Chris Crossan – Christmas 2011
(for security purposes, certain names have been changed)

Jemal arrived at my apartment at 9:00 p.m. with a look of terror on his face. “What happened?!” I asked him, bewildered.
“It’s my brother Kenan – he’s determined to kill me!” he said, trying to catch his breath. “He called me on my cell phone and asked me if I had become a Hiristyan, and I said, ‘yes, I am now a follower of Jesus.’ Then he said that he and my cousins were planning to kill me. They are probably standing at the bus station in my neighborhood with weapons in hand. They will try to find me tonight!”

I had to act quickly, because I wasn’t sure if Kenan knew where I lived. I told my daughter Bethany that we had five minutes to leave our house. We packed some clothing into a backpack and stayed with David and Tiffany who lived several blocks away. I pulled off my name shield from the apartment entrance in case Kenan found our apartment building. The next day, May 28, was Bethany’s eighteenth birthday. With my wife Karen in the U.S., it was a dismal way for her to celebrate her official entrance into adulthood.

I was inwardly shaken. After three days we returned to my apartment, and we decided to have Jemal stay inside every day until dark, when we would take our dog for a walk down the street. During the next few weeks we shared meals together every day.
I had never dreamed that helping a man find faith in God would cost him so much personally. Although he embraced eternal life, he did so by losing everything else that was precious to him. But let me start from the beginning.

Christmas 2002

When I first met Jemal, he had wandered into our church building and I asked him who it was that had invited him. “No one,” he said, “I came on my own.” Puzzled, I asked him to tell me more. He described having watched a TV show where he saw a village of people who gathered in a church and listened to a pastor. The pastor was not shouting at the people, but he spoke words of kindness. He saw that the people got along well as a community, and he felt himself drawn to their faith. Could it be that Christianity was the true way to God, after all? (Based on its content, the TV show may have been a re-run of Little House on the Prairie.) Surrounded by hundreds of mosques in our city, it took him three months to finally locate our church building.

I invited him to my apartment, and after dinner we sat down in the living room while Karen brought us some Turkish chai. Since he had quit school in second grade, I had to read the New Testament to him week by week, starting with the book of Matthew. When I learned that he was Kurdish, I showed him the story of the Magi. He was fascinated to learn that the Magi had come from the ancient priestly Median tribe whom Kurds later called the Manji. The Medes and Persians broadly correspond to today’s Kurds and Iranians. These astrologers, who were perhaps Zoroastrians, had access to Daniel’s prophecies in 500 B.C. which predicted the coming of the Messiah and his everlasting kingdom.

James Tissot’s Journey of the Magi, 1902

“Jemal,” I explained joyfully, “do you realize that the Manji were the first non-Jewish nation to acknowledge Jesus as the king of kings, and they may have been your ancestors?” Jemal’s mother tongue was Kurmanji, which could be translated, son of Manji. In other words, the ten million Kurds today who speak this dialect may have emanated from the region where this tribe lived. In 1873 Pascal Sebah photographed three Kurmanji speakers in his studio in Constantinople – a shepherd from Diyarbakir, and two men from Cizre and Mardin.

So we read together Matthew’s account:

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written…”

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. (Matt 2:1-11)

Like the Magi before him, Jemal had been searching for God for months and finally found him in the scriptures. Having recently married Havva, an attractive 16-year-old from his home town in Eastern Anatolia, he identified with Joseph’s role as a husband when God spoke to him and helped him lead his family to safety.

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod…
When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. (Matt 2:13-16)

William Hole’s The Flight into Egypt, ca. 1900

At the time, Jemal didn’t consider that he would one day have to protect his own child from Satan’s clutches. But it was comforting to know that God would help him through all of life’s difficult chapters as the leader of his household.

When Christmas day began approaching, I told Jemal that our local Turkish congregation would be celebrating Doghush Bayram, the birth of Jesus with a special time of music and preaching. He had never seen a Christmas celebration. In December our city had no lights, no Christmas trees, no manger scenes or special music. Christmas day was like any other: banks and schools were open, and our living room window was the only window in the entire street with a string of lights hanging down.

Our little church building was filled to capacity with visiting Turks who were curious to see how their Christian neighbors celebrated this holiday. Jemal made sure that all the chairs were set up, and that everyone could eat their tatli and drink their chai following pastor Yashar’s dynamic message. Jemal was beside himself with joy, seeing all the new visitors.

Christmas 2003

A year passed, and Jemal’s beloved Havva became pregnant with their first child. They moved back to his home town in Eastern Anatolia, where he sold children’s clothing in an outdoor bazaar. His home town was close to Mt. Ararat, and it typically snowed from November to April. One day after a heavy snowfall, Jemal went outside to shovel a trail in front of his house, and he shoveled the snow for all his neighbors as well. “Where did you find such a good husband?” the neighborhood women asked Havva, astonished at his thoughtful behavior.

Up to this point no one knew of his Christian faith, since it would be viewed as an affront to their Kurdish culture. His particular clan was known for their ‘honor killings,’ in which a person who had brought public dishonor to their family would be privately executed in order to cleanse their name and reputation. One time, when his brother-in-law’s family learned that his sister had gone to Istanbul to marry a man they disapproved of, they brought her back and left her with two bullets in her head. When the younger brother, who had pulled the trigger, got out of jail seven years later he was received as the hero of his clan.

So on Sunday afternoons, Jemal would walk outside to an empty field, read his Bible and sing praise songs by himself, just to remember what it was like to be with the congregation in my city.

