CALLED: LAIZU AKTHER SIM’S FIRST BANGLADESHI MEMBER BALANCES OUR LEDGERS
CALLED
Mrs. Laizu Akther has served as treasurer for the SIM Bangladesh office in Dhaka since 2005. In 2017, she became SIM’s first Bangladeshi member. She also serves as training coordinator, travelling around the country to help team members develop their full potential. She says the most rewarding aspects of her role are “the opportunity to study God’s Word, live out my faith, and use my spiritual gifts.” She adds, “I desire to see the growth of new believers in the kingdom of God.” But Laizu was not always a Christ follower. Born into a Muslim family in 1969, she studied Islam in school. In the Bangladeshi educational system, students study one religious subject according to their religion. But Laizu’s father became a Christian, and when Laizu was 14, he began to share the gospel with her and her sister. A year later, he gave her a Bible. While she learned the Quran in school, she read from Genesis, and it drew her attention more than the Quran. Questions rose in her mind about Muslim claims. She asked her religious teacher about contradictions she read in the Quaran, and he became angry. When she asked her father, he helped her understand assurance of salvation from the Bible and the identity of Jesus Christ. Finally, she received Jesus as the only Saviour in the world, the one PLEASE PRAY:
10
who died on the cross for her sins. Then she planned to receive baptism. But there was a potential difficulty — she had married one month prior to this and had no idea how her new husband would perceive this. But God had gone before and blessed her in an unimaginable way. Her husband was already a believer, but she did not know it. She received baptism on February 10, 1989. After that she worked in an evangelistic organisation from 1989 to 2003, which offered opportunities to worship together and fellowship with believers. But when the organisation closed due to funding, Laizu and husband Nekbar Ali were bereft of Christian fellowship. So they opened their own home as a house church. Though it’s not easy for Muslim background believers to lead a Christian life, they are persevering.
For Laizu and Nekbar to hold the faith strongly and walk closely with God daily. For their family to shine brightly, that their sons and daughters-in-law would take their place in missions and be
even more fruitful than their parents. For receptive hearts among relatives so they would return to God. For women discipled by Laizu to become active believers and disciple others.
Through the house church, they preach the gospel, celebrate events, assist believers, give baptisms and encourage each other. But how did they find SIM? When Laizu and Nekbar married in 1989, he was a student of motorcycle mechanics at the SALAM Training Centre, a project of SIM Bangladesh. Meanwhile, Laizu had various involvements with SIM such as teaching the Bangla language to foreign women, women’s fellowship, helping in language assessment and translation work. SIM workers also attended the house church in their home. When the SIM Bangladesh needed a finance person in 2005, then director Jim Dressner hired her. Of Laizu’s eight brothers and sisters and their spouses, only 10 are believers. Others who once followed Christ are now living as Muslims. Laizu and Nekbar continue to share the gospel with their extended family, praying God would open hearts to the good news. Today Nekbar is with a business firm. Their two sons — Peter Saikat, architect, and Sagar, software engineer — and their wives are all believers. They are blessed with a one-year-old granddaughter.” laizu.akther@sim.org WWW.SIM.ORG
