My names are Saadi
Ali Tokiti and baptized as Joseph am currently a pastor in Kenya and I
was inspired by a missionary friend who we met at the JKIA airport in
Nairobi last December to write this testimony after I shared it with him
verbally and I believe he was guided by God to encourage me to do so as
now as am writing it I see the potential it carries to minister the grace
of God to the hearts of the lost and to encourage fellow believers about
the power of God unto salvation may the Lord bless his soul eternally.
In-order for you to
appreciate what the Lord has done in my life I need to give you a little
historical background about my self. I was born in a town in central Kenya
known as Nyeri near the slopes of Mt. Kenya my family is a descended from
a strong Islamic background my great grand dad who was a Muslim of
Pakistan origin was the first muslim to settle in this parts of Kenya
which were predominantly Christian area evangelized by missionaries of the
past, he had settled in this area to do farming and trading after he had
worked as a coolie (workers brought in from India and Pakistan to
construct the 1st railway network in colonial Kenya) who had an
option to return to their native lands or settle in Africa but he chose
the latter after marrying from a local tribe .After settling he built the
first mosque there and soon the number of muslims grew due to new converts
from the locals and also from new emigrants from other places as we speak
about 35% 0f the population of around 1.2m is muslim not to mention other
towns around that have directly got populations of muslims from this
roots. so I was born in a family with strong muslim roots on my mothers
side. On my fathers side I don’t know much as he was a Congolese who met
my mother as he was exiled in Kenya but he too had strong Islamic roots
having been born between an exiled ex soldier from northern Nigeria
Muslims and a converted Congolese mother. Am the 3rd born of my
parents and according to Islamic customs the 1st words I heard
were the words of the muazzene the proclamation of the lordship of allah
and the apostleship of muhhamad similar to the one that calls muslims to
the daily 5 times prayers that my mothers younger brother immediately
shouted in my ears according to the requirements to every newborn baby
born to muslim parents after which the child is given a name followed by a
feast where there is slaughtering of sheep and shaving of the newborns
head am telling you this so that you may understand that a muslim child is
covenanted to allah before he even knows his/her mother no wonder they
remain bound all their life! From as long as I can remember I was always
around the mosque or in an Islamic ritual until I gave my life to Christ
before, I could attend regular school I had already attended about 3yrs of
the madrasa(Islamic school)where I was taught Arabic, Islamic sari and
recited and memorized the Koran by 12yrs I could recite the entire Koran
scriptures by heart, a muslim is always armed with their scriptures even
as small children that’s why they are so stable in their faith and so
readily defends it with sound debates. One of the foundational teachings
or tenets of islam that is taught so early in their lives is that allah
was never begotten neither does he beget this is found in the second book
of the Koran which is memorized at the elementary level of the madrasa am
talking of it being taught to children as young as 4yrs of age this is a
ploy of the devil to counter the gospel even before its preached to them
as they have known since they were babes that God cannot have a son
personally I had no problem with the Lordship of Jesus after getting born
again but I could never bring myself to mention the name son of God it was
sacrilege it took a while for me to come to terms with the Son-ship of
Jesus so I believe that for you to evangelize a Muslim you have to be
armed with this knowledge so that through the wisdom of God you can
explain this aspect of the gospel adequately to the potential convert.
So I grew up in
this family where we were beaten up for failing to attend madrasa, failing
to pray, or performing poorly in the Islamic education, this madras’s were
pure torture chambers up to date the missionary teachers from the
Comoros, Somalia, Pakistan or Zanzibar were torture experts employing
heavy beating, tying upside down, putting pepper in our eyes and in wounds
they created by slashing us with razors and the most dreadful of all being
detained in a small dark room that was used as a makeshift morgue which
had a foul smell owing to the activities of embalming the dead which took
place there, all this done with total support of parents it was funny a
parent would create so much fuss when we were punished at regular schools
and give consent to madras teachers to visit such pure terror upon small
children we are still fighting up to today to stop this injustices. Many
times we would sit and listen to our parents speaking foully against
Christians (infidels) against westerners, Americans and Israelis whom they
termed as enemies of Islam with people like Sadam, Arafat, Gaddafi; Gen.
