I had counted the cost, and I had chosen Jesus.

Cairo was overwhelming.

I had visited the city before, but living there was different.

Millions of people, endless traffic, noise, and chaos everywhere.

I felt lost, anonymous, invisible.

In my hometown, I had been somebody.

Here, I was nobody.

Just another poor man with a bag and no prospects, one of thousands struggling to survive in the massive sprawling city.

But Gurgus had given me a contact before I left.

He had written down the name and address of a church in Cairo, a place that ministered to people like me, converts from Islam, refugees from persecution, believers who had lost everything for following Christ.

He told me to go there, that they would help me.

I found the place after wandering through unfamiliar streets for what felt like hours.

My feet aching, my heart anxious.

It was a small building, unremarkable from the outside, tucked between apartment blocks.

Nothing indicated it was a church except for a small cross above the door.

I stood outside for several minutes, afraid to enter.

What if they rejected me?

What if they didn’t believe my story?

What if I didn’t belong there either?

But I had nowhere else to go.

So, finally, I knocked.

A man opened the door, maybe in his 60s, with kind eyes and a gentle smile.

He introduced himself as Pastor Mccarios.

Before I could say anything, before I could explain who I was or why I had come, he embraced me.

Just pulled me into a hug and held me there.

I hadn’t been hugged by anyone since before my heart attack.

The simple human warmth of it broke something open in me and I started crying right there in the doorway, unable to stop.

He brought me inside, sat me down, gave me water and food.

Then he listened to my story.

All of it.

The heart attack, the darkness, the encounter with Jesus, the visions of hell in heaven, the persecution, the loss of my family, my flight from home.

He didn’t interrupt.

He didn’t question.

He just listened with that same gentle attention Gurgus had shown.

When I finished, he thanked me for sharing, said that my testimony was a gift, that God had brought me to this place for a purpose.

Pastor Mccarios found me a room to stay in, a small space in a building owned by the church.

It wasn’t much, just four walls, a bed, a table, but it was safe.

No one would threaten me here.

No one would attack me or spray paint insults on my door.

For the first time in almost 2 years, I could sleep without fear.

The church community embraced me.

These were people who understood what I was going through because many of them had gone through similar things.

former Muslims who had converted to Christianity and paid terrible prices for it.

Some had been downed by their families.

Others had fled violence.

A few had spent time in prison.

We were all refugees in one sense or another.

All people who had given up everything to follow Jesus.

They taught me.

Pastor Mccario spent hours with me going through the Bible, explaining doctrines, answering my questions.

I struggled with some concepts.

The Trinity was particularly difficult for my mind to grasp.

But slowly, patiently, he helped me understand.

He showed me that the Bible itself described God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Three persons in one essence, a mystery that we couldn’t fully comprehend but could accept by faith.

I attended worship services for the first time in my life.

Real Christian worship, not the formal prayers I had known in Islam.

People sang with their hands raised, tears streaming down their faces, voices full of joy and passion.

They sang about Jesus, about his love, about his sacrifice, about being saved by grace.

The first time I heard the hymn, Amazing Grace, sung in Arabic, I couldn’t make it through without weeping.

The words spoke directly to my condition.

I once was lost, but now I’m found.

Was blind, but now I see.

Months passed.

I studied the Bible constantly, hungry for more truth, more understanding.

I met with Pastor Macario several times a week for disciplehip.

He was patient with me, understanding that I was unlearning decades of Islamic teaching and learning an entirely new way of understanding God, salvation, and my relationship with the divine.

The concept of calling God father was especially profound.

In Islam, Allah was distant, majestic, unknowable.

But Jesus taught us to pray to our father in heaven, to approach God with the intimacy and trust of a child.

This changed everything for me.

After about 6 months of study and growth, Pastor Mccarios asked me if I wanted to be baptized.

I didn’t hesitate.

Yes, absolutely yes.

