This is Part 3 in a three-part series of blog posts about the case of Eva Abdallah, accused of blasphemy last year in Tanzania. Click to read Part 1 and Part 2.

Does VOM condone what Eva did? No, we don’t. It would have been wiser not to choose an action that is so deeply offensive to Muslims. We would never encourage any Christian, persecuted or otherwise, to purposefully antagonize a non-believer. But while it may not have been the best choice, her desire to show God’s power and glory in a tense situation is admirable.

Eva Abdallah smiles as she talks about the encouragement she got from Christians around the world who wrote letters of encouragement to her.

VOM's founder, Richard Wurmbrand, always encouraged reaching our enemies with love. His book, Jesus, Friend to Terrorists, is written in that vein. We shower those who persecute us with blessing and love, modeling Christ. Pastor Wurmbrand won over many antagonistic fellow prisoners, prison guards and interrogators that way.

But right or wrong, Pastor Wurmbrand also refused to let the sleepy church in the West forget about their suffering brothers and sisters. As a ministry charged with bringing the Western church into fellowship with the persecuted, VOM could not forget our sister Eva, suffering in prison because her faith motivated her persecutors to provoke her.

And the letter-writing efforts of so many of you here and around the world made a difference to Eva in prison. She was overwhelmed with the unexpected encouragement of the letters and cards. The colors, the verses and the hand-written notes were deeply meaningful. She told us, “From the bottom of my heart I felt extreme joy because I knew there were some Christians who were praying for me even though they didn’t know me.”

Now that she’s free, Eva wants to study the Bible more and continue to witness just as boldly as she always has. She’s living in a different city, but she’s just as determined to bring glory to the God who changed her life.

And this is not the end of her story. It’s just the beginning of how God will use this young woman for his purposes.

YOUR TURN: Does it change your opinion of Eva's story now that you know more details? Share your thoughts in the comments to this post.

To write letters to Christians currently in prison because of their faith and Christian activities, visit www.PrisonerAlert.com.

Dory P. has worked with VOM for six years. She grew up in Ecuador, met her husband while working with another mission organization, and now lives in Oklahoma. Between Dory, her husband and two-year-old son, they share five passports. Dory helps tell the stories of the persecuted through VOM's newsletter, and her husband serves with VOM's international department.

This is Part 2 in a three-part series of blog posts about the case of Eva Abdallah, accused of blasphemy last year in Tanzania. Click here to read Part 1.

Then the word came in a short email from our worker: “And…yes, Eva says she did urinate on the Quran. Thought you should know that.”

Accused of blasphemy, then acquitted of the crime: how could it be that Eva Abdallah in Tanzania would choose to so deeply offend her Muslim countrymen?

Here’s how Eva tells the story:

Eva Abdallah shows some of the letters sent to encourage her while she was in prison.

It was on the 5^th of January 2012, when I was outside our house reading the Bible that six women came around me and started to abuse Christianity and the Bible. I decided to go inside our house and shut the windows so I couldn’t hear them. But they came close to the window to continue to abuse Christianity and the Bible. I prayed to God and said, “Lord I know this is something unusual, and I pray that you will reveal yourself in this trial that is coming."

When they saw me, they said, “Jesus is not God.” And they kept repeating that, so, I was obliged to tell them that according to my faith, I strongly believe that Jesus is God because of what he did for me.

They brought part of a Quran, and told me if I urinated on it, because of its power, I would turn into a crazy woman, or grow hair all over my body.

I knew Muslims would consider it blasphemy, but they dared me, and I wanted my God to be glorified before them. I wanted to prove to them that my God is able and more powerful compared to their god like … with Elijah where he prayed to God to come consume the sacrifice with all the gods of Baal. I wanted to prove to them that my God is more able than theirs.

So I did it to show nothing would happen, they could not compete with my God… He would protect me.

God did protect Eva. While the whole town went crazy with anger over the news of what she’d done, God blinded the eyes of those searching for her so she could make it safely to the police station, where she was arrested.

She would face the justice system, but at least she wouldn’t be killed in the street.

Read Dory's answer to the question, Does VOM condone what Eva did?

Dory P. has worked with VOM for six years. She grew up in Ecuador, met her husband while working with another mission organization, and now lives in Oklahoma. Between Dory, her husband and two-year-old son, they share five passports. Dory helps tell the stories of the persecuted through VOM's newsletter, and her husband serves with VOM's international department.

Sometimes the full story is not what we’d want it to be.

