When did you come to the USA?
I came to this country from Paris about 22 years ago. I used to be a singer on national TV and had won a couple prizes. There was this American girl, one of the photographers taking pictures of us. We kind of hit it off and she invited me to come to visit her. I invited her to come visit my North African country and spend a month with my family, and then I came to the States.

What year was that?
That was in January 1988. I spent about eight to nine months in New England and then decided I would overstay my VISA and just stay in the States and get a job. I got a job in Florida as a tour guide, and started taking people around the state. About seven to eight years I got tired of it. I was living in sin, wandering around in the world just finding new things, new philosophies and trying to follow whatever.

You’re from North Africa.
I was born and grew up in North Africa as a M. That changed 10 years ago.

You obviously had moved away from Islam to some degree.
To some degree I called myself a M. or a nominal M. At Ramadan I would feel some sort of repentance and go back and grow beard and pray and fast. That wouldn’t last long. After a couple months I went back to my old life. My lifestyle was all socializing with people and going to clubs and concerts. It was my life, the singing, the music, all that. I got tired of that life and one day my inner being started asking questions about life. “Is this it? That’s all there is to life?”

In Florida?
I was in Florida. I had a friend from Syria who had a men’s clothing store, and he needed somebody to manage it. He said, “Hey, it might not pay as much as what you’re getting now but at least you get away from that environment and you’ll be seeing another state and the country. This was in a small town, next door to a shopping center with supermarket.

So you left Florida.
I moved to Georgia and got an apartment in a complex and went to work.

I watch people. In the morning I’d see these people as I’m trying to get established in the community. What better place than a shopping center where everybody comes and shops? But I started looking at this particular group of people. They looked different, especially their women. They dressed very modestly. They wore some sort of veil on their heads, and I wondered about them.

One day I helped this lady in front of my store put her groceries into her van. I asked her, “Who are you?”

She said, “We’re Christians.” I said, “Christians -- we are in a Christian country. Everybody here claims Christianity. But why do you dress so modestly and wear a veil on your head?”

She said, “We’re the Mennonites.”

And I said, “Huh, okay.” Men at night. I guess they work at night and sleep through the day.

That evening she sent her daughters with some hot, homemade food and some information about Christianity and Christian music. So I sat in my store and listened and read all those papers and began to understand who the Mennonites are and what Christianity is about. We became good friends. Her husband came and introduced himself. A week later they invited me to their home for a meal. That was the first time I saw the countryside, chickens and dogs and goats and cows.

I invited them to my place. We became good friends. One day they invited me to come live in a little apartment outside their house. I accepted and I moved in with them for $100 a month. I got a meal and my laundry done and had fellowship with a family instead of being by myself. I didn’t know anybody in that area.

We became like a family, and I was watching them. I watched how Titus, the man of the house, and his wife Lois interacted. How they prayed around the table and held hands and the little ones sometimes sang songs, “Be kind to one another,” “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know.” I watched how sweet and kind they were to one another. I thought they are really good actors and sooner or later the real truth about them will come out. But I didn’t see that. Every time went there I saw them sticking to what they said they believed in. And every night they had Bible study. Titus would read the Bible and ask the children questions. Then they would gather around and pray – for me, for my mom, for my family, my sisters. Sometimes I would come in for bit, stand in the corner and watch and listen. Then I’d go home and I’d think about it and I’d compare in my mind with my family: a lot of anger issues, a lot of abuse. Yet in this home they were very sweet to one another and there was a lot of love. Titus would correct his children, taking them to a room and give them a spanking and they would come back hugging each other. Things I had never seen anywhere. That got into me, and how they extended their love towards me. It really touched my heart and my life.

So God was beginning to work on you.
One night my boss, who just had a child born in his house, invited me over. We had a nice party and we ate a lot of food. I stopped at the library and picked up some books about Islam to take them home to read. The author was one of the first Islamic scholars, who translated the whole Quran in four volumes. I wanted to understand more of the Quran. At the time I became a bit more religious. I had quit drinking, cleaned up and wanted to become holy and M. because somehow my inner questions and the Mennonite family’s lifestyle turned on this awakening inside of me to become more spiritual.

