A plea to help growing ministries for the Maghrebi (North African) population in Europe and at home

[Ed the Joyful Missionary]

Hello Brothers, Sisters and Friends in Christ,
I wanted to forward along this message from a member of my own flock and a good friend to all of us in our church in Nice, France: an active and energetic former Muslim and convert of North African origin, named Alexandre. Peace, great blessings and even greater thanks to all of you who heed and respond to this call to ministry. We have done our best to translate his message from the original French but his passion and the promise of this great peaceful mission will shine in any language.
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A plea for help for the growing ministries to the Maghrebi (North African) population in Europe—we will then revive the Church in the Maghreb itself

To my brothers and sisters in Christ,
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Alexandre—not my given name, but the name I took by choice when I left the darkness of Islam to embrace the Christian Gospel in my French hometown. I am a minister and missionary above all to my fellow North Africans in France, Belgium, Netherlands and the rest of Europe, and also, in the past 3 years, to my ethnic kinsmen in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia in the Maghreb (North Africa) itself. I have come to you with a plea for assistance for a mission that my fellow converts and I from the Maghreb hold especially dear. That plea is to assist with the much-needed ministry of North African immigrants in France and Europe, who wish more than ever to leave Islam and find a path to the welcoming arms of the Church, as we ourseles use this great mass conversion as a springboard to help bring our long-oppressed homelands in North Africa back into the Christian fold for the first time since the 7th century In the Year of Our Lord. We are, in effect, helping to build a spiritual army to reach out to our brethren in the Maghreb with the love of Christ and the Good News of the Gospels—a spiritual army of millions of North African immigrants and their descendants in France, Belgium and other European lands, who are being saved by the light of Christ and wish, above all, to bring that light to their homelands..

Alongside our ministries already well underway mainly in France, we will need over 400,000 new, energetic Christian missionaries from other lands to come to Europe in the coming years, for it is only through the virtue and power of numbers that we will have enough momentum to bring about the rapid and large-scale conversion of the Maghrebi immigrant population that will be necessary to tip the balance in North Africa back toward the Church. My longtime friend and mentor, Brother Edward, brought joy to my heart two years ago upon revealing the success of a previous call to mission work in Europe, with hundreds of thousands of fervent and devout Christians mostly from the Americas, Australia and south Asia having come over the past decade to restore the Christian faith in its European homelands, and bring those who once prayed in the mosques to the Church. Their efforts have borne remarkable fruit, revitalized the Church in Europe and brought a large and fast growing percentage of the Muslim population in Europe over to the side of Christianity, with the largest conversion rate perhaps ever seen since the start of Islam in the 7th century A.D. (Brother Edward was among this group of American missionaries in Europe, and it was he and his group who first brought me to the light of the Church in my hometown of Nice, France.) So much so that Kosovo and Bosnia-Hercegovina are rapidly moving back into the Christian fold, with even Turkey slowly but steadily seeing a growing flock of converts and restoration of churches, thanks in great part to converted Turkish and Kurdish Christians in Germany who’ve gone back home to preach to their brethren—a theme I will emphasize repeatedly for my own plea. Most of the successful efforts over the previous decade have been centered in Germany, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands, where the Turkish, Kurdish, Albanian, Syrian, Iraqi, Afghan and other Muslim populations have been converted to see and embrace the light of Christ.

I am here to help describe our plea for help for a similar effort already underway, centered on France, Belgium and the Mediterranean region. In these countries’ cases, the predominant Muslim populations are from the North African Maghreb, and the historical and social circumstances of this region provide a unique opportunity to not only bring these populations within Europe into the Church, but also to bring the whole of North Africa back into the Christian fold. This is an eminently attainable goal, and we are currently in a unique historical juncture to bring this about, right now starting in 2017. This is because of a combination of critical factors coming together—the missionary revival throughout Europe, the increasing base of converted and fervent Christians with North African roots, the ongoing connections with their homelands in the Maghreb, the mounting distaste and anger at Islam both among the European general public and among many Muslims themselves, the tools of modern social media and other technology, and most importantly as I will note below, the growing ethnic awareness of the Amazigh (Berbers), the indigenous people of North Africa.

