My name is Van.
I’m 42 years old and I’ve been a commercial airline pilot for over 18 years.
What I’m about to share with you happened on September 23rd, 2016, a date that changed everything.
That day at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Geda, I did something that still haunts me.
I gathered Bibles with my fellow Muslim pilots and burned them in a metal barrel.
I thought I was serving Allah.
I had no idea I was about to meet Jesus Christ face to face.
I was born in Riyad to a family where Islam wasn’t just practiced.
It was lived and breathed every moment of every day.
My father was an imam at our local mosque.
A man whose reputation for strict adherence to Islamic law was known throughout our neighborhood.
From the moment I could walk, my life was structured around the five daily prayers.
By age seven, I was already memorizing verses from the Quran.
And by the time I turned 15, I had committed large portions of it to memory.
Islam wasn’t just my religion.
It was my identity, my culture, my entire world view.
Every decision I made, every relationship I formed, every career choice I considered was filtered through the lens of Islamic teaching.
When I woke up each morning, my first thought was of Allah.
When I went to bed each night, my final words were prayers of submission and gratitude.
This wasn’t burdensome to me.
This was life as I knew it, and I found deep satisfaction in the structured devotion.
My childhood was filled with Islamic education alongside regular schooling.
While other children played games during their free time, I spent hours in the mosque learning Arabic calligraphy and studying the hadith.
My mother would prepare special meals during Ramadan, and I looked forward to those times of fasting and prayer as the most meaningful periods of the year.
The sense of community during these holy times was profound.
our entire extended family would gather and I felt connected to something much larger than myself.
When I turned 25, I made the pilgrimage to Mecca for Hajj.
Standing before the Kaaba with millions of other Muslims from around the world was the most spiritually intense experience of my young life.
I wept openly as I circled the holy site, feeling the weight of centuries of Islamic tradition flowing through me.
That experience deepened my faith beyond anything I had previously known.
I returned to Riyad with an even stronger commitment to living as a devoted Muslim.
Shortly after my return from Hajj, I married a woman from a deeply religious family.
My wife shared my commitment to Islamic principles and together we created a household that revolved around prayer, Quran study and raising our children in the faith.
We had three children and from their earliest days they learned to recite prayers and understand that Allah was the center of all existence.
My wife and I took great pride in their Islamic education ensuring they attended the best Islamic schools and surrounded them with other devout Muslim families.
My aviation career began when I was 24 years old.
I had always been fascinated by flight, but I saw it as more than just a profession.
Flying was a gift from Allah and I understood myself to be his servant in the skies.
During flights, I would often lead prayers for the crew and any Muslim passengers.
I carried prayer rugs in my flight bag and made sure to maintain my prayer schedule regardless of time zones or flight schedules.
My fellow pilots respected my devotion and I became known throughout the Saudi aviation community as a man of uncompromising faith.
As my career progressed and I eventually became a captain, I began to take a more active role in what we called Islamic Dawa or evangelism efforts.
I saw my position as a pilot as a platform for sharing the beauty of Islam with others.
During layovers in various countries, I would visit local mosques and participate in community discussions about faith and life.
I carried Islamic literature with me and wasn’t shy about sharing my beliefs with crew members from other backgrounds.
The years following the September 11th attacks were particularly significant in shaping my religious outlook.
While I certainly didn’t support terrorism, I felt that Islam was under attack from Western powers and Christian missionaries who wanted to corrupt our pure faith.
I began attending mosque lectures that focused on defending Islam from what the speakers called Western corruption and Christian deception.
These sessions reinforced my belief that Christianity was a corrupted religion that led people away from the true worship of Allah.
I became increasingly militant in my religious views.
During this period, I participated in mosque discussions about protecting Islamic values from foreign influence.
I genuinely believed that Christian missionaries were enemies of Allah who sought to destroy the face of Muslims through deception and false promises.
The idea of Christians distributing Bibles in Saudi Arabia filled me with righteous anger.
How dare they try to corrupt the Holy Land with their twisted version of God’s message? Ask yourself this question.
Have you ever been so certain about something that you couldn’t imagine being wrong? That was me during those years.