Last year, we learned that a 17-year-old Tanzanian woman, Eva Abdallah, had been accused of blasphemy for urinating on a Quran and sentenced to two years in prison. Tanzania, a Christian majority nation (54.07% Christian, according to Operation World) in East Africa, has not typically been a place where VOM has found persecution cases. But as Islamic influence has grown in the country, and as Sharia (Islamic) law has been applied, persecution in Tanzania has grown.

When we heard of Eva’s case, our staff began investigating. A new national contact talked with Christian leaders around the country, who reported that the accusation of blasphemy was false. However, one of our sister missions in another country wrote to us to say they believed Eva had done what she was accused of.

The reports conflicted, so we considered the facts carefully. Eva had converted from Islam to Christianity as a 12-year-old and had some Bible training. After being accused and arrested in January 2012, she wasn’t given her two-year sentence until July 2012. In her Muslim-majority city, it seemed that local Islamists were unfairly influencing the court against her. We decided to ask our readers to send encouraging letters to Evan in prison, and our contact helped arrange for legal representation for her.

Letters from around the world began to pour into the prison. Prison guards were required to review letters before passing them along to prisoners. Eva received the first few hundred, but eventually the task became too laborious for the guards, and instead of giving the letters to her they boxed them and held them until her release.

That day came sooner than expected. On Jan. 9, 2013, Tanzania’s highest court acquitted Eva of the blasphemy charges and she was immediately released.

We were anxious to hear her story, and sent a VOM worker to interview her as soon as possible.

Then the report came in a short email from our worker...

Read what the email said.

Dory P. has worked with VOM for six years. She grew up in Ecuador, met her husband while working with another mission organization, and now lives in Oklahoma. Between Dory, her husband and two-year-old son, they share five passports. Dory helps tell the stories of the persecuted through VOM's newsletter, and her husband serves with VOM's international department.

It doesn’t seem fair.

She’s totally alone in the world, orphaned as a young girl, her three children grown and out of the house, and now her husband is five years into a 10-year prison sentence. Because she was orphaned, “Cam” was forced to live with another family, whom she served as a live-in maid. She was never educated, and she can’t read or write. She is 49 years old.

Cam and her husband are members of a Vietnamese minority tribal group living in the Central Highlands. In 2002, they were simple sustenance farmers loosely following their traditional religion. They knew of Christians, and had seen the goodness in their lives. So when someone came to them and told them Jesus had died for their sins and invited them to follow him, they did. They wanted the good life they had seen in others.

"Cam"

In Dec. 2002, Cam’s husband was arrested in a large sweep of government arrests. They were targeting tribal minority Christians who had been asking for more religious freedom. He was sentenced to six and a half years in prison. After he was released in 2008, he was out for just a few months before he was re-arrested and sentenced to 10 more years in prison.

I don’t know why God chose to allow me, and you, to live in this country of opportunity, and didn’t choose someone like Cam. A VOM reader recently wrote to us, “I see a lot of American Christians engaging their time in foolishness, in worldliness, trying to fit into the world, when we are supposed to be “set apart” for our master’s use. I don’t want to be part of that. My faith has really been challenged by reading your newsletter … – I know I could never do that by myself, but that we have a faithful God who loves us, who will help us get through it and never leave us.”

In her simplicity, Cam also knows that it’s only God that has gotten her through many hard years. She can’t read, but her favorite Bible stories are from the gospels. She likes the story of Jesus carrying the cross – because she loves the Christ who carries her burden with her.

She told me, “Even though I don’t like having a husband in prison, I am faithful to the Lord. You have freedom [in your country], you should be faithful more.”

If Cam can be faithful with little, shouldn’t we be faithful with our plenty?

Dory P. has worked with VOM for six years. She grew up in Ecuador, met her husband while working with another mission organization, and now lives in Oklahoma. Between Dory, her husband and their two-year-old son, they share five passports. Dory helps tell the stories of the persecuted through VOM's newsletter, and her husband serves with VOM's international department.

Esther

In 2009, Esther was excitedly pursuing a seminary degree in the United States. She and her husband, Matthew, had met in college and came to the US from their hometown of Linfen, China for further studies. Esther thought she’d spend two years abroad, then return to the city she’d called home for her whole life. She never imagined her parent’s involvement in a Chinese house church would leave her life permanently changed that year.