I want to first emphasize, however, that this goal can only be achieved with a massive, sustained, and numerically strong effort in France and the surrounding countries in Western Europe, nowhere else. For political and other reasons it is often hazardous for Westerners to evangelize within North Africa itself, and efforts within the Americas or elsewhere are simply too far away to bring about the needed critical mass of immigrants who can go back and work in unison within their North African homelands. However, all of you can freely evangelize the migrated North African populations in Europe, and this is the key to our success at this historic opportunity. With a large and fervent converted North African population in France and its neighbors, maintaining its connections with their homelands in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, we will have the great missionary force that we will need to make North Africa Christian again. Instead of being viewed as outsiders, the Christianized North Africans in Europe speak the languages and have the necessary family, cultural, political, social and administrative connections with their kin in North Africa itself. They will therefore be able to return home and provide the ministry that will bring North Africa back into the Church for good. There is in fact already a growing “back to the Church” movement throughout North Africa that is bringing in thousands of new converts every month, reminding them of the critical role of the Maghreb in founding the early Church itself. Likewise, and importantly, a growing number of magnates, magistrates, mayors and other important political and media figures are accepting Christianity there, both secretly and openly. With an army of converted North Africans from France and the res t of Europe, we will be able to tip the scales to make the region majority Christian again perhaps within 20 or 30 years.

Before I go further, a brief word about myself and my own journey to Christ, as my case is representative and it can help you to understand the hurdles that young North African Muslims wrestle with in their own journeys to Christ. I was born with the Muslim given name of Abdul, in the city of Biskra, one of the larger cities in Algeria. My mother is Algerian and my father Moroccan, with part of my mother’s side of the family hailing from Tunisia, thus I have roots across the Maghreb. I grew up identifying as an Arab Muslim and speaking Arabic at home, and yet even in my heavily Arabized family, there was a general awareness of our Amazigh roots, a key to the coming re-Christianization of North Africa. As I mentioned before, the Amazigh—known generally in the West as Berbers—are the indigenous peoples of North Africa, and in fact many of the early Church Fathers and Martyrs during the Roman Empire’s rule of the region were Amazigh. In the 7th century A.D., North Africa was conquered by Muslim Arab armies despite stiff resistance, yet the Amazigh never lost their identity. Gradually more and more of us adopted Arab ways and the Arabic language, self-identifying as North African Arabs. Yet the Arabization never effaced our knowledge of who we really are—the vast majority of the population of the Maghreb, Arabized are not, are Amazigh, and we remain keenly aware of this, as is my own family even though none of us grew up speaking Tamazight (the Berber indigenous language). In any case, like most North Africans, I grew up an observant Muslim, praying 5 times a day and piously attending the mosque in whatever city I was located.
When I was young, my family migrated to Europe, starting in Switzerland, sojourning briefly in Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium, before eventually settling down firmly in the southern French city of Nice. Here I felt the alienation of many other young Muslims growing up in France, without quite knowing the reason. I studied the Koran, picked up French in school, but never quite felt at home with the society around me. At first I was inclined to accept the excuses offered up by the globalist mass media and the anti-Christian propaganda spearheaded by the likes of George Soros, and to blame my difficulties on Christians, the church in France, and French and Western culture in general. I never entertained thoughts of terrorism against my host, but I could understand where the alienation and resentment came from. I was brought up in a belief system that was antithetical to the freedom of thought and freedom of conscience that prevails in the West, and which was itself incubated in the Christian faith. Though I did not know it initially, this was my first small inkling of the mental straitjacket that Islam had forced me and my fellow young Muslims into, and I would soon discover that the root cause of my alienation was the darkness of the mind and spirit that modern Islam has evolved into.

One day I was at a French park in Nice after school, when I encountered an interesting group of idealistic Christian teenagers about my age. They intrigued me at first because of their accent, some spoke decent French but clearly not natively, and I could tell they were from far away—it turned out a mix of Americans, Canadians and a couple Australians. Many of the Americans were Texans, Californians and other Southwesterners with that sunny yet determined disposition I’ve come to recognize and cherish, and they took me into their pickup soccer game before inviting me to lunch. When I realized they were Christian I was initially put off, as a Muslim I was not supposed to associate with those who would talk to me about an infidel faith. But they continued to reach out to me, with a mixture of kindness and firmness, above all to talk me through the things that were causing me so much unfocused frustration and resentment, making me unable to fit in. Those kids introduced me to Brother Edward, who took me under his wing and gently, but with determination, introduced me to the Gospels and several enlightening experiences in French churches, both old-line Catholic and new churches the North Americans had put up.

