THE IMPACT OF HOPE & HOSPITALITY John’s Story By Grayson Hester
After a difficult journey from Egypt to Sweden to Belgium, a 150-day stay in a prison camp, bureaucracy and uncertainty, John experiences freedom.
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hat do the far-flung countries of Egypt, Sweden and Belgium have in common? A man named John.
John followed his call to minister to people of the Islamic faith in 2015, and found CBF field personnel Janée Angel, her husband, Hary, and Christus Voor Alle Naties, their Arabiclanguage church in Antwerp, Belgium which welcomes a community of immigrants and refugees.
God had different plans. “The Lord then talked to me and ordered me to come to Belgium,” John said. “At first, I was stubborn, and I thought it was not a real vision. And I didn’t want to go to Belgium, I wanted to go to Egypt again.” John, who attends Christus Voor Alle Naties (Christ for All But, faithful and receptive as ever, in February 2015, John made Nations), a church planted by Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field the nearly 1,000-mile journey to Antwerp. What he encountered there personnel Janée Angel and her husband, Hary, in Antwerp, Belgium, revealed that homesickness was to be the least of his worries. feels called to minister to the Muslim population there. It is a call For the first six months, his limited visa assured his stay in so persistent and so keenly heard that it led him across years, Belgium. He was able to reunite with his sister and even twice renew continents and countries, and helped him endure months in a camp his papers. On that second attempt, however, the brunt of the he called prison. bureaucracy came to his door. “Suddenly, they came to my house and John came to know Christ in 1991 because of a man named Ashraf. told me, ‘You need to come with us to the police station; you have to “He talked to me about hell and then I started thinking about how I be transferred to Egypt,’” John explained. “Then they sent me to a once feared death so much and how I should take Christ as a guide closed camp which was really a prison.” to lead me to heaven,” John said. “So, I decided to follow Christ and, There, John languished while the wheels of international relations since that day, I became solely dedicated to the Lord.” ground with painful slowness. In order to send him back to Egypt, he It is at this point that John received his call to minister to people needed some travel documents of which he was not in possession. of the Islamic faith, which initially led him to Sweden in 2015. The This meant the authorities had to appeal to the Egyptian embassy country and climate, when compared to the heat of Egypt, could not in Belgium to receive a permit. After a week, he was told, with have been more different. Struggling to adjust and to find his people, devastating frankness, that he would definitely be going back to John remembered having a “gloomy heart” and longing for home. Egypt. But John didn’t believe it.
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fellowship!
