A Young Man's Hard Journey from Poland to Priesthood Here

       Notice: As of this date, July 25, 2024, this blog may be the last. If you have any--any at all-- last comments for the author of EXODUS TREKKERS,   please address them to  rrschwarz777@gmail.com. 

Thank You and God Bless You!   Bob

A Young Man's Hard Journey from Poland to Priesthood Here

An Unusually Candid Account of a Priest's Early Formation

" A living example of Christ in our lives," said a veteran church volunteer

This is another    in a series of interviews with  priests, pastors, missionaries and other heaven-bound individuals     interviewed during the ten-year run of this  blog Exodus Trekkers.  You can read the 130 other Exodus Trekkers posts on this web site,  now  being read  in more then 25 countries .

That Friday morning in July , Fr. Chris did not look like a priest nor  did that  small , dimly-lit room I now  entered . I did not expect to see this  forty-year-old man  in a sweat-stained T-shirt and overalls  giving soft-spoken orders to three workmen laying new marble tile for  an altar . I had come to hear him say morning mass and then afterward to interview him . The sanctuary was empty  and nearly barren, a scene of an ongoing do-it-yourself reconstruction of the St. Thomas Becket Catholic Church in Mt. Prospect , Illinois , a suburb  northwest of Chicago.

      

    Fr. Chris wasn't expecting me.  I had grown impatient with his repeated and terse  "Bob, I'm just too busy  nowadays for that interview ." We had become friends in 2007, 12 years a go ,  when he had been assigned to my church in nearby Arlington Heights. We hadn't seen each other since then,  and it was time to tell my readers of his inspiring trek from Poland to his ordination in America.

        

  He  saw me for a split second and left his huddle of workmen to shake hands with me. We talked for a few second; he obviously was anxious to get back to  work. He put a hand on my shoulder and said with well-measured sincerity, "Bob, please , I'm sorry…You know,  with all this work here…"  I nodded,  and replied,  "I'll email you some questions. replied,  He said, " I'll do my  best."

          Three days later he emailed me the updated  facts and comments I had requested   for this report.   

  

         

         

I      Our Story Begins…

     On August 2, 2003, a  23-year-old man disembarked at O'Hare International Airport after a 10-hour direct flight from Krakow, Poland. He glanced curiously around—his very first look at America—before being shuttled to the immigration line , then took a deep breath and appeared ask himself:  What have I done?

          This   apprehensive traveler with kind blue eyes and a jaunty walk was Krzysztof ("Chris") Kulig, and he had come to this country to become a Catholic priest. Though confident that his calling was from God, thoughts of his inadequacy pestered him. 

 While being herded through the airport's terminal he was confronted with a barrage of American mannerisms and speech that was, to him, alien babel. It painfully reminded that he knew no English and was,  in many respects, still a country boy from a small village in southern Poland.  He had forgotten that tomorrow was his birthday. 

  He then was comforted--he later told me--remembering what his mission was soon to be as the late Saint Josemaria  Escrivá  wrote in  "Love with the Church ":     A priest  is expected to bring love and devotion to the celebration of the Holy Mass, to sit in the confessional, to console the sick and the troubled; to teach sound doctrine to children and adults,  to preach the Word of God…[and] to give counsel and be charitable to those in need.

          Several minutes later, Chris ,  along with l2 other Polish seminary candidates who had been on the same flight, showed his visa to an immigration official. The group was greeted by the vice rector  of Our Lady of the Lake  Seminary in Mundelein,  Illinois . 

          Again  Chris breathed deeply.  Ahead  was six  years of studying  a language all of which was foreign to him. He would have to  read, speak, and understand it well enough to pass not only the seminary final  exams but also to serve effectively as a parish priest  among many families immersed in a wide spectrum of American culture.

  

         II    Growing Up on a Farm in Poland...   " I never thought I would someday become a priest  ,"   Fr. Chris told this writer in one of several interviews we had  in the spring of 2011. Growing up on a farm near  his hometown of Zegiesgtow,  there had been no "mountain top" experience , no voice from a burning bush like in the Old Testament to incite him.  But rather, he said,  this momentous decision to be a priest had , he thought, mysteriously and slowly evolved.

                      Close to the border of Slovakia and once part of a fashionable resort area known for its healing mineral waters , nearly everyone of  is Zegiesgtow's 1,200 inhabitants is Catholic.  The village today is farmland in a valley beneath  hills covered with pine and oak .  "We're lucky there because when storms come, these hills absorb them," Fr. Chris said.  His parents , Janina Skalniak and Adam Kulig  ,and his  three older  brothers  and two sisters still  go to mass each Sunday. "There are  no exceptions . "  

     Fr. Chris was  an altar boy who rose  at 4 a.m.  to catch a  5 a.m. train  for the 32- kilometer ride to high school. He was on the soccer team there.  His father was  a  government forester, as was his grandfather; his mother is employed as a cook at a  Catholic retreat house  .  "When I go home to visit ,  my mom plans a different menu for me each day . "  (His favorite is cheese-stuffed ravioli ) .

