David Zeidan

This short little volume is the story of a young man's spiritual journey from Islam to Christianity. While that premise might sound a bit trite, the book is in fact a fascinating glimpse into what happens in parts of the Middle East (in this case, Syria) when a family member from an extremely devout Muslim family makes a personal decision to become a Christian.

The young man in the book has his career destroyed by his brother, his family is threatened (his father actively searches for ways to kidnap his childen so they can be raised as proper Muslims) and he eventually has to take his family out of Syria, for fear they'll be killed.

But even beyond that, maybe the most fascinating (and sad) part of the whole thing was the struggle he had with actually getting his family out of Syria and into a new country where they could live and be safe. Miles and miles of red tape, interviews set up to negatively influence visa results, immigration departments not wanting to deal with Arabs... at one point the family survives for two weeks straight on stale bread and water, and even then most of the bread went to their two children who suffered from malnutrition until they... well, I don't want to give anything away, in case you decide to read it.

When I looked at the date of publication, I realized that the family's journey also happened before 9/11. I can't even imagine how much more difficult it probably is, in some ways, for poor Arabs to get out of their home countries when under direct threat from family members.

Ultimately, the book was yet another reminder of how grateful I should be for religious freedom here in North America.… (mere)