I was still riddled with doubts, and my innate hostility towards the Christian faith and the church, built up over years of anti-Christian rhetoric in my mosques and social places, still stuck by me. To be clear, Muslims do—or I should say, are supposed to—revere Jesus and the Christian fathers as prophets. In practice, however, the teachings of the New Testament are regularly disparaged, and Christians and the Church are claimed to be an inferior, discarded creed, with the more aggressive imams proudly declaring that Islam has superseded it. Islam in Arabic means “submission” after all, and good Muslims are expected to submit, unquestioningly, to the “superiority” of the supposedly more advanced faith. Areas not yet under Muslim rule are in the House of War, to be attacked, demographically overwhelmed and conquered into submission themselves. Even many supposed Muslim “moderates” subscribe to this line of thought.

But as I associated more and more with Brother Edward and the American and Canadian Christians in his group, I gradually came to understand what I had been robbed of in Islam. Within Islam, I was considered a slave to the ideology preached by the imams. Submission was demanded at every turn, embodied in the prayers I was forced to make not to a caring and loving God, but to the physical homeland of a 7th-century conqueror. There had once been a time in those early days when Islam was a force for light and good, but that time had clearly past—in the mosques and madrassas of today, being a Muslim means you don’t ask questions, you don’t free your mind, you accept your inferiority and you submit. With the Christian doctrine as a contrast, I was seeing freedom and joy, and a God who accepted and loved his flock as a parent loves the children both of his own household and his neighbors.
I have since then been not only an enthusiastic Christian and churchgoer, but also an emissary to spread the Good Word to my fellow Muslim North Africans and encourage them to convert. Starting with my fellow immigrants in Europe, but then moving on steadily to bring about the same great conversion in the Maghreb homelands of North Africa. As you will have noticed, I took a Christian name to replace my Muslim given name—both my first and last names in fact—and chose it specifically to celebrate a beacon of the West, who helped to ensure that the fledgling Christian theology would be joined to the rigor of Greek thought in ancient Palestine. My fellow missionaries and I likewise insist upon this with all of our converts in our evangelism. When they accept the word of the Gospels, they must leave Islam behind, not only in their beliefs but in their very names themselves.

Thus my journey to Christ is hardly unique among the formerly Muslim North Africans of Europe and the Maghreb itself, and the next two decades are the best chance we will have in over 1,400 years to make North Africa Christian once again, for the reasons laid out previously. We are at a rare and auspicious confluence of historical factors that are making this possible, and we must seize the reins. We have already started the process ourselves and in the last 5 years alone, our endeavors have been rapidly bearing fruit. Hundreds of new churches, both open and underground, have sprung up in the Maghreb in the past half-decade, and the great impetus for this phenomenon has been the missionary work of the converted North African immigrants in France and other European nations. However, we must advance beyond this initial threshold to achieve the revolution which is now, uniquely, within our grasp. Based on the number of North Africans in France and Europe, and the numbers of converts we will need to preach and spread the Gospel in their homelands—reaching all the way up to the political and cultural power-brokers of the lands, whom we will need to bring about a full Christian conversion—we will need at least 400,000 new Christian ministers, missionaries, and volunteers from outside Europe to come to the continent in the coming years, to help in the process of not only revitalizing the churches, but in evangelizing and bringing the mass of North African immigrants into the fold. Only then will we have the critically large enough mass to bring about the conversion of both the masses and elites in North Africa that we will need to make them Christian once again.