Saddat, and the suicide bombers of Palestine and Beirut as heroes of Islam
I hated the Jews so much that I had to under go special counseling many
years after salvation after I heard a teaching concerning them from a
visiting preacher to let go of my hatred for them. So naturally we grew up
into young extremists and we felt it was our sacred duty to defend Islam
and punish infidels i.e. non Muslims we were usually encouraged to tear
down Christian advertisements to crusades and meetings on walls, to
vandalize crusade stands overnight boo preachers and stone door to door
evangelists I can still remember an incident where we landed with kicks
and blows on a local pastor who came to our village to do door to door
evangelism and I remember him pointing particularly to me and saying, “I
forgive you but you shall one day preach Jesus” we laughed him off but
his prophecy over me finally came to pass. Also I remember in secondary
school we were so radical we forced the head teacher with the help of the
kadhi (Muslim representative in the govt.) to pass some orders to
favor us like giving us our own toilets so that we didn’t share them with
the infidels whom we viewed as unclean, we also demanded to eat our food
away from non Muslims and also be allowed to attend prayer sessions
regardless of class programmes and also for our girls to be allowed to
wear head scarves. In secondary school we engaged in a drive to convert
other pupils to Islam and succeeded in changing many. Our greatest
adversary in school was the Christian union club whose members preached in
school and people attended their meeting as there was so much life in
their meetings one time we had a fight with them when we went there to get
one muslim girl who had attended their meetings we roughed them up and
broke up the meeting you know Islam dominates people through violence and
intimidation and the best weapon against this is love as portrayed by the
Christian union chairperson who said to me that I would one day contend
for the same faith that I fought though he was bleeding from the beating
he had received from me he chose to respond to me in love this really
confused me as we had been taught to hit back and revenge against our
enemies from that day I never allowed my group to disrupt them again as I
write this testimony this Christian union chairperson is a friend and a
pastor together with me in the same church glory to Jesus!
So it was with
background that the dramatic events that led to my extraordinary
experience with the Lord Jesus Christ. In the year 2000 I found myself in
a very sorry state I was full of misery and hopelessness. two years back I
had ended my education miserably by failing to graduate from my high
school education I had been forced to run and leave my Kenya Certificate
for Secondary Education exams half finished after beating up a young boy
into a comma who I was not sure if he would recover or die so I ran away
to avoid arrest by police who were looking for me. You see some events had
taken place which left our once strong family in shambles of disunity and
poverty first the death of our grandfather and his financial empire’s also
my father had left for his native homeland to participate in the freedom
struggle to oust the dictator Mobutu Seseseko of the former Zaire as prior
to my dads exile to Kenya where he met my mother he had served as high
level govt. official in the post independence govt. of Patrice Lumumba
who Mobutu assassinated and over threw so my dad always felt it was his
patriotic duty to fight and re-establish democracy in DRC Congo so he left
us and went there and for more than ten years we have never heard a word
about him. This left our mother who had been disinherited by his brothers
of what little was left by our grand father you see Islam contrary to what
they claim put very little significance upon women, to look after me and
my elder brothers more pressure was exerted on our finances after the
terrorist activities in East Africa prompted the Kenyan govt. to close
down the Muslim NGO’s that assisted us.
