How the Gospel of Luke changed the life of a former drug dealer

Algeria is a hostile place to be a Christian, but Christianity is growing. For former-drug dealer, Idir, life has been transformed through discovering Christ – and it all began with the Gospel of Luke… 

Back in the 1980s, there were about 2,000 Christians in Algeria. Today it’s estimated that there could be as many as 200,000.

Idir, 37 from the Kabylie region, is one of many Algerian Christians who has engaged with the Bible for the first time through Bible Society – he told us about how he became a Christian after reading the Gospel of Luke.

Idir said, ‘in the early 2000s Christians here used to meet in hiding, under the trees in the mountains. This is also when the first Gospels were distributed in our area and one of our cousins brought one to my parents’ house.’

Love and peace like never before

Idir used to be a drug user and heavy drinker. Unable to pay for his addictions he had also become a drug dealer. He read the Gospel of Luke not expecting to find anything of note in it. But he remembers being struck by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

‘This was so different from anything I had ever heard’, Idir told us. ‘It spoke of love and peace and hope! I was feeling so tired and discouraged and I wondered if Christ could be the way.’

I wondered if Christ could be the way

Idir didn’t become a Christian immediately, in fact it took many years for him to come to faith and overcome his addictions. When he did become a Christian he fully embraced his new-found faith and changed – for good.

But this wasn’t easy for Idir – at first his family was hostile to his Christianity. But his mother, Aldijah, asked him lots of questions. He later heard she’d been watching the Christian TV programmes when nobody was around and had first heard about Christ around the same time he did. But she insisted she was too old to change her religion now.

A faith that spreads

      

Aldijah listens to the Bible on her audio recorder

But when Aldijah saw the change the Bible brought to Idir’s life she went to church with him. Incredibly she also became a Christian and was baptised.

God uses his word to speak to me and support me

The rest of the family hasn’t allowed her to go back to church since then, but she’s still able to hear God speak through the Bible.

‘God uses his word to speak to me and support me. I especially find comfort in the Psalms, but what touched me the most was God’s love for me... God loves me? This was unheard of!’

Please join us in praying for Idir, Aldijah, and the many Christians across Algeria that they would continue to be strengthened as they engage with the Bible.

Pray with us