For those of you who come, welcome, and we appreciate your support dearly. Do not be deterred by the practicalities or inconveniences of issues like languages, visas or permits, remember that our forefathers faced much tougher obstacles in the early days of Christianity’s official persecution by the Roman Empire. If you come with determination in your hearts, you will find the support to succeed and overcome all hurdles. When you arrive, do not afraid to be firm and determined in your efforts to win converts, as Brother Edward was with me. Above all, do not be swayed by misleading pleas by the corrupt PC globalist media, godless academics and traitorous anti-Christian EU “leaders” like Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande for “tolerance” of Islam. While there are many great values that make Europe and the Christian West strong, “tolerance” is no longer one of them due to the way this concept has been abused.

A moral person does NOT tolerate evil and enslavement of the mind and spirit, and that is exactly what Islam has become to its adherents. A moral person will work to save their souls and minds, to save them with the freedom and righteousness of the love of the Lord and the Holy Bible. Think of it this way, if you saw people of a certain culture moving voluntarily into an advanced nation (which Muslim migrants are doing), and adherents fo this culture practiced brutal slavery, human sacrifice and horrible abuse of women, would you “tolerate” this cultural difference in the name of multiculturalism, on your own soil? Would this be moral? Of course not. Islam cannot be “tolerated” anymore than slavery and overt oppression can be “tolerated”, even more so since we are talking about voluntary immigrants here. Thus all of us have not only the right, but the ABSOLUTE DUTY to work energetically , every waking hour of every day, to convert these brutally oppressed Muslim migrants to the faith that will save them.

My own family and friends are the most powerful proof of this that one could ever see—by refusing to bow down to political correctness, by refusing to “tolerate” the spiritual and mental scourge of Islam, the ministers who brought us into the Church literally rescued us, dozens of us. Our true enemies were the corrupt globalist fools, faux PC moralists and spineless cowards who urged “tolerance” of Islam, constantly whining about “Islamophobia” and “intolerance” towards the wretched false creed to which we had been subjected. Such “tolerance” of our Islamic yoke only ensured that our minds remained enslaved to it for years longer than we would have wished. Whereas, the courageous Christian missionaries who converted us from the darkness of Islam, both the immigrants in France and Belgium as well as our relatives back in Morocco and Algeria, saved our lives and our souls with their courage. By being so firm with us, by showing us the dark oppression and mental and spiritual slavery of Islam, and by refusing to back down, they saved us by finally helping us to realize the love of Christ and the embrace of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost—a God of love and caring rather than fear and slavery, as is the case in Islam. Anyone especially in Europe who “tolerates” Islam is an accomplice to evil and the most wretched crimes against humanity, and in fact, their most suffering victims are precisely the benighted, long deceived Muslim migrants who could be saved by the Good News of Jesus filling their hearts.

The people of the North African Maghreb are primed and ready to rejoin the Christian fold as it is. Our people are shocked at the evil of al-Qaida and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and have come to realize that the evil is from Islam itself, not a fringe offshoot. This is why there are already tens of millions of new Christians throughout North Africa and the Middle East, many of them practicing in secret. In the Maghreb, another factor driving this is the push for the indigenous Amazigh of North Africa to reassert our identity—both the Arabized among us and those still fully cultural Amazigh. We, too, have come to realize that our Christian faith is the missing link to liberate us from 1,400 years of oppression from the yoke of Gulf Arab Islam and the warlords who subjugated our peoples.

Please join us, and recruit everyone you know with an interest in spreading the light of the Gospels to help. For the first time in 1,400 years we now have a chance to save the subjugated peoples of North Africa from the Muslim yoke that has for so long oppressed them. With your help and determination, we will succeed.

 

[Delanie]

Wow, so great to hear all this, absolutely count us in among those interested! We've been set up for a while in the Netherlands and heavily focused there for several years, but many of our best new church members have in fact been previously Muslim converts of primarily North African descent, especially Moroccan background in the urban areas and suburbs around Rotterdam and Amsterdam. One of the small churches we helped to found is comprised chiefly of Moroccan converts, and we learned so much from the experience that an offshoot from our group went on to similar successes in Spain also with a big Moroccan. While we haven't confirmed all the reports, many of the converts in these churches have in fact gone back home to their home cities and villages in Morocco and Algeria, and won hundreds of converts in their hometowns! We'd be onboard to working more in France, Greece and Italy in fact a few of our original congregants from the US are already getting set up there independently. Looks like you'll be getting a lot of help!