After the incident
of the boy I had attacked cooled down following his dismissal from
hospital I returned to my home town of Nyeri to try and pick up my
disorganized life. You know God had blessed me with intelligence and I
used to perform so well in school
And was the hope of
my mother as she knew that I would get into a well paying carrier and
assist her financially I personally had ambition to pursue medicine or
biochemistry but the devil cut me short in my dreams with that incident of
that boy that my education was cut short I tried every thing to find my
way back to school but though my former head teacher was ready to take me
back in I lacked finances as my sponsor a local Muslim business tycoon
declined to assist me again and instead offered to take me to a religious
university in northern Sudan I accepted though half heartedly as my heart
was after western education so as I waited for my admission year to come I
started seeking God for a second chance I spent so much time in the mosque
asking Allah o give me a second chance but I never knew that he couldn’t
do that as it is only Jesus who could as it was only he who came to give
life and give it more abundantly so I began to question his Lordship
(Allah) a great sin punishable by death and unforgivable in heaven. Some
things that I used to hear when Christians preached in crusades or at
assemblies in school (you see no word falls to the ground we have to
preach the gospel even when no one seems to listen as this word will one
time minister to someone in need) came back to me and I struggled against
them as thoughts from the devil as we had been programmed to see
Christians as devil worshippers never the less I very much doubted what I
had known all my life about the goodness of Allah. I started to raise up
debates on the authenticity of what we believed and they replied with
strong reprimands as you cannot question Allah but this couldn’t deter me
for the doubt was like a hungry appetite that needed to be satisfied with
nothing but the truth you know a true hunger for the truth shall draw you
to Jesus himself as I came to learn that the truth is not just a concept
but a person he says himself “I am the truth.” I started withdrawing
myself from friends and family who thought I was depressed but I needed
answers and I couldn’t find them in islam though it never crossed my mind
to convert I thought that somebody had misrepresented God as the stories
in the Koran prior to Muhammad were full of the stories of the God who
created the universe doing great things with Abraham Noah and others so I
started seeking the pre Muhammad God who created the universe I changed
my prayers and started praying to the God who created me the heavens and
the earth but no answer was forthcoming so I grew more desperate I started
feeling that God was against me you see by now there were things happening
around my life that made think this my mother had just been diagnosed with
the HIV virus, my older sister whom I loved and we were close lost her
husband to whom she had been forcibly married to AIDS and she was HIV+
also and one of my brothers was in depression and had to visit a
psychiatrist daily the only consolation I received from the teachings of
islam was that I should accept the will of allah as islam strongly
believes on predestination saying allah according to his wisdom and before
we were created chose the life one should live on this earth and nothing
can change it so we should just accept his will upon us what a lie from
hell!
I stated asking God
why he chose that kind of life for me why the poverty the sickness the
problems? I would get so mad with him one night I went to an open field
and insulted and said bad things to him and dared him to kill me he could
I was tired with life itself but he never strike me how merciful Jehovah
is instead he chose to appear and reveal himself directly to me and
surpass the mortal men who for so long had misrepresented him through
deceptive cults religions, and doctrines.
I used to spend so
much time on my own inside my room and one day I was sitting on a mat on
the floor praying as I thought kneeling was Christian and bowing was
Islamic so I wanted to be as neutral as possible and chose to sit but
glory to Jesus its not the position you take but the hunger that draws
him, that a great powerful glorious awesome wonderful bright I cant get
the words bright light filled my small room I felt electrified and static
energy filled my room a man so beautiful and wonderful to explain stood in
the midst of the light just said “I am Jesus and I have good plans for
you” I have no words to explain what I felt then but it was a physically
tangible love just love oozing allover my room beloved I know the feeling
of heaven and you don’t want to miss it its so sweet sweeter than anything
you have ever felt in your life here on earth inexplicable
goodness……….then as abruptly as he had appeared to me he left but I
understand what it means to have him lift your burden and give you rest is
mind you I was not saved I didn’t understand a thing but I felt a heavy
load lifted off my back I just sat there mesmerized by his awesomeness and
magnificence what glory! For several hours trying to come to terms with
what had happened finally I arose and rushed to the local imam’s
(equivalent to a pastor) house naturally he was the only person I thought
could explain this extraordinary event to me as he was the most spiritual
man according to my knowledge then how wrong I was proved! he listened to
me silently when I was through he looked me straight in the eye and told
me today iblis (Lucifer) has appeared to you I shuddered with terror he
pointed his finger to me and said didn’t I warn you not to think of things
beyond you he was referring to a past incident when I posed some questions
to him and he warned me that such questions would only open a door to the
devil to bring deception to me he prayed with me and warned me not to
succumb to the tempter as allah was testing my faith. I went back to my
house determined to withstand the tempter if he appeared again to me.