          The Kuligs are  a middle-class  family,  Fr. Chris  said , "yet  we always had bread on the table. "  He remembers when food was rationed during  his childhood in the waning years of Soviet-imposed  communism .  To deal with the shortage,  each of the Kulig children shopped at a different  store . " There was a time when there was no food in the stores . " He also remembers  being cautioned by his parents not to  say anything in public  against the government for fear of being reported by communist spies ,  who occasionally walked the streets.   " I remember the  revolution of  1989," he  said.  It was the year when the spirits of Poland soared because the Solidarity-led coalition government led by Lech Walesa  was formed,   leading to the eventual fall of communism.  ” But I was not concerned then about life difficulties because  I had parents to face any challenged."

III     Inspired by a Visit from the Pope...

    

      Inspired by   Pope John Paul II and  priests in his own parish,  the young Chris Kulig now wrestled with whether to become a priest himself.  His father wanted him to become a forester  and his mother  wished   her son to remain near home.  Procrastination  was fueled by  fear  of failure , of not making the grade at his  college level  seminary in Krakow.  Fr. Chris  explained how his fear of failure was to"  turn a curse  into a blessing  for me . "         

          That blessing  came soon after high school when , during the l999 canonization  Mass of St. Kinga in Stary Sacz,  Poland,  he heard  John Paul II say: " Saints draw life from other saints. "   The words struck a chord with  this  teenager .  "Without any delay," he was to say later, " I decided to be a priest."  He took—and passed—an exam at the  Pontifical Academy of Theology in Kraków. "My mother was shocked. "

          Reflecting on his four years of living in Poland   among 279 other seminarians and 72 priest instructors and his  first year being crammed into one dorm room with l4 other students, Fr. Chris  fondly remembers the dramatic body language of his Italian instructor and  the creativity of his cosmology professor ,  Michal Heller.  At first Chris he disliked  being  restricted to the seminary  building all day except for one hour, and for that he needed  permission .  "But I learned to like it later for the discipline it taught me. "     He failed a few  exams but found the studying not difficult. To  prepare himself to better defend the faith, he  read several  books by authors  who challenged the Christian Catholic  faith.    

IV      His  Critical Decision: A Priest in Poland or America ?

          In his fourth year of his  pre-seminary education , Chris  faced a  critical decision: whether to serve in  Poland as a priest or leave his native land for America  to help  fill the void there  of priests. His decision was influenced by  a visit to the seminary by Cardinal George of Chicago , who  came to Poland   to encourage seminarians there to consider being a priest in America.  He advised the college level seminarians that if they went through their final four seminary years in America instead of  in Poland, then their adjustment  to American culture would be much easier  .  The cardinal's advice was affirmed  in an exchange of emails between Fr. Chris  and a former classmate ,  then a priest in Chicago. 

          "Yes, Fr. Chris exclaimed in our interview , " I knew I would be leaving everything, my family and friends and coming to a new culture. It would be like jumping into a big ocean, and I didn't know if I would be able to swim well or not.  The  language was the big thing.  And  I would be greeted at  the airport by someone I had never met." 

          His diocese in Poland paid his traveling expenses, and now, on that August  day,  as he waited for the  immigration official to stamp his student  visa, the same thought flashed  again: What have I done?

V     The Real Struggle Begins...

         Housed in the Chicago  parish rectory of Our Lady of St. Carmel ,  he was given intense courses in English for a year  at the Bishop Preparatory Seminary and at the city  campus of the University of Illinois. "I  was  bombarded with English  five days a week from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.  It was very difficult for me. Sometimes you just look at the teacher and ask :  what is she asking me ?   Vocabulary challenged him  the most,  made even more difficult because students were from different countries and could  not apply their newly learned  language skills by interacting with each other when outside of  class .  Administrators  purposely situated  Chris and the other Polish in environments where they were forced to communicate in English.

          " I really didn't have too much difficulty adjusting to the American culture, "

Fr. Chris said. "The only discomfort I felt was when walking down the street and I had to refrain from returning a wave or smile to a child—all because of the sex abuse scandal. I had smiled once or twice in passing a child and my friends told me "never, never  do that again."

          He was amazed by how "fast everything is in America…there is no time for spontaneity. Everything is by appointment. In Poland, for example, when an adult child wants to visit their parents, they just go to their home. "  Fr. Chris was equally surprised to discover that, unlike in Poland, supermarkets in Chicago supply  free paper or plastic bags and are bagged by staff.   But if Fr. Chris had  any epiphany   during those  four  years he studied  at the Mundelein seminary , it came with he sensed a  profound  difference between how Polish people struggle to overcome daily living obstacles—yet  in America " just about anything could be fixed . "

VI     Finally, a Priest  in a Chicago Suburb...

         

In his St. James office

In November of 2007, Fr. Chris was assigned as a  "transitional deacon" to St.James in Arlington Heights, an upscale suburb northwest of Chicago.  On weekends he lived  with  Pastor Bill Zavaski in a residential  home  next to the parish office.  He would later move permanently to an  adjacent home and share it with a priest from India.