 

[Ed the Joyful Missionary]

Thanks and utmost Blessings to you Delanie for your heartfelt thoughts and words! I will be sure to forward your kindhearted message on to Alexandre, it is music to all of our ears to hear that you have already been involved in such evangelizing outreach to Maghrebi communities and that you are interested in pursuing this further. The success of our ministries to the North African-heritage populations in France and the Mediterranean region, and the coming restoration of North Africa itself to its Christian heritage, will depend on positive and determined missionaries such as yourself and those who have likewise taken up your call. We all salute you!

 

[Delanie]

My pleasure! It's a joy to see such dedicated ministries taking root for something so important and central to our faith. From our own experience the North African based populations of France, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy and the surrounding countries has been a major but mostly untapped opportunity. Glad to lend a bit of help and encourage anyone working to bring these people into the church, and then bring the church to their homelands too!

 

[JacquelineDeane55]

I am interested in becoming a missionary, but I can only do it locally in my home town, so I am sorry. I am not allowed to travel abroad.

 

[Delanie]

I am interested in becoming a missionary, but I can only do it locally in my home town, so I am sorry. I am not allowed to travel abroad.

Hello Jacqueline! Looks like some of the other long-time ministers might have addressed some of your concerns in other posts, but I figured I might chime in a little since my sister back in the USA is in the exact same situation as you, anxious to help out with the European ministries but with hubby tied to a local government job and 2 small kids, really can't move. And yet she's been one of the best assets of our group in growing our ministries in Europe! A useful parallel I think might be the different duties taken on by soldiers out in the field and recruiters back home. I was a military brat growing up with a long history of proud military service in the family, but not all of us could serve in the forces, partly due to health reasons. But my cousin reassured those of us back on the home front, there were just as critical to success by working hard to recruit good people for the duties overseas, it takes both! So you and my sister can contribute greatly as recruiters, that's a great way to think about it!

My sister has managed to encourage and arrange for dozens of friends, neighbors and other contacts to emigrate and settle in Europe where our ministries are focused, originally in Netherlands and Belgium but now more and more in France, with a few in Spain, Germany, Bulgaria, Italy, Romania,. Malta, Portugal and Greece. She described her playbook to me roughly.

1. Encourage urgency, this is always where it starts. Like the other ministers have been saying, Continental Europe is now the center of a great Christian revival and opportunity which hasn't come along for 1,400 years, and may never be open like this again, so we need ministers and missionaries there-- lots and lots of them, millions to achieve our goals. The experience, drive and resources of North American and Australian ministers is critical in teaming up with their European counterparts, with the chief goal being the full conversion of the Muslim immigrant population in Europe, which is more susceptible than ever before to the message of the Gospels due to recent events. Again since we're military brats, my sister likens it to a great battle, but a spiritual battle, far more important even than the world wars or any recent wars since it will decide the spiritual future of the 21st century. We haven't had much success in evangelizing in the Near East or North Africa before because of all the political and migration restrictions there against Christian Westerners, but converted former Muslims with roots in those countries can do what we can't. So the "front" for this great battle is in Continental Europe, and recruiters are needed back in the States to help get them to the front. My sister is one of those recruiters, you can be too!

2. Allay their fears! People are naturally nervous about picking up and moving to a different country, I know I was when I started out! But after all it's what our ancestors did originally coming from Europe to America, we're just going the other way now, and thankfully with modern conveniences and technology at least to make the day to day logistics of the ministry a lot easier! There are obviously challenges here and there, but there are many ways to get the necessary visas and permits, and since there is free travel and work in the EU from any of the 27 EU countries, you can start in any of them and then move to where you need to go. And there are millions of Canadians, Americans and Australians already in the EU to help you find your path, get work, learn the languages and whatever you need to do, plus the countries tend to be quite friendly if you add something positive to their societies. even if the visas can be a pain at first.

3. Keep at it and spread the word to friends, family and neighbors! Once again to win a battle and war, including the spiritual variety, you need "boots" on the front, in this case in Continental Europe, but also the people on the home front like yourself and my sister to help with recruitment and support. Your task is no less important, and your help no less appreciated!