Esther had grown up in the church known as the Linfen house church. It was the only house church in the whole district. Her father was one of the head pastors of the 50,000-member church and her mother helped him with member visitations and leadership training. Technically, the church was illegal, because it wasn’t an officially-registered, government-sanctioned church. But growing up, Esther hardly noticed. They held large, open-air meetings for special occasions, and it wasn’t like 50,000 people could really hide their meetings. The church had grown so used to their de-facto status that they decided to erect a large church building on the edge of the city.

The building ended up becoming the final straw as state officials finally gave way to Beijing’s pressure. Esther’s father and mother, along with six other of the church’s main leaders, were arrested and given prison sentences of two to seven years each.

Esther’s father and mother

When she heard the news, Esther felt very far away in America. She called her mom in prison, and told her she’d come back right away. But her mom told her not to come. She was afraid her daughter would be harassed, watched and possibly never be able to leave China again. Esther was devastated.

When VOM first met with Esther in 2010, she couldn’t hold back the tears as she told her story. But in the three years since, God has done a work in her life. She looks back on the arrest of her parents and the lonely feelings as a time when God was working on her. Their imprisonment and separation brought her parents closer together. As a busy family in ministry, they hadn’t always had enough time together. Now, her father was writing her mother letters from prison almost weekly.

Her parents’ arrest changed Esther’s plans to return to China. For now, it’s better for her to stay in the U.S. Her mother was released early in 2011 because of her health, and the two are able to talk on the phone, though they are careful what they say. Her father is due for release any day. It’s been difficult to adjust to life in another country, but Esther and Matthew have settled in. They have a four-month old baby, and Esther relishes her role as a mother. She still hopes to go back to China one day.

Dory P. has worked with VOM for six years. She grew up in Ecuador, met her husband while working with another mission organization, and now lives in Oklahoma. Between Dory, her husband and two-year-old son, they share five passports. Dory helps tell the stories of the persecuted through VOM’s newsletter.

VOM field staff recently checked in on Nigerian evangelist Suleiman Abdulai, who was featured in our November 2012 newsletter.

Suleiman has a powerful testimony of growing up as a Muslim and being known in his community as one who humiliated Christians in public debates. But when he attended a church service at the invitation of a friend, Suleiman was surprised to hear the pastor preaching directly to him, saying “things that I never told anyone before,” he said.

He gave his life to Christ, to the deep frustration of his family. They packed him off to Islam’s holiest site in Mecca, hoping to bring him back to Islam. On observing Islam’s most important rituals, “I knew then that Islam is not of God,” he said. When he returned to Nigeria, his entire family gathered around Suleiman as his father insisted, “Deny this Christ or be killed.”

Confident that Jesus was standing beside him, Suleiman told his family, “I’m not going to deny who I serve. I am ready to die, because I know he is here.”

But his family didn’t give up. They sent hired killers with automatic weapons to Suleiman’s rented room. Suleiman happened to be out that day. After failing to find and kill him, Suleiman’s parents disowned him and cut off all support.

Suleiman is now an evangelist and public speaker who lectures on Islam. He calls Muslims to Christ and exhorts Christians to reach out in love to the Muslims they know. When he is not busy with speaking engagements, Suliman spends his time ministering to Christian converts from Islam or others interested in Christianity. He simply offers them a Bible to read and then is available to discuss it with them.

He recently started a small business to help provide support for his family. He travels to outlying villages to buy grain, and then transports it to larger towns to sell it.

Suleiman’s work as a minister is not sponsored by a particular organization or church and he is entirely dependent on donations to support his work. “I move as the Lord provides,” he told our staff. “The feeding and sustenance of our family is as the Lord provides, and as his Word proclaims, the Lord himself has been our sufficiency.”

Suleiman often tells his testimony when he speaks in large, public venues. Afterwards, he often receives threats. Recently, someone sent him a text message that read, “You are a disgrace to Islam, an infidel. We will soon get you and end your life.”

But he’s seen God protect him time and time again. He told a VOM worker, “We will not be afraid. We will still preach the gospel to them.” He asked for prayer for his preservation, but noted, “For me, to die is gain.”

 

The email came at 4:47 p.m., just before I shut down my computer for the evening.

“Dear sister,” it read. “I will be with our sister at around 11 a.m. local time. Can you please give me a phone call then?”

Great! I thought. I’d been waiting for weeks to interview this persecuted believer. She’d been in hiding, and I wanted to hear her story in her own words and encourage her by telling her how many believers in the U.S. were praying for her. It took weeks of emails to our contact and then waiting for the right time for him to be able to travel to see her.

I started calculating the time difference. 11 a.m. their time would be… 2 a.m. my time. Hmm. Well, there would be no chance to record the interview with our office equipment, since I’d be calling from my living room in the middle of the night.

