Behold, I was dead, and now I am alive; I hold the keys of death and Hades.” My name is Silas A___.
When I was two years old, my father was accused of blasphemy for his Christian faith and he was imprisoned, receiving a life sentence. However, after four years, he was released, and we moved from Sialkot to Islamabad. As I grew up, I began handling the household chores and attending school. During that time, I also started playing cricket and even began gambling. I sold all of my mother’s metal utensils to place bets and lost everything.
In 2011, I created a Facebook account and quickly amassed over 5,000 friends. My life revolved around inappropriate content. I was deeply lost and even harbored thoughts of becoming of wanting to harm others. But in 2015, something significant happened in my life.
In 2015, I joined the army and started my training. After three days, I returned home. When the schools reopened, I was going to drop my sister-in-law and my younger sister to school. On the way, we had an accident, but God miraculously saved us. We were hospitalized briefly and then sent home, and life went on as usual. The next day, the pastor visited and asked me if I realized that God had saved me for a reason. I shrugged it off because I had a lot of resentment towards God, thinking He only supported the guilty and not the innocent. But as soon as the pastor left, I turned on a Christian channel on TV but was not really wanting to watch it. I was irritated, but I kept quiet. The next day, the pastor came again, and I was watching a cricket match, but I switched back to the Christian channel as soon as he arrived. He asked me about the match rules, and I explained them to him. After praying, he left. The third day, I thought about how I feared the pastor but had no fear of God’s presence. I turned on another Christian channel and heard a pastor talk about how to pray. I had never prayed before, so I tried it, confessing my sins to God. Tears began streaming down my face for two hours, and I heard a voice telling me that if my sins were as red as scarlet, He would make them as white as snow. I had never heard that before, and it filled me with both fear and peace. The pastor asked me what happened, and I told him I felt emotional.
He said it was the Word of God touching my heart. I started attending church and was baptized in October of that year. The pastor told me that God had called me for a purpose, but I took it lightly at the time. Later, I realized the significance. I began to share my testimony with my friends, even on a bus where there were Muslims and other people sitting in the bus. In Pakistan, it’s common for people to ask for alms or donations for religious schools on local buses. So, I stood up on the bus and said, “I am not here to ask for alms, nor to collect donations. I want to tell you one thing: Jesus has changed my life. I used to live a life full of sin and wrongdoing, but Jesus transformed me. He said, ‘I am the way and the truth, and no one can come to the Father except through me.” After saying this, the next stop arrived, and I got off and went home telling everyone about how God changed my life. I was afraid of a backlash, but God gave me peace. And now, I continue to share the good news, and I’m grateful that God is using me like a vessel to spread His word.
The first time I went to share the gospel, I went to Peshawar and met a Muslim cleric in a park there. I asked him if he knew about Jesus Christ, and he asked me three questions: Who is Jesus? Where does He live? What does He do? When he asked these questions, I felt a deep regret for my 19 years of life, realizing that someone who had never heard of Jesus, the one who died on the cross for us, was quite shocking. At that moment, I felt that God had called me to share the gospel. The cleric had been there for about 25 years, and I told him that if I prayed in the name of Jesus, he would be healed. I prayed for him, and his headache completely went away. He took off his cap and said his arm hurt as well, so I prayed for his arm, and it was completely healed too. I had about 13 gospels with me, and he said he would take them to his religious school and share about Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. After that, we went to Upper Dir, and a few days later, we returned to Mardan. We went to the British Council museum early in the morning, and there were some janitors cleaning up. I shared the gospel with them and with some students as well. One cleric there mentioned he was going to Saudi Arabia, where the Bible wasn’t allowed, and I said, “That’s fine, you don’t have to take it.” In the meantime, I overheard the janitors talking about reporting us to the police, and I understood their language, so I told my friends, and we decided to pray. As soon as we prayed, the gate locked behind us with a heavy chain. I remembered a verse: “Behold, I was dead, and now I am alive; I hold the keys of death and Hades.” I prayed, “God, if it’s Your will for us to go to prison, I’m ready; if not, You can open this lock.” As soon as I said “Amen,” the lock opened by itself. I felt so remorseful for not having truly lived for God all these years. From that moment, I dedicated my life
