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March 7th, 2018.

The time was exactly 9.00 a.m, but the sun beating down on the sandstone tiles of Dera Square in Riad already felt like the anvil of a blacksmith.

It was hot, oppressive, and silent.

This place is known locally as Chop Chop Square.

It is a place where justice is dispensed not with a gavl, but with a sword.

I was kneeling in the center of the square.

My hands were tied behind my back with rough plastic zip ties that dug into my wrists, cutting off the circulation.

But I couldn’t feel the pain in my hands.

I couldn’t feel the gravel digging into my knees.

The only thing I could feel was the terrifying presence of the man standing behind me, the executioner.

I could hear his breathing.

Heavy, rhythmic, calm.

To him, this was just a job.

To me, it was the end of my earthly existence.

I saw the shadow of his arm raising up on the ground in front of me.

The shadow of the curved Arabian sword elongated as it reached the apex of its ark.

The crowd, thousands of them, pressed against the barricades.

They were so quiet, I could hear the flap of a pigeon’s wings overhead.

They were waiting for the blood.

They were waiting to see a head roll across the stones.

I closed my eyes.

I didn’t pray for rescue.

It was too late for that.

I prayed for reception.

Lord Jesus, I whispered, my throat dry as dust.

Receive my spirit.

I heard the whoosh of the blade cutting through the air.

It was a sharp distinct whistle of death.

My muscles tensed, preparing for the cold bite of steel, the severance of bone, the sudden darkness.

But the darkness never came.

Instead, a sound erupted that defied every law of physics.

Clang.

It wasn’t the wet thud of steel hitting flesh.

It was the ringing, vibrating sound of metal striking an impenetrable barrier.

It sounded like a sledgehammer hitting a solid steel vault.

The shockwave of the impact was so strong it knocked me sideways onto my shoulder.

I gasped, opening my eyes, expecting to see my own blood pooling on the white stones.

But there was no blood.

I looked up.

The executioner was stumbling backward, his face pale, his eyes wide with absolute primal terror.

He was clutching his right wrist.

The sword lay on the ground, vibrating, humming like a tuning fork.

He pointed a trembling finger at me and screamed, his voice cracking, “Sir, sorcery! He is a wizard!” But I knew.

As I looked at the space between my neck and the air above me, I saw the air shimmering like heat haze on a desert highway.

An invisible wall, a divine shield.

It wasn’t magic.

It was the king of kings standing between me and death.

My name is Aram.

And to understand the miracle of the sword, you have to understand the journey of the neck it was meant to cut.

I was not born a Christian.

I was born into the very heart of Islam.

My life began in Riad, a capital of Saudi Arabia, the cradle of the Muslim faith.

In my world, religion wasn’t something you did on Sundays.

It was the air you breathd.

It was the water you drank.

It was the rhythm of your heartbeat.

Five times a day, the adhan, the call to prayer would echo from the minouetses, bouncing off the concrete walls of our neighborhood.

Allah Akbar.

Allahu Akbar, God is greatest.

From the moment I could walk, my father took me to the mosque.

My father, he was not just a religious man.

He was an imam, a leader, a pillar of the community.

He was a man of stern face and rigid discipline.

He wore his white thogue with immaculate pride, and when he walked through the market, people would step aside out of respect.

I wanted nothing more than to be like him.

I wanted his approval.

I wanted his authority.

By the age of 12, I had memorized half of the Quran.

I could recite the sorus in perfect classical Arabic.

I learned that Islam was the final revelation, that the Quran was the uncreated word of Allah, and that Christians and Jews were cover infidels who had corrupted the truth.

I was taught that leaving Islam was the ultimate betrayal, a crime punishable by death.

I didn’t just believe this.

I embraced it.

I was a soldier for Allah in training.

For 28 years, this was my reality.

I was devout.

I was radical.

I was blind.

But God has a sense of humor.

He often hides his greatest treasures in the most unlikely places.

The year was 2010.

I was working in construction and renovation.

We were tasked with clearing out an old abandoned villa on the outskirts of the city.

The place was a ruin.

The walls were peeling, the windows were broken, and the floor was covered in a thick layer of desert dust and dead insects.