In my reading I found that in explaining the Quran the footnotes always referred to the Gospels. It often said you can find the same verse in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. So one day I went inside the house and I said, “I need a Bible, do you have one? I want to verify some information here.”

I looked up the references, and started looking at the Bible more and more. Before you know it, I dropped those Islamic books and started reading the Bible. And so this Islamic scholar led me to read the Bible, unintentionally.

Lois had a habit of writing prayer cards with verses. She put them on the dashboard in my car. At times she would take a tape of somebody sharing a message and put in the tape player of my car. I’d start my car in the morning, and here this man’s preaching at me or reading a verse. They were all praying for me. I didn’t know they had contacted many people to pray for me.

Time went on and I was really searching. One night I went out in the woods. I talked to God for the first time. I said, “God, I don’t know if I’m crazy, if you’re up there, if I’m just talking to myself. I don’t know. But I grew up as a Muslim and Muslims are saying, ‘We are the way. Mohammed came to put all the religions together under his sovereignty and Islam is the way.’ But here I am. I see Christians say there’s life only through Jesus and that I am sick in my heart and I have a disease called sin. And only Jesus can heal me if I only believe in him as Lord and Savior. And then there are the Jews. They say they are the chosen people – that salvation comes only through Judaism and I’m totally lost. If there is a God, and if you are listening to me now, please help me, show yourself to me.” That’s how I left it that night, and I went home to sleep. I didn’t hear from God, didn’t hear anything.

How long did you stay with the Mennonite family?
It had been close to two years, with a lot of interaction and a lot of debates, a lot of talking, a lot of sharing, a lot of counterattacks and all. One I day decided “Enough of this. I’m going to pack up. I’m going back to Florida and get my old job back.” I was a freelancer, so I could work whenever I wanted to and just reestablish myself.

There was a lot of sadness in the house. They had about six children, so I was like the older brother. They loved me. I loved them. It was really hard deciding to leave. I remember they were all crying. So I went to work and got my check and came back to start packing my stuff.

That day Lois had put a tape of a Jewish convert in my tape deck. His name is Lon Solomon and he has a ministry in Washington, D.C. He shared his testimony on that tape and I listened. At the end he asked, “Do you want the love of God?” At that point I was struck. I felt this was for me. I was crying, tears coming down my face. I answered, “Yes, I want the love of God.”

I went to work but couldn’t work that day. I just spent it crying and hiding in the bathroom. That night I told the family, “I don’t know what’s going on with me, but something has struck me.” They felt that was a breakthrough.

In the morning I got a cup of coffee and sat down with Titus in his office. He was reading to me from the Bible about the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. I wept so much. Then he came to Saul traveling to Damascus, and I wept there too. I could see everything like in a vision; I could see it happening and I was crying about it. I decided to follow Jesus. Those tears turned to joyful tears. I was so happy inside all of a sudden, that I was inviting this. There was no struggle.

Sunday I went to church and I stood up and said, “I just want to share with you something that very, very important in my life right now.” The pastor invited me up front, and I said, “I want to let you know that I renounce Islam and Mohammed and I want to take Jesus as my Lord and Savior if the Lord helps me.” Everybody gave me hug and cried with me. That was August 23, 1999, 10 years ago.

Two or three weeks after that Lois’ brother passed away. I went to Mississippi with them for the funeral and met the rest of their relatives. People came to me and said, “I’ve been praying for you.” I realized a lot of people had been praying for me. God did a mighty work there.

Two weeks later I called my family and told them and called everyone. Of course they’ve been angry at me since and I haven’t talked to lots of my relatives since then. It’s been tough, tough road, but God’s still victorious over all. I’ve been forgiven so much; I love him so much.

What is the Islamic view of you now?
Well, I’m an apostate. Apostate means by the Sharia law of Mohammed, if they catch me anywhere they can kill me and it’s no big deal.

After six months the church taught me all about baptism and took me out to a lake. I dressed up in my Arabic clothing, long robe and everything, and felt very cultural that day. There was a lot of singing and they baptized me in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Ten days later I was on my way to Bible school.

