A Dream About Jesus

Kerry: But why don't you let all of us know? I mean, I don't even really know your whole story. You know, who is Samir? You know, how did you end up in Canada? How did you meet Jesus? How did you get to where you are now?

Samir: Well, absolutely, Kerry. This brings a lot of memories. 20 years is a long time. That's more than half of my lifetime. I won't tell you my age. I'll let you keep guessing what our age difference is. But we came to Canada in 2004 from Pakistan. I'm originally from Afghanistan. I was born in Afghanistan and lived there for about five years during the civil war of the 1990s. When the Taliban captured Afghanistan for the first time in 1996, that's when we moved to Pakistan and lived there as refugees for about eight years.

It was in Pakistan, in the very hard life of Pakistan, refugee life of Pakistan, where even as a five-year-old, I began working with my mom making carpets from five in the morning to five, six, seven o'clock at night. It was during those times that my parents began truly crying out to God, and my family came to know Jesus. That story itself is quite miraculous.

As we lived on the third floor of a house, Kerry, usually there you shared houses. You rented one bedroom in a house of three, four bedrooms because people couldn't afford anything more. We lived on the top floor, and on the second floor, there were two other Afghan families. One of those families was Christian. One day, as my dad was coming from work, their two-year-old son was coming upstairs to play with my little sister, who was also about two years old at that time.

When my dad saw this little guy, he had a booklet in his hand titled "Jesus, the Savior of the World." My parents had never seen any Christian material in their life. When he saw it, he was quite surprised, asked if he could have it, and that little guy gave the booklet to my dad. He took it, ran to my mom, and said, "I have found a Christian book." They began reading it, and it talked about how Jesus came to this world, died for our sins, was buried, and resurrected on the third day.

When my mom heard that phrase that Jesus is the living God, that reminded her of a dream that she had seen seven years earlier in Afghanistan. We are working, you might have noticed, Gary. We are working in this story backward. This is the Asian way of doing things. You do circles when it comes to stories.

So seven years before they saw that booklet in Afghanistan, my mom, who had seen so much pain and suffering in life, her dad being killed when she was only five years old, and getting married when she was only 14 years old, lived in a house with 12 siblings. My dad's side of the family is a big family. When my mom moved into the house, she began serving everybody, becoming the servant in the house, making food for everybody, washing clothes for everybody. That was okay for my mom because she loved my dad.

Until one day, my dad came to the house, and my grandpa turned to my dad and said, "Why are you laughing and joking with your wife?" My mom and dad were close friends, having grown up together. My grandpa told my dad, "Why are you not serious? When are you going to become a man and control your family? You cannot control your family like this."

So my dad began becoming like his dad, starting from being a little bit more rough with his words towards my mom to beating her to a point where she would literally pass out. In the midst of that, my mom one day began crying to God and began asking him questions: God, where are you? Why did you take my dad away from me? Who am I? Why didn't you just kill me and take my life?

After one night when my dad had beaten my mom, she went to bed all bloodied up and began asking God. She saw a dream that two angels take her to heaven, and there's a throne in the middle of this gigantic room. On that glorious throne, a man is sitting, and the angel tells her to worship him because he's the living God. She saw that dream, bowed down before this man who sits on the throne, and the next morning she went back to her grandma and said, "Grandma, I've seen God."

Her grandma dismissed her and said, "This is just a dream. God is telling you to repent and do your prayers." She went to my dad and said, "Javed, I've seen the living God. I saw him in my dream." My dad also dismissed this dream, so she completely forgot about it until seven years later when she saw that booklet about Jesus being the living God. That changed their lives, and they began asking questions.

They went to that neighbor, and that neighbor began telling them more about Jesus. Four months later, my mom, my little sister, and I went to church for the first time, where my mom gave her life to Christ. She came back home, and, well, church goes on quite late there. It takes a while. The preacher preaches for more than an hour, the sermons are long, and the worship time is long. So when we got home, it was quite late. My dad was quite upset. He was mad that my mom had not made dinner, and he was there from work. He used to work 16-hour-long shifts every single day in Pakistan.

When my mom entered the room, Kerry, my dad got up to beat her up. But the only thing that stopped him, and this is what he says when he gives this testimony, is that he saw a smile on her face. She had completely spiritually died, and Jesus gave her life. So, my dad did not know what to do with that, and he said, "I don't want to take this happiness from her." And my mom said, "It doesn't matter to me whether you let me live or kill me; I've become a Christian." She said that to my dad, and my dad said she'll forget about it by next week, and she didn't. We went back to church, and she came back and told my dad, "You need to come to church; these people are different; there is love in their hearts; you can see it; God is in the church; you need to come and see for yourself."

And my dad came to church with his long beard and his traditional clothes to prove my mom wrong, but God had other plans for him. He got there, a brother hugged him and kissed him, and he thought they are just trying to deceive him too. We went in, and we were worshipping in our own language, which never happens in Islam; you pray even in Arabic. And here we were singing to God in our own language. Then the pastor began preaching, and my dad says the sermon seemed to be just for him. At the end, when the pastor said if anyone wants to give their life to Christ, come to the front, my dad ran, he knelt, he bowed, and he wept, and God changed his life.

So that's a little bit the story of my parents. And I know what your next question is going to be.

Kerry: Which is...