It smelled of abandonment and dry rot.

I was working in what used to be a library, prying up loose floorboards to check the foundation.

My crowbar hit something that wasn’t wood or concrete.

It was a hollow sound.

I pried the board loose and shown my flashlight into the darkness beneath.

There, wrapped in an old oilstained cloth, was a book.

I reached down and pulled it out.

My hands were shaking, though I didn’t know why.

I unwrapped the cloth.

The leather cover was cracked, faded, and worn smooth by years of handling.

There was no title on the front.

I opened it.

The pages were thin, yellowed, and brittle.

It was an Arabic translation of the Holy Bible, Alcatab Al- Mukanas.

In Saudi Arabia, this object is illegal.

It is considered spiritual poison, contraband worse than drugs.

If the religious police, the Mutawa, found this in my hands, I could be arrested, beaten, or worse.

My first instinct was to burn it.

My training told me to destroy the lies of the infidels.

I reached for my lighter, but then a wind seemed to blow through that closed room.

A thought clear and piercing entered my mind.

Read it.

Just read it.

I sat down on the dusty floor, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

I opened the book at random.

My eyes fell on the Gospel of Matthew.

Chapter 5, the Sermon on the Mount.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be covered.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

I stopped.

I reread that last line.

Love your enemies.

In all my years of studying the Quran, in all the sermons I had heard from my father, I had never heard a command like this.

I knew about justice.

I knew about retribution.

An eye for an eye.

But love your enemies.

This was radical.

This was dangerous.

This was beautiful.

It was as if water was being poured onto the parched soil of my soul.

I realized I was thirsty.

I had been thirsty my whole life, drinking the salt water of legalism.

And now, for the first time, I was tasting fresh water.

I didn’t leave the house for hours.

I sat there as the sun went down, reading by the light of my phone.

When the daylight faded, I read about a god who called himself father.

Abba, not a distant master who demanded submission, but a father who ran to embrace the prodigal son.

I read about Jesus, not Issa, the prophet who points to Allah, but Jesus, the son of God, who lays down his life for his friends.

That night, in the dust and the dark, the imam’s son died and a child of God was born.

I didn’t have a pastor.

I didn’t have a church.

I didn’t have a baptism service.

I just knelt on the broken floorboards and whispered, “Jesus, if you are real, I give you my life.

I am yours.

” The days that followed were a blur of ecstasy and terror.

I had found the truth, but the truth was a death sentence in my country.

I tried to act normal.

I went to the mosque with my father.

I stood in the lines of men bowing and prostrating.

But my heart was no longer chanting the prayers.

While my lips moved with the Arabic recitations of the Quran, my mind was reciting the Lord’s prayer.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

It felt like I was a spy in my own life.

I smuggled the Bible home.

It was the most dangerous thing I had ever done.

I hid it inside my mattress, cutting a slit in the foam and sliding the book deep inside.

Every night after my family went to sleep, I would carefully extract it and read by the glow of a small pen light under my blanket.

I devoured the word.

I memorized entire chapters of John and Romans, knowing that if the book was ever taken away, I needed to have it written on my heart.

But you cannot light a fire inside a paper house and expect it not to show.

The gospel changes you.

It changes your eyes.

It changes your temper.

It changes your spirit.

I stopped cursing.

I stopped getting angry at small things.

I started treating my sisters with a kindness that confused them.

I stopped talking about politics and hatred of the West.

My father, with his hawk-like intuition, noticed the shift.

He watched me across the dinner table, his eyes narrowing.

He sensed a foreign spirit.

The confrontation happened 3 months later.

It was a Tuesday evening.

I came home from work to find the front door open.

The house was silent, too silent.

I walked into my bedroom and froze.

My mattress was overturned.

The phone was ripped open.

And there, standing in the center of the room, was my father.

He was holding the old leatherbound Bible in his hand.

He didn’t look angry.

He looked broken.

He looked like a man who had just been told his son had died.

“Acro,” he said, his voice trembling with a suppressed rage that was more terrifying than shouting.

“What is this?” My knees felt weak.

I knew this was the moment.

