HAJIA-BINTA FARUK’S CONVERSION TRUE STORY.
Source
Starting from the Genesis.
My conversion started while in the University of Nsukka, my room mate called chinwe, loved to sing praises, she will keep singing and it gets me pissed always so, I was looking for a way to actually deal with her, one day while she was coming from the House fellowship as usual, she kept her Bible on my bed and for me, that was more than enough reason to deal with her. I said "who kept this Bible on my Bed", she quickly said sorry. I just carried the Bible, i tore the it into pieces, and i also started beating her. She took the pieces of the Bible from the floor and cried to the heavens, she called my name three times; Binta Jalingo..., Binta Jalingo..., Binta Jalingo..., this same Bible you tore, you will use it to preach this same Gospel you hate now. Then i slapped her again and again, as i said to her in a hash tone, it is your mama and your papa that will preach the Gospel, and the next thing she said was; "may the Lord God almighty, have mercy on you brother Binta".
Seven years later, of the spoken words took effect and, i got converted. It was on 25th September 1999, right in the bedroom in
in shehu's palace, because my husband is the youger brother of shehu of Bornu.
[Source](Vancouver Sun)
I came from a fulani village calles Muri kingdom. My mother's name is Hajia Aminat Jalingo. She is from the Kutep tribe. Contrary to the Islamic tradition of marrying multiple wives, my father just married and maintained only one wife, my mother. I am the fifth child from nine children. My father had lived in many parts of Nigeria because he was serving in the Army till 1996. My mother had always worked with the Nigerian Medical Corps until her retirement in 1992.
I attended the Army Children School at Ikeja Cantonment in Lagos. completed my secondary education at Government Girls’ College in Enugu state. I graduated as a student of Mass Communication at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN). I worked as Programme Producer/Director with the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) in Yola before getting married on April 27, 1997 and God blessed me and my husband with a set of twin boys – Hassain and Hussan.
I never believed that I needed salvation for whatever reason on earth, because every Moslem is convinced that Muhammad was the very last Prophet in the long line of the other prophets that Allah had sent before. According to the Islamic Hadith (Mishkat), which speaks of about 124,000 people who lived at various times in history. Twenty-eight of them are mentioned by name and some of the names are also found in the Bible. Since each of them was sent with a word from Allah to warn the people not to practice idolatry, to live righteously as they also consider the coming Day of Judgement. As perceived by Moslems, Isa which is Jesus, is the one to whom the greatest prominence is given to in the Qur’an, was just like Ibrahim (Abraham), or Musa (Moses) and most others sent that were sent to the Jews. Thus, Christians calling Him "Lord", makes me so mad at them.
In the secondary school as a young girl, even while i was still an undergraduate, I delightfully pack copies of the Holy Bible and take them to Kaduna for destruction thinking the Bible was demonic. Many people are still doing it today, I became Vice President of the youth wing of the Jamaatu Nasril Islam forum. I saw Christians happy in every situation and this almost always. My success at school as top four student of mass communication, which help to get me the job at NTA, and also brightened my chances of a good husband, had never brought me such peace and happiness. Several people had talked to me about Christianity which i never listened because to me then, Muhammad is the final seal of the prophets. This was my pride as a Fulani girl who saw herself in the greatest religion in the world of all time.
Qu’ran nither accepts not teach salvation in Jesus Christ, but rather, it gives Him (Jesus) the greatest prominence. The wonderful statements in the Qu’ran about him, are enough to compel one to search more about Him. The name Jesus which is written (Isa), occurs about 25 times in the Qu’ran, and the title Messiah was used 93 times as well.
I hated anything that had to do with Christians or Christianity. I was always happy seeing a Christian unhappy and enjoyed hearing that Christians were suffering even to death. But suddengly on the 25th of September 1999, I was caught in that same web that i so hated. Just the day before, we attended the Friday prayers. All went very well. Then at about 1:30am, suddenly, an unusually bright light appeared in my bedroom with a mighty wind blowing and throwing all the pictures and other valuables off from there position and to the ground. My husband and I became so afraid. He got up from the bed, brought out one of our charms, known as “Hayaki” in Hausa language. He placed it on the floor and got hot charcoal on the charm. The mighty wind threw it all apart.
Before we could make out anything further, a voice thundered and said, “You have been baptized by the Holy Spirit of the living God. Go and become “Tabitha” to my people”. I asked my husband if he could understand what is really going on and what the voice is saying, but he said that he did not hear any voice at all. He later concluded that I belonged to a secret cult because i kept asking him to listen and hear the voice. He thought that I wanted to use him or our children as sacrifice. He got so angry, took our twins to the guestroom and abandoned me in the bedroom all alone. I was very worried and couldn’t sleep at all. Again in the morning, I heard that same voice saying: “dear, tell your husband that you have accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour”. But I said “No..., I can’t do such thing. "What has a Fulani girl like me, got to do with Jesus Christ”, I too, thought that demons were after me. The thing happened again on 28th and 29th of that month, and it comes with an invitation to serve. So I told my husband that i would like to go to Church the following Sunday. “Never...Not in this house”, he retorted vehemently but yet, joy and peace flooded my heart at the same time. I knew what I was passing through and it would be disastrous for me not to do what that voice wanted me to do for Him.
