A Former Muslim Americanizing Muslim Immigrants

 

Written by Robert R. Schwarz

Somehow--perhaps by God's grace--a dozen of more men and families from Muslim-Arab countries each year find their way to the Salem Christian Fellowship mission church in Lombard, Illinois. Here they are met by church pastor the Rev. Hesham Shehab, himself once a refugee from Lebanon who fought against Christians in the 1975 war in Lebanon.

Hesham came to America at age 16. He had been preparing to become a Muslim preacher (Imam) when a car accident laid him up for a year. When his brother was killed by Christian militia. Hesham told me, hie response was to study by " day and by night take out his revenge in attacks on Christians." However, after working as a missionary to the Muslims with the Lutheran Church in Illinois, earning a master's degree d in the history of the Arabs and doing Ph.D. studies in the history of Islam, Hesham finished his pastoral education at Concordia University in Fort Wayne, Indiana. and was ordained minister of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod,

Today, Hesham advises members of his mission how to live a successful Christian life. He has baptized more than 50 into the faith. 

As for the rest of them, he says smiling, some like me, some don't." One who does quite Hesham is 70- year-old Raheen Al Hassan, who now lives alone in the Illinois suburb of Carol Stream.  He has five daughters, and a 40-year-old son All are married; one lives in America, another in Iraq,

     Raheen was born in Iraq and worked as a health inspector of incoming ships entering his country. Fearing that his government might eventually arrest him because his son was employed by a U.S. Amy attachment, Raheen immigrated to America in 2014 and found employment as a cleaning man in a gambling casino in nearby Elgin, Illinois.

  Speaking slowly in broken English, Raheen's face saddened when he recently told me that when his wife died from cancer, he started to attend the Wheaton Bibe church for consolation. There he met Hesham.

     For the next seven years, Raheen often spoke with Hesham, hearing perhaps for the first time in his Muslim faith life, Christian sermons. " All this," he exclaimed to me, changed my heart, and I accepted Jesus as my Savior. Life became very, very nice. I don't worry about the tomorrow."

  For the past two years, Raheen talks frequently about Jesus to his fellow former Muslims, drives them to church or to Hesham's weekly mission meetings or, with another Lutheran pastor, to his home for conversation. Hesham does his part with his mission sermons and now and than driving a seriously ill mission member to the hospital. 

"We need to awaken people to Christian love"

“We need to awaken people to the central theme of Christian love even if some Muslims are terrorists, ” said the Rev. Hicham Shehab , pastor of the Salam Christian Fellowship in Lombard, Illinois.
The Rev. Chehab, once himself an extremist Muslim fundamentalist in Lebanon before converting to Christianity and eventually being ordained in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, was reflecting on his recent mission trip to Michigan. There, early February, he proclaimed the Gospel message to the elders and congregation of the Trinity Luther church in Reese, a town of 1,365 residents near the shores of Lake Huron.
In his sermon to an estimated congregation of 450 people, the 52-year-old pastor, now a U.S. resident, stated: ” Jesus commanded us to go make disciples of all nations . That means the Hispanics, Somalians, Arabs, the Greeks—yes , Jesus meant all nations. ”
Rev. Chehab was accompanied by two converts from Islam who were baptized at Salam. The two converts, Iraqis who live in the U.S., gave their testimony for Jesus Christ and His power in saving souls.
As he preached, Pastor Chehab was quite aware that his audience was a mission-minded group residing in a region with a heritage of Christian pioneering no less dramatic and nor less inspiring than that of the Pilgrim epic at Plymouth Rock. Nearby Frankenmuth (pop.4,803 ) was the beachhead in 1854 for a colony of 15 German immigrants who braved many hardships before founding this site as an exclusive German-Lutheran town. (http://www.frankenmuth.org/aboutus/history ). Their mission had the dual purpose of giving spiritual comfort at the time to the German pioneers in the Midwest and to show the native Indians “Wie gut und schŏn es ist Jesus zu sehen ” ( ” How good and wonderful it is to see Jesus ” ) . This mission was instigated by a letter sent in 1840 from a German missionary in America to all the Lutherans in Germany; his letter asked for their help.
Commenting on these early German Christians as well as today’s pilgrim Christians, the Rev. Rick Richter*, former senior pastor of St. Peter Lutheran Church in Arlington Heights, Illinois and a friend of Pastor Shehab ” Faith and perseverance saw them through. ”
Shortly before embarking recently on a mission trip to southern Illinois to relate his personal conversion story and to preach about the Great Commission, Pastor Chehab commented, ” We Christians are little Christs and therefore should be daily on the mission of saving souls.” 

                              THE END

                                             All comments welcomed

rrschwarz777@gmail.com

© 2024 Robert R. Schwarz

ExodusTrekkers.Blogspot.Com