Really, where’d you go?
Pennsylvania, a Mennonite Bible institute. I spent close to two years there studying. They paid my way and they paid my schooling and staying there. So that’s all I did – study from seven in the morning – and pray and study and pray and study and pray. I got to know a lot of people. One day they had a class of M. evangelism. They were going to take the weekend and go to a major city to evangelize M.s. They invited me to go with them and watch how they did things, see what’s all this was about. So I went along for the ride.

I can imagine what comes next.
The car stopped right in front of the mosque where I used to pray as a M. I didn’t know that’s where they were going. My heart was beating fast and I was scared and sweaty and asking God to please make sure I didn’t know nobody there and nobody would notice me. As soon as we got to the third floor, the imam, the holy man of the mosque, said, “Oh, brother TJ, come say hi.” So I went and gave him a hug. He said, “Praise God, brothers, our brother TJ brought us Christians today and if you need any material we have it for you so you can give to our friends.”

My heart was racing. And I felt the Lord saying, “Are you going to be ashamed of me now?” So I decided right there in the mosque. I said, “Excuse me, brother imam. I’m no longer M., I’m a Christian.” The M.s started grabbing me by my neck and people started saying bad words. My group took me right outside, and we didn’t stay even five minutes. I was in tears outside on the sidewalk. They were all having prayer over my shoulders, and I felt the Lord tell me, “These are the people I want you to come witness to.” I wiped my tears and got in the van and we drove back to the church that invited us to come. We did some street work and I learned how they did it.

I tried to learn as much as I could at the time. People looked at me as the M. expert. I said, “I have no knowledge of this. I know Islam, yes, and I know a little bit of what Christianity is. I’m learning a little of the Bible. But I have no way to know how to evangelize people.” I went back to school.

After finishing school, I went back to Georgia and stayed with Titus and Lois. That summer the pastor of that church in New England called me and said, “We’ve been praying for you. We’d like you to come and help us do the work here.” My conscience was bugging me because I didn’t want to go. But every day there was a knocking in my heart saying, “You’ve got to go; you’ve got to do this.”

After a couple months I answered and said, “I’m coming.”

What year was that?
The end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002.

Interesting time to start ministering to M.s.
Yes. It was the best time actually, for God opened the door for M.s to be open to the gospel at the time. Since then I have entered more mosques in my short minisitry life than any other time – even when I was a M. We took a lot of groups to the city and took them to a lot of mosques. We had a lot of interviews with imams and M.s. We shared the gospel so many times in the middle of the mosques. A few times we said The Lord’s Prayer in the middle of the mosque out loud.

Who’s we?
I became specialist in bringing groups to the city, and became known among a lot of States. They knew I’m from a M. background, so they said, “Hey, I know a group that would be interested. I’ll bring my group to you and you take us out.” That’s what I started doing. And throughout the week I walked the streets and grocery stores and supermarkets and neighborhoods. We did prayer walks, all kinds of tract distributions and CDs and DVDs. Then I bought a little battery-powered amplifier with a mike, and I started standing in the street preaching.

Groups that came sang and taught young people how to preach the Word. We just did it every day, and we became so used to it that that was part of my life.

One day God gave me an idea. On one street there were M.s and Jews working together, usually in business. M.s work for Jews or M.s have their own stores. Black M.s, Arabs, Bengalis, Pakistanis, you name it. I used to witness to just about everybody, but wasn’t successful. So one day the Lord told me to go buy a soccer ball. I bought the soccer ball and I was juggling it in the street and everybody wanted to play. So I cooked a lot of food and reserved a park and got my youth group from that church where I used to go. We went and picked up all these people – Jews, Arabs, non-Arabs, M.s, blacks – and got them to the stadium and had a great game of soccer. They all got to know each other. We took pictures and my pastor came prayed over the food. We fed them and took them back to their homes.

A couple days later we came to their stores and gave them their pictures to send to their home countries. We struck up relationships through that. We did it another time. Then I started inviting some that were interested to come to my home for a meal. I would leave my Bible open and they would read it while I’m in the kitchen cooking. I’d play the Jesus movie and they would sit and watch it. Later they would call me and ask questions. Through that, one after the next, the Lord started bringing them to Jesus. I led few people to the Lord and started a new fellowship. Now we have a fellowship in New England and one here in Florida. We meet with M background believers (MBBs).

