Thank you so much for your prayers and gifts for our sisters and brothers around the world who are risking everything for Christ. Believers like Aminah* in East Africa are being supported and sustained in their faith despite the persecution they face.
Aminah became a Christian after her son was healed through prayer at her local church. “My husband didn’t like it,” she remembers. “He said that it was fine if the prayers had worked, but that our visits to the church should end there and then.”
Back at home, she tried to reason with her husband about continuing to go to church. But he wouldn’t have any of it. “He said, ‘If you don’t leave that Christian religion, you can’t stay any longer in this house.’ Then he ordered my two oldest children who had joined me at church to go into the house. He beat them up until he was satisfied.”
As he left for work, he told Aminah to return to Islam, or leave the house and never come back.
You’ve helped Aminah rebuild her life
But Aminah couldn’t leave her children, so she stayed. Her husband sent people to spy on her to make sure she didn’t attend the church. He also stopped sending money home to support the family. After two months of hiding at home, Aminah managed to visit her pastor in secret, who connected her with Open Doors local partners. They provided Aminah with a small loan, and she built a simple shop next to their house. She finally had an income of her own.
Thanks to you, Aminah can send her children to school and live out her faith freely
“I’m really hopeful”
After six months, her husband returned home and saw that she was doing well. Furious, he beat her. “I was panicking,” Aminah says. “He said that if I cared for my life, I should tear down the shop and leave. I felt so bad. I really wanted to kill myself. But while I was thinking of how to kill myself, I stopped, because of my children. I broke down my shop and left.”
“I’m really hopeful...if it were not for your support, I would have sat somewhere to cry, or worse”
Aminah
Aminah had a plot of land nearby – and, through her church, Open Doors helped her to restart her life again. She built a new home for herself, and a new shop. She now has enough money to send her children to school. “I’m really hopeful,” she says. “I’m much better now. I passed through hard times, but if it were not for your support, I would have sat somewhere to cry, or worse.”
*Name changed for security reasons
