part one of two parts
By Robert
R. Schwarz
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men
to do nothing.
Edmund Burke , philosopher (1729-1797 )
His 2 enemies: himself & the many with unbridled passion for revenge
Preface: On May 18 of this year, the subject of this post, Christian pastor Muhammad Yamout, was boarding a plane in Beirut , Lebanon for the United States to continue helping his childhood friend Hesham Shehab, pastor of Salam Christian Fellowship in Lombard, Illinois when seized by the terrorist group Hezbollah. They took his passport ( which was never returned) and put him in jail for three days. Hezbollah had been wanting to do this for months--if not years--to permanently stop Yamout's work that, among other humane efforts, had built a church and an orphanage. A few days later Yamout had a heart attack while driving his car and crashed into a tree. He died instantly, his wife informed Shehab.
This article you are about to read was posted in May, 2o14; it has undergone minor editing that includes words from his recent memorial service , which appears at the end.
" We might be in for some violent conflict.
But God leads my battles with ISIS,
Hezbollah, and every ungodly group,
using the most powerful weapon: LOVE "
Muhammad Yamout
Two ordained ministers,
a Muslim-raised missionary from
Lebanon, and I all walked into the church in Schaumburg , Illinois while
preoccupied with this statistic : an
estimated 500,000 people with Muslim roots live in metropolitan Chicago. We believed this statistic had far-reaching implications for
all people of good will in our communities .
One of our group was Eldor " Rick" Richter , associate pastor of this church, and author of Comparing
the Qur'an and the Bible
(BakerBooks, Grand Rapids, Michigan ,2011). Rick, whose specialty is
evangelizing to Muslims, is my coffee
buddy at McDonald's. The other minister was Hicham Chehab, who converted to
Christianity after fighting alongside the Lebanese militia . He is pastor to several hundred Muslim
converts who attend his Salam
Christian Fellowship churches in Lombard
and Batavia.
Hicham's Story
Hesham Shehab grew up in a world of bitter animosity between Muslims and Christians, which he experienced personally in a physical attack when only age seven. By age 13, he was recruited by the Muslim Brotherhood (Lebanese Chapter) and later fought against Christians in the 1975 war in Lebanon. In 1980, while Hesham was going to the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, for pre-medical studies, his brother was killed by a Christian militia. Hesham’s response was to study by day, and by night take out his revenge in attacks on Christians. However, soon after hearing the Sermon on the Mount in a course of cultural studies at college, he was converted to the faith. Hisham said he found in Jesus Christ a way of forgiveness and reconciliation with God instead of the hatred and revenge in his heart.
In 2001, Hesham, who worked as a journalist at two Lebanese newspapers and adjunct professor (at AUB), met a retired Lutheran pastor, Rev. Dr. Bernie Lutz, working with the Lutheran Hour Ministry (LHM) in Beirut. Dr. Lutz plugged Hesham into the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). Hesham moved to the US in 2004 and finished his pastoral education at Concordia, Fort Wayne, IN
The Life Struggle of Yamout
At age 48, Yamout directed the Tyre Center for Gospel Proclamation
in Tyre , Lebanon . One of his
center's ministries then was the care of 1.5 million Syrian refugees—with more daily fleeing into
his country.
 |
| Mohammad Yamout with family on the day of his Big Decision |
"I'd
like to first talk about your conversion, " I told Mohammad as he, Hisham, Richter and I sat in a church pew. " And then about your family and something
about your work with refugees. "
"Of
course," he replied. " But make sure you don't use my last
name. When I gave up my Muslim faith for the Christian faith, I was put on a
terrorist assassination list. " [ I honored his request until this death ]
"Can
I refer to you as 'Muhammad Y. ? '
"
He
nodded approval .
Muhammad wore
dark blue pants, a pullover shirt with red and dark blue horizontal
stripes and an a brown suede jacket , which he wanted me to know was "old.
" He has brown eyes and his black
hair is flecked with gray . I found out
he is five-foot ten inches tall and
weighs 192 pounds . Muhammad is
ruggedly handsome . A few other things
one notices is that he takes his faith
quite seriously and never is at a loss
to make his point by quoting from
the Bible, if necessary. He laughs a lot
. When emotionally stirred, especially when we talked about the threat of radical Islam, he rubs a finger
across a short beard and raises both
hands chest-high. He speaks English
clearly and with a fast wit . While asking him questions about his personal life, I
noticed he was often glancing down at his hand-held smart phone.
"
What are you doing, " I asked ,
wondering just how attentively Muhammad had
been listening to me. .
"I'm
texting some of your questions to my wife in Lebanon ."
"
And she's been answering you ? ! "
He
laughed. " I can do five things at the same time "
He related his background: He had a degree in accounting and , at age 25 , had accumulated $500,000 by hard work but then lost everything while backsliding from the Christian faith he had embraced since a youth.