I attended anti-Christian seminars regularly where speakers would point out what they claimed were contradictions in the Bible and errors in Christian theology.
I absorbed these teachings eagerly, building up an intellectual arsenal against Christianity that I felt was impenetrable.
My reputation in the aviation community grew not just because of my flying skills, but because of my unwavering commitment to Islamic principles.
Younger pilots would approach me for guidance on maintaining their faith while traveling internationally.
I mentored several Muslim aviators, always emphasizing the importance of seeing our work as service to Allah and our travels as opportunities to represent Islam with dignity and strength.
During this period of my life, I felt completely secure in my face and my purpose.
I had a loving family, a successful career, the respect of my community, and what I believe was a direct relationship with Almighty.
I couldn’t have imagined that in just a few short years, everything I thought I knew about God would be turned completely upside down by an encounter with the very Jesus I had been taught to reject.
September 23rd, 2016 began like any other day in my aviation career.
I arrived at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Geda around noon for what was scheduled to be a routine evening flight to Dubai.
The weather was absolutely perfect that day with clear skies stretching endlessly above us and minimal wind conditions that would make for a smooth departure.
As I walked through the terminal toward the crew briefing room, I felt that familiar sense of satisfaction that came with another day of serving Allah through my profession.
My crew and I spent the early afternoon conducting our standard pre-flight preparations.
We reviewed weather reports, checked flight plans, and coordinated with ground services.
I had flown this particular route dozens of times before, and everything felt comfortably routine.
The Boeing 777 we were assigned was one of the newer aircraft in our fleet and I took pride in the meticulous way we prepared for each flight.
It started as an ordinary day but Allah had other plans that I couldn’t have imagined.
Around 3:00 in the afternoon, while I was reviewing fuel calculations in the pilot lounge, there was a commotion near the security office.
Airport security had discovered something during a routine cargo inspection that immediately drew attention from multiple departments.
Word spread quickly among the staff, and within minutes several of us had gathered to see what had caused such concern.
What I saw next filled me with a rage that surprised me with its intensity.
There, spread across a metal table, were approximately 20 Bibles in both Arabic and English.
They had been discovered in a cargo container that was supposed to contain only commercial electronics.
Someone had attempted to smuggle these books into our Islamic kingdom, and the sight of them sitting there in our holy land made my blood boil with righteous indignation.
When I saw those books, I felt an immediate and overwhelming sense of violation.
How dare they try to corrupt our Islamic land with these texts that I had been taught were filled with lies and deception.
My hands clenched into fists as I stared at the covers, some of which displayed crosses and images that I found deeply offensive.
These weren’t just books to me.
They represented an attack on everything I held sacred, an attempt to poison the minds of faithful Muslims with false teachings about God.
The security chief, a man I had known for several years, approached our group of gathered pilots and ground crew with obvious frustration.
He explained that they had protocols for disposing of contraband materials, but he wanted input from respected community members about the best way to handle this particular situation.
Several people suggested simply throwing the books away, but that didn’t feel like enough to me.
These weren’t ordinary contraband items.
These were weapons being used in a spiritual war against Islam.
Without hesitation, I stepped forward and volunteered to personally oversee the destruction of these corrupted texts.
I felt it was not just my right but my religious obligation to ensure that these dangerous books could never reach the hands of unsuspecting Muslims.
The security chief seemed relieved to have someone willing to take responsibility and he granted me permission to handle the disposal as I saw fit.
I immediately called several other Muslim pilots who were in the terminal that day.
Men I knew shared my commitment to protecting our faith.
Five of them joined me without question, understanding immediately the gravity of what we were facing.
We saw ourselves as holy warriors in that moment, defenders of Islam against Christian corruption.
The solidarity I felt with these men was profound.
We were united in purpose, ready to take action that we believed would protect our community from spiritual harm.
We gathered the Bibles and carried them to a maintenance area behind the terminal where we knew we could dispose of them properly.
I retrieved a large metal barrel that was typically used for burning waste materials and we set it up in an area away from the main terminal activities.
The physical act of carrying those books felt like handling contaminated materials.
I was careful not to open any of them or read any words that might confuse my thinking.
