Faithful God

That same year the young man that joined us was left alone by his missionary wife. She went home to Southeast Asia because she was pregnant with their first baby. Both of them had a crucial role in our ministry to the Middle East, especially at that time. In the Middle East, women cannot go out without a male guardian and even women expats cannot go out from their accommodations without being accompanied or sponsored by a family member or at least by a married couple. So my husband and I together with our toddler boys were the only family who could sponsor or accompany single men and women when they needed to go out for fellowship. This meant we needed to be creative on how to meet people for discipleship. Since we could not do discipleship publicly, we opened up our one and only not-so-big room in our home for small groups and mini worship services every Friday. I transformed our bed area to a stage, added a pulpit, and used the white wall as the screen for a projector. During week days this room was our mini house again where the kitchen, dining, receiving area, and bed were. Since our sons were little at the time we could all fit in just one queen bed every night. It was a humble beginning for our family and in the ministry God had given us but the LORD IS FAITHFUL! I have teary eyes right now while writing this remembering how we all started and how God showed Himself faithful in our humble beginning as a family and as a ministry.

As I mentioned and I will mention it again with bold capital letters, the LORD IS FAITHFUL! He truly is. In March of the next year when our first church was finally launched, regular worship services were happening every Thursday night and Friday night in a real (not a bedroom anymore) venue! There was a real stage, a pulpit, sound system, and a sound-proof church hall where people could meet together for fellowship, small groups, one2one, and any discipleship or ministry related works. The church grew so much so that later on a new Friday morning worship service was added.

One Friday morning after that worship service was newly added, my husband was imprisoned for the first time, not because of the underground church gathering, but because he had to go out early in the morning to buy antacid medicine at the nearby walking distance pharmacy. He had an aching stomach at that time. He was supposed to preach that Friday morning, but he ended up preaching to his co-prisoner that day instead. A prisoner who seemed hopeless and discouraged in his unexpected situation. My husband’s imprisonment that morning was a surprise to him and to everyone of us because no one knew why except the authorities. No explanation and no further investigation had been done regarding my husband so we had no idea what he was charged with. My husband tried to call me first but I wasn’t able to answer because our children and I were still sleeping that early in the morning. So, he contacted one of the volunteer church staff before his phone was confiscated by the authorities who informed him that he was being arrested. He didn’t have any idea why or where he would be brought. So the volunteer staff who received the call from my husband came to me right away to inform me of what was going on. The volunteer then called some men from the church to look for my husband in different police stations in our area. 

All I could do was to pray with my children. Later that day, I received an update that they found my husband in jail in one of the police stations near us, but no one could find out the reason why was in jail. Even my youngest son asked me, “Why is Daddy in jail? Did he disobey the law?” I simply replied, “I don’t know why but I’m sure he didn’t disobey the law. Let’s just pray for Daddy that he will be released.” Then he answered me back with full confidence, “Daddy will come out of the jail today if he didn’t disobey the law. God will help him.” 

It was truly a long day and ended up being a long story sure, but in summary, a member of our church who was a local, came to meet me at the police station where my husband was found. He talked to the police officers in their language on my behalf (because none of them could speak and understand English) to find out the reason why my husband was imprisoned. According to the record, my husband was accused of being a prostitute by the police. But lo and behold, what my youngest son declared earlier would be true. My husband was quickly acquitted and brought out of jail that evening after a long day of fervent prayers with my children and spiritual family. That was his first imprisonment. 

The second and the third time he was imprisoned I noticed a pattern. Every time the church was growing or moving to the next level my husband would be imprisoned, not because of the church gathering, but because of some false accusation. When we moved to a bigger church villa because the church kept growing, my husband was imprisoned again for the same charge. But while he was in jail,  I continually declared by faith over him. I declared *Isaiah 54:17 and praised God when the accusation fell to the ground and he was acquitted once again.

His last imprisonment was different and difficult both for our family and the ministry. I was just recovering from a neck surgery (praise God the biopsy result was not malignant/cancer) and our family was newly transferred to the third floor of the villa because we had to give way to the kids ministry who needed our place on the second floor. It was more challenging than the previous imprisonments, more stressful, and even some of the families who lived with us were so fearful at the time that they ran away and left me and my two sons in the church villa alone while he was in jail. I completely understood that they were just so fearful at the time that they were willing to leave everything behind for the safety of their own lives and families. It’s really understandable. This was another long complicated story, which I will share more of later. 

After this challenging imprisonment, God moved us to a bigger and better villa where the church grew all the more, even the Embassy where we were from got involved. It was the biggest villa we ever had, a great location, and the longest church villa we had ever stayed at. It was 6 long years of peace and safety from imprisonment, until the villa owner asked us to move to another place because the said villa was going to be demolished. 

*”No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against you in judgement you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the Lord, and their vindication is from Me, declares the Lord.” Is 54:17

Photo by Rainier Ridao @rainierridao via Unsplash