I set my alarm for 1:50 a.m. When it beeped, I sat on my couch for a moment, preparing my heart and mind to reach across the ocean to touch this believer who had felt so alone for many months.

I dialed the number carefully, hoping I’d dialed correctly as I listened to the international dial tone sound. When our contact picked up, I said, “Hello, brother. This is Dory, from the U.S.” He replied, “Hello!” and I felt like I could detect a smile in his voice. “I can see that you are very prompt!”

We had to wait a little while for the sister to get ready. In the meantime, I caught up with our worker, who I’d only spoken with through email. He also asked me to greet the pastor who had sheltered the sister I was waiting to speak to, when she needed a safe place to stay.

Finally, the sister was ready for me. We spoke for about 45 minutes through an interpreter. It was a little challenging because I couldn’t see her face or read her body language. She had trouble understanding my American accent. But she was so grateful for our help to her, and when she thanked me, I knew I was receiving her thanks on behalf of hundreds of Christians here who had written letters to her, prayed for her and sent funds to help her. When we finished talking, I prayed for her and her country.

After I hung up, I paused for a moment before crawling back in bed. In the old days, VOM founder Richard Wurmbrand could wait weeks or months to receive a scrap of a letter smuggled from behind the Iron Curtain. It was amazing that today I was able to pick up the phone and call the mobile phone of our contact to speak to a persecuted sister and hear her story in her own words.

I’m sure you are curious about who I was talking to and what we talked about! You’ll have to wait a little longer for that information while we put together something special.

With a gaggle of kids among us, ranging from infants to 3-years-olds, my friends and I have been tossing around ideas about how to educate our kids.

The issue of how to educate their children is a big one for persecuted Christians as well. Two Christian Egyptian families have had to go into hiding in the last five years after they tried to have their official religion changed from "Muslim" to "Christian" on their national ID cards. The parents wanted the change in part so that their children would have the option of attending Christian schools. Unfortunately for them, the Egyptian judicial system denied their requests, and Muslim extremists began sending death threats.

I met one of these men, Mohammed Hegazy, in 2010. He's my age, with two young children. His oldest, Miriam, would be ready for kindergarten this year. His son, Joseph, is about 3. He told me, "When my wife was pregnant with our first child, I had that in my heart that I don't want my child to suffer like all the children of converts in Egypt. You know, the children of converts are having a dual identity – they have to be a Christian at home, Muslims at school and with their friends. And this is really complicated for the psychology of a child to understand or to bear."

I've wept with Egyptian Christian parents who agonize over sending their kids to schools that train them to be Muslims and teach them to hate Christians. These Egyptian parents wonder whether they should wait to introduce their children to Christ until they're older and more able to handle the attacks, taunts and degrading they'll certainly face if their classmates learn they are Christians. Or do they tell them about Christ and force them to live double lives, participating in Muslim worship and prayers at school as required and celebrating Christ's love at home?

Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani got into trouble when he learned in 2009 that a change in Iranian education policy would require his two boys to take a course in studying the Quran. Nadarkhani would go on to spend three years in prison before he was acquitted of apostasy.

Sometimes it's not the parents who suffer the consequences of being Christians in a Muslim majority nation. One 12-year-old Christian boy, Amin, painted a picture of Jesus in art class. When his teacher saw the painting, she questioned the boy about his faith in front of the class, openly ridiculing him for his outdated and superstitious beliefs. On the way home from school that day, three of Amin's classmates attacked and beat him, damaging his face. When he got home and told his parents, first they prayed with him, then they took him to the hospital.

When Amin returned to school, he stood up in front of the class and told the three bullies, "God has forgiven me. I forgive you and want to be your friend." The three bullies became some of Amin's closest friends.

WEIGH IN: Can children be lights for Christ? How much responsibility should we as parents give them, and how much should we try to protect them? What would you do if you were trying to raise your child as a Christian in a Muslim society?

Dory P. has worked with VOM for six years. She grew up in Ecuador, met her husband while working with another mission organization, and now lives in Oklahoma. Between Dory, her husband and two-year-old son, they share five passports. Dory helps tell the stories of the persecuted through VOM's newsletter, and her husband serves with VOM's international department.

I met Godswill five and a half years ago.

Well, to say I met him is a bit of an overstatement; I talked to him and some other children living at the Stephen Centre in Nigeria over the phone for about an hour, interviewing them for a VOM article. Back then, Godswill was a shy, quiet, 14-year-old boy who liked soccer.

