This makes me so sad.
Some excerpts:
“If people know that I’ve converted to Christianity, they might take the law into their own hands. If they are not broadminded, they might take a stone and throw it at me.”
Maria – not her real name – is a young Malaysian woman who has lived a secret and sometimes fearful life since she converted from Islam to Christianity.
“I feel that I am all alone in this struggle,” she says, “and I am frightened because I am alone against the odds.”
The article also talks about how she and her boyfriend want to get married, but can’t because they are not Muslims. Her church has made her sign something saying that they did not cause her conversion (in case they are found out). And she can’t get close to people because she can’t risk being found out as a Christian. It’s been this way for 10 years.
For some reason, it’s easy for me to imagine her fear. I’m sure I can’t capture all of it, but it’s easy for me to understand her. It hurts me that I know people who would condemn her, who would say that, if she really trusted God, she would talk about her faith and not be afraid. I don’t know if that’s right or not, but I could not condemn her.
I don’t know her life. I don’t know what she faces and what she fears. I don’t know what it’s like to look around and wonder what these people would do if they really knew me, and to know that that’s a serious threat and not a claim of the false self.
What I do know? Is that I will pray for her, and for her friend Lina Joy.
I think that’s interesting that her church made her sign something. So the “not talking” isn’t simply hers… this is what is being modeled too. Yet I can’t say I’d want to talk either. I imagine it must be an odd and difficult existence.
Totally. It’s like a culture of hidden Christianity. Honestly, I don’t blame them. But should I?
It sounds so lonely…