Describe the New England fellowship.
In 2003 I started the fellowship, and it’s been ongoing until last year. I moved back to Florida because I got married. So my group didn’t meet since. This year I started going back once a month, getting them together. This past Saturday night I was in New England, found a house with a pastor and brought my group to meet. Last month I did the same thing. We do Bible studies, we pray a lot together and we break the bread and have a meal and fellowship and share testimonies. We love to sing and praise God. Then I take them home. We call that a once-a-month fellowship.

What are the sizes of the two groups?
They come and go. In New England we have had up to 35 people several times, but then it can shrink and only 10 show up. Then next month 20 show up. It depends on their busyness. We have a big group here in Florida.

Tell about that fellowship.
When I moved to Florida, I knew couple converts here. So I visited them. They are part of an Arabic church I visited in the past. They invited me to speak to them in their church and to follow up with them through phone calls and visitation. So we became good friends.

I decided to meet with this group of MBBs and have a fellowship once a month. We got married in June 2008 and moved here that June. Last July we had a fellowship on the Gulf Coast. In August we had it here. In September we had another fellowship on the Gulf. It keeps shifting back and forth.

It’s the same group of people?
Same group of people.

So they’re driving a couple hours each way.
Yes.

And when do you meet?
Depends. When everybody’s here we decide on the date. We meet in homes -- it works better for Arab folks; it’s a culture thing. When the group gets stronger, we move it to every two weeks, then every week, then it becomes like a church. We grow and learn and have a set location and call it a church. That’s how I’ve learned to start churches. I keep going back to New England and coming back here. We invite as many Converge people to come and see what we do, and they love it – the food, fellowship and all that.

How did you get connected with Converge Worldwide?
Aman who works with M.s and I met through other conferences and led worship together many times. He sings and I sing. I play the drum and he plays the lute. We have basically the same ministry. I work with M.s; he works with M.s. I do evangelism; he gets involved with the same people. I’m invited into a lot of Arabic churches where he is invited as well. So we decided to put our heads together.

When?
Last December he called me and wanted me to pray about it. My wife and I prayed. In February they had a Converge international worker Assessment Center here in Florida. The last day my wife and I went and met with them. Then we went to the Assessment Center May 4-7 at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Mounds View, Minn. At the end of June we were commissioned at the Converge international workers retreat. Now we’re trying to visit as many churches as we can, raising a support team.

And you’re about to become a father.
I’m about to become a father. And I’m organizing this MBB conference coming in February 2010. The first of its kind in Florida.

You’re also doing some radio and television work?
I just spent the whole week at the Aramaic Broadcasting Network station, where we did programs going to North Africa, the Middle East and all over the world. They get it over the Internet. This summer I took another youth group and went to New England and did a whole week of street work, M. evangelism, teaching them how to come out and shine, seeing them preach and pray over people on the street, help elderly people clean up their homes, paint churches. We did whatever we could.

Where did you meet you wife?
In 2000, when I was in Bible school in Pennsylvania, my future wife went with a group to sing in a church in Georgia. It was Lois’s church. She called me and said, “TJ, I think I met your wife.” I had given her a description of what kind of woman I was looking for. I wasn’t interested then. I said, “I’m just learning the Bible right now and it’s going to be a couple years before I finish. I’m not ready.

Five years went by, and I was speaking at a singles retreat in Pennsylvania for about 400 men and women. This girl was sitting in the audience. Our eyes met and we spent the whole evening talking. I called Lois the next day, and said, “I met the girl.”

She said, “Yeah? Who is she and where is she from?”
I said, “Her name’s Caryn and she lives on the Gulf Coast.”
Lois said, “Does she wear glasses? Tall? Blonde? Works as an accountant?”
I said, “Yep.”
She said, “You dummy. I told you about that girl five years ago. You didn’t listen to me. Are you sure this is the same girl?”
I said, “Yes.” It was the same girl.

We married last year. And we have a baby coming at any time.