A spike in violence against Christians has many converts scared and attempting to flee their predominantly Muslim homeland of Egypt.
Maher and Dina Elgohary, a father and daughter duo, plus a family friend named Rania have been pleading for the western world’s help to permanently escape persecution for their Christianity in the Islamic nation where Elgohary’s request for religious freedom was denied.
Photo from Cyprus Mail
Prior to their family’s latest plea, the father fled to Europe and then shortly went to the United States. Coming back to the country when he felt that his now 22-year-old daughter needed him because she was being forced to marry a relative.
As a teen, Dina wrote a letter to President Obama and pleaded the case to let her and her father into the United States.
In the past thirty days the brutal attacks against the Coptic Christians, an ancient sect of the Christian faith, has escalated and forced them to go to Cyrpus.
Elgohary found the Christian faith after he saw a vision of Jesus, one that was confirmed shortly after he borrowed a Bible from a friend and read the Lord’s prayer.
He said, “I was reading the Lord’s Prayer and Jesus appeared before me. There was so much light, it lit up the room. I felt unbelievable happiness, I have never felt like this before.”
His new faithful allegiance went against his family and put his name on a chopping block, even with his wife, a woman he is now divorced from. All because of his faith in the Lord.
When Dina’s dad went back to Egypt to protect his daughter from a family marriage, he was attacked by three men in a hotel room and burned with hot steel irons for coming back.
Most recently the father and daughter were were forced to denounce their faith and say they found Islam, after which a story was published in an Islamic newspaper stating that both have returned to Islam, according to Cyprus Mail.
The two explained that they did so out of force and fear for their life.
Now in Cyrpus the family and friend are hoping they can life a peaceful and relaxed life.
Saying, “Please, (Cyprus) we beg you for your protection and mercy,” said Maher. “We want to have a relaxed life, to start actually living and not to be persecuted for what we believe.”
(H/T Cyprus Mail)