He told us where you would be executed and what time.

” [music] He said to wait until nightfall and retrieve your body for burial.

I stared at him.

Rashid sent you.

He [music] nodded.

He did not think you would survive.

None of us did.

But when we found you, you still had a pulse.

Weak but there.

So we brought you here.

[music] Tears filled my eyes.

Rashid, my brother, the man who shot me, also the man who saved me.

I spent three days in that clinic drifting in and out of consciousness.

The church members took turns watching over me, praying for me, caring for me.

On the third day, I woke up fully.

I could breathe.

I could sit up.

I was alive.

One of the men, Tariq, the former imam who had baptized me, sat beside my bed.

He said, “But Karim, we need to get you out of Raqqa.

ISIS is looking for your body.

There are rumors you survived.

If they find you, they will finish [music] the job.

I said, “Where can I go?” He said, “We have a route.

We have used it to smuggle others out.

[music] It is dangerous, but it is your only chance.

” I said, “What about the rest of you?” He said, “We will be fine.

This is not about us.

This is about you.

God has kept you alive for a reason.

You need to [music] survive.

You need to tell the world what is happening here.

I said, I do not know if I can.

He took my hand.

He said, “You can because Jesus is with you.

” And he was right.

If you have made it this far, you are part of a small group who refuses to look away from hard truths.

Before I finish this story, I need you to do two things.

First, subscribe to this channel.

Not for entertainment, but because these testimonies save lives.

[music] Every subscriber tells YouTube this content matters.

Second, [music] share this video with one person, just one, because someone in your life needs to hear [music] that Jesus is real, that miracles still happen, and that faith is worth everything.

[music] Do not let my story end with you.

X5 escape in exile and [music] 25 yard 30.

I woke up on the third day.

It was Easter Sunday.

I did not know that at the time.

I had lost track of the days.

But later when Tariq told me, I wept.

Jesus rose on the third day.

And so did I.

Not from the dead, not fully, but from the edge of death.

I could sit up.

I could breathe without feeling like my chest was being [music] crushed.

The pain was still there, sharp, constant, unrelenting.

But I was [music] alive.

The church members gathered around my bed.

They prayed.

They sang.

They thanked God.

And then Tariq said, “Karim, [music] we need to talk about what happens next.

” I knew what he meant.

I [music] could not stay in Raqqa.

ISIS was searching for my body.

They had heard rumors that I had survived.

They were going [music] doortodoor, checking homes, interrogating people.

If they found me, they would not make the same mistake [music] twice.

Tariq said, “We have a route.

We have used it to get others out.

[music] It goes through Kobani, then into Turkey.

It is dangerous.

There are checkpoints.

There are informants.

But it is your only option.

” [music] I said, “What about all of you? If I leave and they find out you help me, they will kill you.

He smiled, a sad, [music] tired smile.

He said, “Karim, we are already dead.

Every day we wake up in this city, [music] we are living on borrowed time.

But you, you have a purpose.

You survived an execution.

[music] You saw Jesus.

You have a testimony that the world needs to hear.

” I said, “I do not feel like I have a purpose.

I feel like [music] a coward.

I feel like I should have died with dignity like Dr.

Yousef.

” Tariq [music] leaned forward.

He said, “Dr.

Yousef’s death was not in vain.

[music] He planted seeds.

One of those seeds was you.

And now you are going to plant seeds in others.

That is how the kingdom works, Karim.

[music] We do not all get to see the harvest, but we all get to plant.

I nodded.

I did not fully believe him, but I trusted him.

3 days later, on a moonless night, I left Raqqa.

I traveled with two other members of the church, a nurse named Amira and a young man named Ysef.

Both of them were also fleeing.

We were disguised.

I was dressed as a wounded ISIS fighter.

Bandages wrapped around my chest.

Fake medical documents in my pocket.

A mirror was disguised as my wife.

Yousef was disguised as my brother.

We traveled in an old ambulance that the church had stolen months earlier.

It still had the ISIS flag painted on [music] the side.

Our plan was simple.

