Lana’s story not only displays how God is using Help The Persecuted ’s Lightning Funds to support Christians in danger, but how evangelism, discipleship, and practical help all work together in this holistic ministry.
While home in the Middle East on a break from her graduate studies, Lana noticed a significant shift in her older brother Hussein’s personality. Though once angry and antagonistic, he was now kind and reflective.
Curious to find the source of his new found positivity, she asked Hussein what had led to the dramatic change:
While working abroad, Hussein had grown frustrated with Islam’s inability to directly answer his questions. He began searching for truth in books that refuted Islam, and, by the grace of God, miraculously landed on the Bible. Eventually, he came to faith in Christ and was discipled and supported by members of the Help The Persecutedfield team.
Hussein shared news of his conversion with Lana and challenged her to begin reading the Bible and to consider Jesus for herself. While on the plane back to school, Lana opened the Bible her brother had given her. She later told us:
“As I read the Gospel of John, I started crying. The words felt alive, like I was hearing someone speaking them to me. The Scriptures gave me what I needed, and I got off the plane as God’s child.”
When Hussein informed our field team leaders Salam and Samar about Lana’s conversion, they connected her with a local church, where she became actively involved and was soon baptized.
——
Once her graduate studies ended, Lana knew she was being called back to her home country – though she knew she would face persecution:
“I felt that I had wasted my life, and I had been wrong in everything I believed. There was something inside me that made me share [the Gospel]. I couldn’t stop sharing. I just couldn’t.”
Back home, Lana had thought her mother would be understanding; instead, she was hostile. She confronted Lana, asking point blank if she had become a Christian. Lana took courage, not denying her faith, and confirmed that she had accepted Jesus as her Savior.
Soon after, Lana’s mother began tracking her every movement. Lana had to hide her activities, eventually avoiding church altogether and limiting meetings with individuals and small groups of believers to public places. But even clandestine planning didn’t work. Lana’s mom gave her an ultimatum:
“Return to Islam or face the Sharia court. You deserve to die because you left Islam.”
Lana was sure that something terrible was being planned and, with the help of Lightning Funds provided by Help The Persecuted, made arrangements to flee the country as soon as possible. Help The Persecuted also connected her with an organization that wrote the legal papers necessary to apply for asylum. But just as she was about to board the plane, Lana was stopped and told that she was banned from traveling:
“I booked a flight. Nobody knew I was going that day. I didn’t want to tell anyone because I was scared. When I got to the airport, when I was boarding, they said that ‘you’re not allowed to leave, you need to refer to the Sharia court.’”
I felt trapped.”
——
The hearings before the Sharia court lasted for six months. It was an emotionally exhausting and humiliating experience for Lana. The court was open to anyone, and her life was daily put in danger as she was publicly accused of being an apostate.
Lana was enrolled in an Islamic course as punishment and forbidden to leave the country. During this awful time, Help The Persecuted rescued her from the dangerous situation of living with her mom—helping her find a safe apartment and providing her living expenses. But even after she finished the Islamic course, her case remained open, and she was still unable to leave Jordan.
Then, Salam was investigated by the secret police for playing some part in Lana’s conversion. During the meeting, Salam, led entirely by the Holy Spirit, dissuaded the Secret Police from carrying out charges against Lana. Within a week, Lana’s case was closed, and she immediately departed on a plane bound for Europe, once again, thanks to immediate funding from Help the Persecuted.
Today, Lana is rebuilding her life as a disciple of Jesus Christ. Salam and Samar are still in contact with her and try to encourage her as much as they can from afar.
“Salam and Samar gave me a hand when nobody else did. They were the only people that I could trust anywhere, basically. They helped my brother also, and they were always there for us—whether we needed advice or any kind of help. And they did so even though their own situation was difficult.”
——
Without the help provided by our field team members, Lana most likely would have faced extreme persecution, possibly death. But through the support of partners like you, God provided for her both practically and spiritually during her time of desperate need.
If this sounds like a spy novel, know that it’s par for the course in the Middle East. There are thousands upon thousands more like Lana that reach out EVERY DAY. Today, help us carry out our mission to Rescue, Restore, and Rebuild more lives like Lana’s by supporting Help The Persecuted so we can continue providing immediate crisis funding.
——
P.S.
It may be easy to fault Lana’s mother for this entire ordeal, but Lana would remind you to pray for her mother. Indeed, her mother is simply scared for her daughter. She believes what Islam would have her believe; they play to her fears.
Rejoice always for Lana’s rescue. Pray without ceasing for Lana’s mother. Give thanks for the Holy Spirit’s intervention in this situation. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you, for us, and for Lana.
