One Somali man had an incredible journey from being an agnostic refugee to being redeemed by Christ and becoming a World Challenge partner.

As the church service drew to a close, Abdi noticed several men closing in on him. They pushed through the normal Easter crowd until they were in ring around him, and one tried to grab his arm.

“What are you doing?” he asked, uneasy. “Who are you?”

“We need you to come outside with us.”

“Why don’t we go to the pastor’s office? We can talk there.” Abdi glanced around, trying to catch the eye of anyone who might help him. He didn’t know who these men were, but he didn’t want to be left alone with them.

“You need to come with us, otherwise you’re going to get into serious trouble,” One said, as he pushed Abdi toward the door.

A Refugee From Somalia

Abdi grew up in Somalia, once part of Arabic traders’ ancient Silk Road and home to some of Africa’s oldest mosques. Many of his neighbors and family members believed that to be Somali was to also be Muslim.

When Abid was young, his father did not have the resources to care for all his children. Abdi was sent to live with his uncle and aunt who was a Swiss woman. His uncle had no time for religion, but his aunt was a Christian and ran a medical clinic in Mogadishu, the capital. As he grew older, Abdi was nominally Muslim like most of his peers. He attended Islamic school and the mosque, but he also worked with his aunt in the clinic. Her health was declining, and she needed his help, eventually leaving it almost entirely in his care.

One day, some Sharia police—enforcers of religious law—noticed that the clinic was open during the traditional prayer time.

Furious, they entered and began shoving people out into the street, shouting, “You should be at the mosque.” They demanded to see who was running the clinic. Only Abdi was there, so they recorded him as the clinic’s director.

That night, the phone began ringing. Abdi answered; it was his neighbor. “You need to leave. The neighborhood Sharia committee has decided to arrest you for being a kafir, an infidel, and they’ll put you to death.”

“But I’m not a Christian,” Abdi protested.

“Doesn’t matter. They’re coming for you. Better leave tonight.”

Finding the Soul Doctor

With the help of his uncle and some family friends, Abdi fled the country that night. He surrendered himself to the border guards as a refugee, and he began building a new life and his own business in another country.

Although his job running a cosmetics shop was going well, Abdi started finding sleep more and more elusive. He spent long hours of the night calculating how many products he needed to sell in order to make a profit. However, while he was working with clients, the numbers became jumbled in his head. His eyes couldn’t seem to focus.

Some of his coworkers told him that he’d been cursed by one of their competitors. A friend offered to go see a witchdoctor with him.

In a filthy hut, the witchdoctor scratched Abdi’s palm and interrogated him about his family history. Then he told Abdi that his shadow had been stolen by a competitor and that he needed to wash himself with dirty herbal water and hire people to read the Koran in his house for seven days.

The readers were exorbitantly expensive to hire, also requiring several nice meals every day, but Abdi followed his instructions.

Nothing helped. He still couldn’t sleep at night.

Exhausted, he sat down and thought about his aunt and her faith in Isa, Jesus. For the first time, he began to pray. Suddenly, he saw Jesus in front of him surrounded by people who were worshiping him.

Haunted by Islam

Shaken by the vision, Abdi contacted a South Korean missionary his aunt had known. The missionary was working in a different country at the time, but she put him in contact with Somali Christians in another city.

Abdi met them, and had to prove that he was truly interested in Jesus so they could safely welcome him into the fellowship.

He prayed for Christ to save him, and for the first time in a long while, he slept. “God does give sleep to those he loves, like Psalm 127 says.”

He found a church and began attending it. While he was there, a flare up of terrorist acts in East Africa blazed across the news. His neighbors angrily muttered about these militant Muslim groups. Abdi wondered if he should stay home that Sunday and pray alone, but it was Easter. He wanted to go to church.

The service went well, and he almost thought his worries had been for nothing.

Then the men surrounded him and shoved him toward the church doors and herded him toward a police van. They accused him of being a member of al-Shabaab.

“No, I’m not,” Abdi protested. “Ask the pastor—anyone!—I’m a believer of Jesus Christ.”

“Sure, sure. Then they pushed him into the van. ”Since when does a Somali become a Christian? You’re just lying.”

(To be continued…)