[Evangelist]

Personal Testimony of M

I am M. and was born on 15.10.1960 in Balikesir, Turkey. I come from a muslim family and lived as a muslim until I was 19. When I was 19 years old, I made the most important and the greatest decision of my life, that I committed my life to Jesus Christ and accepted Him as my personal Lord and Saviour.

My parents had not been very religious, and therefore I was not brought up in a strict religious enviroment. Yet, as a turk, I nevertheless was always someone, who defended his religion.

When I was 16 years old I decided to learn the English language well and went to several language schools in my town. In addition to that, I had the opportunity of making friends with some of the american soldiers in our town to improve my English.

One day one of the black american friends of mine asked me to take him to a mosque. He wanted to become a Muslim. And I with a great joy brought him to the largest and the oldest mosque of the city and intoduced him to the hodga (muslim priest). This black american was (unfortunately) converted to Islam at that time through me. The Hodja said to me later on: “Because you brought an infidel to Allah’s true religion, you and your family and your descendants have already secured your places in heaven even as of now!. Bravo, well done!”

Some time later I became acquainted with another American soldier. His name was called Bill Bascue. He was the commander of the American soldiers. He had been to Tahran before he came to Balikesir, Turkey. Therefore he was acquainted with the middle eastern culture. He was very outgoing and friendly , which led to the fact that we became close friends.

He was somehow different than the other soldiers and other people that I knew.. Both his words and his life were different. That had won my attention, and anked him, “How come are you so different than the others?” Then he said: “I believe in Jesus Christ. If I am different at all, it is because of Jesus.” When I heard the name “Jesus”, I thought within me: “him must I also bring to Islam.” But it was not that easy. He knew his faith very well and was theorotically very well prepared. I gave him an English Koran and books related to Islam. In turn, he gave me a Turkish New Testament and some tracts about Christian faith. So, I began to read both the Koran and New Tesatamnet (Injil) and compare them. At that time I began going to the mosque again.

Parallel to this time, a small group of American Christians were meeting at homes weekly . So I began to attend to their prayer groups and home meetings. One of the first things that had drawn my attention was that they prayed in their own native language so freely, as it came from the heart. In contrast to that however, I performed my prayers in the Arabic language, which I don’t speak nor understand. So I began to speak with God in my prayers in my own tongue Turkish. I asked Him to show me His truth. Then I stopped going to musques. My thoughts about Jesus began to change. The life style of Jesus, his teachings and miracles had a very big impact on me. But why Jesus had to die, I somehow did not understand. Bill was very helpful in answering my questions.

In the same year I went to Izmir to the university, in order to become an English teacher. There I studied for four years, and during those years I went to the meetings of the turkish christians in Izmir. There I had the experience of leading, teaching and preaching. After I finished my studies in Izmir I did my military service. I did not want to work as an english teachers and decided to go to a Bible School in London in 1985. I took one year long the Network course of the ICHTHUS Christian Followship on Church Planting and Urban City Evangelism.

I returned to Istanbul in 1986 and served in the today’s “Tunnel Fellowship”, which still meets in the Swedish consulate. In 1987 I was accused of of Christian propaganda and was put before the court, but acquitted after the first hearing. In 1987 I went to England again. I translated some christian books into turkish for the Spear project. In the same year my wife and I got married in London, and we moved to her city, C. in Germany.

At that time in C. existed a small group of turkish believers, which however did not have regular gatherings. As I got C., we started to meet in a German church on Saturdays. The Lord blessed this meeting and within a few weeks we grew from a dusin of believers to 35-40 believers. The turkish speaking fellowship grew and grew and became today one of the largest Turkish speaking fellowships in Germany, with over 100 members.

For further information fell free to write us:

[Yazar]

Yazılar