After speaking to him about it on saturday, I went ahead and bought for myself the first Bible I ever bought or read in my entire life, and hid it in my box at the very bottom. The next day was Sunday, so I picked up my Bible, got into my car and drove straight to the nearby Baptist Church.
I came back and met my husband at home after the service. I greeted him but instead of responding to my greeting, he asked me where I was coming from; I wanted to lie about it but the voice said to me ‘remember what you were taught in the church today?’ “Ye shall know the truth and only the truth shall make you free” So.., I told him that I was coming from the nearby Church. In anger, he got up and gave me the beating of my life, snatched my Bible from me and wanted to tear it but I told him of the danger of tearing the Bible, so he stopped trying to tear it. He was shocked, So he dropped the Bible in anger and left the house till evening. I brought out his favourite food for him, but he kicked the food away and warned his sister that no one should eat any food I cook in that house again for he had declared me an infidel and as a result, I would have nothing to do with the family anymore, even with my own children. He went to fetch my father from Makurdi the next day. As I welcomed my father to the house, he started beating me with his military belt and kicking me with his boots, until I became unconscious and was taken to the hospital. I stayed for three days in the hospital. Then at about 2am on the third day, the Lord appeared to me as I could noticed a touch on my feet and I woke up trying to see who it was that touched me. The face was shinning like the sun such that I could not see his face. I only looked at Him from His feet to his chest. I screamed for help because i was so afraid. One of the nurses came in, prayed with me and asked me not to be afraid again. As I said amen... to the prayers, I began to speak in strange tongues for about three hours. I was saying things that nobody could understand. Some of them thought I was going mad but a psychiatric doctor who was called in to check me up, confirmed that I am normal.
The figure yet appeared again. And this time He said unto me, “Be bold my child, this is going to be very temporary: you will overcome the temptations”. I was discharged from the hospital on the fourth day and on getting home, my husband handed me a divorce letter.
I had packed my things, my two cars, and kept them in someone’s house and travelled to Lagos to start a new life there. My husband took our two sons, our twins to Saudi Arabia. Sadly, my father had the man that I had kept my belongings in his house arrested claiming that he had abducted me from my husband’s house. When i heared that, I returned to Jalingo to arranged his release. And then, my father collected my cars and other belongings claiming that he is the person that bought them for me as wedding presents.
As they still tried to make me renounce my faith in Christ, the Management of the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) where I work in Yola, also had my appointment terminated, under the pressure from my husband. Some Islamic fanatics including my father, took me to one Alhaji’s house in Jalingo and there they chained my feet and my hands. I was released from there after seven days with a threat of death, if I should go to church again ever again.
My mother arranged with my uncle, her elder brother to reconcile my father and I. As we went to talk about peace, my father got so angry, picked up his gun and shot it at me. But as God would have it, the little shifting I made at the sight of the gun overturned the seat where I was sitting and I was pushed to the ground. The gun sounded but the bullets did not enter my body but passed through the chair and then to the wall. Everybody was alarmed greatly. My mother started weeping that he had just killed her only daughter. My mother later advised me to go and stay with her elder brother. Being a moslem too, he too was unhappy with me and made life so difficult for me. He once threatened to kill me with a cutlass so I left his house for Lagos again and later, to Maiduguri.
My rights were denied me in the family; my father had to throw me into the prison on a false allegation. He had initially gone to a Sharia court but I protested against that since I am now a Christian and so, he had to take me to a Magistrate court at Hadeja. The Magistrate ordered that I be remanded in prison for calling my own father, my neighbour. I was in detention for six months without trial and bail until some Christians on prison visitation one day, learnt that I was there just for becoming a Christian. The matter was reported to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Chairman who wrote a petition that led to my beign tried properly. The Magistrate sentenced me to two years imprisonment plus a fine of five thousand Naira only. One Christian Women Fellowship in the area paid the fine as I was taken to the prison. That was on September 5, the year 2000. Some inmates asked me to make an appeal but I confidently told them, that the Lord Jesus, who is my saviour, would do a great Appeal for me. I prayed at midnight: saying Lord, I want your deliverance for me out from this prison before December. The people will ask me, where is your God if you will not deliver me?’ I reminded him of how He answered Hezekiah in the bible. In less than one month after my imprisonment, a letter came from Abuja ordering my release and so, I was set free. My prison experiences brought me closer and closer to God and it me develope more faith in God’s ability to see me through.