As we prepared the fire, I felt an overwhelming sense of righteousness and purpose.
With each Bible that I threw into the barrel, I believed I was performing a sacred duty to Allah.
The flames consumed page after page, and I watched with satisfaction as what I considered to be lies and deceptions turned to ash.
My fellow pilots joined me in chanting Allahu Akbar.
As the fire burned, the sound of our unified voices declaring God’s greatness filled the air.
The burning took almost an hour.
During that time, I felt more spiritually fulfilled than I had in months.
I was convinced that I was participating in something that pleased Allah deeply.
We took photographs to document what we had done, planning to share the story with our mosque community as an example of how faithful Muslims should respond to such threats.
The sense of accomplishment was overwhelming.
After we finished, we returned to the pilot lounge where other crew members congratulated us for our decisive action.
We shared tea and discussed how important it was for Muslims to remain vigilant against Christian missionary activities.
The conversation reinforced my belief that what we had done was not just acceptable but necessary.
I felt proud to have led such an important defense of our faith.
That evening, I called my father to share what had happened.
His voice filled with pride as I described how we had protected our Islamic community from Christian corruption.
He praised my leadership and reminded me that such actions were exactly what faithful Muslims should do when confronted with threats to their faith.
My wife also expressed her approval when I told her the story that night, saying she was proud to be married to a man who would take such bold action for Islam.
Have you ever been so certain you were doing God’s will only to discover you were completely wrong? That was exactly my state of mind as I went to bed that night, feeling spiritually satisfied and confident that I had served Allah well.
I had no way of knowing that the very act I was so proud of would become the catalyst for the most dramatic transformation of my entire life.
After completing the evening flight to Dubai and returning home around 11:00 that night, I performed my evening prayers with extra devotion and gratitude.
I thanked Allah repeatedly for giving me the opportunity to defend Islam from Christian corruption.
The satisfaction I felt was unlike anything I had experienced in years.
I genuinely believed I had performed one of the most righteous acts of my entire life.
And I fell asleep that night feeling spiritually accomplished and at peace with my actions.
What happened next would challenge everything I thought I knew about God, faith, and spiritual reality.
At exactly 3:33 in the morning, I found myself golted awake by an experience that defied all logic and understanding.
But this wasn’t a normal awakening from sleep.
I was instantly and completely alert, as if someone had called my name loudly.
Yet the house was completely silent.
My wife continued sleeping peacefully beside me, and there were no sounds from outside that could have caused such an abrupt awakening.
As I lay there trying to understand what had disturbed my sleep, something extraordinary began to happen.
The familiar surroundings of my bedroom started to fade, and I found myself standing in the same airport maintenance area where we had burned the Bibles just hours earlier.
But this wasn’t a dream in any normal sense.
Every detail was crystal clear, more vivid than waking reality.
I could feel the cool night air on my skin, smell the lingering scent of smoke, and hear the distant sounds of airport activity.
But instead of the ashes and empty barrel I had left behind, I saw something that made my heart stop with terror and wonder.
There, in the center of where we had built our fire stood a brilliant figure dressed in white robes.
The flames were still burning around him, but they weren’t touching his clothing or causing him any harm.
He stood completely unburned by the fire that should have consumed anything within its reach.
The figure was clearly a man, but there was something about him that was unlike anyone I had ever encountered.
His presence radiated a power and authority that was immediately recognizable as divine.
Yet his face held an expression of infinite love and profound sadness.
His eyes met mine across the burning ground, and I felt as though he could see directly into my soul, understanding every thought and motivation that had led me to that moment.
When he spoke, his voice carried both the gentleness of a loving father and the authority of absolute truth.
He spoke in perfect Arabic with an accent that seemed to come from no earthly reg identify.
The words he said pierced through my consciousness like nothing I had ever heard before.
son, he said, and hearing my name spoken by this figure filled me with both terror and inexplicable comfort.
Why do you burn my words of love? The question hit me like a physical blow.
My words of love? What could he possibly mean? The Bibles we had burned contained Christian lies and deceptions, didn’t they? Yet, as I looked into his eyes, I saw no anger or condemnation, only a deep sadness that seemed to encompass all the pain and rejection he had ever experienced.
