Christian worker helps man commit treason

Ben’s* (name changed for security reasons) father wanted two things for his son: become an imam like his prominent grandfathers and take hidden bombs to destroy buildings in French neighborhoods of their small Moroccan town.

To achieve the destruction, Ben’s father woke him up in the middle of the night to lug explosives covered with bread and mint leaves. Sending his son out at night worked around French curfews on adults in the North African country.

To advance Ben’s devotion, he was sent to school to become an imam at age 6. At the end of each day, Ben recited verses from the Koran. If he couldn’t say them correctly, leaders beat his feet until he couldn’t walk for days.

At one point, when Ben couldn’t memorize the Koran to his teachers’ satisfaction, they convinced his parents that demons were involved. So, someone stripped Ben naked, threw him in a dry well and abandoned him for three days. He still remembers trying to climb the walls, screaming and crying.

He woke up in a hospital, unsure how he got there. Doctors thought Ben would die ― yet, somehow, he survived.

Becoming ‘an angry, angry little boy’

A path meant to lead him into living for Allah instead turned him away. Before he was even a teenager, he was “an angry, angry little boy.” He no longer believed in Allah and went to live with his mom’s sisters.

The desires of Ben’s earthly father deeply wounded the young boy. However, God the Father had a path for Ben as well. As a teenager, Ben met Wendell Evans, a kind American missionary who respectfully and slowly shared about Jesus with the angry Moroccan teenager.

Speaking of Christ’s death and resurrection for the sins of humanity, Wendell Evans would tell Ben, “He did it for you. He did it for you.” Ben saw faith in Jesus as treason against Allah, even though his Muslim faith was nearly nonexistent. As such, he asked Evans not to keep talking about Jesus.

Evans honored that request until a few years later when Eastern Michigan University accepted Ben’s application for college. Ben moved to Michigan and worked nights on a Ford Motor Company assembly line. After college, he started working for Kuwait Airways, a job that took him from Michigan to New York to Casablanca to San Diego.

Emptiness inside stirs Ben to return to Islam, but not for long

During those years, he partied, drank and suffered from a massive void. Ben thought Allah was punishing him, so he resumed his devotion to Islam. Within a short time, spiritual leaders encouraged him to become a daai, a Muslim missionary.

One day, after he led an American to conversion, Ben came home to his wife. She was reading a book, resting in their room. At the same time, Ben immediately felt covered by sin from his head to his toes.

“God showed me the filthiness of my heart, and I got on my knees, crying,” Ben said. “I’m almost hearing a voice, ‘He did it for you. He did it for you.’”

All Ben knew is Christians got baptized, so he called the first church he could find, which turned out to be a Catholic church. A priest answered the phone. Ben immediately identified himself as a Muslim wanting to be baptized and follow Christ. The priest quickly hung up the phone without saying a word.

So, Ben went to a Christian friend and asked what he could do to choose Christ.

“He had a little grin,” Ben remembers of his friend’s countenance. “I think we can arrange that,” the man told Ben.

Related: A church plant in Iowa emphasizes baptisms for new believers.

That man’s father was the pastor of College Avenue Baptist Church, a Converge church in San Diego. The pastor opened the Bible and told Ben what to do to fill the hole in his heart, to be forgiven by God and start a new life. Ben was baptized that same week.

Ben’s parents laughed when he told them he’d become a Christian. Once they believed Ben, they declared him dead to the family.

Finding a new family and going from daai to disciple-maker

Pastor Jerry Sheveland, who later served as Converge president from 2002-14, and man after man at College Avenue Baptist Church started discipling Ben. Eventually, he enrolled in seminary to pursue becoming a missionary.

One day at seminary, Ben saw that the Baptist General Conference, now Converge, sought a person who spoke Arabic and French to make disciples in France. With his wife’s support, Ben called the phone number on the flyer, and they steadily worked the process to join Converge.

Ben and his wife have spent more than 20 years making disciples among Muslims in southern France.

Related: Could you spend your life as a missionary? How about starting with a summer?

The Converge global worker is currently stateside due to COVID restrictions in France. While he waits for what’s next, he’s making the most of his time. He is co-pastoring a virtual church of Arabic believers and discipling some of those men. On Mondays, Ben teaches and mentors leaders of the underground church in Morocco.

“God is using us here for the time being,” Ben said.

Another Converge worker started the Arab virtual church. He asked Ben for help pastoring 300 Muslim converts from all the countries of the Arab world and Europe.