About three days passed again before the Lord appeared to me again in a
vision. Then the hunger to know if there was another life for me apart
from the one of pain and hopelessness returned to my heart the words of
the Lord that he has good plans for me was alive in my heart its true when
he said that the” words I speak to you are spirit and life” yes the word
of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword; this
words gave so much consolation I came to learn later that they are a part
of Jeremiah 29:22 a word that I have come to hold so dearly to my heart
for they satisfied my deep hunger for hope to a better future may I at
this time advice any person who wants to be effective in reaching the lost
especially the muslims to give them hope, hope for healing, prosperity,
the life hereafter as most lack hope, the lack of hope to the life
hereafter caused by the inability to live to the standards set by religion
to attain peace with God and the fear of experiencing hell which the Koran
so vividly describes has left muslims with options like suicide bombing in
order to attain the automatic ticket to heaven through martyrdom as the
standards set by the Koran to attain paradise are too high to achieve and
there is nothing a muslim dreads more than eternal damnation therefore he
will do anything to attain it including killing innocent people the world
has to understand that terrorism is not a political or military problem
but a spiritual one than can be solved by giving this people the good news
of hope that is in Jesus I wish western govts. could understand this and
use more money funding missionaries to middle east than bombing them with
trillion dollar worth bombs, there is only one bomb that can rid the world
of the likes of Osama, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
So the Lord
appeared to me again and again always make an invitation to me to entrust
my hopeless life to him and he would make something out of it. By now I
had completely cut myself off from people I got hold of a bible I had as
it was compulsory to have one alongside the dictionary and an atlas before
joining secondary schools I in Kenya this bible I had scribbled all over
it and had even plucked some pages out of it to use as toilet paper to
prove to Christian friends in school that the bible wasn’t powerful and
dared them to try and do that to the true book of God the Koran and face
the wrath of the true God, I never new the power was not on the written
pages of the bible but upon the rhema word of God. so I started reading
the bible earnestly before I had tried to read it but it was then just a
boring story but now it was different the stories came alive with hope
giving stories of people who succeeded with God moreover any difficult
part I would note and would put it as a question to the Lord when he
visited me as I learnt to relate with him I read the entire bible or the
pages e32of the tattered one I had in three months. in between this time I
had confided in a Christian girlfriend about the appearance of the Lord to
me in a vision by that time I used to think that the Lord was satan
himself as he instructed me to read the bible and told me he was Jesus the
son of God so I needed someone to explain this things to me and the past
experience showed me that the imam was helpless against Jesus as every
thing he told me to do to stop him from coming to my room had failed I
started by asking her if she would trust what I would tell her for truth
she agreed saying she had no reason to doubt me as I had never lied to her
so I narrated the whole story to her she was from a religious church so
explained to me about Jesus to the best of her knowledge but offered to
find a pastor to explain it better to me but I declined and charged her
never to breathe a word about it to anyone. But she had better ideas as
she went and spoke to another girl who attended a Pentecostal church and
her friend explained to her about salvation and the Holy Spirit and
developed a very keen interest in my story as she knew back in my
secondary school days and even offered to set up a meeting between me and
her pastor my current Bishop to explain to me everything an offer that I
declined and got angry with my girlfriend for breaching my trust to her
and for breaking the promise not to tell anyone, but at night after
another visit from the lord I made up my mind to go meet with this pastor
my plan was to go there and after they pray for me and the Lord stops
appearing to me I would run away from nyeri to Mombassa where I thought
that the Lord wouldn’t come due to the great number of muslims there I
didn’t know that Jesus is omnipresent and I couldn’t run from him as David
asks “where can I hide from your presence oh Lord” I wasn’t yet ready to
give my life to Christ as I still believed they worshipped the devil so I
called the girl and arranged for meeting with the pastor who happened to
be Bishop Steve Macharia of the Gospel outreach Ministries he had been
called by the other girl who was a member of her church and requested for
an appointment to meet me he nearly declined but the Lord spoke to his
heart to agree and meet me so he allocated us thirty minutes the following
day as he was rushing to an important meeting somewhere.