His eyes held the look of a father watching a beloved child make a terrible mistake.
wanting to help but waiting for the child to recognize their need for guidance.
I tried to speak to defend what I had done to explain that I had been protecting Islam from corruption but no words would come.
The presence of this figure was so overwhelming that I felt completely powerless to justify my actions or even to understand what was happening to me.
All my training in Islamic theology, all my certainty about Christian deception seemed to crumble in the face of the love and authority radiating from this man in white.
The vision lasted only a few minutes, but it felt like hours.
During that time, I experienced emotions I had never felt before.
There was fear certainly because I was encountering something completely outside my understanding of reality.
But there was also an overwhelming sense of being known and loved by someone whose love was more complete and unconditional than anything I had ever imagined possible.
Then as suddenly as it had begun, the vision ended.
I found myself back in my bedroom drenched in sweat despite the cool temperature of the air conditioning.
My heart was pounding so violently that I was afraid it might wake my wife.
My hands were trembling uncontrollably and I realized I could actually smell smoke in the room even though there was no fire anywhere in our house.
The experience had been so vivid and real that I immediately got up and walked through our home, checking every room to make sure there wasn’t actually a fire somewhere.
But everything was exactly as it should be.
The mysterious smell of smoke seemed to follow me, though, as if it had somehow attached itself to my clothing or my very being.
I spent the rest of the night unable to return to sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I could see that figure standing in the flames, and I could hear his voice asking why I had burned his words of love.
I tried to convince myself that it was just stress from the day, perhaps combined with the physical exhaustion from the long flight.
I had heard of pilots experiencing strange dreams due to irregular sleep schedules and the pressures of the job.
When morning came, I performed my ablution and morning prayers with particular care.
Hoping that extra devotion would cleanse my mind of any satanic influence that might have caused such a disturbing dream.
I recited verses from the Quran that I had been taught would protect against evil spirits and false visions.
But even during my prayers, I couldn’t shake the memory of those loving sad eyes or the gentle authority in that voice.
I tried to convince myself it was just stress from the day.
But deep in my heart, I knew I had encountered something far beyond my understanding.
Something that would not let me rest until I found answers to questions I was afraid to ask.
The next morning, I shared the disturbing vision with my wife, describing it as a nightmare that had troubled my sleep.
She immediately suggested that I increase my Quran reading and spend more time in prayer to cleanse my mind of any satanic influence.
When I called my father for guidance, he advised me to give extra charity and perform additional prayers beyond the required five daily sessions.
Everyone I consulted assured me it was simply Satan trying to confuse a faithful Muslim who had performed such a righteous act for Islam.
I threw myself into increased Islamic devotion over the following days.
Desperately trying to erase the memory of that figure in white from my mind.
I spent extra hours at the mosque, participated in additional Quran study sessions, and increased my charitable giving significantly.
Yet, despite all these efforts, I found myself sinking constantly about those sad loving eyes and the gentle question about burning words of love.
The image haunted my prayers and invaded my thoughts during quiet moments throughout each day.
3 days after the first vision, something even more extraordinary occurred during my evening prayers at our neighborhood mosque.
I was in the middle of performing McGreb prayers when suddenly in the midst of my prostration, the same brilliant figure appeared standing directly in front of me in the prayer hall.
The other worshippers continued their prayers normally, completely unaware of the divine presence that had manifested among us.
only I could see him and the realization that this was a personal visitation filled me with both terror and wonder.
This time the figure held a book in his hands that seemed to glow with an inner light I had never witnessed before.
The book appeared to be the source of the radiance that surrounded him.
And I somehow understood that this was no ordinary text.
When he spoke, his voice carried the same gentle authority I remembered from the first encounter.
But now there was an urgency in his tone that demanded my attention.
“My words bring life, not death,” he said, holding the glowing book toward me.
“Why do you fear love?” The question pierced through my consciousness with even greater force than his previous words had.
As I remained prostrate on my prayer rug, unable to move or speak, I felt his presence drawing closer.
The love radiating from him was so intense that it threatened to overwhelm my ability to think rationally about what was happening.
