{"id":834,"date":"2015-08-28T15:08:22","date_gmt":"2015-08-28T15:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theprodigalpig.com\/?p=834"},"modified":"2015-08-18T01:18:08","modified_gmt":"2015-08-18T01:18:08","slug":"the-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.theprodigalpig.com\/?p=834","title":{"rendered":"The Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"05-28-15<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Me:\u00a0 Prodigal, who are you with?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Prodigal:\u00a0 I am with a soldier from World War II.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Me:\u00a0 Battles have so many emotions in them.\u00a0 Sometimes we have to fight them though.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Prodigal: Do you have any battle stories for today?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Me:\u00a0 I actually I do.\u00a0 Get relaxed and enjoy this short story.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the book Freedom Fighter there is a short testimony of\u00a0 El Shafie.<\/p>\n

El Shafie was born in a prominent Muslim family in Cairo.\u00a0\u00a0 His father and brother are successful attorneys and an uncle serves as a judge on a high court.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“When you are born into a family like this, you have lots of books on law, justice and freedom.”\u00a0 he said.\u00a0 While studying law in Alexandria (Egypt), El Shafie was reportedly shocked to see the harsh treatment of Christians.\u00a0 Building churches is illegal in Egypt, he said, and Christians are treated worse than second-class citizens.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was about this time that El Shafie began studying the\u00a0Bible and in 1998, at about 20 years of age, he\u00a0gave his life to Christ and organized an underground congregation-worshiping in caves–that attracted 24,000 worshipers within two years.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But trouble began in earnest when El Shafie appealed for\u00a0equal\u00a0rights for Christians.\u00a0\u00a0He was arrested and confined in Abu Jaabel prison in Cairo, a place locals call “Hell on Earth,” charged with inciting a revolution, trying to change Egypt’s religion to Christianity and “worshiping and loving Jesus Christ.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the report, while in custody, El Shafie refused to name names (of his friends and other Christians) so his captors took him to “an underground portion of the prison and tortured him for seven days straight,” shaving his head and holding him under scalding hot then freezing cold water.\u00a0 When that didn’t work, they hung him upside down, beating him with belts, burning him with cigarettes and tearing his toenails out.\u00a0 Finally, the prison guards tied him to a cross and left him there for two and a half days.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After losing consciousness, he found\u00a0himself later waking up in a hospital bed.\u00a0 When a guard tipped him off that he was about to be executed, he escaped out of a back window, rode across the Red Sea on a jet ski, crossed the Sinai Desert and turned himself\u00a0in to the Israeli government where he remained in custody for 16 months while the United Nations and\u00a0Amnesty International investigated his story.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ultimately, he was given political-refugee status and immigrated to Canada.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Becoming a Christian,\u00a0cost El Shafie his home and his family, who have since disowned him, but he gained a new purpose in life as an advocate for persecuted Christians.\u00a0 “This whole thing changed my life,” he said.\u00a0 “I’m not giving up because I know people are going through that.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

To all governments that persecute Christians, El Shafie offers this message:\u00a0 “The persecuted Christians are dying, but they are still smiling.\u00a0 They are in a dark night, but they are still\u00a0holding the light of the Lord.\u00a0 You can kill the dreamer, but you cannot kill the dream.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

God sees what you have given up.\u00a0 He sees how it seems to be\u00a0killing you on the inside.\u00a0 Don’t give up and keep smiling.\u00a0 This is a battle and the Lord will show up as that light and all will be redeemed!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1 John 4:4<\/p>\n

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jennifer Van Allen,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

www.theprodigalpig.com<\/p>\n

www.faithincounseling.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Me:\u00a0 Prodigal, who are you with?   Prodigal:\u00a0 I am with a soldier from World War II.   Me:\u00a0 Battles have so many emotions in them.\u00a0 Sometimes we have to fight them though.   Prodigal: Do you have any battle stories for today?   Me:\u00a0 I actually I do.\u00a0 Get relaxed and enjoy this … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Fight - The Prodigal Pig<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theprodigalpig.com\/?p=834\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Fight - 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