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Posted: October 18, 2008 - 14:29 CT
A couple of weekends back, I was privileged to meet a most
improbable minister for Christ. His story is an
incredible testimony to the Grace of God. He is a
former sniper, bodyguard and chauffeur for PLO terrorist
leader Yasser Arafat, but has now traded in his rifle and
grenades for a more powerful weapon, a Bible. Like the
Apostle Paul in the first century, he now carries the Gospel
message to the very people he once persecuted.
Taysir (Tass) Abu Saada was born in the Gaza Strip in 1951.
After growing weary of refugee life, his parents immigrated
to Saudi Arabia where he was raised a Muslim and was taught
to hate the Jews, even their very existence. After the
Israeli victory over the Arabs in the 1967 war, his desire
t0 return and fight to redeem the Arab pride boiled over.
Without his family's knowledge or consent, Tass traveled to
Syria and joined Arafat's PLO Fatah Forces where he was
trained as a sniper and assassin to kill Jews. He
later also trained Arab children to fight and kill Jews.
If he found a home belonging to followers of Jesus, he would
sometimes throw a grenade inside and bombard it with a
barrage of machine-gun fire. He has no idea how many
people were killed and wounded in such attacks.
In 1974, Tass came to the United States. He found
Americans generally to be loving and caring, completely
opposite of what he had been taught, so he decided to stay
by marrying an American girl (Karen). He originally
intended to dump her after a few years and go back to the
Middle East, but God had other plans for him. Before
long, he achieved success working in the hotel and
restaurant industries in Kansas City, Missouri, finally
opening his own restaurant. It was here that he met an
American pastor named Charlie Sharpe, a man who would be an
instrument in his amazing, supernatural conversion.
One day, Charlie mentioned to Tass about a "spiritual
connection" he enjoyed, which brought miraculous blessings
and peace. When Tass asked him what this connection
was, Charlie refused to tell him, saying that Tass was "not
ready yet". Weeks went by as Tass pondered what this
connection might be. He had trouble eating and
sleeping, finally getting on his knees in front of his
customers to beg Charlie to give him the secret.
Charlie told him to come by his office the following week.
A Supernatural Conversion
When the day finally came, Tass rushed to Charlie's office only to be told, "Tass, to
have the peace that I have, you must love the Jews".
Tass, whose hatred of the Jews was still so strong that he
even dreamed of poisoning Jews who frequented his
restaurant, turned to leave, but Charlie persuaded him to
stay and give him a few minutes. Charlie then asked
him what he knew about Jesus Christ. Tass replied "I
know Jesus, he's a prophet." Charlie said "Well, he's
more than that. He's the Son of God... He is God".
Charlie then got a Bible and placed it between them on the
couch. He then began to read from the Gospel of John
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God" (Jn 1:1). Tass recalls
"When he started reading, I started shaking violently and I
lost consciousness. The next thing I know is I'm on my
knees on the floor with my hands lifted up, inviting Christ
to be my Lord and Savior. I felt like a mountain
lifted off my shoulder and a joy and peace came into my
heart that I'd never experienced before." Charlie,
with tears flowing, said "Man, I've never seen anything like
this in my life," He hugged Tass and asked "Do you know what
happened?" Tass, still shaking, relied "No".
"You've become a Christian," Charlie told him. "Well,
if the reason I'm feeling the way I'm feeling in my heart is
because he is the Son of God, then I want him to be my Lord
and Savior."
The next morning, Tass couldn't wait to tell his 18-year old
son, Benali, who happened to be shaving at the time.
When Tass blurted out to his son, "Yesterday, I accepted
Jesus as my Lord and Savior", he received a most unexpected
reaction. Benali started crying, hugging his father,
as shaving cream slopped all over their faces. Knowing
his son was a Muslim, Tass puzzled "Wait a minute, Why are
you happy for me?" To his astonishment, Benali
explained the he had accepted Christ three months before,
but was reluctant to tell anyone. He had asked his
pastor what he should do, knowing that his father would
"kill me when he finds out." The pastor told him, "Go
back to your father's house and love him more." The
pastor had then called a special meeting at the church,
asking that a 24-hour a day prayer chain be established for
Benali's family. Tass then realized that "They prayed
for me for three months until they made my life so miserable
that I had to look up for answers."
A New Life
Since their conversion in
1993, Tass and Karen formed the
Hope for Ishmael ministry, and have been taking the message of Jesus
back to the people he once hated and persecuted, the Jews
and the Arab Christians, and to his former brethren, the
Muslims. Tass spoke of the time, about just six months
before Arafat died, when he was basically a prisoner,
surrounded by Israeli troops in his bombed-out Ramallah
headquarters. During this time, Arafat welcomed his
former bodyguard back, fully aware of his conversion to
Christianity. Taas took this opportunity to share with
his former boss and childhood hero about the God of love,
peace and forgiveness that he had come to know. He
began the conversation by asking Arafat, "Do you know how
God created man?" Arafat answered "Yes, from the dust."
Tass replied "That's right, but do you know how?" After
Arafat asked "How", Tass got on his knees to demonstrate
as he
explained that God "scooped up some dirt from the earth and shaped it into
the form of a man, according to the Bible. He then
breathed life into his nostrils". Taas then stood up
and said to the terrorist leader, "When I think about that,
I ask myself how we could take the lives of so many men."
Because there were other Muslims present, Arafat would not
let Tass continue. Shortly after this visit, an
Egyptian pastor and friend of Taas, had an opportunity
to visit with Arafat while he was alone. He reported
to Tass that the terrorist leader "prayed the sinner's
prayer" with him, converting to Christianity. When
Tass asked, "Do you think he understood what was going on?",
the pastor replied "Yes, absolutely, he was very clear."
