Visiting Release mission partners, sharing fellowship with them, and hearing their stories first hand is a really important part of Release International’s ministry. It enables us to share the voice of persecuted Christians with the church in the UK with real depth and integrity.
On today’s podcast Release International’s CEO, Paul Robinson who recently visited one of our ministry partners in East Africa, speaks about his experiences. Listen in as we talk about the challenges that believers from a Muslim background face in that part of the world, and about the creative provisions our partners have put in place to support them. You’ll hear about an Iman who came to faith; about a lady who learned about love; and about how all of this can encourage you in your own faith.
Visiting Release mission partners, sharing fellowship with them, and hearing their stories first hand is a really important part of Release International’s ministry. It enables us to share the voice of persecuted Christians with the church in the UK with real depth and integrity.
On today’s podcast Release International’s CEO, Paul Robinson who recently visited one of our ministry partners in East Africa, speaks about his experiences. Listen in as we talk about the challenges that believers from a Muslim background face in that part of the world, and about the creative provisions our partners have put in place to support them. You’ll hear about an Iman who came to faith; about a lady who learned about love; and about how all of this can encourage you in your own faith.
“And even though he’s been threatened by Islamist extremists with death, his love for Christ is so strong, and his love for people so great that he’s willing to spend his life on them that they might know Christ.”
Kenneth: Visiting our mission partners, sharing fellowship with them, hearing their stories first hand: all of those are really important parts of Release International’s ministry. They enable us to share the voice of persecuted Christians with the church here in the UK and to do so with real depth and integrity. On today’s podcast, I’m speaking to Release International’s CEO, Paul Robinson, who recently visited one of our ministry partners in East Africa. Listen in as we talk about the challenges that believers who come from a Muslim background face in that part of the world. We’ll also talk about the creative provisions that our partners have put in place to support them. You’ll hear about an Imam who came to faith; about a lady who learned about love; and about how all of this can encourage you in your own faith.
Welcome, Paul, to the Voice podcast. It’s great to have you with us.
Paul: It’s really good to be with you.
Kenneth: Now, you are the CEO of Release International, and you’ve been serving in that role for nearly 10 years now. We’re going to talk today about a recent opportunity you had to visit some of Release International’s partners in East Africa. But before we do that, can you tell us, what is it that keeps you going in this demanding role that you’ve had for the last 10 years?
Paul: That’s a really good question. Someone in my own church asked me something similar at the weekend. And of course, I need to always rely on God’s grace, which is always available but, as a people person, I think it’s also people who keep me going. We’ve got a great team at Release International, including you, and all of them are so centred on Jesus and what they are called to do as partners of this ministry. So, they really do inspire me. But it's also the people we serve around the world. I was speaking at a church recently and, as part of raising the voice of persecuted Christians there, I mentioned some of those people as examples. On the second day of being CEO of Release International, now 10 years ago, I met a North Korean Christian called Mr Bei. Now that’s not his real name, in fact all the names I’ll mention have been changed for their safety. Mr Bei is a North Korean Christian who had been forced to flee North Korea because he was being followed. He had been in a concentration camp for his faith, but strangely he was released. And it turned out that the North Korean government had released him so that they might follow him just to find other Christians. So he had to leave the country. His own testimony is incredible, but it was what he said about his parents which began to transform me. They were in a North Korean concentration camp because of their faith in Jesus. Through an underground network of believers, Mr Bei had received this message from them: “Son, when you speak to believers about us, don’t ask them to pray for our release. Ask them to pray that we will be the light of Jesus in this dark place.” And there are so many like them all over the world who inspire me and – can I tell you about another one?
Kenneth: Please do.
Paul: Listen to what Paul the apostle wrote: Philippians chapter 3, where he says “But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.” That’s amazing! And those particular words, “I count all things loss that I may gain Christ” came alive to me again when I was in Lebanon visiting refugees from Iraq and Syria. I met a man there that we call John; John is from Iraq and his family was forced to flee by Isis. On hearing that the Islamic extremists were coming towards his town, John sent his family to Lebanon, but he remained behind to protect his property, intending to follow them sometime later. Now, John was a rich man. He owned a building company and he had contracts with the Iraqi regime. And when Isis came, they shot him three times in the leg, presumably leaving him for dead, but John survived and he also made it to Lebanon. Now John and his family lost everything and they’re now refugees, but through their awful journey, they came to faith in Christ. John is a wonderful man who is full of joy and serves other people in the refugee camps. He shares the gospel as he goes, and even with the Muslims there. Now, knowing what he had been through, I asked him how he remained so joyful. His answer was really simple. He said, Paul, I lost more than one million US dollars, but I gained Christ. Do you see what I mean? So, it’s of course, the grace of God that keeps me going – but , but it’s also the love of God and the lives of the people I meet that compels me on.
