The first step of a seeker’s journey usually begins with something we refer to as ‘belief disruption’ – a moment, or a number of moments, in a seeker’s life, where what they always held to be true is suddenly shown to be false. For Habiba, it was the above conversation. For her husband, Mohammad, it was the Muslim-on-Muslim violence and oppression he saw within his home country of Sudan.
When the Muslim President sent Muslim troops to kill fellow Muslims and then use their Muslim women and children as slaves, Mohammad began to question where the root of the problem might be. He wondered if maybe it was Islam. When he met John, a white western aid worker, he asked him why he was there providing food, water and clothing to Sudanese Muslims. John told Mohammad that he was a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ who commanded that his people help those in need wherever they can.
‘It’s not about me, Mohammad; it’s about Jesus Christ.’
Mohammad thought deeply about John’s words. Why would this Jesus command his followers to act in such a peaceful way to those who weren’t Christians?
Life in Sudan became more and more difficult, so Mohammad decided that he would take his family and look for somewhere safer and more stable, somewhere like Egypt. In Egypt, he realised it was now much safer to seek out answers to his questions about Jesus. He searched online and soon found our Arabic Christian website. After spending some time reading, he came across our contact number and made the call. Long conversations with our responders quickly led to Mohammad asking to meet someone face-to-face. Our online Media team responders were excited to put him in touch with one of our Pioneers partners on the ground.
After two hours in a coffee shop, asking question after question, Mohammad jumped at the opportunity to join a Bible study group, quickly becoming a regular.
‘Now I know about Christ! Now I know he is my Saviour! What do I need to do to follow Jesus and become a Christian?’
On the day that Mohammad gave his life to Jesus in front of his Bible study group, they asked him, ‘What is the greatest need you have that we can pray for?’
‘I want to see my wife and children join me in the Christian faith. For them to worship God as I worship God.’
Mohammad made no effort to hide his new faith from his wife Habiba. She had grown up in a fundamental Muslim home and was angry and afraid when she began noticing him reading the Bible and watching Christian programmes.
During this time, the Pioneers team in Egypt began to run outreach programmes with the Sudanese refugee population. The presentations were about marriage and family and how God had designed them to work. Mohammad’s Bible study group encouraged him to bring Habiba along to one of them. While listening to the speaker talk about God’s design for marriage and raising children, Habiba leant over and whispered how much better their life would be if they followed this teaching. Mohammad agreed.
After the presentation, Habiba found one of the female team members and shared a secret she had been hiding for weeks.
‘I keep dreaming about a man in white, shining garments. He is holding a cross and calling my name, saying that I am on the right path, that I should keep going, and that he wants me to follow him. What does it mean? Is that Jesus telling me to become a Christian?’
‘Yes. You are special and loved in God’s eyes. He wants you to believe in Jesus and follow him.’
Habiba decided she wanted to go to the same Bible study as her husband and learn more. Not long after, she too decided that this was the kind of God she wanted to follow. But something still held her back. So she told the Bible study group that if she had the dream again before she came back to the study the next week, she would give her life to Christ. Every night for the next seven days she dreamed the dream.
Mohammad, Habiba, and two of their three children were baptised soon after.
Mohammad and Habiba were passionate about sharing the Good News with their community. They shared their faith with another Sudanese woman called Zuba. She also believed, and the three of them decided to form a house church. The church grew, and so they gave birth to a new house church. Which in turn gave birth to another, and so on, until...