          That next May,  Mr. Krzysztof Kulig  stood in Holy Name Cathedral in the Chicago Loop , waiting to become—for life—Father Chris Kulig.  In the pews were Fr. Zavazki  , his parents , and a sister ( who had traveled from Poland just for this occasion ) ."It was very beautiful . " I found myself  asking :  Can I really do it?  Can I really take that huge responsibility of being a priest. ? "

          Minutes later,  the  32-year-old  Polish immigrant approached the altar and prostrated his  wiry,   five-foot-eight-inch body face down on the cathedral floor. Parallel to him, with their faces also pressed to the floor ,were l3 other  candidates: four  from Poland , two from  Tanzania and Kenya, two from Mexico and Peru, and one born in Chicago.    "I will never forget how cold  that marble floor was. One of my classmates was crying and shaking….When Cardinal George put his hand on  me, I felt relief, I felt that the Holy Spirit was saying :  Don't be afraid .  I  knew that God's grace had brought me this far. "

          Soon he was being embraced  by his family. "I was so happy I cried. "  Later came  a celebration party for him at the White Eagle restaurant in Niles . " It was like a wedding."  Fr. Chris  now was one  of  more than 27,000 diocesan priests in America.

          His parents and sister listened to his first homily at St.James, a parish of  4,000 families and more than 80 different volunteer  ministries.  That Sunday he told the congregation how  grateful he was  to God for everything,  especially  his parents.  " I was nervous, so  aware that I was considered to be the new kid on the block , and was—and still am—learning English.  But I felt welcomed. I never felt that people looked at me through the prism of my nationality but at who I am as a person and how I treat them."

          For  his first  two years at St. James, Fr. Chris read his hand-written homilies from the altar. Nowadays  he says he  trusts in the promptings of the Holy Spirit to guide him  through his homilies.  He can't recall his sentiments upon  hearing his first confession other than he felt very humble—and says he still does when hearing them —and   acutely aware not to judge anyone.   " I knew that a priest can not be prepared for any confession because everyone comes to him with something different to confess. I knew  I had to give my personal understanding of that person, how I could help him or her be a better person, not to  dismiss the confession by simply saying to them :  ' your penance is to say  ten  hail Mary's. ' "   As for his first funeral,  he noted that he was wearing a white rather than a purple chasuble  as  worn by priests in Poland.

VII     Candid Remarks about His  Typical Priestly  Day...

Getting his mail at his home
in Arlington Heights, Illinois 

          " Tell us all about your typical day at  St. James, " I asked  this Polish American  priest with the cropped  dark brown hair whose movements were characteristically quick when he   made room  on his desk for my notebook and voice recorder and then excused himself for a few seconds to  check his email .

          "I'm sure your parishioners would truly appreciate knowing  more about what a priest  does for his salary, I began."  We laughed at the tease and  again when I pressed him for what the parish pays him . He said $21,000 a year, a standard diocesan  salary, with no overtime for weddings, funerals, or unexpected confessions or late hour hospital visits . 

          "I'm not a morning person ," he said somewhat apologetically,  likely aware that I was at today's  weekday Mass  and he had been five minutes late. "I set three alarm clocks for 6  a.m.  but sometimes don't hear them,"  he admitted with a forced grin

      After  showering, he has a cup of strong Dunkin' Donuts coffee.  Commenting on his java brew, Fr. Joji Thanugundla, who shares the home with Fr. Chris, told me.  "I always tell him the coffee tastes better when he makes it. And he takes good care of our house and the yard. "

          After presiding over the 7: 30 a.m. weekday mass,  which he usually does  twice a week, he goes to his home office to check emails. At 8:30  in his  home, Fr. Joji  and Fr.  Zavaski  and he  pray their required   Divine Office  ( three Psalms, the canticle of Zachariah, and petitions for families and the deceased whose funerals are that day ) .  Fr. Chris doesn't eat breakfast.  He's off now to the  parish office ;  there might be a funeral or a  Bible study he leads from  9:30 to 11.  He lunches at home , usually on leftovers from last night's dinner prepared by the priests' cook, Angie , a parish member who prepares the meal  in Fr. Chris' home. The three priests eat together.  His afternoon may entail  a parish staff meeting from  1 to 3, followed by a one-hour break.  Evenings are often occupied with some kind of church meeting . "Every day is different…. When I'm really fatigued,  I tell the office I won’t be back for an hour and then  I just go to my room and rest, unless I have a funeral or have promised to see someone. "

        

  Fr. Chris is usually home at 9 or 9:30 p.m. and unwinds by watching the animated TV show " Family Guy" or a movie which he selects  from a subscription service. He may read a novel or something humorous.  "Sometimes when you're preoccupied with your work and getting a bit depressed, laughter is needed….Sometimes I call my old  Mundelein  seminary friends and we might talk for hours." Depending on his energy level at this late hour, he might listen to  an instructional CD and practice his English pronunciations.

          He finds the late evening hours the best time to prepare for   Mass the next day. In the summer, he enjoys the "inspiration" of insect sounds at night. e reHH In  the "Magnificat ,"  a monthly subscription missal read by Catholics throughout America , he reads a  meditation before going to bed. Lastly,  he prays the following:

                             Thank you God for this day. Give me the strength for

                                          another day and keep all my friends and my family in

                                         your care.