Drive through the checkpoints, pretend to be transferring a wounded fighter [music] to a hospital in Kabani, and pray that no one looked too closely.

It was a terrible plan, [music] but it was the only plan we had.

The first checkpoint was at the edge of Raqqa.

Two [music] guards stopped us.

One of them shown a flashlight into the ambulance.

He looked at me lying on the stretcher covered in bandages.

He said, “What happened to him?” Yousef [music] playing the role of my brother said, “Shrapnel from an airirst strike.

We are taking [music] him to Kobani for surgery.

The guard looked at the documents.

He looked at me.

He looked at Ysef.

[music] And then he waved us through.

I did not breathe until we were a kilometer down the road.

The second checkpoint was worse.

It was manned by four guards, all of them heavily armed.

One of them recognized me.

He walked up to the ambulance, looked at my face, and said, [music] “I know you.

” My heart stopped.

He said, “You are Dr.

Al-Mazri.

You operated on me last year.

Gunshot wound to the abdomen.

” I stared at him.

He stared back.

And then he said, “You saved [music] my life.

” I did not know what to say.

He looked around, making sure the other guards were not listening.

Then he leaned in close and whispered, “I heard what happened to you.

[music] I heard they executed you in the square.

” I said nothing.

He said, “I do not agree with what they [music] did.

You are a good doctor.

You saved my life when you did not have to.

” He stepped [music] back.

He raised his voice and said, “You are clear.

Go.

” And he waved [music] us through.

Another miracle.

We drove for 3 hours through the desert, through abandoned villages, [music] through roads created by air strikes.

We reached Kobani just before dawn.

Kobani [music] was controlled by Kurdish forces.

They were fighting ISIS.

They [music] were not friendly to Arabs, but they were not ISIS.

We ditched the ambulance and walked the rest of the way to the Turkish border.

[music] It took us 2 weeks.

We slept in abandoned buildings.

We ate whatever we could find.

We avoided people.

Amamira got sick.

Dissantry.

[music] She could barely walk.

Yousef carried her for the last 3 days.

I was still [music] weak from my wounds.

Every step felt like my chest was being ripped open.

[music] But we kept moving because stopping meant dying.

On April 30th, 2016, [music] we crossed into Turkey.

We walked across a field through a gap in [music] the fence and collapsed on the other side.

We were free.

We were taken to a refugee camp in Gaziantep, a city near the Syrian border.

[music] The camp was overcrowded.

Tens of thousands of people, all fleeing the same war, all carrying the same trauma.

We registered with the UNHCR, [music] the United Nations Refugee Agency.

They took our information.

[music] They took our photos.

They told us to wait.

Wait for what? For asylum.

For resettlement? For a country to accept us, the [music] average wait time was 2 years.

I lived in that camp for 18 months.

18 months of limbo.

No job, no future, no purpose, just [music] waiting.

I struggled.

I was angry at God.

I prayed, “Why did you save me? [music] Why did you let me survive only to trap me here in this camp doing nothing?” I had nightmares every night.

I saw Rashid’s [music] face.

I heard the gunshots.

I felt the bullets entering my chest.

I woke up screaming.

The other refugees thought I was crazy.

Maybe I was.

I also struggled [music] with guilt.

Survivors guilt.

Dr.

Yousef was dead.

My mother was dead.

Dozens of Christians in Raqqa were dead.

And I was alive.

Why? What made me so special? [music] I did not have an answer.

But slowly over those 18 months, I started to heal.

Not physically, my [music] chest still hurt.

I still had trouble breathing.

I still had scars.

[music] But emotionally, spiritually, I connected with other Syrian Christians in the camp.

[music] We formed a small church.

We met in a tent.

We prayed.

We worshiped.

We encouraged each other.

I started sharing my testimony.

At first, I did not want to.

I was ashamed.

I felt like a failure.

[music] But people kept asking, “Is it true you were executed? Is it [music] true you survived? Is it true you saw Jesus?” And every time I told the story, I felt a little more whole because I realized [music] this is why I survived.

