Shortly after their father died, Amara and her older brother left their village in the Somali desert to live with their uncle in the city. Their family thought it would be a positive change for the teenage Amara to have a male relative in her life, but they didn’t expect the move to lead her away from Islam. Shortly after moving in with her uncle, Amara began speaking with her new neighbors. To her surprise, she learned that they were not Somali — and they were Christians. “I’d always been taught that everyone who is not Somali is Christian,” she said, “that the evil we see on TV and movies is because they are Christians. When I met my new neighbors, they were different. They called themselves Christians, but weren’t drunkards, adulterers or immoral like I was taught.” The Christian family welcomed Amara into their home, even sharing meals with her. She noticed that before each meal, they thanked God for their food in such a casual way that they sounded as if they were talking to their father. “It was different than what I had seen on TV,” she said. “Sitting with them and listening and seeing it, I
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One week before Christmas in 2013, Abdi was driving to work as usual in Mogadishu when the sound of gunfire erupted all around his car. As he slowed the vehicle, a group of men armed with AK-47 assault rifles approached the driver’s side and shot Abdi to death before fleeing in a getaway car. Al-Shabab had gotten their man. Abdi was one of fewer than 200 secret believers in Somalia. Like most of the others, he had been raised as a Muslim but later found new life in Christ. His first experience with al-Shabab had occurred in 2011, when they found pages of a Bible in his house while randomly searching his neighborhood. Abdi was immediately dragged away to an underground concrete cell, where he was tortured with a wooden baton and locked in a room with dead bodies. His captors demanded the names of other Christians, but Abdi wouldn’t give them up. Several weeks after his abduction, Abdi took the opportunity to escape after noticing that a guard had forgotten to lock his cell door one night. Abdi ran from his cell and scrambled over a wall as al-Shabab guards fired at him. The militants chased him in two
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Once filled with hate for Christians, today this former imam cannot stop sharing Christ’s love despite death threats. Mahad Birik moves to a new rental house every month. His phone buzzes continually with text messages from unknown numbers: “We will get you!” Mahad was born into a Somali family in a predominantly Muslim part of northeastern Kenya. After receiving an intensive education in Wahhabi Islam, he was appointed as an imam, or Islamic teacher, at age 9. “I learned easily, and in the area where we lived many people are illiterate,” he said. “Because I could read and write, they found me suitable as an imam.” The young imam chose a popular target for his Friday sermons — Christians. “I hated Christians,” he said. “I expressed the wish that Allah would send all Christians to hell.” A Providential Meeting At age 10, Mahad’s parents moved the family to Somalia. In this Islamic stronghold, Mahad had an unlikely encounter with an American missionary in a Mogadishu tea house. Mahad instantly hated the man. “Damn you,” he snapped at him, “tell me what you believe about Jesus!” The Christian missionary gave him a Bible and challenged him to read it. Although the
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Several Christians who were arrested earlier this year have recently seen a positive turn in their case. These Christians are currently in custody in Somaliland, a semi-autonomous area of Somalia. They were arrested earlier this year and were originally accused of spreading Christianity.
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