“I could lie.

I could say I found it and was going to burn it.

I could say it belonged to a worker.

I could save my skin, but the words of Jesus echoed in my mind.

Whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my father who is in heaven.

I took a deep breath.

I looked at the man I had worshiped my entire life.

The man whose approval meant everything to me and I broke his heart.

It is the word of God, Father, I said softly.

I believe in Jesus.

I believe he is the son of God.

I believe he died for my sins.

The silence that followed lasted an eternity.

My father closed his eyes.

A single tear rolled down his cheek into his gray beard.

Then he opened his eyes and they were cold as stone.

The father was gone.

Only the imam remained.

You have brought shame on this house, he whispered.

You have brought shame on your blood.

You are an apostate.

You are filth.

He threw the Bible at my feet.

Get out, father.

Please get out.

He roared, his voice shaking the walls.

You are not my son.

Aram died today.

If I see your face again, I will not treat you as a son.

I will treat you as the law requires.

I will kill you myself.

Go.

I grabbed the Bible from the floor.

I didn’t pack a bag.

I didn’t say goodbye to my mother or my sisters who are weeping in the hallway.

I walked out into the cool desert night.

The door slammed shut behind me, the sound echoing like a gunshot.

I stood on the street looking back at the house where I had learned to walk, to speak, to pray.

I was homeless.

I was disowned.

I was an enemy of the state.

I had lost everything.

My inheritance, my family, my safety, my identity.

But as I walked away into the darkness, holding that old Bible against my chest, a strange sensation washed over me.

It wasn’t fear.

It was joy.

Pure, unadulterated joy.

I looked up at the stars and said, “You are my father now.

You are my family.

” And for the first time in my life, I was truly free.

Survival in the kingdom as a Christian is an art form.

You learn to be invisible.

You learn to speak in codes.

You learn to read eyes.

For the first few weeks, I lived on the streets, sleeping in construction sites or in the back of parked trucks.

But God is faithful.

He began to bring others across my path.

It started with a whisper, a look, a subtle reference.

I met a Filipino worker who hummed a worship song while he worked.

I took a risk and finished the melody.

His eyes widened.

We embraced in the shadows of a warehouse.

He introduced me to others, an Indian driver, a Kenyan maid, and then amazingly other Saudis.

We were a ragtag army.

We couldn’t meet in buildings.

It was too risky.

So, we met in the desert.

Picture this.

It is 2:00 a.

m.

on a Friday.

A convoy of three SUVs prize out of the city limits deep into the dunes of the Arabian desert.

We park in a circle, headlights facing inward.

We lay out carpets on the sand.

Under the vast canopy of stars, with nothing but the wind and the jackles to hear us, we worshiped.

We didn’t have a piano or drums.

We sang in whispers, our voices carried away by the desert breeze.

How great is our God.

Sung in Arabic, Tagalog, English, and Hindi.

We broke bread together, usually just flatbread from a gas station, and passed around a cup of juice.

It was the holiest communion I have ever taken.

Over the next 8 years, from 2010 to 2018, this small seed grew into a tree.

We became the underground church of Riad.

We grew from five people to 47.

47 souls who had counted the cost.

We had secret baptisms in bathtubs with the water running to mask the sound of prayers.

We had disciplehip classes in the back of moving cars.

We developed a security protocol that rivaled the CIA.

No real names on phones.

No location services.

Burner SIM cards.

Code words.

Is the grocery store open meant is it safe to meet.

I have a delivery meant I have a new believer.

We felt invincible.

We felt that the Holy Spirit had placed a cloak of invisibility around us.

We saw miracles.

I saw a man healed of cancer after we laid hands on him in a basement.

I saw drug addicts delivered instantly.

We were living the book of Acts in the 21st century.

But we made a mistake, a fatal mistake.

We forgot that the enemy also has spies.

We forgot that Satan often comes not as a roaring lion, but as an angel of light.

We forgot that Jesus warned us.

Beware of wolves and sheep’s clothing.

We let our guard down and we let the wolf in.

His name was Ahmed.

I want to take a moment to tell you about Ahmed because if you don’t understand how much I loved him, you won’t understand how much it hurt.

