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.

My name is Ilir, and I was born in Gjakova. My background is from a Muslim family, very influential in Gjakova, and I tell you, being Muslim I have always hated believers in other religions. I have heard much gossip and rumors about them One day a friend of mine came and invited me to go with him to a place where they have been teaching English Courses, but people warned me that it was a course of the Evangelicals. In the beginning I opposed and I said, “No I don’t want to go in that place. I belong to the other religion. Those people are supporters of the Jews,” and I said many other things. But friends convinced me, telling me, “They are good people. What you are saying is not right, and you are wrong.” I went and the first hour was English Class, and after English Class was finished, this same man that was teaching English said if anybody wants to join and come in something called Bible Study, they may do so. So I decided to go and see what’s there, and that was my good opportunity to convince my friends that I am right about what I said. I took a chair in that room and started hearing the young man there teaching from the Bible and telling my friends that if they don’t repent, the wrath of God will stay upon us; without repentance we are enemies of God, and only Jesus can reconcile us with God if we repent. Inside of myself arose a deep desire to kill that man because I said, “This man is traitor. He that forsakes his religion is very evil man.” In spite of the deep hatred, those words would not leave me alone; my mind and heart was troubled very much from hearing those words. I decided to continue to go there and hear him more. For two months’ time twice a week I went there, and I would not feel better; I would just feel worse and worse from the things that young man would say to me. They would call him Pastor. I continued going there in the house all the time. One day something happened when He was speaking from the Bible from one story of the man called Abraham. Pastor was telling a story that Jesus was telling to the crowds about Abraham. In fact He was telling about the conflict between Jesus and the offspring of Abraham, and when he reached the end, He read a verse from this story. “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, ‘If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:31,32) Jesus said these words to the people there. This verse pierced my heart and then the meeting was finished that day and I went home and took a Bible that was given to me by that man “Pastor” as gift. I opened it and started to read it from the end in the book of Revelation. Something strange happened that day. As I was reading, another verse hit me in my heart, deep as never before; that word became alive. And a feeling came that I can’t describe. The verse said, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” Rev 3:20 I sit down in one place, and I said God, “If you are the true God, please tell me what I need to do?” In my mind continually would come the verse, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” Next day it was Thursday, and I went in the place called Fellowship; Pastor was teaching on how to get saved and invited young people to come forward in front and surrender their lives to Jesus. And several people went forward and accepted Jesus, but I was shy to accept Jesus in front of others. Pastor would say, “This decision you made today needs obedience; otherwise, you have done nothing.” That made me more afraid. But when I went home, I was alone that day. I bowed down on my knees and I said to God this prayer. “God, come into my heart and save me. Forgive my sins I pray. God, in the name of your son Jesus I pray.” And in the end I said Amen. This was the prayer that I said, and from that day I started to have a new adventure. Days later, something very interesting happened. I was reading in the book of Acts where it says that the apostles were clothed with power from the Holy Spirit, and that passage stayed in my mind for days. What was that? One week, Pastor spoke on that and challenged us to get in front so He can pray for us. Many young people went, and I went, and He laid hands upon us and prayed. And from that day I was filled with love and with a Holy Spirit, and now I serve God and try to obey to his will.

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