Click here to find out about Christian persecution in Algeria and learn how to pray.

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Click here to find out about Christian persecution in Algeria and learn how to pray.

Post a prayer for health of Algerian Christians on iCommitToPray.com

Click here to find out about Christian persecution in Algeria and learn how to pray.

Post a prayer for Algerian Christians on iCommitToPray.com

Click here to find out about Christian persecution in Algeria and learn how to pray.

Post a prayer for Algerian Christians on iCommitToPray.com

One of Ali’s brothers, however, had become a Christian. “I thought he had left the true religion, and according to Islamic law he deserves to be dead,” Ali said. “I would show him the Quran verses and tell him, ‘Look, you have to believe. You have to believe back to Islam.’ Every time we would start talking about this, he would tell me that God loves me and would talk about God’s love.”

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Ali belonged to an Islamist cell group that distributed tracts about fasting, Islamic dress and joining the jihad. But in 1992, following a crackdown on Islamists, he suddenly found himself at the top of the Algerian government’s most-wanted list. His options were to stay inside all the time or venture out and risk arrest. 

One day, frustrated with his self-imposed house arrest, Ali went for a bus ride and got off at a random stop. A young woman at the bus stop caught his eye, so he asked her if he could talk to her. “No,” she said bluntly, “don’t talk to me. I am a Christian.” 

Ali was surprised, not least because it was a risky thing for her to admit. Still, he was attracted to her, so he tried another approach. “My brother is a Christian,” he told her. “Really?” she asked. The girl then told him that she had become a believer by listening to Christian radio stations and writing down the Bible verses she heard. She had never even met a Christian. 

As the girl became more comfortable talking with Ali, she boldly asked him if he could get her a Bible from his brother. Eager to please, Ali did get her a Bible, and in the process he became curious about what it had to say. He read the Bible, compared its teaching with the Quran and began to ask questions at the mosque.

Then one night he had a dream in which Jesus spoke to him: “Come to me all who are heavy burdened and I will give you rest.” Ali woke up and immediately felt as if a load had been lifted from his shoulders. “At that moment,” he said, “I woke up and told him, ‘Lord, forgive me. You are Christ, you are God and I believe.’”

Ali eventually married Chaima, the girl from the bus stop, and today they serve as church planters and evangelists among some of the most committed Muslims in western Algeria. They have led many people to Christ over the years and currently lead several small house church groups. Unlike believers in the Kabylie region, Christians in their area cannot meet openly. They meet in homes, cafés or parks, and they are watched closely by security agents, who often take them in for interrogation. 

Police have expressed confusion about the two different Alis they see in their files. When he is brought in for interrogation, inspectors pull out one file with a photo of a young, scowling, bearded jihadi and a second file with a photo of a clean-shaven man in his 40s, radiating light. “How are these both you?” they ask.

Ali then shares his testimony. “I used to see you as an enemy of God,” he explains, “but now I love you because the Bible says to love your enemies. This is what Christ did to change my heart.”

Two months after his recent visit to the national security office, Ali told a VOM worker that the interrogations never scare him. When he was a terrorist, he said, he lived with death every day, as his companions were killed fighting the government; now he lives in the promise of eternal life. 

“Honestly, the Christian life is a painful life,” Ali said. But his joy is undiminished by daily circumstances. “When I die, I know where I am going.” And he does not yearn for an easier life somewhere else. “I love my country,” he said. “Algeria is a place where Christian martyrs have flooded the earth with their blood.”

Although the city where Ali and Chaima work is very challenging, Ali said more people are wanting to know about Jesus. “[If I thought about it] with my personal mind, I would think we have a lot of persecution, so no one would be interested,” he said. “But with my faith I see the contrary; there are a lot of people [who] want to seek Jesus.”

As Ali and Chaima teach new believers, they are careful to warn them of the dangers they will face. They explain that persecution is guaranteed but encourage them to trust that Jesus will always be with them. 

***

The story of the church in Algeria tells of God’s work in overcoming the government’s greatest efforts to stop the spread of the gospel. Some Algerian churches are now sending Christian workers to share the gospel with Arabs not only in unreached parts of Algeria but also throughout the Middle East. “The Kabyle church is a big hope, not just for Algeria but beyond Algeria,” Ourahmane said.

Thirty years ago, few could have foreseen such a movement of God in this predominantly Muslim country. But God has chosen some of “the least of these,” the marginalized Kabyle people, to share his Good News throughout Algeria and build an irrepressible church.