Over Zoom, the believers worship in song, someone preaches and there is a question-and-answer time for understanding God’s word. In addition, believers often share their testimony of trusting Christ and leaving Islam.

During the week, the pastors each disciple two or three believers through the Scriptures. Those disciples need help understanding who God is, what sin is and how to choose holiness, for example.

“It’s a lot of things that may seem simple, but they’re very important,” Ben said. “You have to go back from the beginning and explain who is the God of the Bible.”

Related: A global worker in Senegal is studying the Scriptures with Muslim men.

Sometimes, pastors struggle to trust God

Evangelism among Muslims has always been the couple’s priority. They started a church in their apartment 20 years ago in Nice, France. The church grew steadily until they hosted 45 or 50 people in their apartment.

They needed a building at that point. The God who had always stood by them was ready to do so again with a wonderful work. Ben led a worship service in 2004 on the 27th night of Ramadan — the holiest night for Muslims. One hundred people came to the worship service at a hotel, and three people chose Christ as Lord.

After the service, a French woman told Ben a church in town was selling its building. Ben met with the church’s elders and agreed to buy the building for 65,000 euros.

“That was a lot of money in 2004,” he said. “I thought I made the mistake of my life: I offered to buy a building, and we didn’t have a penny.”

Sometimes, pastors struggle to trust God.

Three days later, an elder called to say, “We have to meet.”

“They’re going to say the gig is off,” Ben thought. “Thank God.”

Sometimes, pastors don’t know God’s plans.

The elder informed Ben that a church member had died and left an inheritance to the church to be used for evangelism.

“We want to give you that money,” the elders told Ben. “The amount was 65,000 (euros), and they handed us the keys.”

Related: Read about another Converge church that joyfully received a building.

That building quickly went from victory to violence

That incredible blessing of a building led Ben right into intense pain and suffering. When word spread about a Muslim converting North Africans to Christianity, some neighbors formed evil plans.

Ben remembers two men coming to his door one night telling him to revert to Islam and stop proselytizing for Christ. He said no and told the men to leave.

Four months later, some men ambushed him, broke his right wrist and left arm, and bruised him in several places. He spent 10 days in the hospital.

About a month after his beating, people attacked his son with a stone, striking him in the head until police officers intervened. Next, the enemies went after his daughter, trying to kidnap her into a van. Fortunately, a French man saw what was happening and scared the van driver and others to leave her alone.

After all that, Ben took a month off to rest and seek the Lord’s restoration. Godly friends mentored him and prayed for him. Also, some Muslims he knew went to the local imams and said it was time to leave Ben and his family alone.

Ben and his family then continued ministry at that church, which is still strong thanks to trained leaders in the congregation.

Related: Converge’s Office of Church Strengthening can help you develop leaders.

A ministry to Muslims is sharing the gospel and opening the door at 10 p.m.

What he started there is an evangelistic ministry that also offers relief and compassion to Muslims who convert and experience the rejection of family, friends, co-workers and neighbors. It’s not uncommon to have visitors at 10 p.m. who need hospital visits, food or other items.

“You have to make a family for them,” he explained. “Otherwise, you’re discredited. Otherwise, you’re preaching and not doing.”

Another significant challenge to accepting Christ is the isolation Muslims will experience. Even some of Ben’s own family have recognized what the Bible says is true. But they’ve known they’d be the only Christians in their community, creating fear.

“We deal with a lot of secret believers because they are afraid,” Ben added.

However, Ben and other Christ followers overcome the fear by being trustworthy friends to the Muslims they know.

“You can’t just meet the people and evangelize as we do here in the West,” he explained. “You have to gain their trust. You must show them they’re not a little prize to be had.”

‘Guess what, Wendell?’

Early in Ben’s seminary education, his wife bought him a book about missions. The book’s author was Wendell Evans. The same missionary who told a young Ben about Christ, saying, “He did it for you. He did it for you,” had written a book that found its way into Ben’s hands all those years later.

Ben tracked down Evans’ phone number and gave him a call.

Evans and Ben cried as they talked. Through the tears, Ben learned on the call that Evans and his wife had been praying for Ben for 20 years.

“Guess what, Wendell?” Ben told his friend. “I committed treason (against Allah).”

Converge is asking God for a gospel movement among every least-reached people group – in our generation. Learn how we are playing a role in accomplishing the Great Commission and how you can be involved.