As a dedicated Iraqi Shiite, Jaffar joined the fighting in Syria in 2014 against the Sunni-led self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS). He was injured in a mortar attack and forced to return home.
THE DREAMS
Jaffar’s maimed leg throbbed as he sat awake in his room in the middle of the night. The 23-year-old Iraqi felt the burden of his loneliness and depression like a physical weight on his shoulders. His friend had been killed in the fighting, and his faith was gone. In desperation, he challenged the Creator of the universe: “If you are there, show yourself!”
Exhausted from pain, frustration and weeping, Jaffar finally fell asleep. Then he dreamed that he was perched on a narrow bridge wide enough for only one. Beneath him was an abyss of smoke and fire, radiating heat upward. He could hear the screams of others behind him as the bridge crumbled beneath their feet and they plunged into the gulf below. Terrified, he took one careful step after another.
After reaching a door at the end of the bridge, he knocked and a man in a white garment opened the door. “Who are you?” Jaffar asked. The man told him he was the owner of the door and invited him in. He warned Jaffar, however, that if he stepped through the door he could never go back out. Knowing what was behind him, Jaffar stepped over the threshold. Inside, he saw fruit trees and vast spaces of green grass. People smiled at him as angels played trumpets. The man in white walked ahead to seat himself on a golden throne inlaid with dazzling blue jewels. Jaffar said he was filled with a deep peace. Then he woke up.
Although the first dream was soon forgotten, three months later the dream reoccurred – the same bridge, the same man in white and the same invitation to enter the safe, peaceful place. “I woke up afterward,” Jaffar said, “and started thinking, ‘Who is this person who came to me twice?’”
He began his research with traditional Shia teachings before soon discovering a weekly TV programme by a Moroccan Christian apologist. “After three weeks of following his teachings, I rejected Islam completely,” Jaffar said. “I was convinced that Islam was not from God.”
Still, when the time arrived for the most significant Shia festival, Jaffar felt compelled to participate. The Shia ceremonies involve mourning and self-flagellation so extreme that participants bleed. And although Jaffar had rejected Islam, the rituals were still part of his identity. “You see friends, and you hit yourself and you are part of the crowd,” he said.
As Jaffar swung his sword wildly, the blade struck his scalp and he was taken to the hospital in a coma. Jaffar said that as he lay unconscious, he felt like he was hovering above his body, watching his mother and father cry. Then, after hearing footsteps behind him, he saw the man from his dream. “Why are you crying?” the man asked him. Jaffar explained that he didn’t want to leave his mother. Then he suddenly woke up.
MEETING THE MAN IN WHITE
After his release from the hospital, Jaffar ran into a former employer one day who asked where he had been. When Jaffar recounted his near-death experience and recurring dream, the former boss who is a Christian, began to weep. “The man who appeared to you is Jesus Christ,” he told Jaffar, “and He wants you to be His.”
He gave Jaffar a Bible and asked him to read it, starting with the New Testament. By the time Jaffar reached the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, he was sobbing.“I was broken,” he said. “[I] had all these trials, and then I read, ‘Blessed are those who mourn, because they will be comforted.’ It spoke so much to me.”
He called the man who had given him the Bible and told him he wanted to accept Christ, and his friend happily led him in a prayer. As Jaffar studied the Bible and grew in Christ, he discovered many details that aligned with his dreams about the man in white.
Eager to share what he was learning, he began to post videos of himself reading and discussing Bible passages on Facebook Live. Several friends noticed how much he had changed, even his manner of speaking, and he soon led two of them to Christ.
Jaffar was afraid of his father, but in 2016 he knew it was time to tell him about his conversion to Christianity. His enraged father beat him with a windshield wiper until he dislocated his own shoulder and could no longer beat him.
Jaffar fled to an uncle’s house, but his father came after him. When his former Shia militia unit learned of his conversion, they sent him a threatening message: “You are a dirty apostate, an infidel [dog]. You are insulting our leader, Hussein Ali. We will kill you and hang you on a cross just like your God. We will find you soon.”
Jaffar ended up in a neighbouring country where VOM helped him find housing, providing funds for rent and connecting him with a job that he was physically able to perform.
He continues to make apologetics videos about Christianity, but he has learned to present the Gospel more gently. “Don’t say like I did, ‘Islam is wicked,’” he said. “Speak about the love of Christ. The Muslim does not really need you to remind him of his religion and his daily problems. He needs a new factor. We have this new factor – love.”
(The original article was shortened.)
Source: Voice of the Martyrs
