To introduce myself, my name is Alexa (editor’s note: name has been changed for Alexa’s protection) and I am from Kosovo, a state in Eastern Europe in the Balkans. Kosovo is a country whose population is 90% Muslim, and I was born and raised in a Muslim family. We live in the community house where my father’s family lives with his three brothers, two of them married with children and one single brother. All told, 17 people live together in the house.
My parents were not practicing Muslims but they kept the feasts and Muslim traditions, and the family expected us to do the same things. My older sister started attending an evangelical church, and she became a believer in Jesus when she was young. She invited me to go to the children’s meetings with her, and there I heard stories from the Bible and about Jesus. It took me 9 years before I made a real commitment. However, I finally made that commitment one day when I went to prayer time with some young teens who gathered and prayed with the pastor each week through the summer. Before prayer one week, he spoke on the judgment which is to come upon the world, and he added that all those that repent of their sins and believe Jesus will be saved. My heart started to tremble, and I started to think. I was not in peace at all from those words. Then the next day I went again in prayer and the pastor challenged me to repent and declare Jesus as Lord and savior, making sure I understood that believing in Christ is losing everything and separating and denying my old religion and the faith that I was taught. Again that fear started to shake my heart. I don’t know how, but I finally said, ‘Yes, I believe, and yes I want to pray and declare Jesus is the Lord.’ So I did, and a peace unexplained came into my heart and I felt different. I felt like the world was different.
After that day my life started to take a new direction. I started to be regular in meetings, and I read the Bible regularly and learned to pray and attend Bible study, and learned to obey the Word of God. My life has changed; I now love a real God, I now love to practice and obey the truth of the Word of God, I love to share with my friends about Jesus who is resurrected from the dead. I have been rejected by friends, who have spoken bad about my faith and called me a traitor, but I don’t care. I know that my Jesus lives.
I can say that my life has changed a lot, but this doesn’t mean that I don’t have problems. I do, but as long as I have Jesus, I believe that He will always teach me how to persevere and grow stronger and deeper in Him.