The vision lasted longer this time, perhaps 10 or 15 minutes, during which the entire prayer service continued around me, while I remained frozen in that single position.
When the figure finally disappeared, and I was able to complete my prayers, I realized I had been weeping without knowing it.
My prayer rug was damp with tears.
I didn’t remember shedding and my hands were shaking so violently that I could barely perform the closing gestures of the prayer ritual.
One week later, while flying at 37,000 ft on what should have been a routine flight to Kuwait, I experienced the third and most profound supernatural encounter yet.
The autopilot was engaged.
My co-pilot was reviewing approach charts and everything about the flight was proceeding normally when I suddenly felt a presence in the cockpit that was unmistakably divine.
The same figure from my previous visions appeared in the passenger seat directly next to me.
This time instead of asking a single question he engaged me in an extended conversation.
the talent, everything I had ever believed about God, love, and the purpose of faith.
He spoke of loving one’s enemies, of forgiving those who persecute you, of turning the other cheek when struck.
These concepts were completely foreign to everything I had been taught about defending Islam and fighting against unbelievers.
fun.
He said with infinite patience, “You have spent your life trying to earn God’s love through religious performance.
But love cannot be earned.
It can only be received as a gift.
” His words cut through decades of Islamic training that had taught me salvation came through submission, good works, and faithful adherence to religious law.
The idea that God’s love might be freely given without conditions or requirements seemed too wonderful to believe.
During that conversation at 37,000 ft, he showed me visions of his life, his teachings, his death, and his resurrection.
I saw him weeping over Jerusalem, healing the sick, comforting the brokenhearted, and ultimately dying on a cross for the sins of humanity.
The love I witnessed in these visions was unlike anything I had ever imagined possible.
It was love that pursued enemies, forgave betrayers, and died for those who rejected it.
As these supernatural encounters continued, my physical and emotional state began deteriorating rapidly.
Sleep became virtually impossible as I was either experiencing visions or lying awake thinking about their implications.
My appetite disappeared completely and I began losing weight at an alarming rate.
My hands developed a constant trema that made it difficult to perform the precise movements required for flying commercial aircraft.
The spiritual confusion was even more devastating than the physical symptoms.
Every time I tried to pray in Arabic, I found myself thinking about the figure’s words instead of focusing on traditional Islamic prayers.
Reading the Quran brought confusion rather than peace, especially when I encountered verses about fighting unbelievers or conquering non-Muslim lands.
Every verse about warfare and religious conflict made me profoundly uncomfortable in ways I had never experienced before.
I sought counsel from multiple imams describing my experiences as satanic attacks that needed to be countered through increased religious devotion.
They prescribed more fasting, more prayer, more Quran memorization and more charitable giving.
But nothing they suggested brought me any peace or relief from the visions.
If anything, my attempts to fight against these experiences through Islamic practices seemed to intensify their frequency and power.
Now ask yourself this question when God calls, “How far will you run?” Because that’s exactly what I was doing during this period.
I was running as fast and as hard as I could from a divine love that was pursuing me relentlessly.
I was a man drowning in spiritual confusion, desperately clinging to familiar religious practices while being drawn towards something completely unknown.
The fourth vision occurred during a family dinner, and this time my wife noticed my strange behavior.
The figure appeared behind her as she served our evening meal, and the overwhelming sense of love and peace that filled our dining room was so intense that I began weeping openly at the table.
When my wife asked what was wrong, I couldn’t find words to explain what I was experiencing.
That night, as I lay awake wrestling with these impossible encounters, I finally understood that this wasn’t Satan attacking a faithful Muslim.
This was divine love pursuing Allah’s soul, and no amount of Islamic resistance was going to make it stop.
I made the terrifying decision to investigate Christianity, knowing that such a choice could cost me everything I held dear in this life.
The decision to secretly investigate Christianity was the most terrifying choice I had ever made in my life.
In Saudi Arabia, such an act wasn’t just religiously forbidden.
It was legally dangerous.
The consequences for apostasy could include imprisonment, loss of citizenship, or worse.
Yet, I knew I could no longer ignore what was happening to me.
