You are not a Pakistani but a Christian!

“Our teacher was teaching us about the culture of Pakistan and Pakistani people and  quoted a sentence from the text book saying 'We are Pakistani and all of us are Muslims'," the girl recalled. "At this point I interrupted and said: "Madam, I am also a Pakistani, but not a Muslim instead I am a Christian."

The teacher, identified as Humaira Hassa,  "got furious and grabbed a bamboo stick and started thrashing in a barbarian way and kept saying all Pakistanis are Muslim, you are not a Pakistani but a Christian," the girl said. "Your homeland is somewhere in Europe or America," the teacher allegedly said.

This is the testimony of 11-year-old Nadia Iftikhar who made the mistake of claiming to be a genuine Pakistani even though she is a Christian in school earlier today. In response, her teacher beat her into unconsciousness.

Her father has decided not to take the incident to the police; he simply doesn’t have the money to pursue this.  Whether the sixth grade student will be welcome back in school where she has been studying the past three years is still uncertain.  But one must admire her courage and true patriotism in the finest sense of the word. Pakistan would be greatly enriched by having such citizens. Christians are consistently the best citizens that a country can have, yet so often, their rights are denied and their loyalties are suspect simply because of their commitment to Christ.  It is true that Christians can never been unconditionally patriotic, yet whenever possible, we do seek to obey the laws of the land and deal honestly in our actions.

Please pray for Nadia as she recuperates from the beating and thank God for her courage.  May we follow her example! Feel free to leave a prayer on her behalf on our Persecuted Church Prayer Wall.

Philip. 3:20 (ESV) - But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ…