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When you pass the palm oil plantations, keep driving until the forest turns from palm trees to rubber trees. When you start to see the tiny buckets collecting that day's rubber harvest, you'll know you're almost there. When you see the small church building surrounded by stilt houses, you've arrived.
This small village in the mountainous lake region of West Malaysia is home to Romi and his family. They belong to the Semelai tribe--part of the Orang Asli, the original indigenous inhabitants of the Malaysian peninsula. "We are the original people of this land," Romi says. "We have lived in Malaysia for 600 years. We farm our own lands, and that's how we live."
"I was 34 years old when I truly became a Christian. That's when I truly met the Lord Jesus Christ."
Romi, Malaysian believer
Romi grew up considering himself a Christian. He didn't really know anything about the Christian faith, other than the fact he celebrated Christmas. But he thought nothing of dabbling in the superstitious and traditional practices of his community. He believed in witchcraft and knew he could ask the local witch doctor for healing.
Why?
Because he didn't understand the Bible.
Romi and his family live in an open-air stilt house--a construction that provides some relief from the non-stop heat and humidity in this part of Malaysia. Chickens and dogs roam the grounds, and children race one another in and out of the fruit trees.
Romi is a rubber farmer, like many men in this small cluster of houses. Each day, he checks the small containers attached to the rubber trees, seeing if they're full of the natural latex he'll sell to the rubber producers in this part of the country.
Romi grew up with a Christian mother, and his father passed away before he was born. He's not entirely sure how she first heard about Jesus, but it's likely there was a missionary who came to his small village. Romi says his mother followed Jesus from then on. "[My mother] never lived her life selfishly," he says. "She depended on God. She never ignored or forgot God."
Naturally, Romi followed his mother's example. "I started to understand and learn about this religion through my mother," he explains. "We just followed along with her, but we didn't know anything." He saw her pray, but didn't know what it meant. He and the other Christians in the village celebrated Christmas--but knew nothing about Jesus.
"When I was a child, I didn't really know Jesus," Romi remembers. "We've known the name 'Jesus' forever, but we never thought of Him as our Savior."
It wasn't that he didn't try to learn about the faith. He would steal his mother's Bible to read when she wasn't looking. But it wasn't in his language--it was only available in Indonesian, a language similar to Malay but difficult for a child to understand. Even when he could decipher the language, it didn't help. "I didn't really understand what I was reading," he says. "There was no one there to teach me about the scripture and what it meant."
Romi says the most he learned about Jesus was from his experience in school, being taught by a non-Christian who told him about Isa--a man regarded by other religions as a prophet. "I learned about Isa before I learned about Jesus," he says, "because I learned about it in school."
That's why it was so easy for him to ignore the Christian faith of his mother and go along with whatever his community told him was true.
The community around Romi was not friendly to a shallow understanding of the Christian faith. "When I was a child, even though I believed in Jesus, in our culture, believing in witchcraft was normal," Romi says. "Witch doctors could heal ... that's why we believed. I would buy the medicine from witch doctors, and the various tools they used for their rituals. I just followed along."
Romi's mother was in a difficult position. She herself likely knew very little about the Christian faith--after her conversion, she had a Bible, but there was no one to disciple her or her family. It's an all-too-common situation in Malaysia, where indigenous believers regard themselves as Christians, but have no opportunity to grow in faith, be baptized or understand what faith in Jesus actually means.
This lack of knowledge creates a situation like the one Jesus talks about in the parable of the sower, when the sower throws seeds that fall on rocky ground. The seeds spring up quickly in the shallow soil, but soon die out because they don't have deep roots. "The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy," Jesus says in Matthew 13:20-21. "But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away."
That's why Romi continued to seek out the witch doctor for healing and put his trust in empty rituals--he lacked the roots to withstand even the slightest challenge to his faith from other beliefs.
He lived his life in this way until he was 34 ... until he finally heard the truth about Jesus, a name he know--but a Person he'd never truly met.
In 2000, a Chinese evangelist came to their village. The evangelist explained who Jesus is, what it means to follow Him and how to read the Bible--and it changed Romi's life forever. "I was 34 years old when I truly became a Christian," Romi says. "That's when I truly met the Lord Jesus Christ. That experience completely changed my life--stepping out of the old life and into the new one."
The evangelist helped them see that the way of Jesus meant not getting drunk on alcohol or trusting in the healing power of witchcraft. "Before this, no one told us witchcraft is bad," Romi says. "But the evangelist taught us this was a sin. That's how we started to learn the Bible."
The evangelist also brought in a pastor for the village. "The pastor came and lived with us in our village," Romi says, "to teach us the Bible and [disciple us]. Now we know how to pray and share what we learned from the Bible."
The evangelist in Romi's village also brought Bibles with him; the first time Romi and the other believers in the village had access to God's Word in a language they could fully understand. With the help of the pastor, the Scriptures began to take root in Romi's heart. "When I first read the Bible, I didn't feel anything because I didn't understand it," Romi remembers. "They taught us to repeat what we had read. We learned to understand scripture from reading it many times."