Christmas 2004

Havva gave birth to a baby girl, and they named her Derya. When Havva called Jemal from the hospital, she was afraid to let him know it was a girl, thinking he would become angry. “No,” Jemal said happily. “That is great news!” The months following their birth were the happiest in their marriage, as they watched their baby grow into a little girl. One day in early December he surprised me by showing up at our door. “What are you doing here?” I asked him, since he lived about a day’s journey east of my city. “Well,” he explained, “I knew that sometime in December is Doghush Bayram, and I didn’t want to miss it!” I never met anyone who wanted to celebrate Christmas as much as he did. He waited gladly for several weeks, just to be able to set up the chairs and make sure everyone got their tatli and chai…

Jemal returned to his home town, and a few months later Derya’s first tooth began to show. Havva wanted to celebrate this event by hosting a dish hedighi, a party where all of her female relatives would come and join her in eating a bowl of sweetened wheat porridge.

Jemal’s hometown in Anatolia

Jemal asked Havva more about this tradition. She told him that they would place Derya onto a white sheet next to a group of objects, such as a pen, a comb, a pair of scissors, and other items. Whichever object she reached for first would determine her future occupation, such as teacher, hairdresser or seamstress. Then an older woman would pour melted lead into water while quoting Quranic verses, and finally recite Arabic prayers. By examining the patterns of the hardened lead, she would foretell Derya’s future and protect her from evil.

The obvious ceremony of witchcraft did not sit well with Jemal. He remembered a verse from the book of Deuteronomy, where Moses wrote:

Let no one be found among you…who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. (Deut. 18:10-11)

When he told Havva that he didn’t want the celebration, she protested: “but Jemal, all of my relatives are planning to come and bring us money as gifts. My father says we may end up with $2,000 or more!” But Jemal refused. He was determined not to allow anyone to practice witchcraft over his daughter.

At this point Havva was baffled by her husband’s decision. She couldn’t understand why he would forego a party where the gifts alone could bring them out of poverty. Sensing her disillusionment, he finally told her: “Havva, I want you to know something about me. Two years ago I became a follower of Jesus, and now I am ordering my life after this book.” He brought out a Turkish Bible and read to her one passage after another. She was shocked by the announcement, but showed quiet respect. A week or so later she confided the matter to her parents. Her father was incensed, and demanded an answer from Jemal in front of his male relatives: “Sen Hiristyan, Ermeni misin?!” (To be a Christian or an Armenian was anathema to the people of Eastern Anatolia.)

Jemal stood at the crossroads of his life. If he were to deny his faith, all would be forgotten and he could go home with Havva and permit the celebration with a guilty conscience. But if he insisted that he was a Christian, he could lose his family.
“Yes, I am a follower of Jesus,” he told her father plainly. Utterly disgraced, he immediately commanded Jemal to leave his home town, vowing to initiate divorce proceedings on behalf of his daughter.

Jemal took the next bus to our city, and showed up at my door the following day. When he told me all that happened, we just held each other and cried. “Why did God allow my father-in-law to do that?” he asked me. I had no answer. But I told him the following: “Jemal, I don’t know what the future holds. But I do know this: when you refused to allow your daughter to undergo witchcraft, you protected her spiritually from Satan’s clutches. God will watch over her life from now on, because you paid a dear price.”

Several weeks later his father-in-law called Jemal’s aging uncle, who was the leader of his clan and lived in our city. “Do you realize that your nephew has become a Hiristyan?” he told him pointedly. Aghast, his uncle called a meeting of all the male relatives to discuss how they should respond to this public assault on their family name. Nothing short of the death penalty would suffice. Kenan assured his cousins by leading the manhunt to kill his younger brother.

After hiding out at my place and those of my team mates, Jemal fled to Istanbul, where he found a baker who would let him sell pretzels on the streets in the daytime, in exchange for sleeping on the floor of his bakery at night. In a city of 13 million people, Jemal remained out of his brother’s reach. But his life was miserable. He soon learned that Havva’s request for a divorce was granted and her father gave her to another man in marriage.

Jemal felt so ashamed that he sought to take his own life. Providentially, a neighbor found him lying on the floor and got him immediately to a hospital for treatment. We all cried out to God for hope.

It was a few months later when Jemal received the news that his aging uncle had died. Nine months had passed since they had met to usher the death penalty. By now Kenan’s anger had subsided, the leader of the clan was gone, and Kenan and his cousins offered Jemal to return to our city without harm. At the same time, Havva’s new husband complained to her about Derya: “this is not my daughter, and I don’t want to raise her as my child!” he said, and ordered Havva to release her child to her first husband. “Jemal, you can come to our home town and pick up Derya,” a neighbor explained over the phone. He took the next bus to the East and brought his beloved Derya home.

When Jemal called me and told me he had been allowed to return home unharmed and was able to bring Derya back as well, I went outside and shouted for joy. “Jemal!” I exclaimed, “do you realize what God has done? When you gave her up in order to protect her from witchcraft, God was free to bring her back into your arms safe and sound!”

“Yes,” he told me jubilantly. “And now I can raise her as a Christian, to learn about the Lord Jesus even as a child!”
Two years later Havva’s second husband brought home another young woman into their house, claiming his right to polygamy. When she protested, he offered her the door to leave. Both Havva and her father regret having filed the divorce with Jemal.

Christmas 2010

Several years later I had the opportunity of visiting Jemal. Having gone through a few economic crises, he had faltered in his faith, but in the end he came back to embrace the Lord. When I saw him he was beaming for joy, having finally obtained formal custody of his daughter. “Now, as her father and legal guardian,” he told me, “I was able to register Derya at school. She began a few months ago and loves it! I want her to surpass me and learn everything she can.”

As God led the Magi on their journey to the King of kings, so he also led Jemal to that Prince of Peace. Whether or not Jemal is an actual descendent of the Magi tribe, he certainly is their spiritual one.