Ugandan convert to Christianity flees country

A convert to Christianity who was formerly a member of a Muslim extremist group has fled Uganda and is in hiding in Kenya, reports Compass Direct News. Hassan Sharif Lubenga, 54, was a sheikh and a member of a violent Islamist group. In June 2011, after dreams and visions in which Jesus appeared to him, Hassan made a full commitment to follow Christ.

Extremists have been threatening Hassan since 2007, when he first began to speak of dreams and visions of Christ. Dangers peaked when Muslims saw him visiting a church. By April 2010, one of his four wives poisoned him because of his budding faith in Christ, leaving him unconscious. Due to increasing hostility, Hassan fled to Kenya in July 2011. Upon returning to Uganda in September, he learned that extremists and his former colleagues were threatening to kill him.

When Hassan felt like giving up on his new faith, he received a call from Bishop Umar Mulinde, his former pastor who was later attacked by Muslim militants (for more on Umar's attack, click here). Umar told him the church was praying for him, and Hassan was deeply heartened. Hassan has since fled again to Kenya, where his movements are severely restricted.

You can help by praying.

• Ask the Lord to continue to strengthen Hassan – may God use his testimony to encourage the faith of other Christians in Uganda and Kenya. 
• Pray that Hassan's conviction will also cause many of his former friends and contacts to question their Islamic faith. 
• Ask the Lord to provide for Hassan's every need. 
• Praise the Lord for the way He touches people through dreams and visions.

To share a prayer for Christians suffering in Uganda, visit our Persecuted Church Prayer Wall.