I Dared to Call Him Father: the Miraculous Story of a Muslim

To my grandson Mahmud my little prayer partner who has been a source of joy and comfort to me through many lonely hours. Foreword 9 1. A Frightening Presence 15 2. The Strange Book 26 3. The Dreams 33 4. The Encounter 39 5. The Crossroads 52 6. Learning to Find His Presence 60 7. The Baptism of Fire and Water 70 8. Was There Protection? 81 9. The Boycott 94 10. Learning to Live in the Glory 105 11. Winds of Change 123 12. A Time for Sowing 131 13. Storm Warnings 142 14. Flight 160 Epilogue 170 My initial impression of Madame Bilquis Sheikh of Pakistan was of her large, expressive, luminous eyes. I saw pain written there, and compassion, and rare sensitivity to the world of the spirit. A woman of mysterious age with hints of gray in her hair, she was wearing a beautiful sari with dignity and grace. There was about her the unmistakable aura of having been born to wealth and position. Her voice was the deepest with the most resonant timbre I have ever heard in a woman. Our first meeting took place in the mirrored dining room of a Bel Air, California, restaurant. That day I heard the outline of Madame Sheikh's amazing story. Many another's adventure can perhaps equal hers in dramatic content, but few in one respect: only rarely does the sovereign God interrupt the flow of history to reach down and reveal Himself to a human being in such unmistakable fashion as He did with her. The element of initiative from the Godward side was so startling as to be reminiscent of Saul of Tarsus' experience on the road to Damascus. As I heard the recital of these extraordinary events, I knew then that this story must be given to the world. Two years have passed since that first meeting. I could not have known that day that Bilquis Sheikh was to become not only a cherished friend, but a veritable mother in the Lord to me. As the events unfolded that knit our lives together, I discovered a woman who knows but one passion-to be a catalyst to mediate the Lord she loves to each hungry heart she encounters. To make this possible the same Lord has given her His special gifts of spiritual perception along with the gift of knowledge. One day in October, 1976, Bilquis telephoned me in Florida from her home in California. "I pick up the spirit that you are troubled about something. What is it? And how can I help?" I was astonished at this perception. "You're right, I am troubled," I told her. "I've just learned that I must have a major operation. The doctor strikes me as something of an alarmist, but=' After gathering all the facts, Madame Sheikh said that she would seek Jesus' word on this-and hung up. By then I knew that whenever my friend said she would pray about something, that meant that she would be down on her knees before Him, sometimes for hours. The next day she called back. Over the miles the deep voice spoke reassurance. "You have nothing at all to fear. The operation will go smoothly in all respects, and the surgeon will find everything benign." And that's exactly the way it turned out. At another time Bilquis telephoned Dick and Betty Schneider in Virginia. Though Dick was working steadily on the manuscript of I Dared To Call Him Father, he had had no personal contact with Madame Sheikh for a number of days. "Something is wrong there with you two," she began. "There is some emergency. Tell me about it, dear friends." There was indeed! The Schneiders have two sons in college. One of them had been viciously beaten up after he had protested seeing three burly upperclassmen physically as saulting a smaller, bespectacled student. The dormitory situation was now worrisome, school authorities had not been fully apprised, and there was the danger of the Schneiders' son wanting to leave school. In this instance Madame Sheikh was able to get God's directions on the wise way to handle the problem, and it was resolved happily. At such times I have marveled that a new Christian could have such depth of perception into the world of spirit. Also, how odd that God would reach down for a Muslim woman in Pakistan to bring her to minister in the United States! Could it be that the eastern heritage and psyche is generally more fertile soil for spiritual understanding than that of western man? Beyond that, the intensity of Madame Sheikh's passion to witness for her Lord has fulfilled God's primary condition for bestowing His special gifts of the Holy Spirit. These gifts, with the unction and authority that come with them, are very apparent to all who hear her speak across the country. Yet the fact that she fits no established pattern puzzles many who are more comfortable when any given leader can be tagged. One Christian leader demanded in a letter that she state whether or not she was a Charismatic. She sat at her desk thinking about this question and how even a single word can divide those who love Christ. Playfully, on impulse she picked up a quarter from her purse and said, "Well, Father, You decide." She flipped the quarter into the air saying, "Heads, I'm Charismatic; tails, I'm not." The silver coin spun blithely in the air, then dropped to her carpet. She could scarcely believe what she saw. Kneeling down to make certain, she chuckled. What better proof could she have of the Lord's sense of humor? The quarter had landed on its edge in the thick folds and was standing straight up. The lesson, Bilquis says, is that the important thing is not how we worship or what words we use, or what tags we tie on, but do we love our neighbors? Are we guided by His Holy Spirit? Do we obey Him implicitly? Do we weep for those who do not know Christ? Do we long to share our knowledge of Him? Madame Sheikh has found in America a surprising hunger for Jesus. Surprising to her because in a vision she had had in Pakistan before emigrating to this country, she had seen America as a land of many churches, their steeples rising above every town and city. She had assumed from this that America must be a land completely devoted to God. But then in the vision there had also been a flock of hungry white geese. After traveling the length and breadth of the country, she now knows that the geese represented all those in this land who have not heard of Him. Vividly, she described to us her first Sunday in the United States.... She had stepped out of her hotel to see the streets filled with traffic. "They must all be on their way to church," she thought. She was to learn, however, that most of these people were on their way to the beaches, golf courses, and picnic grounds. It is for these people that Madame Sheikh yearns as well as for the future of this nation. In a sense she is now a woman without a country, partly because she has God's broad perspective on our world. In another sense she carries her beloved Pakistan with her wherever she goes. Having had to leave behind her little plot of earth on the other side of the world with her garden, she has been busy creating another one on the hillside behind the little house in California which she shares with her grandson Mahmud. So beautiful has that little garden become that neighbors on her street who had given up on the barren hillside behind their homes, inspired by Madame Sheikh, are now creating their own gardens. Bilquis told me how as she worked amongst her flowers recently, she was thinking about the English missionary William Carey with whom she had come to feel very close, even though he died 143 years ago in India. He loved the English daisies which bloomed in the meadows of his home town of Paulerspury, Northamptonshire. In his later years in India, some friends sent him a few seeds of his favorite flower, and Madame Sheikh has carefully copied into her journal the letter he wrote at that time: I shook the bag over a patch of earth in a shady place. On visiting the spot a few days afterwards, to my inexpressible delight, I found a bellis perennis of our English pastures springing up. I do not know that I ever enjoyed, since leaving Europe, a simple pleasure so exquisite as the sight of this English daisy afforded me, having not seen one for thirty years and never expecting to see one again. Bilquis Sheikh wept when she first read that letter. She finds the flowers in the United States very lovely, with many of them the same kinds that grew in her gardens in Wah. But there remains that residue of nostalgia for her homeland. She keeps hoping to see certain of the Wah flowers that do not grow here; keeps hoping that someday someone in Pakistan will send her some seeds too. Meanwhile, we in the United States are richer for her presence among us. Each time I am with her, each time I hear her deep voice over the phone, I am reassured that God is still a sovereign God, that He is still in control of our world.

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