I wanted to publicly declare my faith in Jesus Christ to be identified with his death and resurrection to mark the boundary between my old life and my new life.

The baptism was held in secret in a private gathering with just the church community present.

In Egypt, public baptisms of former Muslims could attract unwanted attention, even violence.

But the secrecy didn’t diminish the power of the moment.

When Pastor Mccarios lowered me into the water, I felt like I was being buried with Christ.

All my old identity as a Muslim scholar dying, being washed away.

And when he brought me back up, gasping for air, I felt born again, truly new, a new creation, just like the scripture said.

I chose to keep the name Karim which means generous or noble in Arabic.

But I added beloved of Christ to it.

Karim, beloved of Christ.

That was my new identity.

Not a scholar, not a teacher, not someone important or respected.

Just a man loved by Jesus, saved by grace, called to be a witness.

But my mission wasn’t to hide.

Jesus had sent me back to tell people the truth.

And so carefully, wisely, I began to do just that.

Pastor Mccarios warned me to be wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove.

Don’t be reckless.

Don’t put yourself in unnecessary danger.

But do speak when God opens doors.

Do share your testimony when he gives you opportunity.

Cairo is full of displaced people.

Refugees from Sudan, from Syria, from other parts of Egypt.

People who have lost everything, who are struggling to survive, who are searching for hope.

I began serving in the church’s refugee ministry, helping distribute food, teaching basic English classes, offering practical help however I could.

As I built relationships with people, as they began to trust me, I would share my story when the opportunity arose.

The reactions were mixed.

Some were interested, curious, asking questions.

Others were hostile, offended, accusing me of trying to convert them.

A few, a precious few, genuinely wanted to know more.

They would meet with me privately and I would tell them everything Jesus had shown me.

I would explain the gospel that we are all sinners, that sin separates us from God, that we cannot earn our way to heaven, but that Jesus died to pay for our sins and rose again to give us eternal life, and that salvation comes through faith in him alone.

Over the months and years, I saw several Muslims come to faith in Christ.

Each conversion was a miracle, a work of God’s grace.

I was privileged to be part of their journey, to disciple them, to help them navigate the same difficult path I had walked in 2019.

I had the joy of baptizing a man who had been an imam in his home country.

Watching him go under the water and come up with tears of joy streaming down his face reminded me of my own baptism, my own transformation.

But the persecution didn’t end just because I had moved to Cairo.

In a city of millions, there are still eyes watching, still people who don’t want the gospel spread, still authorities who see Christianity, especially conversions from Islam, as a threat.

I was arrested twice.

Once for supposedly disturbing the peace during an outdoor conversation about Jesus.

Another time for distributing Christian literature without a permit.

Both times I was held for several days questioned, threatened.

Both times I was eventually released without formal charges.

But the message was clear.

Stop what you’re doing or there will be consequences.

I didn’t stop.

I couldn’t.

Every time I was tempted to be silent, to protect myself, I would remember the faces of those scholars in hell crying out for me to warn others.

I would remember Jesus’s command to go and tell.

I would remember that he had promised to be with me, to never leave me.

And I would keep going, keep speaking, keep sharing the truth that had set me free.

The COVID 19 pandemic hit in 2020, bringing lockdowns and restrictions, but it also brought unexpected opportunities.

With everyone confined to their homes, online communication exploded.

I started sharing my testimony carefully on YouTube, using partial anonymity to protect myself.

I didn’t show my face fully.

I was cautious about identifying details, but I told my story.

The response was overwhelming.

Messages came from all over the world.

Some were threatening, telling me I was going to hell for apostasy, that I was a traitor to Islam, that I deserved death.

But others were different.

Muslims from Saudi Arabia, from Pakistan, from Indonesia, from places I had never been, writing to tell me that they had experienced something similar, that they had seen Jesus in a dream or vision, that they had been searching for truth, and my testimony confirmed what they had been sensing.

Some were already secret believers, terrified and alone.

Others were just beginning to question.

