Saved at Four, Standing for Christ in a Muslim Home Lydia’s Testimony

My name is Lydia, and I was born in Glasgow, Scotland.

I was brought up in Cairo and Kuwait. At the age of nine, I moved to Qatar for a period of six years, and then on to the United Arab Emirates, where I now reside.

For most of my life, I have lived a difficult “double life” because my father was a Muslim and my mother a Christian.

I went to a private British school in Cairo. Being registered as a Muslim, I had to take part in Islamic Studies, which included learning the Koran and studying the lives of the prophets. Yet even at that time, I knew about Jesus. At that early age, I recognized that the teaching of Islam was wrong.

During these early years, my mother was allowed to take us to church every week. She taught us to believe in Jesus, to pray, and to live by faith.

I was converted to Christianity at the tender age of four in Kuwait. I was sitting on the bed, talking to my mother about the Lord Jesus Christ. She asked me if I wanted to be saved, and when I said, “Yes,” we prayed together, and I believed.

On moving to Qatar at the age of nine, I was still unable to speak Arabic. Although Dad spoke to us in Arabic, the language of our home was English.

Dad decided to take me out of private schooling and put me into a government-run public school, where the language of instruction was Arabic. This changed my whole life, as I had to relearn all my subjects in a foreign language.

The teachers were unsympathetic and very strict, often punishing me with beatings from a stick because I struggled so much with the language.

My Religious Studies teacher loved humiliating me in front of everyone. She knew the great difficulty I had with the language, yet she persisted in embarrassing me by making me stand in front of the class and read the Koran aloud in Arabic.

Some of my teachers bullied me, and some even slapped me across the face simply because I was not a “true” Muslim in their eyes.

I hated this time at school because my experiences with the teachers had such a negative impact on me.

At the age of 12, I remember coming to the Isle of Lewis in Scotland for a holiday, and for the first time in my life, I revelled in true Christian fellowship.

God always provided His grace and encouragement when I most needed it. He always seemed to step into my life at the most appropriate times, meeting the exact needs of my soul.

Over the next ten years, it was much the same as far as everyday schooling and life were concerned. Mum often encouraged me by telling me that the Lord would one day use my difficult experiences to help other Christians who would go through similar trials.

I also gained firsthand knowledge of the reality of Islam, and I am now able to tell others in the West about what I personally experienced while growing up under its influence.

I went on to study Computing at U.A.E. University, and some of my closest friends were Lebanese, Palestinian, and Syrian. To some extent, they were devout Muslims, and for a time this influenced my dress, mannerisms, and behaviour.

They presented to me what seemed to be the “attractive” side of Islam—the modest apparel, the expectations placed upon women, and their daily mode of religious behaviour.

The Lord, however, had a stronger grip on my hand than I had on His.

I was awakened through a rebuke that showed me that I had to make a decision—Christianity or Islam.

I had no difficulty making my choice.

Two of my best friends’ uncles at this time were suicide bombers. I also became aware of a growing love and burden for God’s chosen people, the Jews. I had witnessed hostility toward Judaism while, at the same time, I marvelled at the way in which God had preserved the Jewish people throughout the centuries.

On leaving university, I thought that all my difficulties lay behind me.

I was so wrong!

New trials and greater difficulties lay ahead.

It was considered the normal thing for a woman in her early twenties to get married. My dad and his friends tried their utmost to find a match for me, but I was having none of it.

He thought that he was doing his best for me by trying to provide a suitable husband. Little did he understand how this used to break my heart and cause me no end of deep anxiety.

My dad’s attempts at arranging a marriage lasted for the best part of eight years.

Now it seems that I am considered beyond marriage, and Dad has given up trying to find a match for me. In his eyes, and in the eyes of much of the society around me, I am a hopeless case because I choose to remain single.

I do this in obedience to God’s Word, which says:

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.”

If the Lord wills, then He will unite me in marriage with the man of His choosing and in His time.

The Lord has blessed my obedience as I seek to put Him first in every aspect of my life.

This last year, He has opened doors of opportunity that I could never have dreamed of before.

I am now a secondary school Computing teacher in the Middle East.

At the beginning of this year, I had such a yearning to serve God more fully that, in frustration, I cried out to Him:

“Am I the only Christian in this place?”

From that time on, He has brought one Christian friend after another into my life.

Some were teachers I had worked alongside, yet I had not realized that they were believers. Some were students I had taught, and some were neighbours.

There now seems to be a new Christian contact coming into my life each day.

I sometimes feel overwhelmed with the joy and excitement of these new opportunities to witness and to have fellowship with others.

This is only the beginning.

My desire is to serve the Lord each day that I live, and I am open to His leading.

He does all things well.

I will close now with a heartfelt plea that my brothers and sisters in Christ would learn to love Muslims, but not Islam. They are precious souls who need the Lord Jesus Christ. Only God can set a soul free from spiritual darkness.

Pray also for God’s people living in Islamic lands and for those who face rejection, persecution, and even death because of their faith in Jesus Christ.

Through all the different countries, schools, pressures, fears, and trials of my life, the Lord has remained faithful.

I was only four years old when my mother sat with me on a bed in Kuwait and told me about Jesus.

Years later, surrounded by Islam and faced with the question of which way I would go, my answer was still the same:

Jesus Christ.

“Them that honour me I will honour.” — 1 Samuel 2:30

—Lydia