meeting Meriam

Meriam

while Karla and I were at the airport in germany during our 14 hour layover we went to McDonalds to get some food. We were sitting there and talking about something that I can't remember (but it had to do with Christ) and this lady named Meriam walked up and said "do you mind if i talk to you about Jesus Christ?" of course Karla and i were super excited about this and asked her to sit down with us. We asked her if she over heard us talking about God and she replied "No, I was not listening to your conversation, I just like talking about Jesus and felt like God was telling me to come talk to you!" We told her we liked to talk about Jesus too and we were actually on our way to Thailand to do some work serving Jesus there! She automatically got very excited and started telling us about her life and especially what has been going on the past few weeks. She is from Namibia, Africa (close to South Africa) and lived there until she went to university in England. Her family was pretty broken when she was young, and she lived with her aunt, and then her grandmother for awhile. Her aunt had 2 other kids that she was more focused on than Meriam so she felt unwanted and unloved a lot. She said that she has always been pretty independent because of that. In England she partied a lot and had a boyfriend who she thought she would marry. She would go to clubs and men would fight over her so they could dance with her. Even though she wasn't really living the "Christian life" she would pray while she was at the club that none of the men would hurt her or try to shoot her. Eventually, Meriam found out that her boyfriend was cheating on her with multiple woman. She broke up with him and became extremely depressed. It took about a year for her to get over the pain of her now ex-boyfriend cheating on her and it was extremely hard for her to forgive him. After so much depression and anger and not being fulfilled with partying and being "of the world" she knew that God was the only thing that she could turn to and not be disappointed by. She gave dating up to The Lord and promised she would wait for the right person to come along. It was at that time that she fully handed her life to Christ and told God that she will go where he takes her no matter what and serve him no matter the circumstance. After she graduated with a masters degree in business administration, she went back home to Africa. She felt like God was telling her she should go live in Canada not too long after that so she moved to Toronto and had been living there until yesterday. She went into Canada without a visa and claiming that she was a refugee, so they allowed her in. She was living in a homeless shelter for awhile until she could get a job and on her feet again. She lived there for a year. For awhile she was talking about her 16 year old brother who is also an avid follower of christ. She told a story about how he was sitting in the park one day waiting for their mother to get off of work and there were prostitutes to the side of him. He decided that he was going to share Christ with him. She said he felt satan trying to tear him down and tell him that he would be rejected. Then he thought to himself "I would rather be rejected while trying to share Christ than not having the boldness to do it at all" he went and asked them if he could share with them about Jesus and they all agreed and every one of them accepted christ that day! Wow, God is good. After a year of her living in they started questioning her and didn't have any proof that she really was a refugee so the police hand cuffed her and took her into a detention center (she described it as just like a jail or worse). It was an old hotel so there was 3 twin size beds and a small tv in each room. There were bars on the windows and they weren't allowed to close their door to the room or the bathroom. They were only allowed outside for 15 minutes a day. She was in the detention center for 2 weeks (November 14-27) and never really understood why. She never did anything wrong, but she never tried to argue against the police. The whole time she was in the detention center she was sharing the love of jesus with other people living there. People would ask her why she was in the detention center because she was a Christian and she didn't have a reason to be there. She told them she believed she was there because she was supposed to talk to people like them about God. On November 27 she had to go to court and try to argue that she was a refugee, but they did not believe her and told her they were deporting her back to Africa. Through all of this she was completely at peace with everything even though they were interrogating and basically harassing her. She was at peace because she knew that God was with her and he has a plan for everything. They hand cuffed her and escorted her to the Toronto airport and into her seat on the plane to Frankfurt. When she arrived in Frankfurt they escorted her out and told her to stay in the terminal and meet them back at their office at 7pm. That is when she came McDonald's and sat down and then saw us! It's amazing how God works in so many different ways. Before i talked to her i was feeling very sad and scared of being away from family and friends and home in general for so long. Meriam had absolutely no idea what was going through my head or how i was feeling before she talked with us. She felt God telling her she should talk to us and she obeyed, thats all! She explained how as long as she has the Bible with her, she can do ANYTHING because God is everywhere with her. He is protecting her and everyone else and he will not hand us something we can't handle without his help. amazing!

So, this is Meriam's story from my (Bekah) perspective! amazing right? this is just an overview of what we talked to her about. we went into a lot more detail with her, hence why we talked for about 4 hours! We exchanged email addresses with her and decided to keep in touch as we both continue our journeys! i have heard from her once and she is home, safe and sound! if you think about it, please pray for her while you are praying for us! thanks for reading! tune in next week to hear how Ubon is!