen victim to the most wide spread form of persecution for our people. Yes the blasphemy law and the law against conversion to Christianity puts many lives in danger- but there is a more benign and subtle form of persecution. That has been at work across generations. It is this: Make Christians feel so undermined and worthless and make them feel so filthy that they decide to become what they are accused of. They become so sidelined that they begin to lie and cheat and simply take drugs to numb the pain. When drugs are too expensive then they brew their own local alcohol which eventually kills them. The women suffer; some turn to Muslim men who will treat them no better than a prostitute whenever they want them and throw them away when they do not. They begin to hate Muslims so much or they begin to think the only way out is to become one of them, it is too complex for one blog. That is why the work of the local Church needs your prayers. Just like it is described in Secret Believers. Read the book again. And pray for those projects and that work it is so important that more people like Sania are reached and more pastors are trained to get into these places. Please pray for her. That she will hear the Lord speak to her and will turn away from this life and seek the Lord her God of whom she has been told and whose goodness she has tasted of. I can testify to that.

His is a good God Posted on 06/03/2012 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (7)

Oh the heat! It is intense at 50 degrees celcius. It is so so so hot, the perspiration is rolling down our faces and backs making our hair stick and our clothes stick to our bodies. The whirring fan makes me sleepy when there is electricty but more than not there are power outages which make it impossible to drift into sleep. When I sleep at night even if it is the lightest cotton sheet I have to have something over me. It comes from living in a house where there are guests and where people are invited to stay over night and many have taken refuge. It has meant we do not always know who is staying in our home and so this becomes - quite literally - my security sheet! But when the power cuts and the heat begins to burn my body beginning with fingers and toes, the sheet begins to stick. I am still unable to remove it because that would make me uncomfortable. Outside is the sound of crickets rubbing their legs and the sight of fire flies that try to compete with the big dipper in the sky. While the heat burnt up our bodies and we tossed and turned I thought I heard daadi. When I sat up I saw her outline against the window. She was praying. She was praying for each one us, asking the Lord to use us all. Asking the Lord for wisdom for Baba and Amma in planning the future. She prayed especially for me. She prayed that the Lord would show me what was required of me in the months ahead. She prayed I would get a job in a good place, I would get accepted for further studies so I did not have to be in an office with Muslim men! Dear Dadi she is so precious in her prayers. I hope she will understand when the time comes for me to work in an office with Muslim men. I thank God for her prayers. So many girls fall into the trap of thinking it is ok to be unequally yoked. I have fought that and faced it myself. I have struggled with it and the young man I had prayed for for myself had eventually gone away and become a Mullah! The memory of it still shocked me all these years later but then I rejoiced in how God has protectd me. I do not talk about it much but the battle had raged and had I made the wrong decision I would have never been able to serve the Lord and the church. It does not mean I did not ache. It just meant that I had to learn about how Jesus heals and how he is Emmanuel. So when you pray for the Maaria's of the Muslim world, pray for them to be safe and to walk in the ways ordained by the Lord- He is good and His mercy endures forever.