to Him. After that, God used me in various cities and provinces in Pakistan, and I’m grateful for the fruit He’s given. Eventually, I was called to Iraq, where we started a ministry school. We reached out to families, worshiped together, and saw 39 families come to faith. One man, Sadiq, became a believer after we visited him every Friday. When he got baptized, his neighbors, who were Syrian, started to hate him, and even his wife turned against him. One day, he came to our place, very upset, and said he could bear everything except his wife’s hatred. We prayed together, and that night, at around 2:30 a.m., his wife had a dream of a luminous figure with wounds in his hands and feet, and the figure asked her if she loved the men who visited their home. She said no the first two times, but the third time, she started to cry. Her husband asked her what happened, and she told him about the dream. He called us, and we met at 3 a.m., and we explained that this was Jesus. That same night, she got baptized, and now her faith is even stronger than her husband’s. They go to church every Friday. So, they would go there every Friday and share the Good News, but then, due to some tensions between Iran and America—when America killed an Iranian general—we had to leave Iraq, as they could have deported us. Instead of going to Pakistan, we went to Mauritania, where we stayed for about eight months. Mauritania is in North Africa, and while we were there, we continued sharing the Good News for about six months. During that time, people’s reactions varied: sometimes they would wave their hands, sometimes they would spit at us, but we thanked God for it.
Then, at the end of the sixth month, when COVID hit, lockdowns started, and everyone had to stay home by 5 PM. We were also building a house in the area where we lived, and we met a young man named Radefo. After meeting him, we shared the Good News with him. We also invited him home, shared Pakistani food, taught him guitar, and worshiped together. Through that, he came to understand that Jesus is the Messiah and accepted Him into his life.
When it came time for baptism, Radefo wanted to be baptized in the sea. So, we went to the sea and baptized him, and that marked the start of the seventh month. We prayed and asked God for His Word, and God spoke to us about , similar to the prophet Elijah and the rain that he prayed for.
Elijah said, “Prepare yourselves, for there is a forecast of heavy rain.” At that time, Elijah sent his servant to the sea six times, and each time the servant went, there
was nothing. But on the seventh time, a cloud as small as a human hand appeared. in the same way, God showed us that there are six cycles in six months in this land, and the seventh cycle is the seventh month, and after that, the cloud as small as a human hand appears, and then God will send heavy rain.
We hadn’t asked for rain in a physical sense, but God initiated it physically, pouring it down from the sky. the rain came and then ceased,
As we continued, we saw how the physical weather reflected the spiritual changes, and the sea became beautifully calm and blue. It was a reflection of the transformation in Radefo’s life. I asked the people, “Has it ever happened like this in Mauritania before?” They said, “Yes, today, because of Eid al-Adha, God sent the rain with joy.” I asked, “Has it ever happened like this before during Eid?” and they said, “No, this is the first time.” I knew why, because when someone repents on earth, there is joy before the angels of God. I believed that then, I believe that now, and I will always believe it. And so, God established the Church in eight different places afterward. We thank God for this work.
When I asked Radefo why he wanted to be baptized on Easter, he told me that you had explained that baptism means that when we go into the water, it symbolizes standing with Christ in His death on the cross. Just as Christ was on the cross, we are also there with Him. And when we go down into the water, it means we are dying to sin, our old self is buried in the water. And as we rise up, we emerge as a new creation, a new life. He said that he didn’t want to die alone in sin, but wanted to be baptized on behalf of Mauritania, to die symbolically for Mauritania. And just as a goat is sacrificed on Eid for people’s sins, he wanted to be buried in the water for Mauritania, so that Mauritania would come alive with him. Hearing those words, I was truly shocked; those were words of immense faith that Radefo spoke.
After we returned from Mauritania, I continued the mission in Pakistan, using methods like the one-to-one and street Evangelism Camel Method for evangelism, and we saw fruit and growth in people’s faith. We are grateful for all that God is doing, and we continue to witness people coming to faith.
That’s basically the journey and how God’s work unfolded along the way.
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