The supernatural encounters had become so frequent and powerful that I was barely functional in my daily life.
Something divine was pursuing me, and I had to understand what it wanted.
My opportunity came during a scheduled layover in Bahrain where I knew there was more religious freedom and a small Christian community.
I had never been inside a Christian bookstore.
And as I approached the modest building tucked away in a commercial district, my heart pounded with fear and anticipation.
Every step toward that door felt like a betrayal of everything I had been raised to believe.
Yet, I couldn’t turn back.
The elderly man behind the counter spoke softly when I explained that I was a Muslim pilot who needed to understand Christianity for personal reasons.
without asking questions or making me feel uncomfortable.
He handed me an Arabic Bible and whispered a brief prayer for my spiritual journey.
My hands shook as I accepted the book, realizing I was holding the very type of text I had burned just weeks earlier.
The irony was overwhelming and I felt both shame and desperate hope as I carefully placed it in my flight bag.
I covered the Bible with Islamic materials and technical manuals.
Terrified that airport security or my crew members might discover what I was carrying.
The flight back to Riyad was the longest of my career.
Not because of turbulence or mechanical issues.
But because I was carrying what felt like spiritual contraband that could destroy my entire life if discovered, every customs check and security scan made me break out in cold sweat, convinced that somehow my secret would be exposed.
That night in my hotel room in Riyad, I opened the Bible for the first time with trembling hands.
I had decided to start with the Gospel of Matthew.
Having heard that it contained the most complete account of Gesus’s teachings.
As I read the opening genealogology, I was surprised to find familiar names from the Old Testament, figures I knew from Islamic teaching like Abraham and David.
This wasn’t a completely foreign text I had expected.
Then I reached the sermon on the mount and my entire world view began to crumble.
Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.
These weren’t the words of a false prophet or corrupted teacher.
This was wisdom that spoke directly to the deepest longings of my heart for peace, justice, and divine love.
But it was Jesus’s teaching about loving enemies that completely shattered my understanding of God’s character.
You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
” But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your father in heaven.
As I read these words, I realized that I had spent my entire life hating people Jesus commanded me to love.
The Bibles I had burned contained instructions to love even those who would burn them.
Night after night, I continued reading in secret, hiding the Bible in different locations around our house and only studying it when my wife was asleep or away.
Each page revealed more about a God whose love was radically different from anything I had learned in Islam.
This wasn’t a God who demanded submission through fear and religious performance.
This was a God who pursued rebels with unconditional love and died for them while they were still his enemies.
I began comparing Jesus’s teachings with Islamic doctrine and the differences were staggering.
Islam taught that salvation came through submission to Allah and faithful performance of religious duties.
Christianity taught that salvation was a free gift given to those who simply believed and received it.
Islam emphasized God’s justice and the need to earn his favor.
Christianity emphasized God’s love and his desire to freely forgive.
The concept of the trinity was perhaps the most difficult for me to understand.
Having been raised to believe that associating anyone with Allah was the gravest sin possible.
Yet, as I studied the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I began to see not a contradiction of monotheism, but a revelation of God’s complex nature that was beyond human comprehension.
This wasn’t three gods, but one God existing in perfect relationship within himself.
I spent weeks researching the historical reliability of the gospels, comparing them with early Islamic accounts of Jesus’s life.
I was shocked to discover that even the Quran affirmed Jesus’s virgin birth, sinless life, and miraculous powers.
The only major disagreement was over his deaths and resurrection which Islam denied but Christianity claimed as the central event of human history.
The weight of my sin began to crush me during this period of study.
I realized that burning those Bibles wasn’t just destroying books.
It was rejecting the very love of God that had been offered to me and my people.
The same hands that had thrown pagers into flames were now turning pagus, that spoke of forgiveness for even the worst sinners.
I had burned books that contained more love than hatred, more mercy than judgment, more hope than condemnation.
Look inside your own heart right now.
Have you ever realized that everything you believed about God was wrong? That’s what I experienced during those weeks of secret Bible study.
Every assumption I had made about Christianity.
Every negative thing I had been taught about Jesus proved to be completely false when I examined his actual words and life.
The breaking point came on October 15th, 2016 during an extended layover in Dubai.