          At this particular interview , Fr. Chris extended his hand to me. "You see this ring on my finger? It's a Rosary ring my mother gave me when I entered the seminary in Poland. Many times  while falling asleep, I touch this ring and say the Rosary and pray to my Holy Mother in heaven. I also remember my mother on earth. " 

          Looking at the ring again, Fr. Chris' voice rose an octave as he explained  what role the ring plays at weddings. During the ceremony, he takes it off   and cautions the groom never to take off his ring as a convenient excuse to feel free from his marriage vows for an hour or two  when out with the men some   night at a bar. "Keep it on and you will be free of temptation,"  Fr. Chris exhorts  the groom. 

          He hears confessions from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. on Saturdays in the parish center."  Many times though, people just telephone me and ask if they can seen me." He views a confession "more like a friendship, a conversation between someone I don't know but to whom I must relate."  Most of the people he sees in the confessional booth are St. James members and of all ages; men slightly  outnumber women , and   he rarely hears a confession from a teenager.  Many  confessions  begin with a question about morality  or a  request  for advice on daily living, like:  "Father, I'm not sure I'm on the right path "  or the question: "Did I say the wrong thing to my spouse ?"  With marital problems, Fr. Chris keeps people focused on love and  marriage vows. Fr. Chris himself goes to confession twice a year:  at  Christmas and Easter.  For private prayers and meditation he occasionally drives to the church at Marytown in Mundelein  and walks the grounds amid the beautifully landscaped Stations of the Cross. 

VIII     Up Close and Personal

          Recreation.…"I'm reading Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict . "  He also  reads the magazines "Archeology" and " Discover ".  He loves barbecued ribs and seldom goes out to eat because , he says,  "I have a great cook. " Once every three weeks or so he gets a haircut in Mundelein from a woman barber whose been cutting his hair since his seminary days there. A camping trip to Yellowstone  National Park was his favorite vacation in America,  but "next time I'll stay in a hotel. "

          Friends…When he needs to "vent," he telephones former classmates or talks to Fr. Zavaski , whom  he considers a close friend "to whom  I can open up to…whether he agrees with me or not, he has that gift of listening well. " Says  his home-sharer , Fr. Joji:  " Father Chris and I laugh, we share, we discuss—all in good spirit. He  is friendly and very responsible."  Another close friend, Sr. Joanne Grib of the nearby  Sisters of the Living Word convent, describes him as " a deeply spiritual man who has a deep respect for all people . He's a gentle , kind man who is a  dedicated priest . We have a lot of laughs together. "  With a laugh she added: "We  both love movies, and as much as we'd like to go to a movie together, we  wouldn’t want to scandalize the parishioners."  Sr. Joanne consults with Fr. Chris when organizing   her Bible classes.

           Political leanings… He chuckles at this , then thoughtfully comments: " I try to follow what the candidates are saying and disagree with them sometimes.  Does he favor Democrats or Republicans ?  " A little of both," he answered.

          Milestones in his life…The many people who have "helped me  see  the way in life. "

          Celibacy… " When I visit my family in Poland and see my nephews running around, it is sometimes painful knowing  I can not have biological children. But I married the church."

         

          Major needs of St. James parishioners…That "they experience the presence of God in their lives and the treasure of the Catholic church. " He is working with the parish council on the issue of parishioners needing to learn more about their faith.  This is not an easy task, he explained,  because  of the mix among parishioners who are  traditionalists (  those who want to see the church return to some of the pre-Vatican II practices )  and of modernists  ( those who  want greater freedom in how they express their faith  ).

          What disturbs him as a priest…Church leaders—both clergy and laity—who openly criticize Cardinal George and others in high leadership positions without knowing all the facts about an issue. It saddens him when people don't proclaim  Jesus Christ as head of the church but would rather proclaim themselves or their own particular church as the final word.

          Agreement with what the church teaches… He has personal opinions but chooses  to "obey "  church  teachings. ( After this interview, Fr. Chris during his  homily at  next morning's  Mass , exhorted everyone  to go home and think about their "obedience to Christ , "  not to  obey what they personally prefer  to obey.  He cautioned his parishioners that although  people interpret church teachings differently , due in part to the natural changing of  human language as time passes, the spiritual language of the church remains the same and is universal. )

          What drives him…" I'm trying to be as humble as  I can.  I hope people don't read me as arrogant.  I just want to present Christ the best I can as a young priest. "  Again his words seem to echo those of St. Escrivá :  A priest is no more a man or a Christian than any ordinary lay person.  That is why it is so  important for a priest to be deeply humble

. 

          IX     How He  Battles Against  Satan...

          Fr. Chris  is candid about his own temptations.  " Sometimes there are doubts about things you do , things that make you sort of empty."   When this occurs, he is helped by meditating on the life of the saint, Padre Pio, who helped many people  battle  evil.   " I know I am vulnerable …and sometimes I pray again and again in that moment of temptation, asking God to give me wisdom and strength. After I have been victorious in overcoming the temptation, then  the important thing is that I be  grateful to God. "

          Our interviews  of several hours ended with  Fr. Chris relating what he described as his "worst experience ever of  doubting the presence of God in his life."  He grew increasingly emotional as  he told the story  of when  his youngest sister, Anette, 23, flew from  Poland to visit him in May, 2010.

