Contents

SUFFERING CHURCH SUNDAY 2011-2012

Islam and language

The Islamising of language

The languages of Muslim-majority nations, especially Arabic, tend to express the worldview, religious concepts and cultural ideas of Islamic religion and civilisation.

The rise of Islamic English

Language as a tool of Islamisation

“Islamism and Language”4

The increased use of Arabic/Islamic words and phrases in contemporary English expresses the growing influence of Islamic religion and culture in the English-speaking West.

Islam, Christians and language

Using English phrases such as “the Muslim world”, “Islamic law” and “Islamophobia” can strengthen the narratives and arguments of Islamism.

Contextual Bible translations

Conclusion

The careless use of language when speaking about Islam can diminish the significance of the Lord Jesus Christ in our own eyes and those of our Muslim neighbours.

Reasons for martyrdom

Responses to martyrdom

Results of martyrdom

Vindication for the martyrs

“‘I see heaven opened’” – martyrdom for Christ Acts 7:53 – 8:4

Coming soon!

CHINABURMA(MYANMAR)

THAILAND

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM

LAOS

Viengkham districtLuang Prabang province

Vientiane(capital city)

Ta-Oyl districtSaravan province

Hinboun districtKhammouane province

Namtha districtLuang Namtha province

A thousand miles by bike for Barnabas

Birthday sale of Bunyan painting for Barnabas

Regular Giving to Barnabas Fund

Supporting Barnabas with Christmas cards

Update on British Inheritance Tax

MyDonate

Barnabas receives auctions proceeds

18 BARNABAS AID NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011

Testimony

If you kill me, I still will never stop. If you don’t like it, I am ready to go back to jail. Do not think I will leave my faith, because Christianity is my life.

“[Life as a Christian in Iraqi Kurdistan] is very hard,” Jamal told the interviewer. “You cannot talk about [your faith] and it is not easy. It is very dangerous. Anything can happen. They will try to kill you if they can.”

Jamal’s life changed radically in 1993 after a Kurdish man whose home he was visiting gave him a Bible. The man asked him to read it and become his friend, but after Jamal left he did not read the Bible or visit the man again.

One night, he heard a voice telling him to read the Bible he had received. It was very hot, there was no electricity to work the lights, and security outside was bad, but he started reading John chapter 1 by candlelight. “Though I did not understand anything,” he remembers, “I felt comfortable after I read the words. Strangely, I felt that someone was washing my head and body. It felt like surgery.”

That night and every night afterwards for several months he read the Bible, sometimes until dawn. Then he saw Jesus an a dream, and his whole life was changed. A Christian friend introduced him to a pastor. Years of

solid grounding in his faith followed, as the pastor discipled and taught him from the Bible twice a week, until God gave him a vision to build a new Kurdish church.

In 1996 the Kurdistan Regional Government summoned him enquiring why he had left Islam. He told them, “I choose to go a good way, to go to Christianity. God has chosen me to follow Him. I have no choice but to follow Christ.” Angered, the officials jailed him for five days, threatening that they would “hurt” him if he did not leave his newfound faith in Christ. Eventually they let him go, even though he told them he would stay faithful.

Another round of threats, intimidation and imprisonment followed in 1997. His captors insisted that he must leave his faith, that he was “dangerous” and would be killed. After three days in jail, they asked him, “What do we have to do to make you stop?” Jamal answered, “If you kill me, I still will never stop. If you don’t like it, I am ready to go back to jail. Do not think I will leave my faith, because Christianity is my life.”

In 2002 an informant from the government of Iraq ordered another man to spy on Jamal

instructing him to “kill Jamal in Duhok”. The man tried to shoot Jamal three times, but each time the gun jammed, even though it worked at other times. When Jamal found out about this, he chose not to press charges, “because Jesus forgave those who killed him”.

Again, the government put him in jail for seven days in 2007 because he had been a Muslim and had become a Christian. The judge ordered him to stop trying to convert people because he was creating big problems between Christians and Muslims. Jamal replied, “I can’t stop and I won’t stop preaching to others because this is what I have to do as a Christian pastor.”

Despite all these harrowing experiences Jamal concluded with these brave and inspiring words, “I can find no reason why I should stop preaching the gospel.”

Give praise for Pastor Jamal’s fervour and pray that his life will be spared once again.

Kurdish Pastor Jamal was kidnapped by militants in July in northern Iraq. Nothing has been heard of him since (at the time of writing). Jamal was very active in sharing his faith with muslims. Five days before his abduction he gave an interview in which he told how he had been jailed many times by the Kurdish authorities as they tried to put pressure on him to return to Islam, the faith into which he was born. Kurdish Christians meet together for a bible study (Source: Arab vision)

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SUFFERING CHURCH SUNDAY 2011-2012