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Are you ready for a special guest today? We're going to change pace just a bit and sit down for a chat with Dr. Hanna Shahin. Dr. Shahin has a new book out and well discuss the many interesting details in his fascinating, true-life story as told in My Enemy...My Brother.
My Enemy...My Brother is a well told autobiography that moves at a wonderful pace. Dr. Shahin, you did a wonderful job of doing what so many fiction writers work hard at, you put us right in the moment from the first line. I really enjoyed this book, I enjoyed seeing how the Lord moved you through life in His perfect plan.
Dr. Shahin, you begin My Enemy…My Brother by sharing how you don't have recollection of any identity or connection with your family, only vague bits and pieces of what others recalled from memory. I found this book to be a journey of what you learned about humans and how we put too much value on the tags/the names, the groups, the identity we assign to ourselves and to one another. What would you add to that as food for thought for our readers today?
Can one be good and not be on the side of the truth? Can truth have a smaller following? Or do numbers always have the truth on their side?
Tell us a little about your childhood and what sense you tried to make of the world at that point.
My world did not make much sense, especially with the absence of family. That very important anchor to life and to meaning was terribly missing. My world was made up of rules set by either the orphanage or the school, and I was way too insignificant to challenge any of them. Obviously the same was true in family matters. Here also I was the youngest, and my opinion did not count. Decisions were made on my behalf in what was thought to be my best interests, yet without any personal involvement on my part. My world just did not make sense!
There were two people who were instrumental at crucial points of your walk, a young friend, Ahmad, and Om Ahmad, the woman who nursed you when your mother was dying. Can you share what happened in you, what your perspective was prior to those encounters with them?
With very little understanding of “religious correctness”, and in my enlightened zeal, and from a pure though naïve heart, I wanted to introduce my friend Ahmad to my amazing discovery, viz. the New Testament that I had just read. I had very little, if any, understanding of Islam. If I, as a Catholic, could learn a few things reading this book, my friend could probably benefit in the same way.
The encounter with Om Ahmad was completely out of this world. It completely changed the course of my life. Instead of following my dream of one day becoming an engineer, my perspective was completely changed to one of repaying the debt of love that I felt towards Muslims. God used that woman to bring about that change.
You talk about this in the book, but I'm going to ask--Can you tell us a little about the six-day war and what it was like for you and your family? How did this experience shape your life?
Though historians call that the six-day war, yet to us Jerusalemites, it was a 12 hour war. It started at 5 PM on June 5, 1967, and ended with Jerusalem falling to the Israeli Defense Forces at 5 AM on June 6. With very strong Arab sentiments, this was a very humiliating experience. The Arabs had lost the first war of 1948 after which Israel was established as a state. Now, with the Russians behind them, they lost again. We wondered what was going on. But no one seemed to have a satisfying answer. As Christians, we sensed there was something bigger than ourselves shaping the history and the geography of the region. And there was.
It was during those short hours that I fully and completely dedicated my life to serve the Lord. I didn’t know how, when or where. But my heart was set. I realize today that my decision may not have been spiritually driven. I also realize that my decision was not based on a clear calling. I was scared to death. In my fear, I felt my best bet at barter trading with God would be to completely surrender my life and promise to serve Him. As it was, the calling to full-time ministry came a year or two later, after I had enrolled at the American College in Jerusalem.
It was never your ambition to be a radio personality, yet you ended up with one of the most listened to radio programs in the Middle East. What were your radio programs about/what did you cover in them, and how did you get into Christian radio?
I got into Christian radio uniquely based on the quality of my voice, which the manager of the Baptist Studio in Beirut deemed good for radio. I started doing interviews with Christian leaders in Lebanon. I followed that by doing short 12 minute sermonettes. Over my thirty years of radio, I almost did anything and everything that radio programmers do, from teaching the Scriptures, to presenting Christians songs to the audience, to apologetics, etc.
What do you think God is saying to the hearts of your readers?
Each reader gets a different message from my book. Many have come back to me saying they read the book twice and each time gleaned from it something different. My hope is that each and every reader will either discover or re-discover the grace of God in their life. It is my conviction that the grace of God is active in each person’s life, saved and unsaved, regardless if they realize that or not. I also wish to see someone saved reading my book, and someone encouraged to trust the Lord and completely surrender his life to Him. For if He could take a nobody from nowhere like me, and do something with it, how much more could He do with the reader.
What do you do now, where does God have you now in life (figuratively speaking), in ministry, in work?
After decades of radio ministry where for the most part I was hiding behind a microphone and touching the listeners that way, I am now involved in touching lives directly on the same fields where once my message was carried through an anonymous voice on the airwaves. The ministry I am involved in is called, Endure International. It is a church planting ministry uniquely and exclusively directed to the Muslim nations of the Middle East and Africa. It is also a ministry aiming at sustaining and standing alongside those that come to faith or have come to faith in Christ from a Muslim background. These beloved believers face untold challenges. I feel so guilty having only touched them through the airwaves all these years without necessarily touching them where they hurt most. Endure International, through its local staff teams, seeks to be the family that these believers need once they are thrown out of their homes. Endure International seeks to fill some void and help give them a new identity once they lose their identity in their family, culture and society at large.
Dr. Shahin, thank you so much for sharing your story in My Enemy...My Brother. I know I'll reread many times over. It's challenges my thinking--to go beyond labels and names and cultures, and tests me to reach out to others in Christ's name.
To learn more about Dr. Hannah Shahin's minsitry, please visit Endure International.
To order your copy of this great read, please visit CLC Publications.
What question or challenge do you have for our readers?
Dr. Shahin asks you, dear readers:
What lessons could be learned about reaching individuals of other faiths?
Anyone responding will be entered in the giveaway
for a copy of Dr. Shahin’s book, My Enemy…My Brother
.
It's Crazy Monday Recipe day! We're having Amish Baked Oatmeal with a few slight variations thrown in.