          Fr. Chris had been  summoned to the immigration office at O'Hare, where his sister  was being held and  disallowed from entering this country despite possessing a legitimate visa.  She had landed at 4 p.m. and had been interrogated while detained  five  hours before Fr. Chris arrived ;  he was not allowed to see his  sister, who was being held in an adjacent room.

          Fr. Chris   was promptly  accused of  lying to immigration  officials two years ago  when  he requested  that the two-month  visiting permit of his sister,  who was then  visiting him ,   be extended five months.  The reason for it, he had told officials,  was that he needed his sister to care for him while recovering from a broken  ankle suffered in a recent automobile accident   in front of the church. The extension was granted, but officials now were accusing him of concealing the fact that  the real reason  for the extension was  to give his sister ample time to find employment in America. Fr. Chris denied the accusation.

          Knowing that he and his sister—he was never allowed to see her—were separated by a wall and that he was absolutely helpless to do anything for her,  was perhaps the most agonizing moment in his life , he said .  " They didn't even tell me that they were going  to put her back on the plane to Poland for another ten-hour flight . And they did ! " 

          He  went home . " I cried like a kid, asking God : Where were You?   " I doubted that  God existed if he could allow  that to happen."    He said he burned with anger  from the unfairness , the insensitivity , the gross mistrust of  those particular  government employees.

           "For the first time in my life I was so weak.  Then I looked up at the crucifix on my  bedroom  wall .  In that moment  of pain, I realized how helpless Christ was when he hung there on His cross, helpless like I was. I offered up all my pain to him then and knew it was a victorious moment."

          "I try now   to  visit my family every year, " he  avows. "

          At his farewell mass at St.  James on June 3, 2012 , the choir sang  in Polish, " Radujcie sie w Panu " ( Rejoice in the Lord ) . Fr. Chris then addressed  the congregation:   "You welcomed me at my first mass here as a stranger and then loved me as your own."  Diane Adam , a veteran St. James  volunteer, described Fr. Chris as a  "living example of Christ in our lives."

     In 2012 Fr. Christ was assigned as associate pastor at St. Thomas Becket church in the adjacent suburb  of Mt. Prospect  and became its  pastor three years later . The church has 300 registered families and  conducts a Sunday and a weekday mass in Polish. He says he has no regrets about not being a priest in Poland,  "I am a happy priest in America .  "

The priest is a man anointed by tradition to shed

                                      blood , not as  soldier, through courage, not as

                                      the magistrate, through justice, but as Jesus 

                                      Christ , through love. The priest is a man of

                                      sacrifice; by it, each day , reconciling heaven

and earth , and by it, each day, announcing to

                                       every soul the primordial truths of life , of

                                       death, and of resurrection .

                            --Fr. Henri-Dominique,  O.P.

The End

 All comments welcome at

" exodustrekkers.blogspot.com"

© 2019,2024Robert R. Schwarz

                                                                                         

The Amazing Trek of a Love-Giving Missionary Raised as a Muslim Soldier in Lebanon and Later Martyred There as a Christian Pastor

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 

He had accumulated $500, 000, then went bankrupt—a so-called crime in Lebanon—and was imprisoned for four months. He left prison still "hard-headed" about ambition , "but God had His way…and I surrendered to it. "

Preface: On May 18,2022, 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 includes words from his  memorial service , which appears at the end of this article.

                                    " 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

       

                    The Life Struggle of Yamout

"I'd like to first talk about your conversion   " I told Mohammad  "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 sometimes raises both hands chest-high.  He speaks English clearly 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 ? ! "

" I can do five things at the same time "  He laughed. 

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 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 I  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 my father's whereabouts  later and contacted him ,"  Muhammad said. " He knew I was a Christian and could not tolerate 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,"  recalls Muhammad. 

            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.  

 

 

     Worshipping with music on Tyre streets

             Backsliding and Losing It All

     Now came a more subtle enemy into Muhammad's camp—his personal ambition. Speaking slower and softer, he explained: " Because I came from a poor family, I always had an ambition to 'make it' in life . I forgot what is permanent in life and sacrificed it for 'the immediate. ' " At age 25 and now married with children, he owned four retail stores in Beshamoun and in close- by Beirut. He had accumulated $500, 000, then went bankrupt—a crime on Lebanon—and was imprisoned for four months. He left prison still "hard-headed" about ambition , "but God had His way…and I surrendered to it. "

In 2008 in Beirut, he was " stripped naked and had lost everything" . He went to his wife and said, "Honey, I'm quitting everything ." She was shocked, Mohammad remembers. He liquidated what was left of any assets and started evangelizing on the streets. Three months later his wife once again questioned his sanity when he announced the family was moving to Tyre, where nearly everyone was a Muslim. " But my wife was a Godly woman, and agreed to move. "

For four months , Muhammad and his wife and five children slept on a concrete floor of the building that would become their ministry headquarters. Muhammad was keen to have his children well-educated in a Christian school but was disheartened upon learning the total annual tuition would be $12,000. The family prayed. Within a few days the school principal asked Muhammad to send his wife to office, where he not only hired her for a "good" salary with benefits, but also enrolled the children tuition-free.

