26

Two weeks after Amiyah’s birth, we had to leave the college. We were grateful that a friend of John’s arranged for us to stay with a Christian family about an hour away, but the conditions were even worse than at Ali’s.

As we tried to settle into our new life, I discovered that becoming a mother brought new worries and fears. I missed my mother more than ever. I wished I could ask for her advice about feeding and bathing, and it made me ache knowing that she would miss Amiyah’s first steps and never hear her first words. I also grew concerned that Amiyah might get ill. How would we take care of her if we were on the run and had no income? Other worries plagued me too, like the thought of what might happen to our daughter if my father tracked me down and killed both John and me.

With John’s family also at risk, we decided that if anything happened to us, the best people to look after Amiyah were the Christians we were living with. They might have been poor and on the margins of society, but I came to see how much I could learn from them. In the midst of all the hardship they faced, I discovered the truth about so many Christians in Pakistan: their faith in Jesus is strong. They have so little to eat and so little to cling to that they are forced to rely on God alone.

They taught me about being faithful, about not denying the faith. At any point, they could have converted to Islam and found their status elevated, yet they chose to remain poor followers of Jesus, even though they and their children faced a lifetime of social, emotional, and physical persecution. My suffering was small by comparison, and I believed that in time it would pass. Theirs was permanent. I was reminded once more that Christians suffer. Because of Jesus’ name, we become the recipients of hatred. This should not surprise us—after all, Jesus came from a higher place, yet he chose to humble himself. He chose to suffer here on earth.

†

We continued to move around, traveling only at night, with my face hidden beneath a veil and John’s covered by a bandanna. At times I thought about the apostles Paul and Peter, and how they went from place to place, often being smuggled in and out of cities. What was so different about what we were going through? In many ways, it was comforting to know that we were living out the truths of the Bible.

As Amiyah grew, my understanding of God became ever stronger. Knowing the depth of my own love for my child and watching John care for his daughter gave me new insight into what the love of the heavenly Father looks like. And as difficult as it was to watch God’s people suffer, I was thankful for the privilege of learning from them how to keep the faith when hard times come. I didn’t know what lay ahead for our family, but I had a hunch this was a lesson I was going to need.

For a few precious weeks, we started to feel settled, and I wondered whether we might consider ourselves finally home. Then we received some shocking news. An old friend contacted John to tell him that his mother was dead.

My father had printed up posters with our pictures on them, along with the instruction that anyone who found us should kill us. Somehow John’s mother had seen a copy of the poster, and the shock had been too much. She had a heart attack and died soon after.

John’s grief was intensified all the more by the fact that he could not attend the funeral. I felt the weight of guilt press down on me. Marrying me had already cost him his career, his home, and the opportunity to live near his family. Now it had robbed his mother of her own life.

But John never showed any sign of resentment or regret over marrying me. With every new challenge that came, he stood by my side and made sure we faced it together.

†

Amiyah was napping when the man who had taken us into his home burst through the door, panting.

“I just saw a man . . . holding a poster . . . with your faces on it.”

“Where?” John asked.

“The train station. He’s asking everyone whether they’ve seen you.”

It was as if someone had clamped a vice around my throat, cutting off the air. We were hundreds of miles away from home, and two years had passed since I’d escaped. I desperately wanted to believe this was all some strange coincidence. I had hoped my father’s anger had mellowed over time, but clearly that was a fantasy.

“Stay here,” the man said. “Lock the door, and don’t go anywhere. We’ll keep watch outside. We won’t let them hurt you. But once they’re gone, you should leave.”

We got out of the city that night, but it took another three months for us to leave Pakistan altogether. We shuttled from one Christian community to another, all the while trying to plan an escape.

The main problem, as usual, was me. I had no passport or travel papers with me, and without them I could not leave Pakistan or enter any other country legally. In a way, though, I was grateful my father had never allowed me to have any kind of photo ID. He said he did not want his daughter to have her photograph taken and printed, and it would be up to my husband one day to decide whether I got an ID once I got married. If my father had been less militant, I might never have been able to leave Pakistan, for any formal ID would have made it clear I was a Muslim. If I had tried to get a passport with such an ID, Pakistani officials would want to know why a Muslim woman was planning to leave the country with a Christian man, especially when there was a child involved.

So I had to forget about my previous life when I went to apply for a passport. I pretended that I was a shy, illiterate girl from a remote village. I gave my thumbprint, and after waiting for several weeks, I finally received my passport.

†

Malaysia was not my first choice. I wanted to fly to a country with a large Christian population, not another Muslim country, but our choices were limited. All other doors were closed to us, so Malaysia became our new home.

On our first Sunday in the country, John, Amiyah, and I left the center for asylum seekers, where we had been given temporary accommodations, and took an hour-long journey across Kuala Lumpur. I stared openmouthed at the glass and steel high-rises and smiled at the cleanliness of the bus. But these were only brief distractions. My heart was focused on one thing: the unrelenting joy of going to church.

After more than two years of living on the run in Pakistan, the thought of being able to worship alongside a thousand other Christians was almost too much to take in. I’d attended a few church services in Pakistan, but I’d never been in a congregation close to this size. I could feel my heart racing as we approached the building, and when I saw that the pastor was greeting people at the door, I didn’t know whether to clasp my hands together and bow or giggle out of nervousness.

“Welcome!” he said, smiling broadly. “What a beautiful child you have.”

“Thank you,” John said. “This is our first time here. We’re from Pakistan.”

“Really? Then you are especially welcome. Why did you leave?”

John looked quickly at me, then back at the pastor. “My wife was a Muslim but now loves the Lord. It was safer for us to come to Malaysia.”

The pastor turned his gaze on me, his smile still wide. “Ex-terrorist!” he said, jabbing a finger toward me.

My heart stopped. I suddenly felt faint. I heard John laugh a little and wish the pastor good day, and then I felt his hand on my arm, guiding me into the building.

“People shouldn’t stereotype Muslims like that,” John said softly when we sat down. “It’s not right, and I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

Amiyah needed to visit the bathroom, and John took her. I sat in the pew alone, waves of panic tearing at my insides.

Why had the pastor said that? Had God revealed my secret to him? If he had, was he about to reveal it to the rest of the church as well? What would I do if the pastor asked me to stand up and walk forward in front of everyone? If John found out, I was sure it would mean the end of our marriage.

I sat through the whole service begging God not to let that happen. I confessed to God that I was nothing more than trash, that I had been so lost in the darkness that I was not worthy to stand and touch his feet. I was lower than everyone else in the building, but I begged to be allowed to remain there.

The pastor said nothing about me during the service, and when he said good-bye afterward, it was as if he’d never seen either of us before.

All the way back to the refugee camp, while John and Amiyah dozed in the sunlight that flooded through the bus windows, I tried to ignore the blood rushing in my ears as I thanked God for the narrow escape. However, in the silence, I sensed that God wasn’t cheering along with me. What had happened that morning was not a rescue; it was a warning. Though I wished it weren’t so, he was reminding me of a truth I had forgotten: nothing we do can ever be hidden from him.

It was a difficult revelation. I knew I could trust him to keep my family safe just as he had done so many times before. But letting go of the need for secrets was hard. I begged God not to reveal my past to others.

“Please,” I prayed. “I promise I’ll spend my whole life serving you, but I’m terrified of what might happen if people find out about me. Do they really have to know?”