I was alone in my hotel room reading John 3:16 for what must have been the hundth time.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
The simplicity and power of that promise finally overwhelmed every intellectual and cultural barrier I had erected against it.
Sitting on the egg of that hotel bed, I felt the full weight of my rebellion against God’s love crashing down on me.
I had spent my entire life trying to earn God’s favor through religious performance, never realizing that he was offering it as a free gift.
I had burned his word, rejected his son, and lived in prideful independence from his grace.
Yet even then he was pursuing me with relentless love.
I fell to my knees beside that hotel bed and cried out in a mixture of Arabic and broken English, “Jesus, if you are truly God’s son, if you died for my sins, I surrender my life to you.
Forgive me for burning your word.
Forgive me for rejecting your love.
Take my life, make it yours.
” The moment I spoke those words, something supernatural happened that was even more powerful than any of the visions I had experienced.
A peace that defied all understanding flooded my heart and mind.
It felt like coming home after a lifetime of wandering in a foreign land.
The spiritual confusion and torment that had plagued me for weeks instantly disappeared, replaced by a certainty that I was finally where I belonged.
The same hands that had burned God’s word were now raised in surrender to God’s love.
And the transformation was complete and immediate.
The immediate transformation I experienced after surrendering to Jesus was unlike anything I had ever imagined possible.
I was literally a new creation.
But I found myself trapped in an old world that couldn’t understand or accept what had happened to me.
For the next several months, I lived what felt like a double life, maintaining my Muslim appearance and public identity while secretly growing in my new found Christian faith during every private moment I could find.
I developed an elaborate system for secret Bible reading during my layovers in countries with more religious freedom.
Whenever I flew to Dubai, Jordan, or Lebanon, I would spend hours in hotel rooms devouring the scriptures with a hunger I had never felt for any religious text before.
Every page revealed more about the character of God and the depths of his love for humanity.
I carried a small Arabic New Testament hidden in my flight bag, concealed beneath technical manuals.
and Islamic materials.
Finding Christian fellowship in Saudi Arabia required extreme caution, but through careful inquiries and divine providence, I discovered a small underground network of believers.
Most were expatriate workers from the Philippines, India, and other countries.
But there were also a few Saudi converts who understood the dangerous paths I was walking.
The secret gatherings took place in private homes with careful security measures to avoid detection by religious police.
The most significant moment of this hidden period came when I was baptized in the private swimming pool of an expatriate Christian brother who worked for an international oil company.
As I went under the water, I felt the symbolic death of my old Islamic identity.
And as I emerged, I experienced the resurrection power of new life in Christ.
I was no longer Ian the Muslim pilot.
I was Ian, beloved son of the most high God.
Though I couldn’t yet live openly in that identity.
Living this double life was emotionally and spiritually exhausting.
During the day, I would participate in Islamic prayers at the airport mosque, attend Friday prayers at our neighborhood mosque, and maintain the religious facade that my family and colleagues expected.
But my heart was no longer in those rituals.
Instead of finding spiritual satisfaction in Islamic worship, I felt like I was participating in empty performances that had no power to connect me with the God I now knew personally through Jesus.
The internal tension became almost unbearable as weeks turned into months.
I was growing rapidly in my understanding of Christian doctrine and my personal relationship with Christ while simultaneously being forced to maintain Islamic practices that now felt meaningless.
I began making subtle changes to my Islamic prayers.
Sometimes quietly praying to Jesus while going through the motions of Islamic worship.
I felt like a spiritual spy in my own life.
The discovery came in early 2017 when my wife was packing my flight bag for a trip to Kuwait.
She found the hidden Arabic New Testament that I thought I had concealed well enough.
The moment she opened that book and saw the name of Jesus prominently displayed on the pages, our entire world exploded into chaos and heartbreak.
The confrontation that followed was the most painful experience of my entire life.
My wife’s screams of apostate and traitor to Islam still echo in my memory with devastating clarity.
She immediately called her father and my father, summoning them to our house for an immigrancy family meeting.
Within hours, our living room was filled with extended family members, all demanding explanations for what they saw as the ultimate betrayal of our face and culture.