For fun, Muhammad plays basketball with friends on a court in Tyre . He also enjoys the family's pets: turtles, a parrot, a cat, and dogs ( a beagle , Belgium shepherd, and a Dachshund ) . "I've raised pets all my life so they came with me to the marriage. My pets were good schooling for my children; they taught them responsibility, cleanliness, love and compassion…At one time we had a puppy who died and all my children were crying and I could see they were learning to love. "

This missionary said he reads all kinds of books ( mainly in English) about politics. He has no time for television or movies, though he did enjoy seeing the movies "Ben Hur", " Quo Vadis ", and " Gone with the Wind. "

What do you want people to say about you after you die ? I asked. His reply: "I don't want people to say anything about me. " I pressed him , and after a deep sigh he said, "He served. "

The Awesome Variety of Refugees and    Religion

Lebanon and its capital , Beirut—once known as the Switzerland of the Middle East—defies updated demographics because of frequent oceanic waves of refugees and the multiplicity of religious faiths the refugees bring with them into the country, Muhammad pointed out . In fact , no official census of Lebanon has been taken since 1932 . Muhammad cited Lebanon's likely population as an estimated 4.4 million people, and today the country is struggling to absorb a refugee population of 7o0,000 Palestinians and more than one million Syrians.

Writing for the "Internet Business Insider, Inc. " ( May 13, 2014 ) , Michael Kelley stated that the UN " is still registering one person [ refugee ] each minute... Nine million people out of a population of 27 million have been displaced by the war [ in Syria ], which has killed at least 150,000 people, and Lebanon has bore the brunt of the 2.5 million who fled the country. "

Kelley quoted United Nations high commissioner António Guterres : “ 'The influx of a million refugees would be massive in any country. For Lebanon, a small nation beset by internal difficulties, the impact is staggering . "  This deluge of humanity , Kelley pointed out, " has overwhelmed Lebanon's schools and public services, strained its economy, and stoked the sectarian and political tensions that continue to fuel the war in Syria. " 

    These and other demographics vary from source to source.

    [ " Lebanon is in the throes of a crushing economic crises  described by the World  Bank as one of the deepest depressions in modern history ,blamed on decades of political mismanagement and  corruption ," reported Doreen Abi Raad. a correspondent in the June 15-18 , 2022 edition of the National Catholic Register . " Poverty is now a reality  for nearly 80 % of the population ." ] 

" The Syrian refugees come with just the clothes on their backs," Muhammad said. His refugee ministry center is part of the Emmanuel Baptist Church of Tyre , a city of 300,000; he himself claims no religious denomination but all churches in Lebanon, he said, must operate under a "legal umbrella" of a denomination. At his center, Muhammad and his volunteer aid workers give out food, clothing, eye glasses, medicines, and New Testaments . " We give these regardless of whether the refugees have accepted Jesus as Lord. " Last Easter , Muhammad's center boiled 5,000 eggs and gave to each refugee a loaf of bread and a New Testament.

At a nursery , Muslim children learn Biblical verses taught by South Korea youth volunteers who write the scripture on a blackboard. "I have found Korean [ Christian ] believers more zealous than others to reach out to [ evangelize ] Muslims ," Muhammad said. " They do this by being hospitable and socializing. "

A bookstore at the center called "Noah's Ark " provides free coffee and Internet service in a room usually filled with more than 285 refugees. " We also have a summer camp where 60 or so kids come for five days to enjoy Jesus," Muhammad said. "Last year I took it upon myself to put 50 children in a school. We try to do everything to show them the love of Jesus. Today the people know that Jesus loves me. "

Christianity , Muhammad will tell you, has a long and continuous history in Lebanon as well as a rich history of ethnic and religious diversity. He reminded me that the Bible tells of Jesus' visits to the southern territories where He performed many miracles. And , he added, Lebanon's cedar trees are mentioned in the Old Testament and today the cedar tree remains the country's national emblem . A Roman Catholic saint named Sharbel Makhlūf , whom Pope Paul VI called the "admirable flower of sanctity blooming on the stem of the ancient monastic traditions of the East ," tended sheep in the early 19^th Century in Lebanon's wilderness. Though a civil war—it occurred after Lebanon gained independence as a mandate of France in 1943—in the 1970's and 1980's was said to have wrecked the country's economy and infrastructure, many tourists still remember Beirut's heyday as a charming and sophisticated city . ( I saw a bit of it briefly in the 1960's . )

Muhammad's church is less than a year old , and its Sunday attendance is about 20 people . The country has 17 sects with Christian population of 31 to 41 per cent (21% Maronite, 8% Greek Orthodox, 5% Melkite Catholic ) . Other sects , as reported by Statistics Lebanon, a Beirut-based research firm, are : 54% Muslim (27% Shia; 27% Sunni), 5.6% Druze ( they do not consider themselves Muslims ) , and 6.4% other Christian denominations like Armenian Orthodox,  Syriac Catholic, Armenian Catholic,  Syriac Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Chaldean, Assyrian, and Copt . Most Protestants (Presbyterian, Congregational, and Anglican ) reports Wikipedia, were converted by missionaries , primarily English and American, during the 19^th and 20^th Centuries . Roman Catholics, under the leadership of the Pope and curia in Rome, number about 1, 200, 000. Most are Maronites.

