From Muslim to Marx to the Messiah

At first glance, you wouldn’t see anything exceptional about this tall, skinny 21 year old Moroccan. That’s because you haven’t seen where he’s come from or what he’s gone through to become the young man he is today. Mohammed grew up in a small city of 100,000 people in a family like any other, a Muslim family. Now, in a country of over 32 million people there are bound to be different religious beliefs and different political views. His family was no exception.

Mohammed was “fortunate” enough to have an uncle who helped to raise him who was both an atheist and a Marxist communist. As Mohammed grew up as the only boy and oldest child of 2 other sisters, he spent a good deal of his time outside of his house while his mother worked as a nurse and his father as a painter. Because of the influence of his uncle and the amount of time he spend away from his Muslim family, Marwan began to understand that Islam is full of flaws and that God must not really exist. So, he began to devote his focus and attention to a communist association that his uncle was a leader in.

Because his uncle’s home had many toys and interests to hold his attention, Mohammed would pass his free time on the internet or listening to music. He preferred solitude and went to great lengths to insure that he had it. Even in his own home, he could put himself into a bubble to avoid certain Muslim beliefs that pervade every Muslim home and family. After officially entering the communist association at age 10, he began to play an active role in promoting human rights in his school, even going so far as to helping them make Communist broadcasts on the radio.

At the age of 16, Mohammed was at a secret communist summer camp being held for young people where he had learned Communist doctrine and songs many summers before. This summer and this camp would prove to be different. The camp was held near the second highest peak in the country and the young people climbed to the top. From the summit Mohammed looked down on the clouds and was so overwhelmed by his own insignificance that his legs became weak and he fell to his knees. He knew at that moment that there was a God and he had been totally opposed to Him. Upon return to his city, Mohammed began to search the internet for information about God. He would google questions like:

“Who is God in Hinduism? in Christianity? in Buddhism?”

“What is sin, heaven, hell, truth in Hinduism? in Christianity? in Buddhism?”

One of the websites Mohammed searched on was alnour.com (a sister ministry to PNA). He clicked on the link and requested a free New Testament.

After 2 years of searching, at age 18, he believed and called out to Jesus Christ to be his Savior, to rescue him from sin and death by the finished work of Christ on the cross. After 3 years of little to no Christian fellowship, listening to Christian music, and wondering if there were many other Christians in Morocco like him… He met two preachers with Project North Africa. They were two godly men who were preaching the Gospel, getting out Bibles, and trying to disciple other men to follow Jesus Christ in a country with only .0001% Christianity. He was studying economics in his university; but after spending a little while with those two men and in the Word, Mohammed was consumed with a desire to serve the Lord in full-time ministry as a preacher of the Gospel.

So what did he do? He has since dropped out of that university and enrolled in an online Bible school where he is learning through the books of the Bible. At the same time, the two PNA workers spend a lot of time with him discipling and training him to preach, witness, and disciple others. This young man may not appear to be much according to the world’s standards – having no outstanding physical presence, having thrown away his education, and all so that he can be a preacher of the gospel. In essence, he has become lower than a street sweeping, rubbish collector in the eyes of the Muslims of North Africa. He has turned his back on Islam and Communism and has chosen to identify with Jesus the Messiah, the Lamb of God. His family now knows that he is a Christian and little by little he is trying to let them all know and witness to them about who Jesus Christ really is. Please pray for Mohammed. Ask that the Lord would strengthen, encourage, and use him to be a preacher and minister of the Word in this country where the harvest is plentiful but laborers like Mohammed are few.

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