Kenneth: Thanks, Paul, that’s really encouraging, isn’t it, and inspiring to hear. Now, the work that Release International is involved with in East Africa I know is quite sensitive, so I know you won’t be able to go into a lot of detail about names and places, but I’m sure there will be important things that you can share that will help us to hear the voice of our brothers and sisters a little bit more clearly. The main projects that we partner with work with Christians who have come to faith from a Muslim background. So can you tell us, what kind of challenges do these new Christians face?
Paul: Well, it’s common for anyone anywhere in the world who leaves Islam to follow Jesus to have a really awful time. Of course, Muslim scholars will debate the issue, but in practical reality – particularly in Muslim majority countries – people leaving Islam to follow Christ are often considered to be apostates. So, they’ll be rejected by their families and cast out of their communities. They can face violent punishment and can even be threatened with death. And one woman I met recently from the Horn of Africa told me how painful it was, even now, not to be able to visit family members for their birthdays, their weddings, and even funerals. Years after leaving Islam, she is still rejected and ridiculed.
Kenneth: And as I understand it, that isn’t the only form of rejection that these new Christians can sometimes face: because the wider Christian population in the area can be suspicious of them. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Paul: Yes, the Christians I spent time with recently in East Africa, who had arrived there from Somalia, all of whom had come to faith in Christ from Islam, said that even the local churches could reject them. They use this phrase, “we’ve left, but we’ve not arrived”. And by that they mean that when they try to meet with Christians in East Africa, because of their own appearance and cultural dress, they are treated with great suspicion. And that suspicion can be quite extreme because there’s an Islamist insurgent group called Al Shabaab , generally based in Somalia, that has attacked places in Uganda and Kenya. So these new converts from Islam, because of how they look, can be seen as potential terrorists, so they’re unwelcome in lots of places. It’s awful, really. They’ve paid such a great price for leaving Islam to follow Christ, and now they suffer rejection by those who are the body of Christ, so we really do need to be praying for them and supporting them.
Kenneth: Gosh yes, thanks for explaining that to us:, it’s clear that these new believers pay a huge cost for their faith. I imagine many of them perhaps feel very isolated, especially in a culture where family and community life are always so important. So can you tell us a bit about how Release International’s partners are helping to support these new Christians in that part of the world.
Paul: Yes, I’d love to. It was terrific to be able to spend time with our ministry partners there who are truly amazing. Most are Christian believers from a Muslim background, and all of them really know what it means to be persecuted for Christ. Some of them are now ordained Christian ministers, and they’re all completely given to helping those who come to know Christ also from Islam. They do many wonderful things, too numerous to mention, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk about just one in particular. So I spent time with a family who live in what you might call a safe house. These safe houses are places where new Christians from a Muslim background can become part of a family and a community again. They engage in what’s called ‘family discipleship’ and it really is wonderful. These new believers get to fully integrate into a new, tight-knit family and they learn what it means to be a disciple of Christ, not just because they receive good teachings from the bible every day, but because they see the Christian life being lived out right in front of them in daily family life. And it’s a long-term commitment – it can be anything from 6 months to more than a year. I spent time with one young man who had been a Christian for just 2 months and he was now at home with his new family, learning about them and about Jesus. And although he’d had to leave everything behind, he was totally committed to living fully for Jesus and was being shown just how to do that through everyday family life. And it doesn’t stop there: they’ll also be given practical support to earn a living, and so they’ll have the dignity of being able to work. Some of them will pick up farming skills, selling milk and other produce in marketplaces, or they might develop simple retail outlets to sell homemade produce, or provide a service such as being a henna tattooist which is a really common thing in their own cultural setting.
Kenneth: I believe it’s also true that there is an emphasis on sharing the gospel – in other words, not just supporting these new Christians in the way that you’ve just described, but also equipping them to share the good news of Jesus, even back into the Muslim community that first rejected them. Can you tell us a bit about that?