If you are wondering where the pages that contained the words "excerpt", "Introducing" or other words indicating I was quoting a book have all gone, I migrated all of them over to Posts and Posted them all on August 18 and August 19 2024. I did that so you could use the search widget that is built in to the blog on the upper right hand corner. You will be happy to know that there are more of them than just the batch that were migrated, there were also lots of posts that contained the same words that did not have to be migrated over, they were there all along. I am really enjoying doing introductions and excerpts because it really makes for powerful and fascinating reading when I do them. You get the feeling you are in a bookstore holding a book in your hand looking at the table of contents and deciding whether or not to buy the book.
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Human Trafficking Victims Program Introduction
She said two urls that are no longer the urls to use. The first one, www.dhs.gov/humantrafficking automatically becomes www.dhs.gov/blue-campaign The facebook site was the old site which does not automatically update to the following, the new facebook site is http://facebook.com/dhsbluecampaign Click this link to search all of the DHS site for mentions of the Blue Campaign
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In Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, top-selling author and Anglican bishop, N.T. Wright tackles the biblical question of what happens after we die and shows how most Christians get it wrong. We do not “go to” heaven; we are resurrected and heaven comes down to earth--a difference that makes all of the difference to how we live on earth. Following N.T. Wright’s resonant exploration of a life of faith in Simply Christian, the award-winning author whom Newsweek calls “the world’s leading New Testament scholar” takes on one of life’s most controversial topics, a matter of life, death, spirituality, and survival for everyone living in the world today.
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1 Oh clap your hands, all ye peoples; Shout unto God with the voice of triumph.
2 For Jehovah Most High is terrible; He is a great King over all the earth.
3 He subdueth peoples under us, And nations under our feet.
4 He chooseth our inheritance for us, The glory of Jacob whom he loved. Selah
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Throughout the years, the pioneering lyrics and sound of LAMB have provided countless hours of joyful praise and meaningful worship for followers of Yeshua around the world. Many of LAMB's classic songs have become anthems of faith in the Messianic community that are sung in congregations and homes and wherever else believers in Yeshua gather together to praise and worship their Messiah!
Despite his status as one of the most influential and intelligent Christian authors of the 20th century, C.S. Lewis never thought of himself as a professional theologian. While he was well-read in many types of literary genres, he did not go to Seminary to obtain a Masters in Theology and study a year of Old Testament Hebrew and New Testament Greek. He was not a Pastor who preached sermons to a congregation for many years but a raw, honest philosopher and professor of literature who wrote as well as any Christian of his time could. He had a gift for clearly articulating his perspectives on a variety of issues. Above all, he was humble, in that he had an honest evaluation of both his strengths and his weaknesses. I believe this is one of the main reasons why he is still so enjoyable to read even after all these years. In terms of his theology, Lewis himself said he was an “Anglican but not especially ‘high,’ nor especially ‘low,’ nor especially anything else.” So the theology of C.S. Lewis is not something one can immediately discover by simply perusing a certain book of his to see exactly where he stands on certain doctrinal issues; it is much more subtle and convoluted than that. But in this book, you will find his different thoughts from his many books about certain Christian doctrines and topics pieced together in an easy-to-follow format (Lewis has written nearly 60 books but none of them are on systematic theology). This book offers very clear depictions of his theology concerning subjects such as the doctrine of inspiration, original sin, human depravity, human origins, evolution, intelligent design, theodicy, love and marriage, redemption, grace, new creation, and grief, as his authentic reaction to God after his wife’s death is conveyed. The final chapters also contain all of his greatest quotes arranged and sorted by topic as well as excerpts, quotes, and summaries from most of his books in a quick, easy-to-read, bullet-point format. These last two sections are a particularly great resource to draw from as you can quickly learn about the main points Lewis conveys in his bestselling books.
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Sky Spills Over
2,380,500 views May 27, 2015
This song is on the album "Sovereign" From Michael W. Smith Sky Spills Over · Michael W. Smith Sovereign ℗ 2014 The MWS Group, under exclusive license to Sparrow Records Released on: 2014-01-01 Producer: Christopher Stevens Composer Lyricist: Michael W. Smith Composer Lyricist: Christopher Stevens Composer Lyricist: Ryan Smith
Book Abbreviations for Bible Widget This is the list of three letter abbreviation for each book of the Bible to use for Passage References at
https://bibles.org/widget
The Search Widget is a search box on this site that will allow your users to search for Bible passages and display those search results in a popup modal or take them to the configured Global.Bible site to view the results.
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