November 24, 1999
Sudanese Christians have
visions for gospel despite persecution
___Editor's note: The names in this story have been changed for security reasons.
___KHARTOUM, Sudan (BP) --Mohammed Abdoul-Rohman sits on a stool in his one-room shack on the edge of Khartoum, capital of Sudan, watching two of his daughters play outside.
___A small rat, which has found a home under his desk, sits nibbling on a crumb. It's a good sign. Rats can't eat crumbs if there's no food.
___Mohammed's wife left him shortly after one of their infant twin sons died. Left alonewith six children, Mohammed could no longer hold down a job and take care of his children, so he chose the latter.
BOYS WORK on their Koranic boards at Sheik Dafalla Al Saim Mosque in Omdurman, Sudan. In the Koranic schools, students memorize key elements of the Koran, Islam's holy book. (BP photo)
___They all live with him in the shack. Dirt covers the floor where the children play. The ceiling offers little protection from the elements. At $6 a month, the shack is overpriced.
___Growing up as a Beja--a Muslim people group living in Sudan, Eritrea and Egypt--Mohammed was given few spiritual tools to deal with his current struggle. No vocabulary exists in the Muslim worldview to express heartfelt pain.
___"Insha 'allah," says Mohammed as he raises his head, revealing sullen eyes. The phrase means "as God wills."
___It seems as if the only God he's ever known has sold Mohammed out.
___According to his Muslim beliefs, not only does God provide no help for his current problems, but it's God's will that he suffer.
___In Sudan, eight Muslim people groups have more than 1 million people each. The largest, Sudanese Arabs, make up about 60 percent of the population. Sixteen million of them live in Sudan and Egypt. Regardless of which people group they identify with, 70 percent of all Sudanese are Muslims.
___Among Muslims in Sudan, choosing a religion is like going to the closet and pulling out your father's old checkered jacket to wear--not because you like the style or fit, but because it's the only one hanging in the closet.
___"I'm a Muslim because my family is Muslim," says Ahmed Hafaz, a 30-year-old Arab in Sudan. He faithfully prays five times a day, like many of the nearly 1 billion Muslims worldwide.
___In Sudan, a secret security force, run by the government, monitors citizens suspected of breaking Islamic law and foreigners who might disrupt the government's control.
___The law also delivers severe punishments for disobedience. According to Islamic law, any Muslim who converts to Christianity can be given the death penalty. Any Sudanese Christian who tries to share the gospel with a Muslim can expect harassment, persecution and possibly a long jail sentence if caught.
___That--and the brutal treatment of non-Muslim peoples in the south--explains why the West often perceives Sudan as a nation of religious fundamentalists and terrorists dedicated to enforcing their creed by any means necessary.
___But many are trapped by a fundamentalist agenda they disagree with.
___Theologically, every Muslim who becomes a Christian must confront four issues: the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, the crucifixion and resurrection, and the Bible as the word of God. Missionaries and believers in many Muslim nations, like Sudan, struggle with how to present these truths in areas that often are hostile.
___But that didn't prevent Samir Muaz from hearing the gospel. When Christians couldn't reach him, God intervened and reached into Samir's life in a way only God could: through dreams, an increasing phenomenon in the Muslim world.
___One night, Samir says, Jesus appeared to him in a dream and asked, "Why did I have to rise from the dead?" In a second dream, Jesus said, "I am the Lord."
___In a third he said, "I am the crucified Lord." Next he showed Samir the Bible and said, "This is the word of God." Last, he showed him a pit of fire surrounded by wailing people and told him: "If you do not believe, this will be your destiny."
___In five dreams, God had personally dealt with three of the four theological issues Muslims confront. A frightened Samir finally went into a Christian church in Sudan. But the pastor, fearing government reprisal, was reluctant to tell him how to become a Christian.
___"Then I went and bought a Bible," Samir says. "The same one I saw in my dream. I read it in three or four months. There was a lot I didn't understand, but God explained it to me."
___The theological barriers to the gospel may be the easiest to overcome for Muslims who decide to follow Christ, however. Pressures from governments and families often present the toughest roadblocks.
___Hassan Abdoul-Karim knows well that the government watches him. Several years ago, he was imprisoned for holding church services in his home.
___"They hit us, sometimes they didn't feed us--many things," Hassan says. "But we felt Christ was with us."
___Hassan and Samir share a dream for Sudan: They want to start 50 churches in the next five years, the beginnings of a church-starting movement. They know they might pay in blood for it, but they believe God will plant those churches and many more. Why?
___Insha 'allah, they say. Because God wills it.
___
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