So the next day we
went to his office at the church I trembled a lot as I expected to meet
weird people and things as I had never before set my foot in a church I
was also afraid that someone may see me and report to my family so I wore
a hat and used the back door to avoid detection we met with the Bishop and
his wife I poured all my story to him he even forgot his planned meeting
and just sat there all of them tears flowing down their eyes which I
couldn’t understand so after narrating this to him he started by telling
me that the Lord loved me so much that’s why he had chosen to appear to
me and he talked to me for hours and hours and finally asked me if I
wanted to pray the prayer of repentance which I did I felt a wonderful
feeling inside me and so revived so he told me to just read the bible and
pray and just wait until God revealed the way forward by this he wanted me
to refrain from testifying publicly as he happened to know my family and
the expected repercussions as so far it was unheard-of in our area of
muslim getting born again he gave me his cell phone number and asked me to
call him at any time in case of anything
I left the church
feeling good but after separating from my friends I felt I should run
away from my home town as I had earlier planned so I boarded a bus to
Mombassa after around 25km travel I heard a voice as clearly as someone
standing by me and said “get off the bus and call the pastor” I did
exactly that and confessed to my pastor that I had tried to run away he
arranged for me to return and see him the following day am telling you
this to show you the importance of following up the new believer from
Islam as they struggle against powerful spirits of backsliding personally
I thank God for the wonderful people he gave me to stand with me and
ensure I grow into a fully matured Christian many muslims who gave their
lives to Christ backslid due to lack of follow up as the other muslims
never give up and always come back for their people who get born again I
have been approached with all kinds of offers including receiving large
sums of money if I accept to deny Jesus and revert to Islam ;offers from
fathers to give me their daughters to me in marriage if I go back to
Islam; offers to join prestigious learning institutions abroad and many
death threats. a girl whom we preached to of Somali origin was told by her
father to choose between being gang raped by a group of young men he came
home with at night or deny Christ she chose the latter and we lost her as
we didn’t have a place to keep her away from her family. We believe God to
build a refuge center where we can keep new believers to prevent them from
backsliding
The following day I
decided that this was true and I made up my mind to let people know that I
had turned to Christianity as I referred to my getting born again so I
went to my brothers working place and stood at the doorway and shouted to
him “am now a Christian” he thought I was crazy so I ran of and called my
pastor that I could hide Jesus no more and that I had told people I was
born again he took me to his home on the following day we attended the
chrismas service at church where I testified to the congregation for the
first time people were moved to tears and the presence of the Lord fell in
the place and several people gave their lives to Christ there was even no
preaching that day but still someone in the congregation went and informed
my family and friends about me and the church as prior to that they never
thought I had been serious when I said I would join Christianity (got
saved) so the following day they gathered themselves and planned to attack
the church the following day Sunday during the services.
So the following
day as we were attending Sunday worship they came armed with crude weapons
and baying for my blood chanting its my head according to the sharia (the
sharia demands death by beheading to any person that renounces Islam) or
Jihad (holy war) against anyone who harbored me leading them a group of
young men who had just arrived from Saudi Arabia and northern Sudan where
they had gone to receive religious studies and they brought back a radical
form of islam known as wahabism which openly advocates for Jihad terrorism
to enforce sharia around the world. They started shouting and smashing
cars parked outside the church they beat up people up and disrupted the
whole service they entered the church hall and started looking for me
amongst the people by Gods miraculous power I was hidden from their eyes
they couldn’t see me though I was seated on the front row of the pews they
kept on by passing me until was taken into a police armored car as the
police had been called to quell the riot.