Then His Conversion…
The milestone in his life ? " The day I got saved, " he said. " I was living at the time in a very rich community near the American University of Beirut where a lot of professional people lived, where one gets an education on the street. They talked about politics and social issuers and the Israeli-Arab conflict. It was a volatile neighborhood. I was a street kid , living with my mother and step-father , and my real father left us before I was born and divorced my mother. I started to think and ask questions like 'why am I here ? ' and 'who is God ? ' I was trying to find answers in the Islamic faith but to no avail. I spoke to an Imam [ a Muslim prayer leader ] but still did not find rest ."
 |
| Yamout's "daily catch" of refugee children |
Further
into our interview, I discerned that
Mohammad was not unlike the
missionaries I had met during my travels
while conducting leadership workshops around the world for Lions Clubs International
: Yes, this missionary was on call 24-7
and had , more or less, detached himself
from what most of us consider essential
to a normal life—like financial security and ordinary social pleasures .
Mohammad then
recalled when , at age 14 and having been raised as a Sunni Muslim , he
was sitting in a religion classroom
which he had been attending since age 7
and listening about the Christian way
of salvation. Irresistible thoughts about Jesus kept coming to him.
"The moment and the hour was
awesome. But I was not ready to make a commitment to Jesus in front of my peers. I was afraid. I walked out of the classroom , and that night could not sleep. There was a big
struggle in me. But at 3 a.m. I knelt down and prayed about how to make a commitment to Jesus . I prayed out
loud ; it just came out of my mouth. 'Jesus, I am a sinner, Lord Jesus, forgive me, I need you. ' There was joy and I slept for four hours ,
and the next day I went to school , and
my whole life was changed. There was so much going on inside me that I could
not shut my mouth. I was on fire and I
wanted to share with everybody what had taken place inside me. "
Mohammad paused to
catch his breath. Then glanced at his smart phone for any new text from his wife .
...and
the Price
" After I got saved , I found out that
to live for Jesus is not cheap, "
he continued. Yamout told me how during his early years as an evangelist, when Muslim
fundamentalists—both Sunnis and Shiites— twice tried to kill him in public
. The he added, "But it wasn't time for God to call me home. "
Seeing he needed protection, Muhammad's church
pastor hid him in the north of Lebanon for six months. But when Muhammad returned and resumed his
life-threatening evangelism, the
pastor once again feared for Muhammad's
life and wrote a friend on the board of trustees of Bob Jones University in
South Carolina and asked that Muhammad
be enrolled there .
Three
and a half years later, Muhammad
returned to Lebanon with his diploma and soon
began planting new churches and
handing out thousands of New Testaments. "We were in a devil's den,
" he said . He was persecuted , of course, such as the day his wife was driving their children to Sunday
school and a young Shiite man rushed on foot
at her car and tried—unsuccessfully— to drag her out, hitting her
in the
process. The Shiite was angry, Mohammad said, because Mohammad
and his wife were "preaching
the Gospel to Shiite Muslim children .
" ( Shiites and Sunni, the two major Muslim sects, have been in conflict, often violent, ever since the death of their prophet Mohammad .) "But my wife came back smiling, " Muhammad said smiling .
Courtship
and Family
Muhammad claims being born into one of the largest Islamic families
in Beirut (a cousin was a Muslim cleric ) . His father was born in the Gaza
Strip, making him a "Palestinian-Jordanian." In 1948 , the father moved to the West Bank ( then Jordan) and
later to Lebanon, where he met Mohammad's mother , who came from a "well-known " Sunni
background .He married her in 1965 but later left his wife , who then raised Muhammad
alone and remarried in 1991.
 |
| A bare bones Sunday School class |
" I found his whereabouts later and contacted him ," Muhammad said. " He knew I was a
Christian and could not take it. He was rich . Before we parted for the last
time, I told him that the God who took care of me in the last
30 years will take care of me in the next 30 years. " His father now works as a building machinery
contractor in Frankfort, German .
Mohammad met his wife, Grace Hanan—the Arab word for
''comfort'—at a basketball game at the American University in Beirut . "I
was on fire for Jesus and was telling
her that she needed to get saved. She was a nominal Presbyterian and thought I
was a nut and for awhile was cautious with me. She was nice to me but didn't
want to continue with me. "
Months later, when
Lebanon in 1991 was in a civil war between Muslims and
Christians, Muhammad was preaching in a
church where Grace's mother , coincidentally
, was sitting near Hanan . The young woman didn't know Muhammad
was to preach that night. After the service , Hanan's future mother-in-law
introduced her to Muhammad. " We started going out together, "
Muhammad said.
The couple courted for a year and a half, during which
time Hanah was "saved and baptized.
" They were married in Muhammad's
church and honeymooned for three days
in "a big hotel up in the mountains. "
Hanah, now 48,
gave birth to five children: Laya Nour, 21 ; Selina Yasmine, 20; Lynn Samira, 16; Peter Karim, 13, and
Sara Hanan, 7. One daughter wants to become a doctor, another an evangelist to
children.
END OF PART ONE
Next Sunday: Yamout Backslides and Loses It All
and the Real Struggle Begins
© 2014,2022 Robert R. Schwarz
All comments welcome
rrschwarz7@wowway.com
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