Not for
myself, for them.

for the people who needed to hear that God is real, that miracles still happen, [music] that faith is worth the cost.

In late 2017, my case was picked up by a Christian persecution watchdog organization.

[music] They verified my story, they interviewed witnesses, they reviewed medical records, and they fasttracked my asylum application.

In November 2018, [music] I was granted asylum in a European country.

I cannot tell you which one.

for security reasons.

But I am here.

I am safe and I am alive.

I cannot practice medicine here.

My credentials are not recognized.

[music] And honestly, I am too traumatized to go back into surgery.

But I found a different calling.

[music] I started a ministry called the Syrian Believers Network.

We help persecuted [music] Christians escape Syria and Iraq.

We provide safe houses.

We provide smuggling routes.

[music] We provide legal assistance.

In the past 6 years, we have helped 153 people find asylum.

153 lives.

It does not bring back the people I lost, [music] but it honors them.

I still have the scars.

Two bullet wounds on my chest.

I see them every morning when I get dressed.

I also have the X-rays.

I brought them with me when I fled Syria.

They show the bullet trajectories.

One bullet entered my left chest, punctured my lung, [music] and stopped just short of my spine.

The other bullet entered my right chest, and stopped 3 mm
from my iort.

3 mm.

I have shown these X-rays to doctors here in Europe.

Every single one of them has said the [music] same thing.

You should not be alive.

And I say I know because it was not luck.

It was not chance.

It was Jesus.

[music] I know what you are thinking.

How did he survive? What happened next? [music] Did his brother ever repent? If you stop watching now, you will miss the most important part of this story.

The part that proves God is real.

The part that shows miracles still happen.

Stay with me.

The story is not over.

Act six.

Resolution and redemption.

[music] 30 35 Jaws.

in 1500 words.

I am 38 years old now.

I live in Europe.

I cannot tell you where.

I work with the Syrian Believers Network full-time.

I speak at churches.

I share my testimony.

[music] I raise funds to help persecuted Christians.

I take medication for PTSD.

I go to therapy every week.

I have chronic pain from my injuries.

I am not a superhero.

I am not a perfect Christian.

I’m a broken man who serves a perfect God.

But there’s one part of my story I have not told you yet.

The part about my brother.

In 2019, 3 years after my execution, I received a message.

It came through an encrypted [music] app from an unknown number.

The message said, “Brother, it is Rasheed.

I cannot say much.

They are watching.

But I need you to know I think about you every day.

I hear your words in my sleep.

I see your face when I close my eyes.

I do not know if your Jesus is real, but I know Islam has made me a monster.

I killed my own brother, and I do not know how to live with that.

If you are alive, if you receive this, pray for me.

I am in hell.

I stared at that message for an hour.

I did not know if it was real.

I did not know if it was a trap.

But I responded.

I said, “Rashed, I am alive.

Jesus saved me.

He can save you too.

I forgive you.

I love you.

I did not hear back for 6 months.

And then another message.

I am reading the book you loved.

The one about the man who loved his enemies.

I do not understand it yet, but I am reading.

He was reading the Bible.

My brother, [music] the ISIS commander, the executioner was reading the Bible.

I wept.

I fell to my knees and I thanked God.

Since [music] then, we have communicated sporadically, maybe once every few months.

He is still in Syria.

He is still with ISIS, as far as I [music] know, but he is questioning.

He asked me questions.

Why did Jesus have to die? How can God be three persons? What happens to Muslims when they die? I answer as best I can.

I do not know if he will ever fully convert.

I do not know if I will ever see him again in this life.

But I have hope because the same Jesus who saved me can save him.

The same Jesus who stopped bullets can soften hearts.

My father is still alive.

[music] He is still an imam in Aleppo.

He still disowns me publicly.

[music] But I received a letter two years ago from one of his friends.

The friend told me that my father keeps a photo of me in his Quran.

He looks at it every night before he prays.

And he prays for me.

He does not pray that I come back to Islam.

He prays that I am safe.

That is not much, but it is something.