Two months later, I decided to go and share the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ with my grandparents. The moslem youths were looking for me everywhere so they can kill me. They hid me until I couldn’t be hidden anymore. I hid in the bush for four days. On my fourth night in the bush, I woke up with a snake lying beside me. That was the day I told God that I wanted to go back to Islam. I couldn’t continue like that in the bush, i got so tired of everything but He quickly reprimanded me. He asked me“Upon all the sufferings you’ve been through, you still want to go back? If I didn’t shut up the mouth of the snake, wouldn’t it bite you while you were sleeping? I repented and told him that I was sorry for saying what i said. I promised him never to go back to Egypt.
I found out that God actually allowed me to go to prison so he can teach me some things. First was to read the Bible and, second was because of one female Christian warder who left and married a Moslem and God shut her womb. There in the prison, God told me in a dream that she is going to have a baby soon. I told her but she became angry and tortured me very well, called me all kinds of names, but I kept praying for her though, that the name of the Lord my God will be glorified finally, since I had said the Lord told me. Some months Later, she actually had that baby, and that converted her again and her husband too. Eight moslems there in the prison gave their lives to Christ. They were baptized in the Holy Ghost with the evidience of speaking in tongues before I left. Seeing what the Lord used me to do there in the prison, I knew that I would do much better outside the prison.
[Source](Signature Reads)
Some moslem youths came and kidnapped me one day. They laid me on the ground and raised their cutlasses to kill me but their hands remained hanging in the air and it would refuse to come down. That happened to three of the boys and the others fled in a flash. They were later taken to the police who wanted them killed but I told the police that it was the Lord’s battle not theirs. I also told the boys that I had forgiven them. As I was about leaving, they asked me for their hands to be restored. I praid for them and said “let your hands come down, In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ" and their cutlasses dropped from their hands. They are Christians and live with me right now. On another occasion where another group of moslem youths kidnapped me. They were taking me to Sokoto and on the way, scorpions emerged from no where and started stinging them. They quickly dropped me and begged me and even gave me money to take me back home. Yet on another occasion with another set of muslem youth, they kidnapped me and wanted to inject me with poisonous material but they couldn’t find those materials until they had to let me go.
The Bible says we have to start from our Jerusalem. So, as scary as it may be, Moslems and Fulanis are my Jerusalem and Many of them have not heard of Jesus till today. And as I am one of the fortunate ones that God brought out from that darkness, I need to go back there and share the good news to them. That is why I am ready to fight this cause even with my blood. I am not limiting myself to Nigeria alone; I intend going to the Middle East, planting a church in Saudi Arabia where my children are right now. I tell God that my children in Saudi Arabia are Ambassadors for Jesus Christ and they must become Pastors in Saudi Arabia there.
Thus, any time I hear that a moslem is converted and is beign persecuted, I just take them in. I have forty-nine converted muslems under my roof right now. They all call me “mama”. The oldest is eighty-nine years who when she became a Christian, her children threw her off from upstairs to die, but God preserved her. A Pastor found her and brought her to our centre. Some come with their ears chopped off, some others are stripped naked etc. I pray for people to join me in this crusade for christ. And i really thank God for he is raising more men among the converts in the centre and in my family.
My immediate elder brother who is a soldier is now a Christian. My mother became a Christian since the year 2002 and my elder brothers who wanted me dead or back to Islam are now Christians. One of them is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Maiduguri, he had to relocate to Imo State because of persecution.
I will always testify that Jesus is Lord because Some people kept caming to attack us. They came the first time, they said they saw a pool of blood: the house became a pool of blood in their eyes. Again they came the second time, and the house became plain land. When the came the third time, it was an ocean that they saw. The house became a pillar of fire the last time they came. And some time later, something happened that led to their arrest by the Commissioner of Police and they sent for me. When i got there, the police brought the criminals out. They said that I didn’t know them but they knew me. All of them were Moslems, some of them came from Republic of Niger. They narrated how they had always tried to attack me and kill me but that i had always beign delivered by the Lord. The Commissioner of Police lined up his men in the office and asked me to pray for them that day.
Instead of leaving me alone at this time, my former husband began to persecute me too. While leading some assassins to my place to kill me at all cost, the vehicle in which they were travelling was involved in a fatal accident. He is the only one that died in the hospital after confessing that he wanted me dead because I was bringing shame to his name. It pains me so much because both of us were in the same room the day I heard the voice. And after that I prevented him from destroying the Bible, which was something I used to enjoy doing. He knew how violent I was when i was a muslem. I wished he learnt a lesson from my conversion and had repented. That is how many others die without repenting even after they were exposed to the gospel. The good Lord who is always my Shield and Protector will always save and hide me in the shadow of his wings. My life is in God’s hand always even as i go about his bussiness.”