Paul: Yes, that’s right, the gospel is fundamental to who they are, they have a real passion for sharing Christ. And one of the words you often hear there is ‘intentional’ – and and they’re really strategic with that. With their new professions, they have opportunities to build bridges within communities. And having come to faith in Christ authentically and at great cost, they still intentionally want to share the love of their Father God with others. And they know how risky it can be to talk about Jesus in those Islamic settings, but their passion is for Christ, and for those they live among to also come to know Him. It really is remarkable, and I must tell you of one man I met who had been a leader in Islam, who came to faith in Christ. It's a long story, full of what you might call miraculous revelation, but I’ll keep it really short. As a boy, his parents were really keen to have him schooled well in Islam. And he was super-intelligent, so he became an Imam at a very young age and he went on to be educated by Islamist extremists from Egypt, in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. And so, he became a Senior Islamic cleric. But he began to see that Islam could not rescue him from sin and judgement, so he said to me that he felt like a blind man leading the blind. And no one had ever talked to him about Jesus, but he read about Him in the Koran. And as he studied about Jesus in the Koran, he realised that Jesus was divine and he even began teaching about Jesus in the mosque. So it wasn’t long before he had to flee and there’s a remarkable story of how he escaped and crossed various countries’ borders to get to relative safety. And now, he’s an ordained Christian minister, sharing the love of Christ in many dangerous places. And even though he’s been threatened by Islamist extremists with death, his love for Christ is so strong and his love for people so great that he’s willing to spend his life on them that they might know Christ.
Kenneth: An iIncredible story, ofisn’t it, God’s amazing grace!. Paul, obvious question, but a serious one in the light of all that: how is the Muslim community responding to this?
Paul: Well, as I’ve already said, there are those who struggle with it. They reject these new Christians; they threaten them and they pursue them. But our partner spoke about the idea of Muslims being shaken to make room for the gospel. In the Horn of Africa, for example, people are tired of war and are now spiritually hungry. He told one story of a man who was very, very hostile towards anything Christian, but his home was bombed and he lost his family. And not long after, he said these words to our partner: ‘if only we’d listened to your messages, we wouldn’t be in war, because you Christians bring peace.’ And that man was shaken by violence but has since become a Christian. He was angry:, so full of hatred for Christ, but the war shook him and made space for the gospel.
And there was another lady who came to Christ and said ‘our husbands never told their wives that they’re loved’ and she thought that Christians were dirty and evil, but then she met some Christians and she discovered them to be the opposite. She found that they were the bringers of peace – those , those were her words – bringers of peace, love and hope. And what eventually really won her over was when she was told that she was loved, that God really loved her. So, she was shaken by love and gave her life to Christ. So, as you go on praying in the words of our ministry partner, we pray that many Muslims will be shaken so they will have room for the gospel of Jesus Christ to come in and change their lives.
Kenneth: Paul, thank you so much for sharing with us today on the podcast. As we draw to a close can you tell us how this particular trip impacted you, and how do you think the testimony of these Christians that you’ve been describing – the , Christians that you’ve met – how should that impact us as Christians generally in the UK?
Paul: I think that it’s just as we started this podcast, really, that the people we met there really shook me too just as they always do,. tThey inspire me and they cause me to want to live for Jesus even more than I do today; to live fully for Him and for people, whatever it might cost me personally. When I see how they’re living for Jesus, at great cost yet with such joy, and love for people all around them, sharing the gospel of love with those that may even hate or harm them, it makes me want to see that kind of discipleship in my own life, and more widely in the lives of Christians all around this country too. It might be a very different experience and culture for us here, but the needs of people are similar. You see, in John chapter 9, we read that when Jesus saw the crowds, He had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. And he said to his disciples, ‘the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send out workers into his harvest fields. So it doesn’t matter whether it’s Africa, or England, Wales, Scotland or Ireland: p. People need to hear about Jesus, and we’re the ones who should be making him known.
Kenneth: Paul, many thanks again.
In Colossians chapter 1, the apostle Paul wrote ‘the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world.’ That is no less true today, and we praise God for the way he is calling people to faith in Christ in every place and from the most unlikely backgrounds. As we have heard, this is costly for many of our brothers and sisters in East Africa. But they bear that cost with joy, and their passion to share Christ is strong. Let’s commit to stand with them in prayer and ask God for the same spiritual fervour in our own lives.
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