Click here to find out about Christian persecution in Algeria and learn how to pray.

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Click here to find out about Christian persecution in Algeria and learn how to pray.

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Click here to find out about Christian persecution in Algeria and learn how to pray.

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In the early ’90s, Algeria transitioned from a one-party political system to a multi-party system, and surprisingly an Islamist party then won the election. To avoid the possibility of a government led by extremists, the army quickly took over, launching an insurgency that lasted six years.

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Simo served as a police detective during the insurgency, and one day he found himself interrogating a young Muslim man who justified his violent actions by citing the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. “I thought, if all this is right and Islam is telling us to kill, then Islam is not a religion and I cannot follow it anymore,” Simo said.

Disillusioned with the religion he had grown up in, Simo began to consider Christianity. After visiting some churches, including a Kabyle Protestant church, he noticed a real difference between followers of Jesus and most Muslims he knew. “I found there is a real relationship between these people and God,” he said.

Simo wanted that kind of relationship with God, so he soon turned his back on Islam and placed his faith in Christ. When local Islamic teachers insulted Christians, Simo was never shy about standing up for his faith and expressing his opinions. The Muslim teachers, in turn, ordered an attack on Simo that resulted in a hospital visit.

Still, the pressure from local Muslims only served to strengthen his faith. When he saw new mosques and Islamic schools in the Kabylie region being funded by countries like Qatar and Turkey, he decided to combat their work by establishing a Christian apologetics organization named after St. Augustine. “The main purpose of the association was to make St. Augustine well known among the Kabyle so they can know that this man was Christian and a Kabyle like them,” Simo said.

But the Algerian government denied his application. So instead, he appealed directly to Algerian believers: “Any Christian who suffers for their faith or is persecuted, please contact me.” He then began sharing their stories of persecution on Facebook.

Simo felt strongly about the unfair treatment of Algerian Christians. He wrote letters to Algeria’s president, to the European Union, to the chancellor of Germany and others, expressing his concerns about the mistreatment of Christians in Algeria.

Then, in July 2016, Simo was arrested after sharing a message on Facebook stating that the light of Jesus was overcoming the lie of Islam and its prophet. He served 20 months of a five-year sentence in prison, his health deteriorating due to rheumatoid arthritis. Since his release in early 2018, Simo and his family have fled the country because of death threats.

In 2018, the Ministry of Religion sent a threatening letter to the church in Tizi Ouzo where Dassin serves as worship leader. The church, warned authorities, might be closed down because of inadequate safety equipment such as fire extinguishers. Leaders of the 250-member Kabyle church knew they must take the government’s warning seriously because it had already closed other churches in the region. However, they also knew the complaints were invalid because the Ministry of Religion was citing old information. The church had addressed the safety issues long ago, and authorities had not re-inspected the building. “They just want to harass us again,” Dassin explained.

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Tension has remained high between the church and the Algerian government for four decades, but Dassin is not worried about the church in Algeria disappearing. Once a radical and member of Jabat al-Islam, Dassin said he used to terrorize his older brother, who became a Christian in 1987. But through his brother’s persistence and the work of the Holy Spirit, Dassin himself came to know Christ in 1992. “I repented my sins, and I thanked the Lord and started a new life,” he said.

After becoming a Christian, he faced persecution from co-workers, his extended family and the community. But Dassin held fast to his faith, knowing that God could change the hearts of even the worst persecutors.

Today he leads worship at his church, also serving as an evangelist and teacher of new believers. He often talks with seekers and new believers over the phone to avoid discussing sensitive subjects in public. When a Muslim calls with questions about Christianity, Dassin starts with his own story. “I tell them I was a Muslim,” he said. “I was walking according to the tradition of the family and culture, but inside I felt like an orphan.”

Dassin says the greatest need in the Algerian church is the training to help Christians withstand governmental and societal pressures. VOM supports an underground seminary program in which believers study theology for two years while working closely with and supporting the efforts of evangelical leaders throughout the country.

2018 was exceptionally hard for Algerian churches, according to Youssef Ourahmane of the Algerian Protestant Association. The Arab world has taken notice of church growth and is applying pressure on the government to either close them down or weaken them. “They are worried [the growth] will spread outside Algeria,” Ourahmane said.

Pressure is also building from within the country, as Islamic fundamentalists nervously observe the growing interest in Christianity. “There are a lot of people interested in Christianity,” he said. “It is the subject of everybody’s talk, even in cafes and on the streets.”