The Volatile Topic of Islam and Its Koran

Mohammad asked about lunch as he noticed that Hicham and Rick were waiting for us in the church narthex, and I grew anxious about the questions I had held until last . I believe I opened a safety pressure valve in this missionary with the question, " What is repellant to you about the Islamic faith?"

'There is no love . I do not see love in the Koran. I see a lot of selfishness , especially with marriage issues , like my mother's first husband being able to divorce her so easily . Also, a man can marry four women ? A religion that promotes hatred and non-tolerance of others, and a social life that is contradictory to human values ? "

He went on for 20 minutes.

" And when you confront them [ radical fundamentalists ] with this, they tell you that you read a wrong translation of their Koran. "

Muhammad had touched a nerve in me, too . Some Suras in the Koran I had found disturbing , notably Sura IX 5 (known as " the verse of the sword, " Ayat-as-seif ) : Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them… And Sura IX 29 : Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the religion of the truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low. And Sura VIII 39: fight then until …religion is all for Allah. (These citations are from what many Muslim scholars consider the most authoritative Koran text in English, The Glorious Qur'an , rendered by Mohammad M. Pickthall . ) Added to all this later would be this lead paragraph from the Wall Street Journal article (" Christians in Iraq Get Death Threats ", July 19-20 , 2014 ) dispatched from Baghdad: " The Islamic militants who seized large swaths of Iraq last month have threatened Christians with death if they don't convert to Islam, pay a tax or flee insurgent-held areas by Saturday. "

None of this was news to Muhammad , nor , I assume , was the following statement of Seth G.Jones, associate director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corp.: " The number of jihadist groups world-wide has grown by 58% , to 49 from 31; the number of jihadist fighters has doubled to a high estimate of 100,000 ; and the number of attacks by al Qaeda affiliates has increased to roughly 1,000 from 392. " Jones cautioned the U.S. not "to turn its attention elsewhere and scale back on counterterrorism efforts . " He added that "current trends suggest that the struggle against extremism is likely to be a generational one, much like the Cold War. " ( Soon after his return to Lebanon several weeks later , a jihadist group would be invading his country and taking over small city. )

Muhammad now waxed philosophical: " I'm not saying that the Western world is a Christian world, which is a fantasy, for if it were totally Christian , there wouldn't be any tolerance for any other religion. But the Western world is secular and this is why all people from all religions come here ; it's a safe haven. God allowed people to have the freedom of choice. "

Mohammad went after Middle East dictators like Assad, Mubarak, and Ghadafi , each whom he said didn't care about the people and "have used religion to usurp power and to stay in control . " He reminded me that several American politicians, powerful and otherwise, had used a similar strategy to win election. "All monarchs of the past in the Middle East, " Muhammad continued, "thought of themselves as Gods and made rules to control the people. "

I broke a journalist's rule and , for a moment, got emotionally involved in my interviewing. "That kind of manipulation and hypocrisy has been going on forever in most Arab countries !" I said . " Yet the people keep electing these tyrants . You'd think by now that the people, the ordinary citizens would put a good man on the ballot and get him elected ! "

Mohammad frowned . Then loud enough for Rick and Hicham to hear him, he exclaimed, " The people are afraid ! Fear is the key ! That's why they need Jesus to overcome their fear, and that's why I'm there. "

Some Tough Words for American Christians

Muhammad's passion for evangelism I had witnessed a few days earlier when he spoke at Hicham's church in Lombard. He had been invited as a guest of honor months ago but his visit had been delayed for a several weeks while his ministry was being investigated by the powerful Hezbollah party . The party , he told me, had once warned him not to stay in Tyre if he continued evangelizing. The implication was that Hezbollah had serious concerns that Muslims would start believing in the words of Jesus rather than the Koran.

Sitting in pews that night were an estimated 100 people, many of them Missouri Synod Lutherans, several former Muslims who had converted to the Christian faith, and a few curious visitors from Middle East countries. Muhammad had commandeered the microphone for more than an hour , speaking fervidly in English which the Rev. Hicham translated into Farsi, a Persian language which many Arabs understand. ( I attended despite my wife's concern about terrorist extremists who had once placed Hicham on their hit list for evangelizing a faith forbidden by Islamic teachings. )

Muhammad had reprimanded all Christian missionaries for "compromising" their faith by not fighting for it for fear of persecution . "There are Christians today in the Middle East who stand with dictators to protect themselves , " he had told his audience. Only two per cent of all the world's Christian missionaries go to the Middle East, he said. His voice pitched higher and louder , reminiscent of the fire and brimstone sermons of old time , American tent crusaders. " American Christians are not living up to their standards of being holy for a holy God…It's all for Jesus or nothing at all….There are many things that we hide in our life that keep us unholy…If your give God ninety-nine per cent of your life and you keep one per cent, you are unholy !" A small group of young women in front pews raised their arms with "halleluiahs."

