I was born into a Muslim family in October, 1978.  It was a very hard time in our house, as my father did not have a job in India and tried to get a job abroad in Saudi Arabia.  After my brother Naushad’s birth, he had the opportunity to get a nice job outside of India as a mechanical engineer, where he earned nicely.  So, all was going well.  In 1988, my father met with an accident while coming from there to India.  It was a great shock for us, and suddenly, the whole of our family collapsed.  Our financial stability crashed.  My mother did not want to leave us in our grandfather’s house, because they would not allow us to get an education and would also have an early marriage of my sister, Reshma, because they were very orthodox.  They would ask us to do all the farming work as well.

     At last, my mother decided to look after us herself.  From that time onward, I was always angry with Allah, asking, “Why did Allah do this to us?”  And I was not interested in going to our regular prayers.  My mother started working in a small company and helped us to get our education done.  In this very crucial time, when we needed someone to stand with us, every one left us.

     In this period of time, when we had no one, I used to feel that there was no God in this earth who cared about us. When I was 12 years old, one of my Hindu friends accepted Jesus into his life, and he would always be behind me, telling me that I should come to church – that God will hear you and answer all of your prayers, giving you peace. I used to say what God could do, and that He could not give any peace to me – that He had stolen my future. I was so discouraged, but this boy was persistently telling me about Christ. So, I decided to go with him to the church in a healing meeting. As I entered the grounds, I was wondering how people were dancing and laughing and praising God. I was thinking, “How can they praise God like that?” I thought we should  not do it like this, that it was a shameful thing – because we could not do that in our culture. Since God is “holy,” we could not approach him like this.

     I was sitting and listening and watching this thing.  At last, the pastor came and started to preach about Jesus Christ .  When he started to preach, there was something going on in my heart. I started to feel something strange, which I cannot explain.  But one thing I know is that day, God touched my life.  As the pastor gave the altar call, I started to pray along with him.  And as soon as I finished my prayer, suddenly peace came into my heart.  And that peace made me believe that there really is some power in Jesus.  After that, I started reading the Bible and attending church.  I got filled with the Holy Spirit – that was a mind-blowing experience.  This was all making my faith strong in the Lord.

     I started to witness to my family members. I preached to my brother, sister, cousins and the like, and everyone understood that I was going to church.  All my family members came against me.  But even so, I continued to witness Jesus to them. Slowly, my family members tried to make me understand by counseling, but when I didn’t hear them after counseling, they started threatening to beat me and throw me out of the house. This made me frightened. I wondered how to face my family members, and I started to go to church secretly. But they  were spying on me every time. They gave me a final warning, that if I was found in the church, then that day would be the last day of my life!

     One day, the pastor was preaching about the blessedness of being persecuted.  So, while the church service was coming to an end, the last song was going on and I was in the gate of the church, clapping my hands and rejoicing.  Suddenly, someone came from behind and grabbed my neck. I saw behind me that it was my uncle, who was six feet tall, and I was only 14 years old at the time.  He told me that he would remove all my “praise the Lord and Hallelujah” and he brought me home and tried to find a knife to kill me. But by the grace of God,  my aunts hid it. So, he started hitting me with the belt (i.e. with the buckle!). It was so fearful at the time; I wondered how I could survive with these hits.  But let me share to you, for the Glory of God, that although he was beating me with all of his strength, inside I was praying in the Spirit and rejoicing, asking God to forgive him. At the time he was hitting me, not a single blow was hurting me! It was so glorious, that my faith toward Jesus Christ was not getting reduced, but was growing.

     They didn’t stop with that. My uncle put me in Masjid (the mosque) and all the priests of the mosque were coming and telling me not to go to the Christians.  Muslims believe Christians are a very low caste, because they eat and drink anything. They took me to a small room, advising me that Mohammed is our prophet and that Jesus is also a prophet, but not the Son of God. So, while they were speaking, suddenly God gave me wisdom to ask them how Jesus was born.  And I started explaining to them about the first Adam and Jesus as the Last Adam that came to save mankind. They got so annoyed that they said I was possessed by demons, and left me alone. I don’t know what God did to them that they stopped onfronting me, and from that day, I was free to go to church.  God had closed their mouths.

     In 1997, I got an opportunity to go to Bible school. It was not possible for me to go to Bible school for four months, so I told my family I was doing something else. While I was doing the Bible school, they came to know it, and after finishing the four-month course, I thought it would be impossible for me to return to my family. But by the grace of God, I was again allowed to come home.  So I stayed with them again, trying to share my Bible school experiences.  I now had a calling to serve God, and would not do a secular job. This decision made them angrier. At this time, my mother was working as a babysitter in Bahrain, and my sister was a software engineer. My brother was doing computer engineering. It was his first year in college, but the whole year, my brother did not go to school. He did not have a good circle of friends.  He started taking drugs, and one night, my brother didn’t come home because he got the hall ticket for an examination.  That day, my uncle tried to blame me for the condition of our house becoming like this.  And in the night, he planned to kill me.  But, I ran from the house at 2 a.m. and came to a believer’s home.

     After two or three days, I went back home with prayer, and my uncle said I would now have to go abroad for a secular job.  I had no options, so I agreed. He prepared my passport, and when the visa was on its way, I started praying to God, “Lord what shall I do?”  I heard the clear voice from the Lord that everyone is running for their own house, but who is going to work for Me? I was broken. It was hard for me to decide to leave home.  Ultimately, I made the decision to leave my home for the Lord’s service. I took my passport and ran away from my house.

     I started my ministry with nothing. I was working with Pastor Francis Lazarus in Hallelujah Evangelical Ministries. I left my home without anything, and I was staying in a house without any roof but the grace of God.  God lifted me up and started using me in the ministry.  I was doing ministry independently; we started a church with two people and it grew to 200 people.  We established three churches and about 24 cell groups, and we started a Bible school for young people for a period of one month. Almost 190 students have graduated from that school.  From 1997 God was especially using me in the field of music and worship, and it was my vision to have a good praise and worship team with a place where 24-hour worship would go on. I had a passionate desire to see revival among believers and to see India saturated with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

     In June, 2003 I started Praise Yahweh Ministries. I have a vision for music programs and worship seminars, village ministry, cell churches, concerts and an orphanage program – also a daycare center and kindergarten for slum children – and many more things. God has now blessed me with a wonderful wife, Ranjana, and two children: Enoch and Hephzibah.  My wife is from Panditha Ramabai Mukthi Mission, the oldest orphanage in India. She grew up there and accepted Jesus at the age of 14. She did her disciple training school with Youth With A Mission, and we now have a heart to serve the Lord among the poor community, especially among children. There are so many testimonies and so many miracles which cannot be written, but these are the things God has put in my heart to share sincerely. Thank you for reading my testimony. Please pray for me and my family and ministry. Amen!

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