Abu Atallah - From Cairo to Christ: How One Muslims Faith Journey Shows the Way for Others

Kent A. Van Til

I n the past forty years, more Muslims have converted to Christianity than did during the previous fourteen hundred years. So said Abu Atallah in 2014. And if anyone is able to make such a statement, it is Abu. He is a convert from Islam to Christianity himself, and has been instrumental in bringing hundreds of those Muslims to Christ through his own ministry.

I know Abu under his English name, Stephen. We met while we were both seminary students in the 1980s. I didnt know him all that well at the time, though I remember well his humor and some of his hardships. I moved on to missions in Latin America and then to academics, and lost track of him. When we had a chance reunion a few years back, I naturally asked what he had been up to. He told me. And the more he told me, the more amazed I became. I was convinced that someone had to get this story out. Shortly thereafter I realized that I was the one that had to do it. So what follows is Stephens story, through my words and in his voice.

Born into a well-to-do family in Cairo in the late 1950s, Stephen was a popular and outgoing Egyptian kid. He suffered the deaths of two close relatives early in life, and began asking fundamental religious questions at an early age. He sought companionship and solace in the Muslim Brotherhood, but found only violence there and quickly left.

The love of Christ found Stephen. He saw it in other Christian students, but most importantly in Christ himself. His conversion was costly. He lost family, friends, career, and home. He slept on floors and was effectively kicked out of college. His life was at risk. In fact, he chose the English name Stephen due to his belief that he too would soon be martyred.

By Gods grace he was able to leave Egypt and study in the United States. After earning three university-level degrees, he has dedicated his life to serving other Muslims, both those who have and who have not yet accepted Christ.

Stephen founded a church in the predominantly Arab-populated city of Dearborn, Michigan, and then moved on to be a consultant on Islam for a major mission agency based in London. He currently is a missionary for the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Europe, working among the millions of Syrian refugees in that continent. He also runs a training and retreat center in Spain, and lectures throughout the globe.

All along the way Stephen has been a witness to the One who first loved him. He does so in personal conversations with the highest and lowest in Muslim society, and also online on various websites. He is a well-regarded evangelist on four continents.

His story is not one of pure glory or success. He has not been able to return to Egypt under his real name, for fear that he will be killed as an apostate. His own family is bicultural and has had to move often, sometimes from country to country. He usually lives at the frontier between solvency and insolvency. But when asked whether he regrets having given up so much, he is quick to respond: I would gladly do it again for the One who has done so much for me.

I invite you to meet my friend Stephen in these pages.

M y father waited in line for one fish and three small loaves. When he got them, his allotment card was stamped for that day. It was all the rations he would get for his family of five each day during the war in the Suez.

We were in Port Said, Egypt, late in 1956. Egyptian President Nasser had nationalized the Suez Canal earlier that year. But the British, along with the French and the Israelis, wanted to maintain control of it. So the British bombed half of the city to the ground. The area my parents lived in was safe enough, though, since the Italian consulate was just across the street, and the Italians were allied with the British. The fighting continued until pressure from the Soviet Union and the United States finally drove out the French, British, and Israelis on December 23 of that year.

We Egyptians had stereotypes about the British and French soldiers. The British soldiers were seen as awkward but kind fellows who would give Egyptian kids chocolate bars, while French soldiers were seen as haughty and elegant men who would chase Egyptian women. My mother apparently believed these stereotypes. One day, one of her friends told her that because she was light-skinned and attractive, there were some French men coming after her. She took that quite seriously. As a good Muslim woman, she was fearful for her purity and her reputation, so she fled home barefoot, leaving her sandals in the dirt with her friends.

Three weeks after the last British soldiers were expelled from Egypt, my parents had their fourth childme. I was born six years after my next older brother, Moustafa, eight years after my eldest brother, Yasser, and ten years after my sister, Azieza. I was very much the baby of the family. In Egypt we have a saying: The lowest grape of the bunch is the sweetest, which means that the youngest one in the family is the sweetest. I like to think that was true. Ive never been a rough character, and seem to have inherited my mothers pleasant temperament.

Im told that my sister, Azieza, was often my babysitter. Im sure she did a good job, because fifty years later she claims that I still owe her for all her labors on my behalf: changing my diapers, feeding me, and so on. Yasser, my eldest brother, and I were quite close. He was in school ahead of me and paved the way for all of us by being a very good student. Moustafa was close to me too, though he is a rather private person.