The police told
them to pick representatives to go and make their case before senior
police officers who would arbitrate between us so they picked the imam, my
mother, brothers and uncles we all crammed into the office of the
provincial superintendent of police and all was set in a court like
manner, to Gods glory the most senior police officer there was a
born-again Christian and this gave us a good platform to present our case
as he would understand it from a spiritual perception. On my side was my
bishop and his associate pastor so my family through the imam the imam
presented their case they began by claiming that I had not accepted Christ
on my own will but that I had been drugged or hypnotized and to prove that
they asked to be allowed to release me out of the hypostasis and they had
brought an expert with them who I recognized as a witch doctor brought in
from another town who usually came at special functions in my family, I
heard a voice speaking inside of me saying “don’t let him touch you” so I
shouted and said he is a witch he should leave this room it was as if
something hit him and he hurriedly left the room so everybody fell silent
and there was so much confusion on my family’s side as their plans to
throw a spell on me had failed so the senior police officer broke the
silence and turned to me and asked if I was over 18yrs old (legal age in
Kenya) and whether I had been forced or drugged into giving my life to
Christ to which I said no then he announced that since I was legally an
adult and had given my life to Christ willingly then everybody had to
respect my decision and not harass me I thank God for the wisdom he gave
this man and the laws of our land which allows freedom of worship, I know
of many Muslims who would have wished to give their lives but are hindered
by oppressive laws of their lands which deny them freedom to believe pray
for God to release nations under the Islamic sharia and oppressive rule to
practice democracy so that so who want to give their lives to do so
without persecution amen.
So my family were
left with no more to do so they each verbally denied me in front of the
police starting with my mother, brothers, and uncles what hurt me most is
when my mother said,” you are not my son from today” and cursed me, but I
thank God that even when your mother and father shall forsake you he shall
never leave me nor forsake you.
So it was agreed
between the senior officer and the imam and my uncles that nobody would
harass me and they put an agreement on paper that they would be liable to
anything that happened to me at the hands of the Muslims they agreed on
this on condition that I use only one street in the town one leaving my
pastors home and going to the church and that I would be the only one
responsible to what would happen to me if I strayed into what they called
their part of town I agreed and the meeting came to an end and we left.
Outside we found the rest of the people and news men with cameras and all
it was like a dream the Muslim youths were shouting murderous words to us
but couldn’t do anything due to the police presence we then met the witch
who said that within one week I my pastor and any body involved in my
conversion would mysteriously die but I thank God because greater was he
who was in us than he who was in him so my pastor answered and said to him
that no weapon formed against us would prosper we left and almost 8yrs on
we are still alive glory to Jesus but as for him he never came back to my
family as they said he had failed to bring me back to Islam .
That night the Lord
appeared to me and told me that he would prepare me to use me to preach to
the Muslims of His goodness I continued in the church and true to his word
the Lord has continued to bring more and more Muslims into His saving
grace through my ministry which is through His enabling and to His glory
alone. He Has also blessed me abundantly all that I lost he gave back to
me a hundred fold he gave me mothers fathers brothers sisters and material
blessings, nothing you give up for the kingdom is lost.
I got baptized in
the holy spirit I attended a school of ministry after he miraculously
provided for the finances and after that I became the church evangelist
preaching even in Muslim villages and the same people who warned me to
stay on a single street in the town used to bring their sick for healing
to my meetings there is nothing impossible with God even my family now
respects me although they never fully accept me but whenever there is
someone sick or they are terrorized by demons they usually call me for
prayer and got does wonders like He healed my sister who had been admitted
critically ill in a hospital and she immediately rose well glory to Jesus
this made them respect my God and as we speak my sisters daughter gave her
life to Christ and lives with me.
Later I left the
town to the one am currently in after I had married and was ordained as a
pastor am believing God to attend a bible college and then proceed to
middle east as a missionary pray God with me to open necessary doors. God
bless.
