From being an aspiring church leader to lowly prisoner, a 70 year old grandfather has finally found rest and contentment at a local church as a gatekeeper of the house of his God.
Brother Y, going by his first name initial, laughed readily, identifying himself with Psalm 84.10 :
“For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand.
I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
For the LORD GOD is a sun and shield: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly”.
“Here at this church, I am a security guard and handy man. I really cherish the brethrens’ fellowship and the peace of the Lord Jesus. I want to put my past behind now.
“My wife, who is 50 is very happy to be in a prayer house. We are fervently praying for our daughter. We will not stop believing that she will return to the Lord”.
Y, who spent eight years and eight months for alleged rape “something I never did” from 2005, was totally unaware that studying the lives of Joseph (thrown very young into prison on a false rape charge, later became Prime Minister of Egypt then) and Daniel (exiled young, became a mighty prophet) in a Bible programme for a year earlier, the Holy Spirit was actually preparing him ahead for long prison stints.
“No, I wasn’t bitter with the Lord Jesus when it happened, although the studies had only prepared me about 50 percent for it,” he said when asked.
Y said trouble begun when his problematic runaway daughter accused him of rape aided chiefly by her “sinister” boyfriend.
“When I took her to clinic to check her pregnancy, they both framed me and I was arrested,” he recounted the ordeal in Tambunan, a Dusun township in the interior of Sabah, where he was a divisional church leader.
At the police station he chose to admit under heavy stress and in deep feelings of betrayal, and fearing harsh police interrogations.
“I admitted it because I told myself I will just die in prison,” Y said.
When the case came to the court, he was jailed 19 years.
At Kepayan Prisons, he was told by senior police prosecuting officers that he could have won the case and gone free because the alleged crime was based on verbal accusation without the crucial DNA report to prove rape or sexual contact by him.
“A lawyer came to see me in prison offering to fight for RM38,000. But I didn’t have the money.
“I decided to fast 40 days on part water and meals and pray to the Lord Jesus for help. The same year my sentence was reduced to 13 years. Even the police officers were surprised,” he noted happily.
“When I entered prison, I was gripped with killing myself and my daughter’s boyfriend who framed me.
“I had already bartered 30 Piriton pills (a kind of sedative) with 30 packets of instant noodles to sleep into suicide.
“But the Lord Jesus stopped me from suicide and murder through dreams during the long fasting! And through Prison Fellowship Malaysia (PFM)’s ministry and its CEO Bro. Prem Kumar’s regular sharing of the Word,” Y testified.
“I was healed and delivered through two particular dreams, where I saw a tap and basin made of pure gold but the running water from the tap was clear as crystal, almost invisible.
“Being delivered, and healed from anger, suicide and murder was my greatest breakthrough from the Lord Jesus in the fasting!” he said repeating it.
Even the hardship,of sharing a cell with 105 inmates and one toilet didn’t deter Y from fasting his second 40 days in the second year.
During his earlier fast, he shared a cell with 80 over, the size of a small thriving church.
He said shortly after one month in jail, the Lord continued to favour him by giving him a job at the prison’s workshop, while others serving longer were bypassed by prison authorities.
“During my prison term, I never lacked. I used to get money into my bank account from close friends, between RM 500-1000.”
Y said Jesus also showed him a vision of a wide mouth con shaped bamboo hat, the kind paddy farmers wear for harvesting, erected and filled with water.
“But it had a twisted mouth at the normally round brim, which the Lord said portrays society’s bad image and bad-mouthing of prisoners,” he said.
He was released in 2013.
“Good news is lately our daughter has been sending money to us,” said Y whose beaming face and bright eyes, and nearly 15 years younger look on a thin body frame of 5.1 feet complement his wife’s radiance and energetic pace and ready smiles.
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Samuel Nijjar
NOTE: Identities of persons within the testimony has been kept hidden for confidentiality purposes. Some pictures used solely for illustrative purposes.
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