By Sandra Marroquín –
Pressured on all sides for their stand against Covid mandates, Ade and Marc Papineau were seeking God. But which God? Between them, the newlyweds had backgrounds in both Christianity and Islam.
But an invite on Facebook messenger sent them in a direction that surprised them.
“Literally, I got a text message on my Facebook Messenger from a complete stranger,” Marc said on a Mohamad Faridi video on YouTube. “Mark, you seem like a great guy, like a family guy. I don’t know where you stand in your faith, but I feel compelled to invite you to church. We have a great church. great worship, great music and an amazing Pastor. Love to see you come.”
Before he met Ade, Marc had two kids from a divorced marriage in Northern Ontario, Canada. For her part, Ade was an immigrant from a small island of South Sumatra, Indonesia.
Ade wasn’t a very devout Muslim, but her mother made it clear that if Marc wanted to marry her, he needed to convert to Islam.
He really liked her, so he recited the shahada, the Muslim equivalent of a sinner’s prayer.
They got married in Indonesia.
Back in Canada, they felt upset by the government’s lockdowns, facemasks and obligatory vaccines. When they voiced their concerns, it seemed like everyone ganged up on them.
The stress of being opposed led them to seek God. They started praying to Allah.
Marc – who came from a nominal Catholic background and had only accepted Islam recently – wondered what the prayers, which can only be repeated in Arabic, meant. He wondered why Allah only seemed to understand Arabic.
Ade didn’t know why either. But she had never worried about that – until her husband asked. Why must we pray only in Arabic? she wondered.
Other questions began to bubble up in her mind, troubling notions about the Koran.
She started asking her mom questions about her faith. However, Islam does not take kindly to questions. Adherents must accept its teachings without questioning. So Mom sternly reprimanded her questioning.
But she persisted with her inquiries.
Ade, Marc and his two children embarked in earnest on their quest for the truth. They sought advice from imams, but none would attend to them. They started reading the Children’s Bible, which was a family delight. They had intended to also read the Children’s Koran, to give a fair shake to both.
But something interrupted them from reading the Children’s Koran.
It was a random invitation to church in Marc’s Facebook Messenger.
They were just thinking about which church to check out, since the imams wouldn’t bother to meet with them.
“God’s timing is perfect,” Marc says. “Don’t ever be afraid to invite someone to church.”
So they went. Worship was very different from what they were accustomed to in the mosque. People raised their hands and sang joyously. The message hit home. They wound up accepting Jesus in the very first service.
Even from the moment they parked their car in the lot, Ade was crying tears, overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit working in her heart.
“I felt like this is the time, this is it,” she explains. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
They received Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord and were born again.
They kept attending and growing in their faith. Marc learned that he didn’t need to accept Jesus every service. He also learned that Jesus is much more than a prophet (Islam deprives Jesus of his divinity).
He is not only the Son of God; He is God.
Today, Marc and Ade are still serving Jesus. They have a conversation-starting clothing brand called “Iron Ministry” (from Proverbs: Iron sharpens iron).
To learn more about a personal relationship with Jesus, click here.
About this writer: Sandra Marroquin studies at the Lighthouse Christian Academy near South Central Los Angeles.
