"On the way home from witnessing at the beach this evening, we made a
last minute stop at a Taco Bell for dinner. As I placed my order inside,
I handed the cashier a Gospel tract and told her that it contained
information that could change her life. I shared with her briefly how
none of us are good and how we all desperately need a Savior, and Jesus
is the only One. A few minutes later, she came up to me from around the
counter with tears in her eyes and she said to me, "Thank you so much
for giving me this card and talking with me. You have no idea how
perfect this was for me tonight. You'll never understand the timing of
this. I can't believe it! Seriously!" I asked her what she meant and all
she could get out of her mouth was, "I was about to do something real
bad and you stopped me." Josh Page
One Crumpled Tract
I
CAME TO KNOW THE LORD through a simple crumpled piece of paper. It was a gospel
tract.
For
some time in my life I had been very upset. feeling the weight of sin and
guilt. I could not find employment, and I decided life was not worth living.
One day I went to the railroad station with the intention of throwing myself in
front of a passing train.
I am
a Muslim, one of many in the Asian country where I live. I started talking to
Allah. “I am in such a predicament. Would you please help me? If you don’t help
me, I’m going to jump in front of a train and kill myself.”
I
thought about my parents and realized that if I committed suicide, I would not
see them again. I was very confused. While I was trying to sort it out in my
mind, the train passed. Here I had wanted to throw myself in its path, but I
was too distracted to hear it coming! The speeding train stirred up the usual
debris as it went by me - dirt, gravel, bits of waste. scraps of paper. A
wadded-up piece of paper rolled to a stop at my feet; it looked like paper that
had been used by a vendor on the train to wrap peanuts for a customer.
Sitting
there thinking, I ignored the paper for a time. But then for some reason I
picked it up and smoothed it out. My eyes focused upon it, and I read the
words, “Good News,” What news could be good, I wondered?
I
read further. It said that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Prince of
Peace. A simple message followed. As I read the paper, I began to feel a little
peace coming to me. I read it again and again. Darkness came, so I moved under
a light and continued reading that piece of paper, each time feeling more
peaceful inside.
I
thought. Who is this Jesus? As a Muslim I had always been taught to hate the
Name of Jesus. But then I didn’t know before that He offered peace!
I
stayed until ten that night reading that same piece of paper. The peace
continued to come to me, and I began weeping. I was not even aware of the
crowds of people coming and going around me.
Finally
I went home and ate some food, but I went on reading that same message
throughout the night. I didn’t know how to pray to the Christian’s God, but I
began talking to Him as a person. saying, “You claim to give peace. and I don’t
know anything about it. But I would like to have the peace You offer.” After
that I had a very good sleep.
For
the next six months I read the same message over and over again. I had nothing
else to help me. Then I got the idea that a Christian church would have the
Book that the paper talked about. so I found a church. Near the altar was a
Bible. After reading some of it. I didn’t want to leave it. Every day I walked
six mlles to the church so I could read the Bible for a couple of hours.
One
day the pastor of the church told me that an evangelistic meeting was going on
in a certain place. The meeting was conducted by an Assemblies of God church,
and I decided to attend. When I heard the message given by the speaker, I was
fully convinced in my heart of the truth being spoken and I surrendered myself
to Jesus Christ. I became acquainted with the pastor in charge of evangelism,
and he let me buy a Bible. How excited I was to have one of my very own!
I
continued to attend the meetings. When my parents realized how involved I was,
they became very upset and angry. The Muslims from my community began to
discuss what they should do about my becoming a Christian. They called my
parents to a special meeting in the mosque and told them that their son had
been unfaithful to his religion. My mother talked with me, asking me to keep
quiet about what I was doing because people were not liking what they heard.
But I had so much joy I wanted to tell everyone!
I
borrowed Christian books and read them. One day the people in my community came
to me, gathered my books, and burned them. They threatened my parents that if
they didn’t drive me away, they would be in trouble. When my parents came under
this pressure, they gave me an ultimatum: I would have to leave my new religion
or leave them.
My
family believed that I had become mentally unbalanced. They felt that, if they
sent me away for awhile, I would become “normal” again. Before I left, my
parents gathered some of the Muslim religious leaders, who performed one last
religious ceremony in an attempt to change me. It did not work!