A few months later on November 11, 2004, Arafat died in a Paris hospital.
Upon Arafat's death, Tass said "When I saw that he had
actually died, my heart broke. I didn't think about
all that had gone astray under his leadership. I
didn't think about all the graft and misrepresentation in
which he had indulged. I only thought about the man
himself, now facing eternity. This was my teenage
hero, the courageous leader who had dared to call the
Palestinian people toward their destiny. He was the
man I would willingly have died to protect. Now he was
nothing but another human being standing before an awesome
God, giving answers to penetrating questions. I don't
know what he said in that final court. I can only
hope that in the recent months he had come to terms with the
Lord of all the earth."
The Only Middle East Solution
As I listened to Tass speak about the current situation in
the Middle East, I couldn't help but wonder how much
different our government policies would be if our leaders
consulted spiritual experts such as Tass Saadu, Whalid
Phares, Gary Frazier and others in addition to the usual
military and political "experts". Tass affirmed the
fact that our government keeps approaching the Arab-Israeli
conflict as a political problem that can be solved by
political solutions. As I write this, Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice
is in Israel trying to persuade them to give away more land
for peace. As Tass can personally attest, the Arabs
don't care about the land, they just want the Jews
exterminated. The conflict is an age-old family feud
between the descendents of Isaac and Ishmael, sons of
Abraham. It is a spiritual problem that requires a
spiritual solution, that is, God must change hearts from
hate to love.
When Tass was converted to Christianity, he felt an
overwhelming love for the Jews. In the meantime, God
was also working in the life of Moran Rosenblit, an Israeli
soldier who had become embittered after a Palestinian
suicide bomber demolished his unit,
killing twenty-two soldiers, seven of which were his close
friends. Becoming more depressed as the death toll
from other battles kept rising, he finally left his loved
ones behind, moved to England and then California, rooming
with a Christian family in Manhattan Beach. As he
watched them exercise their faith, His own questions about
God began to surface. Attending church one day, he
heard a pastor teaching about the blindness of the
Jewish people from the Book of Hebrews. He angrily
confronted the pastor after the service, who explained that
he was not speaking against the Jewish peoples, and
encouraged him to read the Bible for himself. Later,
as he was reading the Bible, "The Holy Spirit just fell down
on me, just filled me up," Moran recalled. "The light
switch went on and from darkness I saw the light, and I
accepted Jesus into my life."
In 2001, Moran attended a conference for Arab and Jewish
believers. "I had friends who were Arabs but I always
watched my back to make sure they wouldn't stab me in the
back," he says. "Israelis can not trust Arabs and
Arabs can not trust Israelis... that's a reality."
During the conference, Moran shared his testimony even
though he remembers that "It was hard for me to share in
front of Arab people, because some of those people might have
been people who killed my friends." As Moran finished
his testimony, a Palestinian man approached him, confessing
that "I was a Fatah fighter." Moran recalls that "I
was in shock, and took a half step backward. He then
looked me in the eyes and he said, 'I love you.' I can't
explain what that did to my heart when he said that."
The Palestinian then did something even more radical.
Moran says "He asked me to forgive him in the name of his
people for my friends who died from suicide bombers.
It was only God's grace that allowed me to forgive him,"
Moran confessed. "It was not my strength that I was
able to forgive him." Then Moran also sought
forgiveness. He says "I asked him to forgive me for
not being able to love him and trust him and for my anger...
and he did." The Palestinian man who approached Moran Rosenblit that day was Tass Saadu.
Soon, small groups of Arab and Jewish believers
were forming and praying together. "Here I was praying with an ex-enemy
in the name of Jesus, the one and only true God," Moran
marveled. Now, Tass and Moran's friendship continues to
grow, speaking to one another almost daily. Moran also
agrees with Tass that, with the Middle East caught in a
repetitive cycle of violent revenge, many are losing hope.
He says "I don't think there is a political solution.
I believe there needs to be a change of heart to love.
People can only live in peace together through Jesus Christ,
and that's the only way to bring peace." Moran
continues "Do you want a picture of the solution for the
Middle East? If God changed my heart and Tass' heart he can
change anyone's heart. God delivered me from this
hatefulness toward Arabs and he's been teaching me to love
my enemies."
Moran Rosenblit is now the executive director of Hope for
Israel, reaching out with the hope and good news of Jesus
Christ to Jewish people in Israel and around the world.
Check out his
HFI website.
See our ministry article
Hope for
Ishmael
for more about Tass Saadu and his ministry.
His new Book, Once an Arafat Man, is available at
Amazon.
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Comments
Nov 22, 2008 - 21:24
KarenFaith -
Dallas, TX writes:
Wow – that’s very cool – I was happy to see your blog
article on Tass and Karen! They were just here with us again
all week – and we had several speaking engagements set up
for them. I’m so happy that you had the opportunity to meet
them – and loved the article.
You might also want to recommend the video “Forbidden Peace”
that has Tass and Moran’s stories and the others of
Palestinians and Jews coming together in the love of Jesus –
you can order it online from Jews for Jesus.
Nov 24, 2008 - 19:48
Webmaster
replies:
Thanks very much for the tip and kind words, Karen. I
wasn't aware that this video was available. I did some
quick searching and the video is available from
Purple Pomegranate Productions, a division of Jews for
Jesus. I also found a preview at
GodTube, and an old article entitled
A Forbidden Peace by Naomi Rothstein.
We also encourage our readers to visit KarenFaith's
ministry site.
WayCoolAngels is a Christian Ministry that provides
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individuals involved in areas of missions & evangelism,
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