My story gave them courage.

One message in particular moved me deeply.

A man from Saudi Arabia wrote that he thought he was the only one, that he was going crazy, that his vision of Jesus must have been Shayan deceiving him.

But hearing my testimony made him realize that God was doing something real, something powerful, calling Muslims to himself through supernatural encounters with Christ.

He accepted Jesus as Lord and asked me to help him find disciplehip resources.

That message made everything I had suffered worth it.

Throughout these years, I never stopped praying for my daughters.

Every single day, I prayed for Fatima and Zara.

I prayed that God would protect them, that he would reveal himself to them, that somehow someday I would see them again.

I had no contact with them.

My ex-wife had made sure of that, but I trusted God with their futures.

He had brought me to himself.

He could do the same for them.

In 2022, I attempted to reach out.

I sent letters through an intermediary trying to make contact with my daughters who were now teenagers.

I wanted them to know that I loved them, that I had never stopped thinking about them, that I hadn’t abandoned them by choice.

The letters went unanswered.

My ex-wife refused to allow any communication.

The pain of that rejection never fully went away.

There were nights when I would lie awake thinking about my girls, [snorts] wondering what they looked like now, whether they hated me, whether they ever thought about their father.

But I had to trust God.

Even with that grief, even with that loss, Jesus had warned that following him would sometimes mean division in families, that mother and father and children might be set against each other for his name’s sake.

He had experienced rejection himself.

He understood and he promised that anyone who left family for his sake would receive a hund times as much in this life and eternal life to come.

The church became my family.

Pastor Mccarios became like a father to me.

Other believers became brothers and sisters.

We suffered together, worshiped together, supported each other.

When I was low, they lifted me up.

When they were struggling, I encouraged them.

We were a community of the broken and redeemed, united not by blood or nationality, but by the blood of Christ.

My life settled into a new rhythm.

Not the comfortable, respected rhythm of my old life as a shake, but something different, richer in some ways, though poorer in material terms.

I woke each morning and spent time in prayer and Bible study.

I went out to serve in whatever capacity was needed, helping refugees, teaching English, sharing the gospel when opportunities arose.

I met with Pastor Mccarios for accountability and disciplehip.

I attended midweek Bible studies and Sunday worship services.

Simple, purposeful, focused.

There were miracles along the way.

Times when I had no money and someone would unexpectedly give me exactly what I needed.

Times when I was in danger and somehow God protected me, made me invisible to those who meant harm.

There were also times when Jesus appeared to me again in dreams, not with new revelations, but with encouragement, reminding me that he was with me, that I was doing what he had called me to do, that my labor was not in vain.

I also met other believers who had similar near-death experiences.

A woman from Syria who had died during childbirth and encountered Jesus.

A man from Morocco who had a vision of Christ while in a coma after a car accident.

Each of them told remarkably consistent stories encountering Jesus, seeing him as Lord and God, being shown heaven and hell, being sent back with a message.

We would share our testimonies with each other and weep together, amazed at God’s grace, at the lengths he goes to call people to himself.

[snorts] I began working with an international ministry that specifically supported believers from Muslim backgrounds.

This organization helped me travel to other countries carefully with proper security measures to share my testimony with underground churches.

I spoke in homes, in secret gatherings, in places where Christians met quietly to avoid persecution.

Every time I shared my story, I saw the same response.

Tears, conviction, renewed faith, determination to live fully for Christ.

In 2023, I wrote down my full testimony for the first time, not for publication, but as a record, as something that could be preserved and shared if anything happened to me.

Writing it all out, reliving every moment on paper, was both painful and cathartic.

I could see God’s hand throughout the entire journey.

Even in the suffering, even in the loss, he had been preparing me, shaping me, using every hardship to make me into a better witness for his truth.

The years have passed quickly.

It is now 2025, 10 years since that Friday in March when my heart stopped beating at the mosque.

10 years since I died and met Jesus and was sent back with a message.