My
parents sent me away to an island off the coast of my country. What they didn’t
know was I had locked my Bible away in a little box, and I took it with me.
They believed that some months spent in seclusion would restore my mental
health. Actually it gave me an unlimited time and freedom to study the Bible!
All by myself, reading God’s Word, I could feel Jesus Christ so close.
I
read in the Bible about water baptism and I felt I must be baptized. When at
last I returned to the big city, I looked up an address that had been given me
at the evangelistic meeting. It was a large Assemblies of God church. I met
with one of the pastors and arranged to be baptized.
Being
a Muslim and very family-oriented, I could not resist getting in touch with my
family again. They warned me that if I took Christian baptism, they would beat
me and never let me enter their home again. But I determined to follow the Lord
and I was baptized.
Sometime
later I went to visit my parents. I found a Muslim religious leader in my house
who asked me why I had left my religion to go to the Christians. I told him I
followed Jesus because He had given me joy and peace. I explained that Muhammad
had spread his religion by using force, but that Jesus Christ uses love, and I
had experienced that love.
The
Muslim leader and my family became so annoyed that they took their shoes off
and began to beat me. In my culture, using a shoe for this purpose is a most
degrading thing. Then they threw me out of the house and locked the door.
For
the next three years I had no home. I slept on train platforms, sometimes
staying with a friend, going from place to place trying to find employment and
a place to live. Through a series of people I met a man in charge of a Christian
outreach program who kindly employed me. I have worked there ever since.
One
day I went to a hospital to visit a patient. There I met a man whom I had known
from childhood. Before I was converted, I had belonged to a secret Communist
group that petformed various acts of crime, and this man was the leader of the
group. Naturally he had become very angry when I became a Christian, not only
because we both belonged to the same group, but also because he was a fellow
Muslim.
When
we saw each other at the hospital, I didn’t know what to do except smile.
This
only made him excited and angry. I went to him, put my arm on him, and started
talking. I asked him why he was so angry and what I had done to hurt him. He
pushed me against the wall and answered, “I’m going to murder you for what you
have done.”
But I
said, “Before you murder me, won’t you listen to what I have to tell
you?”
He
didn’t want to listen, but I silently asked the Lord to help me speak to him.
As we walked outside to an open space, he got a little calmer and asked what I
had to say. I knew he was thinking that if he got me outside, he could kill me.
During all this time I was praying to the Lord, asking Him for strength.
I
began explaining why I had become a Christian, telling the story of what I had
experienced. I told him that if he would accept Christ, he would have the same
peace in his life that I had discovered.
For
the first time my friend began to listen. I offered to pray for him, and he
kept quiet. He would not tell me his home address, but we arranged to meet
again.
After
two days we met again. I had many gospel tracts to give him, and again I shared
my testimony. When I asked if I could pray for him to receive Christ, he
laughed; but then he gave me permission to pray. I urged him to read the tracts
to find out what God could do for him. We set a date to meet again.
At
the next meeting my former leader told me that when he had left the last time,
he had ridden home in a crowded bus. While on the bus he read the tracts, and
the truth began hitting him “like a hammer.” He had become convinced of the
truth of the message, and now he wanted to know what he should do. I told him
to just surrender his life to Christ and receive Him into his heart. We walked
to the end of the park and prayed together. With tears in his eyes he said, “I
am feeling that someone is touching me.” He asked me to go to church with me,
and we attended the next service together. I loaned him my Bible, which he
smuggled into his house to read. Eventually he was baptized in water. Now the
hunter was the hunted one!
He
too had to change employment. He could not safely return to his community.
Someone in the church arranged a job for him, and he is now a staff member
involved in evangelizing others! Though the party people have enticed him with
more money and a better job, he cannot go back. He has indeed found the peace
of God, and his past life holds no attraction. Previously he had been such a
terror, it showed on his countenance. He now has a beautiful smlle, as peaceful
as that of a little child.
We
are both members of the local church and working for Jesus. It was all because
of a crumpled piece of paper, spewed out by a speeding train that was supposed
to end my life. Instead it brought peace - the Prince of Peace.
(the tract is produced and distributed by Evangelical
Tract Distributors (www.evangelicaltract.com))
