Source: ASSIST News Service, via Godreports, June 30, 2015
Ali Pektash grew up in a Kurdish family with 10 children. He was rejected by his mother, which opened a deep wound in his life. He was taken in by his uncle, but he too chased him out.
He met and married Zehra, but succumbed to heavy drinking, which began to destroy his life. He would start to shake if he didn’t have a drink and things got so bad that he was beating his wife several times a day and struggling to breathe after just a few steps.
Friends persuaded him to find work in Saudi Arabia, where the sale of alcohol is forbidden. But he was surprised to discover there was plenty of it available there.
Perhaps Mecca held the key to success, friends suggested, so he agreed to join a group on hajj (pilgrimage) during his time in Arabia.
“I knew I belonged to God somehow—he was my friend—but I did not belong to a religion I could find. I circled the Ka’ba seven times (one of the specified rites involved in the pilgrimage), and watched everybody kissing this black stone. But I walked the other way. I believed in a living God, not in a rock.”
When they retreated to their tents for the night, he chose to sleep under the stars because it was so hot.
Then something remarkable happened in the middle of the night.
“Jesus came to me in a dream, put his finger on my forehead and his hand on my heart. He was smiling at me and said: ‘Get up and leave this place.’”
» Editor’s note: A different sort of pilgrimage will happen in the USA soon and can use our prayers. Read this insightful piece about “Burning Man”: A Journey towards Understanding Alternative Spiritualities (Billy Graham Center for Evangelism).