Godswill around the time Dory "met" him, after he arrived at the Stephen Centre.

I wondered how he'd gotten such an unusual name. He told me his mother had given birth to twins before he was born, but they did not live. Then she didn't have another child for nine years. When her son was born, on February 15, 1992, she named him "Godswill."

In 2009, I met Godswill's mother, Ruth, in northern Nigeria, while visiting widows and victims of the religious violence. Ruth's husband, a leader in the Christian community, was killed during a religious riot in Kaduna in 2000.

As a widow, Ruth struggled to support Godswill and his younger sister, Joy. So when our partners in Nigeria offered Godswill and Joy a place in a VOM-supported boarding school called the Stephen Centre, Ruth made the decision to send her kids away to be educated. It wasn't easy for her to let them go, but she knew she'd never be able to provide them with a good education.

Last week, I met Godswill again. Now 19, Godswill is a confident young man pursuing a law degree at a university near the Stephen Centre. He loves the Lord and works hard at both school and at being a man of character. As I interviewed other children now living at the Stephen Centre, Godswill acted as my "fixer," suggesting children I could interview. He knows almost all the 307 children living at the school, where he's seen as a leader.

Godswill (center, striped shirt) was among the first class of graduates from The Stephen Centre. All these students are now in college.

It was so encouraging to see how God has worked in the lives of some of these young men and women. Godswill lost his father at a young age and had to live apart from his mother for much of his formative years. But instead of using his suffering as an excuse or a stumbling block, he's taken it as a challenge and used it to motivate himself toward better things. He reported that his mother continues to do well as a cloth-seller in the Kaduna market, and she continues to meet with other Christian widows in Kaduna.

His mother named him Godswill, and I know that Godswill will go on to serve the Lord and carry out God's will in Nigeria.

 

Dory P. has worked with VOM for six years. She grew up in Ecuador, met her husband while working with another mission organization, and now lives in Oklahoma. Between Dory, her husband and two-year-old son, they share five passports. Dory helps tell the stories of the persecuted through VOM's newsletter, and her husband serves with VOM's international department.

"I need you to go to Nigeria," said my boss one Friday afternoon as I was preparing to leave for the day.

"Sure," I replied, "When?"

"Next week," she said. "Something came up."

Getting ready to go with just a few days' notice wasn't what I had expected, but thankfully, I was mostly ready to go. Traveling to meet our persecuted brothers and sisters isn't like preparing for a vacation, and it's not even like packing for an overseas mission trip.

My first thought was to make sure my husband would be in town to take care of our son. He also works for VOM, and travels about every-other-month to some of the hottest regions in the world. It turned out that yes, he'd be around to watch our two-year-old, but I needed to cut my trip a little short in order to be home before he left on his next trip.

As we travel for VOM to meet with the persecuted, my husband and I have also had to make other preparations. We have a will that details who will take care of our son should anything happen to us. We've talked with family about how we'd like him to be raised. We've named close friends in town who would be responsible for selling our home and other assets in order to provide for him. While these are things anyone should do in case of unforeseen circumstances, we're more aware than other 30-somethings that our lives might be taken at any moment.

We've also talked through our expectations of what would happen to either of us if one of us were to die. I know my husband isn't afraid to give his life in service to Christ and our brothers and sisters, and I feel the same way. When our friends offer to pray for our safety when we travel, we tell them instead to pray for God's will for our lives. If God's purposes are accomplished, then our own safety is in His hands.

There's no fear when I travel, even to places like Nigeria or Egypt, which are quite risky for Westerners. Sure, there's nervousness to make certain I've made proper preparations, or of getting lost in an unfamiliar place, but there's no fear. I'm in God's hands. I'd never choose to leave my husband and son behind, but if I'm called to do so, I know God will take care of them.

How could I not believe this, when on these trips I meet widows and orphans who can praise God despite having lost a spouse or a parent because of their Christian faith? I've met so many women who weep and mourn the loss of their husband, yet in the next breath praise God for his unchanging nature and his constant care for them. I don't expect any less from God for myself.

So when the Lord calls, I'm ready to go—whether it's to Nigeria next week or to eternity with him.

Dory P. has worked with VOM for six years. She grew up in Ecuador, met her husband while working with another mission organization, and now lives in Oklahoma. Between Dory, her husband and two-year-old son, they share five passports. Dory helps tell the stories of the persecuted through VOM's newsletter, and her husband serves with VOM's international department.