Looking back, I can see that every single thing I went through had purpose.

The isolation taught me to depend on God alone.

The loss of my family taught me that Christ must be first above even the most precious earthly relationships.

The persecution taught me that the gospel is worth suffering for.

The poverty taught me that God provides, that his grace is sufficient.

I still live simply.

I have very little in material terms.

My room is small, my possessions few.

I eat basic food, wear simple clothes.

I have no savings, no security, no comfort in worldly terms.

But I have peace that surpasses understanding.

I have joy even in suffering.

I have purpose and meaning.

I wake up every morning knowing that my life matters, that God is using me, that souls are being reached because Jesus brought me back from death.

I still miss my daughters every single day.

That grief has not gone away.

I still pray for them constantly, still hope that God will soften their hearts, still dream of a reunion that may never come in this life.

But I have learned to trust God with them.

He loves them more than I do.

He knows where they are, what they need, how to reach them.

If he could reach me, a proud, certain, zealous Muslim scholar who thought he had all the answers, he can reach anyone.

There have been more dreams over the years, not as dramatic as the initial encounter, but meaningful nonetheless.

Sometimes Jesus appears to me and simply reassures me, tells me I am on the right path, encourages me to keep going.

Other times he gives me specific guidance about where to go or whom to speak to.

I have learned to recognize his voice to distinguish his gentle prompings from my own thoughts or desires.

The ministry has grown, not in size.

We are still a small community of believers but in depth and impact.

Many of the people I discipled in the early years are now discipling others.

The woman from Syria who had her own encounter with Jesus now leads a Bible study for other women.

The former Imam Farsy baptized in 2019 now helps me mentor new believers from Muslim backgrounds.

The work multiplies, spreads, bears fruit in ways I never could have orchestrated on my own.

I have also learned to recognize the signs of others who have had supernatural encounters with Christ.

There is a look in their eyes, a certainty in their testimony, a willingness to suffer that comes only from having seen the truth firsthand.

When I meet such people, there is an instant connection, a shared understanding that transcends words.

We are part of a brotherhood and sisterhood of witnesses, people who have been given the privilege and burden of testifying to what we have seen.

The threats still come occasionally.

Anonymous messages warning me to be silent.

reminders that apostasy carries a death sentence in Islamic law.

Attempts to track me down, to identify me, to bring consequences upon me.

But I am no longer afraid.

Not because I am brave.

I am not, but because I have already died once.

I know what comes after.

I have seen heaven.

Death has lost its power to terrify me.

Because I know it is not the end, just a doorway to something far better.

That does not mean I am reckless.

I take precautions.

I am wise about where I go and whom I speak to.

I do not seek out danger unnecessarily, but I also will not be silenced by fear.

Jesus did not bring me back from death so I could hide.

He brought me back to be a light in darkness, to be salt that preserves, to be a witness to his truth regardless of the cost.

I have also learned that the Christian life is not about a one-time dramatic experience.

Yes, my encounter with Jesus was dramatic and life-changing.

But the real test of faith is not in the mountaintop moments, but in the daily valleys.

It is in choosing to trust God when prayers seem unanswered.

It is in forgiving those who have hurt you over and over again.

It is in serving others when you are exhausted.

It is in remaining faithful when results are slow and suffering is long.

There are days when I am tired, when I feel the weight of my years, the accumulated sorrows, the losses that never fully heal.

There are days when I wonder if I’m making any real difference.

If my testimony matters, if the handful of people who have come to faith through my story are worth everything I have sacrificed.

But then I remember the words of Jesus.

Even if only one soul is saved, it is worth it.

Heaven rejoices over one sinner who repents more than over 99 righteous who need no repentance.

And I remember the alternative.

If I had remained in my Islamic faith, living comfortably, respected by my community, surrounded by family, I would still be heading toward hell.

All the comfort, all the respect, all the relationships in the world are worthless if they lead to eternal separation from God.

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