He came to us in 2016.

He was introduced by a trusted friend.

Ahmed was young, charismatic, intelligent, and worked as an accountant for a government ministry.

He came to me with tears in his eyes, telling me a story of how he had seen Jesus in a dream.

He knew the Bible.

He knew the theology.

He prayed with a passion that made even me feel inadequate.

I took him under my wing.

I discipled him.

I treated him not just as a convert, but as a younger brother.

He became my right-hand man.

I remember one specific night about 2 weeks before the raid.

This memory haunts me.

It was a Friday evening.

Ahmed was at my small apartment.

We had just finished a meal of Kabza, rice, and chicken.

He was sitting on the floor playing with my niece who was visiting.

He was tossing her in the air, making her giggle.

She called him Uncle Ahmed.

We sat drinking tea, talking about the future of the church.

Acram, Ahmed said, looking at me with intense sincerity.

Do you think we are safe? The Muttow are increasing their patrols.

I smiled at him.

God is our shield, Ahmed.

As long as we are faithful, he will protect us.

Ammed nodded, sipping his tea.

You bear such a heavy burden, brother, leading all these people.

If anything ever happens to you, I want you to know, I will step up.

I will take care of the flock.

I will give my life for this church.

I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder.

I felt tears prick my eyes.

I know you will, Ahmed.

I trust you more than anyone.

You are my Jonathan.

I am your David, he smiled.

It was a warm, brotherly smile.

And I am your servant, he said.

I believed him.

I trusted him with the encrypted list of names on my phone.

I trusted him with the locations of our safe houses.

I trusted him with my life.

What I didn’t know, what I could and possibly imagine was that the phone in his pocket was recording every word I said.

For 2 years, Ahmmed hadn’t just been attending our meetings.

He had been documenting them.

He was an agent of the Mabith, the secret police.

He wasn’t there to worship Jesus.

He was there to build a dossier.

He was counting heads.

He was mapping connections.

He was waiting for the perfect moment to pull the net tight.

While he was eating my bread, he was calculating my death.

While he was playing with my niece, he was planning how to leave her uncleless.

I often think about Jesus and Judas.

I used to wonder how Jesus could let Judas sit at the table, how he could wash Judas’s feet, knowing what Judas would do.

Now I understand.

The deepest wounds don’t come from your enemies who scream at you from the street.

They come from the ones who kiss you on the cheek.

The kiss of Judas wasn’t just a signal.

It was a weapon.

And Ahmed’s weapon was fully loaded, aimed directly at my heart.

March 1st, 2018, a Thursday.

We had gathered at a safe house, a villa rented by one of our members on the desolate edge of the city where the street lights end and the desert begins.

There were 23 of us that night.

Men, women, and even a few children playing quietly in the corner.

The atmosphere in the room was heavy, but not with fear.

It was heavy with the sheina glory of God.

We were taking holy communion.

I stood at the head of the room holding a plastic cup filled with grape juice.

In my other hand, I held a piece of flatbread.

I looked around the room at the faces of my family.

These people had risked everything to be here.

Some had lost jobs.

Some had been beaten by their fathers.

Some had been disowned.

Yet their faces shone with a joy that the oil wealth of Saudi Arabia could never buy.

I raised the cup.

This is the blood of the new covenant.

I whispered, my voice trembling with reverence, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

We drank together.

For a moment, there was perfect silence, a holy hush.

It was the eye of the storm.

And then the storm broke.

There was no knock.

There was no warning.

Boom.

The front door didn’t just open.

It disintegrated.

A battering ram smashed through the heavy steel lock with a sound like a thunderclap inside the house.

Before the wood splinters even hit the floor, the room was flooded with black uniforms.

Get down.

Police.

Get down.

It was a swarm of locusts.

[snorts] Special forces heavily armed with automatic rifles poured into the living room, followed by the bearded men of the Mutooa.

The religious police.

Chaos erupted.

Screams.

The sound of boots stomping on tile.

The terrifying cry of children being ripped from their mother’s arms.

I saw a soldier smash the communion table with the butt of his rifle.

A picture of grape juice shattered.

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