**Disclaimer: Due to the sensitive nature of this material, names have been altered.**
Growing up in the Midwest, it was always easy to be a Christian. I mean, sure, I got made fun of a little for wearing blatantly evangelical Christian tee-shirts to my public high school. But hey, I was not in the popular crowd, so I was going to get teased to some extent anyways. When I chose to get baptized, it was largely a personal decision that my family (even the Catholic side) respected and celebrated with me. Friends and classmates either celebrated with me or didn't really care. However, my experience, which I imagine could be similar to many of your experiences, is far from the norm for many people.
I wrote a post recently about some of the baptisms we have gotten to observe and celebrate in the short time we've been living in Holland. What I want to do now, though, is tell the story of two of these believers in Christ.
For the sake of this story, I will refer to them as "Mary" and "Tina."
"Mary" is the aunt of "Tina," the sister of Tina's mother, whom I'll call "Anna." Their families lived previously in Iraq, their homeland. Anna, Tina's mother, got a job working for Americans in Baghdad. This affiliation with Americans was not well-received by her family, but it was employment.
However, Anna's family dynamics further were complicated when she befriended some of her employers. Through these friendships, Anna began attending a Bible Study. And in what would be a radical move, she became a Christian.
Anna led her daughter, Tina, to the Lord, too. Soon mother and daughter were both attending Bible Study, and more importantly, both were publicly identified as Christians.
In the Islamic world, this is more than just a cause for questions to be asked about what this means for one's philosophical outlook on the world. This is heresy. And this brings Shame upon the family and community.
Anna experienced persecution that I can only begin to imagine. So fervent was Anna's persecution that her very life was threatened if she did not renounce her newfound Christian faith.
For Anna, though, what she experienced in Christ (the freedom, the love, the Hope) far outweighed anything this world could offer her.
She held fast to her faith.
And she was murdered.
Her daughter, Tina, had to go and live with her Aunt Mary after her mother's death. Still reeling from the murder of her sister, Mary chose to become a Christian.
What she saw in her sister, and the determination that her sister had to identify with Jesus Christ so strongly was reason enough for Mary to want what her sister had found.
Thus, without understanding all the doctrinal nuances, and without reading the Bible from cover-to-cover, Mary placed her faith in Jesus Christ, largely based on the testimony of her now-deceased sister.
Tina continued to experience the ridicule and the shame that had been cause for her mother's death. And now, Mary began to experience it as well. In addition to taking in her Christian niece, who had departed from Islam, Mary was the sister of Anna, who had also departed from Islam. And now, Mary herself had turned away from the faith by embracing Jesus Christ.
Mary's persecution also came with threats. And yet, like her sister before her, Mary stood her ground, professing Jesus to be Lord and identifying herself as a follower of Jesus.
On account of her unrepentant faith in Jesus, Mary's son was murdered.
Having lost her sister and now her own son, Aunt Mary took Tina and the two of them fled the country.
Because of the Asylum program that the Netherlands offers, these two followers of Jesus made their way to Holland, seeking refuge literally.
They met some Iranian refugees who are a part of our fellowship, and they began attending regularly. Even though they did not understand Dutch at all. Even though they generally knew nothing about the order of worship or what happened and why.
What they knew was this: they had been embraced by the Love of God, and they had chosen to follow Jesus.
Their new identity was found in Christ.
And so they worshipped regularly and faithfully. For them, truly Jesus Is the Subject. It was our great pleasure to welcome them into the family of God and to celebrate with them as they witnessed to their faith by entering the waters of baptism.
"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his." ~ Romans 6:3-5
 |
| The Old has gone. |
 |
| The New has come. |
"Let the Saints rejoice with my raptured spirit,
I am a Child of God..."