After giving a power point presentation of refugee scenes in Lebanon, his voice raised even higher: " We don't need methods to reach Muslims. .. It's simple: You love them ! Give them a hug, take them to lunch, visit them in prison…the Gospel is so sweet and awesome because it's simple ! "

In closing—now gently— he had said: " The Middle East is where the blood is pumping. If we make a change there we will make a change throughout the Muslim world . I call on you to see the door that God has opened for you. Tell the people about Jesus…"

He then called a to the microphone a Syrian physician who said he had come to America with empty hands, having left behind home, his practice , and property. "This war there is like a knife in the heart of the church…I have surrendered my life to Jesus, " he said , choking.

Lunch, Final Reflections, and a Prayer

After the interview, the four of us drove to a café and took an inordinate amount of time filling our plates with a variety of oriental and Middle Eastern food spread upon six long buffet tables and two dessert bars . Hicham prayed: Majestic God in heaven…I appeal to You to set Muslims free…give them wisdom, intelligence and sharp insight to realize that it is pointless to build their belief system on fables and traditions of humans. Rescue them from the grip of a merciless enemy that is plotting their ruin and doom. ..

By dessert time, though it was obvious no one had any stomach for any more "serious" talking , I was still the "serious " journalist and felt obligated to ask Muhammad one more question . " Tell me, Muhammad , " I said, "what's your personal challenge in life ? "

" To live in purity, " he replied. " To not defile myself, to not let sin creep into my soul. I face that challenge daily. "

"I think we all face that challenge," Rick said.

We rose to leave . I think Rick and I would have liked to have come up with a Hitler or a Stalin to blame for much of the violence on earth today. " Dealing with evil that is woven into the fabric of the world's culture is tortuous ," I told my friend . When we were to meet the next time for coffee at McDonald's , he would proffer to me a line from Holy Scripture ( Ephesians 6:12 ) ; it identified , he believed , the real culprit, whether of war in the Middle East or a gangbanging in Chicago: For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. Soon after day in McDonald's, Rick was to hand me a Wall Street Journal interview ( March 6-7, 2010—but timely ) of a former Palestinian who had converted to the Catholic faith while serving as a spy for Israel. Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of the founder and then leader of Hamas , stated his belief that terrorism can't be defeated without a new understanding of Islam. "The problem is not in Muslims, " he told the Journal's editorial board member Matthew Kaminski . " The problem is with their God. They need to be liberated from teir God. He is their biggest enemy. It has been 1,400 years they have been lied to. "

                                               ( from right ), Yamout, the Rev. Richter,

                                           the Rev. Hesham  Shehab, leader of the

                                            Christian Fellowship in Lombard , Illinois

Walking in camaraderie to the cafe parking lot, I , for one, still wondered what was my role as an American and a Christian was in the scheme of all this . Maybe it was as simple as writing this article. Life had shaped Mohammad, Hicham, Rick and I into different people with vastly different likes and dislikes , drives, and personalities . Yet what we had in common was clear : a bonding relationship with a Jew born 21 centuries ago in the Middle East. It was a good start.

Driving home with Rick that day, I told him of my encounter with a Muslim taxi driver who had taken me home from O'Hare International Airport . For fifteen minutes this man from Pakistan had been explaining to me what he thought were the many similarities between Islam and Christianity. He had obviously s seen his share of violence and hatred and how it had been tolerated—if not encouraged— from father to children to grandchildren to great-grandchildren and on and on. In my driveway as he unloaded my luggage , I briefly thought of how unbridled hatred and lust for revenge can perpetuate themselves , making peace impossible in spite of the desperate desire for it —conscious or not—by all humans— weak or strong.

I handed my tip to the Muslim man and, looking at him with a smile, I politely said: " Many of we Christians actually do practice something which you Muslims don't… We forgive our enemies, sometimes even pray for them. " The Muslim opened his mouth as if stunned by such a preposterous thought. He stared at me for a few seconds , then got in his taxi and drove off. I hoped he would be deprived of a good night's sleep. It was too late to mention one of life's three fundamental temptations stated by a saint name Benedict , founder of Western Monasticism , that being anger and revenge.

Afterwards, I recalled one of my most memorable literary quotes; this one from a character in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov : “Without God all things are permitted.” A week later I felt more comfortable—though remaining vigilant—upon seeing the National Catholic Reporter headline (June 15, 2014 ) , " Religious Tolerance Surges in the Persian Gulf."

THE END

Mr. Schwarz is a retired newspaper editor and

                                                                           former manager of leadership development  

                                                                          for  Lions Clubs International.

                                                                         You can  email him at                                  

                                                                         rrschwarz777@gmail.com
                                                                                    © 2014,2022, 2024  Robert R. Schwarz

                                                                        "exodustrekkers.blogspot.com"