Romi's life was transformed ... but it didn't mean his troubles were over.
For starters, just because Romi had found true faith in Jesus didn't mean those in his community had done the same. He lost some relationships. "I have neighbors and friends who have different views than I do," Romi says. "Some understand and others don't that I've become a Christian. They don't care about us or want to hang out with us anymore."
Even Romi's own family wasn't quite sure how his new faith in Jesus might change his life. He saw that his own children would still seek healing from witch doctors, even though Romi knew it was wrong. "When I hear my children [will] see the witch doctor [when they're sick], that makes me sad," Romi says. "Because those who aren't strong in their faith will prioritize the culture and indigenous beliefs."
Romi's daughter, Wafa, went to the witch doctor when she was sick or needed healing for people she cares about. "That was the only thing we knew that can help us recover," she says. "We did not know about Jesus." When Romi's wife was sick, Romi's mother-in-law asked Wafa to go to the witch doctor. Clearly, the new understanding of faith in Christ had not reached everyone.
When Romi's brother (also a follower of Jesus) passed away, Romi and his family did a Christian funeral service and prayed together. But his nephews and nieces weren't believers--and they wanted to continue in the old traditions to protect them from the consequences of their father's death. "When we reached his house, every item he had was to be used in a ritual," Romi says. His brother's family believed they needed to ritually cleanse every item left behind with blood in order to avoid evil spirits.
Romi used the incident as a way to share the gospel. "I told them that as Christians we don't need to participate in these rituals because we believe through the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross, all our sins are forgiven, and therefore the dark powers have no hold on us," Romi says. He realized his faith in Jesus might seem strange, but it was an opportunity to tell others what Christ means to him.
Romi also knows that there is always pressure to give up on following Jesus because of where he lives. If he leaves Christianity, it could help him in community standing and even government benefits. He could guarantee better futures for his children if he simply left Jesus for another religion. But he holds firm, trusting in the truth of the gospel. "My hope is, no matter the resistance we might face as Christians, we keep holding on to Jesus," he says. "No matter the testing or the bribes we might receive, we believe in Jesus who is alive and worthy of worship. We don't have to change our religion. We stay faithful to Jesus."
What has helped Romi stand strong in his faith--and even encouraged his family to do the same--are the Bibles, discipleship materials and discipleship programs supported by Open Doors' partners in Malaysia. The pastor who has helped Romi in his faith is an Open Doors partner, and thanks to your gifts and prayers, the village got multiple copies of God's Word along with study materials. Now, Christians in the community are able to regularly meet to study and discuss the Scriptures.
"The benefit of the discipleship programs ... Before this, we didn't know how to pray. Now we do," Romi shares. "Many believers didn't know how to share or discuss the Scriptures with each other, but they now share what they read with each other and share testimonies. We've learned so much from the discipleship programs."
Miraculously, the programs and Bible studies also helped Romi's daughter Wafa. She began to realize that seeking out witchcraft for healing was against God's Word. "I learned many things from Bible study which taught me things that I should do and things that I should avoid," she says. "Now, I know Jesus is God and I know that I can pray to Jesus for healing and Jesus is the only one that I can depend on." Wafa now serves in the youth ministry at the village church.
For Romi, it all starts with the Bible and the understanding of God's Word. "For me, the Bible is extremely important," he says. "Because the Bible teaches us everything. In our questions, we are conversing with God, and that's very important. What the Bible says we can't do is like God telling us directly. That's what's important."
Romi knows how fragile faith in Jesus can be in this part of Malaysia. He's seen how easy it can be to return to traditional practices that are contrary to God's Word. And he knows there is a constant temptation for believers--especially young believers--to turn from Jesus if they lack a deep faith. "I worry that in the future young people would change their religion from Christianity to another religion," he says. "That happens often even though we are active Christians. If a Christian woman, for example, wants to marry a Malay man, she has no choice but to convert to his religion. That's my worry for the future."
Christians in Malaysia and around the world live under constant pressure to leave their faith in Jesus. Without access to Bibles and discipleship, many believers living in this type of environment--where they are persecuted or discriminated against for their faith--will give up their faith in Christ. That's why Open Doors' partners work to ensure every persecuted Christian has access to God's Word, along with the tools to understand it.
This was the motivation of Open Doors' partners when they provided these resources to Romi's village. Both Romi and Wafa see that access to Bibles and discipleship are key to making sure the Christian faith survives these types of challenges. "It is very good if the young people get to read the Bible because it teaches us about Jesus and the way we should live," Wafa shares.
"I hope that believers will continue to believe in Jesus Christ so that there are no other gods that they turn to but Jesus," Romi says. "No matter the challenge they will keep holding onto Jesus."
Open Doors works through partners around the world to provide Bibles and discipleship resources to persecuted Christians who experience pressure and persecution for their faith. A gift of $10 today can help provide a persecuted believer with a copy of God's Word and the tools to understand it.