 

[Baratom]

So glad to see this strategy being discussed as we have been doing the same in our European ministries, rapidly converting the Muslim refugees and then encouraging them to minister and win converts in their home countries, which has been enjoying considerable success! The new converts, we have found, tend to be particularly excited to spread the faith in their homelands and bring the Gospel to their families, and I suspect this is especially true of the migrants in France and Germany and their neighbors. A historic opportunity to bring the Gospel back into the Middle East and North Africa, and we can contribute greatly to help!

 

[Delanie]

Great to hear of your contributions Baratom, a hearty blessing to you and your flock in bringing the Gospel to European shores!

 

[Inhocsigno]

Greetings Baratom,
Thank you for heartfelt efforts and successes, as you say this is an historic opportunity to bring about a great spiritual revolution in North Africa and the Middle East, ironically with converted ex-Muslim populations in Europe as the spring board. Even the most optimistic among us could barely foresee the success of the European ministries a decade ago, and their flourishing has allowed for the mass conversion of the Muslim refugees we are seeing today. France, Belgium and Holland in particular have been extraordinarily receptive to ministry efforts from the US and Canadian missionaries who have established residence there, and the assistance of the local Christian populations, both Catholic and Protestant, has been pivotal in helping us to spread our messages and revitalize the churches across the lands. There can be no better ambassadors for the Gospel in North Africa and the Middle East than the converted natives who originate from these lands, and it fills our hearts with joy to see the success all of you have helped to bring about.

 

[Delanie]

Saw a Belgian news report recently about the complete conversion of the Algerian origin population of a district in Paris, and how almost half are now back in Algeria, building churches and defending the rights of the new Christians in the country. Several are professionals, and one with political connections is also apparently helping with judicial reform and helping to protect the rights of the Christian population there. Bravo! This is what we're aiming for!

 

[Delanie]

Here is a nice page on the fruits of efforts to build a number of Catholic churches in the capital of Morocco, leading to a full fledged archdiocese there!
Diocèse de Rabat | Eglise Catholique au Maroc
I had to send this to a fellow minister with better French skills than I do to translate, but from what he said, a lot of the effort in building and maintaining these churches has come about thanks to ethnic Moroccan, usually 2nd or 3rd generation converts in France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium who went back to win further converts in North Africa, and provided important tools like Arabic-language Bibles, hymns and instructions. So you see these efforts to win millions of converts in Europe bear fruit where it counts most, since the converts there are especially excited to go back home and preach the Gospels to their people there!

 

[Galworth]

Great thanks for sharing this brave young man's story! I know it can be a little hazardous at times to evangelize in Arab countries of North Africa even with the recent warming to the faith there so I commend all who find the courage of spirit to do it. I am greatly excited to hear of this strategy too, start with conversions of the Arab-Turkish diasporas in Europe where it's safe and more legitimate, from a guest's view to reach out to them. May more of the new converts be filled with the spirit and generosity that Alexander has!

 

[Delanie]

One of our brother churches in France just messaged us that a new church in Algeria has sprung up in just the past few months, apparently founded and founded by a family of Christian converts from Marseille with assistance from a brave group of American and Canadian evangelicals who moved to France to help them minister. Despite initial security concerns, amazingly it seems to have the blessing of the mayor and local council as well as local business, who see the church as bringing some peace and prayer opportunities to both the Arab and Berber opportunities, and happily the ministers in that part of Algeria are getting along peacefully and cooperating with the religious figures of all the local faiths. This is such great news to hear, it appears the conversions of the North African migrants in France, Belgium, Netherlands and the Mediterranean are already bearing great fruit!

 

[Delanie]

Not sure how much attention it's been getting but there have been some articles recently on the high conversion rate of the Moroccans in some parts of southern Spain! I know some of our brother and sister groups were involved down there in places like Barcelona and Malaga, so it is great to hear their success. Due to so much 2 way traffic between Spain and north Africa, this can be a major boost to the missionary efforts in the North African zone itself.

 

[Molly Robbie]

Wow this is great! We ourselves had done some reach-out for Algerian, Morocco and Tunisia community in France, but mostly just on the fly. Important to have a more top down, organized effort, and so great to see that an Algerian convert is leading it! Would love to see churches brought back to North African soil, that region was so important for the early church too