I pray for him every day.

I pray that before he dies, he will know Jesus.

I pray that we will be reconciled not just as father and son, but as brothers in Christ.

People ask me all the time, Karim, why did God let your mother die? Why did God allow you to be executed? Why did God let you suffer so much? And I tell [music] them the truth.

I do not know.

I do not have all the answers.

I do not understand why God does what he does, but I trust him because I have seen his faithfulness.

[music] He was with me in the operating room when I was treating ISIS fighters.

He was with me in the morg when I was baptized.

[music] He was with me in the cell the night before my execution.

He was with me in al-naim square [music] when the bullets entered my chest.

He was with me when I was lying in the dirt bleeding out alone.

[music] He has never left me and he will never leave you.

Jesus never promised us an easy life.

He never promised us comfort or safety or success.

He promised us [music] his presence and that is enough.

My scars are not a tragedy.

They are my credentials.

They are proof that I have been where I say I have been.

They are proof that God is faithful.

They are proof that miracles [music] still happen.

I want to speak to three groups of people right now.

First, to the persecuted church.

If you are watching this from Syria, from Iraq, from Iran, from Afghanistan, from North Korea, [music] from any place where following Jesus means risking your life, I want you to know [music] you are not alone.

Jesus is with you.

Even in the prison cell, even in the execution square, even when [music] your own family betrays you, he is with you.

And your suffering is not in vain.

The blood of the martyrs is the seed [music] of the church.

Your faithfulness is planting seeds that will grow into a harvest you may never [music] see.

But God sees and he will reward you.

Second to the seekers.

[music] If you are Muslim, if you are questioning Islam, if you are searching for truth, I was you.

I know the cost.

[music] I know what you will lose.

your family, your friends, your reputation, maybe your life.

But I also know what you will gain.

Peace, joy, purpose, eternal life.

Jesus is [music] real.

He is not just a prophet.

He is the son of God.

He died for your sins.

[music] He rose from the dead.

He is alive today.

And he is calling you.

Do not wait until it is too late.

Seek him now.

Read the Bible.

pray.

[music] Ask him to reveal himself to you and he will.

I promise you he will.

Third, to the believers in the West, [music] if you are watching this from America, from Europe, from any place where you have the freedom to worship without fear.

Do not [music] take it for granted.

Do not be silent.

Do not scroll past this video and forget.

There are thousands of Karims right now facing execution for their faith.

Pray for them.

Support ministries that help them.

Share their stories.

And ask yourself, am I willing to pay the price they’re paying because one day you might have to.

[music] Persecution is coming to the West.

It may not look like ISIS.

It may not look like public executions, but it is coming.

And when it does, will you stand firm? Will you deny Jesus to save your reputation, your career, your comfort? Or will you say, [music] like I said in Al-Naimm Square, I would rather die for him than live without him.

I do not know how much time I have left.

I do not know if ISIS will find me.

I do not know if I will die of old age or disease or violence.

But I know this.

I am ready because I have already died once and I have already seen what is on the other side.

Jesus is real.

Heaven is real and it is worth everything.

If you want to know more about Jesus, comment, [music] “I want to know more and I will personally respond.

” If you are a believer, comment praying for Syria so the algorithm knows this [music] matters.

And if you are facing persecution right now, comment pray for me and this community will surround you.

[music] Do not stay silent.

Your voice matters.

Your story matters and Jesus is with you.

My name is Dr.

Kharim Al- Masri.

I was executed by my own brother for following Jesus Christ.

But I am still here and I will keep telling this story until my last breath because the world needs to know Jesus is  alive.

Miracles still happen and faith is worth dying for.

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(1848, Macon) Light-Skinned Woman Disguised as White Master: 1,000-Mile Escape in Plain Sight

The hand holding the scissors trembled slightly as Ellen Craft stared at her reflection in the small cracked mirror.

In 72 hours, she would be sitting in a first class train car next to a man who had known her since childhood.

A man who could have her dragged back in chains with a single word.

And he wouldn’t recognize her.

Continue reading….
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