This week I had the incredible honour of being part of a local believer’s baptism. One of our teammates has been discipling her for the last year and I have been able to be part of several meetings to read the Bible together with them. She has been waiting for months to be baptized, but COVID meant that her university program switched to online learning, and she had to go live in a different province with her conservative Muslim parents, who are putting a lot of pressure on her to return to Islam. It was truly beautiful to hear her confess faith in Christ, pray & worship together, and share her first communion together after the baptism! Her testimony (in her own words) is as follows:
My first encounter with Christianity was when I went to church abroad for the first time [as an exchange student]. Of course, I was hearing about Christianity before that, but I realize that there are many false claims being made. When I entered the church for the first time, I felt very different, I was like bewitched. I was trying to understand that spiritual atmosphere I was feeling in the church while my friends with me were interested with things like the architecture of the church at that time.
Later, I started asking my Christian friends about their religion and I loved the answers I got. When I returned home, I kept doing my researches about Christianity. When I was surfing on the internet to learn more I saw kutsalkitap.org [bible.org] and I ordered a Bible. Unfortunately, when I read the Bible, I could not understand it very clearly, meanwhile, a teammate of ours contacted me. I was so lucky that I met her because she introduced me to the essence of Christianity.
I still remember she asked me a question when we first met: she said “do you want to talk about your sins?” At those days I was really busy with my school and I even couldn’t find time for myself and based on this, I answered her: “I don’t even have time for commit sin!” Then we started reading the Bible and I realized that Christianity was about the heart, sin was committed in the heart, and I was a sinner. That’s how I believed.
Believing in Jesus has changed a lot in my life, now I want to be closer to God, and God’s love makes me strive to be a good person. I wanted to be baptized for a long time and finally got the opportunity. Thank you all for accompanying me today.
The pressure that this sweet girl is facing from her family is causing her a lot of anxiety, and she is hoping that her exam results that come out later this month will be good enough for her to apply for a job and move somewhere on her own. It would be ideal if she could move to a city where there are other believers to support and encourage her. Please Lord Jesus provide for your daughter! Thank you for drawing her into your family and may you use her as a light to draw many others as well!