My three children reigned in an age from 8 to 15 watched in confusion and terror as the mother wept and their relatives shouted accusations at their father.
My youngest son kept asking what was wrong, why everyone was angry, why mama was crying.
My teenage daughter looked at me with a mixture of hurt and disgust that broke my heart more than all the adult anger combined.
She actually used the word traitor when speaking to me, calling me an enemy of Allah and of our family.
My father’s response was perhaps the most devastating of all.
This man who had raised me in Islamic faith, who had been so proud of my religious devotion and my defense of Islam through burning those Bibles, now looked at me as if I were a stranger.
He delivered an ultimatum that still haunts my dreams.
You have 24 hours to renounce this Christian madness and return to Islam or you are no longer my son.
Choose between this Jesus and your family.
The professional consequences followed quickly after the family crisis.
Word of my conversion spread through the tightknit Saudi aviation community faster than I could have imagined.
Fellow pilots who had once respected my religious devotion now viewed me with suspicion and hostility.
I was suddenly assigned to punishment routes, short domestic flights that were considered the worst assignments in our airline.
My colleagues began avoiding me in crew lounges and some openly refused to fly with an apostat pilot.
My wife initiated divorce proceedings within a week of discovering my faith and her family used every legal and cultural tool available to ensure I would lose custody of our children.
In Saudi society, a Christian father was considered unfit to raise Muslim children and the courts agreed without hesitation.
The day I was forced to say goodbye to my children was the darkest moment of my entire life.
My youngest son flung to me crying, not understanding why daddy couldn’t live with him anymore.
The social isolation was complete and devastating.
Our house was vandalized with anti-Christian graffiti that called me a traitor and threatened violence if I didn’t leave the neighborhood.
Former friends from the mosque crossed the street to avoid speaking to me.
Death threats appeared in my mailbox and on my car windshield.
I was completely cut off from every social and professional network that had defined my identity for over four decades.
There were nights during this period when I questioned whether following Jesus had been worth losing everything I held dear in this earthly life.
The loneliness was crushing and the financial pressures were mounting as my career prospects in Saudi Arabia disappeared completely.
I would lie awake in my empty apartment, missing my children’s voices and wondering if I had made the biggest mistake of my life.
But every time I opened that Bible, I remembered the love I had experienced and the peace that surpassed all understanding.
Divine provision came in the form of an unexpected job offer from an international airline based in Jordan where my conversion to Christianity was legally protected rather than criminally prosecuted.
The position offered me a chance to start over in a country where I could worship openly and rebuild my life as a Christian.
Leaving Saudi Arabia meant leaving any hope of regular contact with my children, but staying would have meant living in constant fear and spiritual compromise.
The Christian community in Gordon became my new spiritual family in ways that exceeded anything I had experienced in my biological family.
I found a brother who had also converted from Islam and his friendship provided the understanding and support I desperately needed.
Together we began studying scripture with a depths and passion that transformed our understanding of God’s character and purposes for our lives.
My burden for Muslim evangelism grew naturally out of my own conversion experience.
I understood both world views intimately and I could anticipate the intellectual and cultural barriers that prevented Muslims from considering Christianity.
God began opening doors for me to share my testimony in underground churches across the Middle East.
And I discovered that my story resonated powerfully with other seeking Muslims.
The greatest joy of this new phase of my life has been witnessing the conversion of five former Muslim colleagues who came to faith through hearing my testimony.
These men knew me before and after my conversion and they couldn’t deny the transformation they witnessed in my life.
The same passion I once had for defending Islam through burning Bibles had been redirected toward sharing the gospel with those who needed to hear it most.
I’m asking you just as a brother in Christ would, what is keeping you from Jesus? If God can forgive a man who burned his holy word, what can he forgive in your life? My hands once destroyed his message of love.
But now they carry that same message to people who desperately need to hear it.
Today I stand before you not as an pilot but as an beloved son of the most high God.
And that identity can never be taken away from me.
Jesus reveal yourself to everyone listening just as you revealed yourself to me in those flames.
Show them the same love that pursued a Bible burning Muslim and transformed him into a messenger of grace.
Amen.
