PAKISTAN: My Parents Showed How to Be a True Follower of Christ

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The Voice of the Martyrs

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4.9 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

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Summary

Dr. Yousaf Sadiq was born into a Christian family in Pakistan. He will share how his ancestors came to faith in Christ in India out of Hinduism. While his parents never had the opportunity to go to school and learn to read and write, Yousaf shares how they saw education as a privilege.

His mother worked as a cleaner at a local school so that Yousaf and some of his ten siblings would have an opportunity to be educated. In the evenings, he would help his mother clean the school where he was a student during the day. Despite their deep poverty, Yousaf gratefully recounts how his family’s needs were always met.

Today Yousaf is a professor at Wheaton College and co-leader of the Lausanne Persecuted Church Initiative. He remembers how his parents invested time and energy in training their children to walk with the Lord, and how they led by example.

“There was a strong training and guidance by our parents,” Yousaf said, “They would wake up early in the morning to pray, showing us that prayer was vital.”

Yousaf also shares what it looks like to live in Pakistan as a Christian. There are many pressures within the society, but Yousaf understood at a young age that Christian persecution is part of following Christ.

“I felt not only strengthened but also privileged that this was happening,” he says.

Pray for persecuted Christians in Pakistan and be encouraged by the faith our brothers and sisters display. You can learn more about Christian persecution in Pakistan through VOM Radio interviews with Dr. Michael Reeves, “Brother Johanna” and Kenneth Charles.

The VOM App for your smartphone or tablet will help you pray daily for persecuted Christians throughout the year, as well as provide free access to e-books, audiobooks, video content and feature films. Download the VOM App for your iOS or Android device today.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I've seen, I would say, poverty growing up, born in a very underprivileged sort of background.
0:07.0	But this is when you realize the power of prayer, is that you start your day knowing God is your strength,
0:15.0	and God is going to sustain you, and God is going to protect you.
0:20.0	Jesus never promised his followers an easy path.
0:24.6	In fact, he told his disciples that the world would hate them.
0:28.6	He sent them out as sheep among wolves.
0:31.6	Jesus' words came true in the life of the Apostles,
0:34.6	and they're still coming true today in the lives of his followers around the world. Join host Todd Nettleton as we hear their inspiring stories and learn how we can help right now on the Voice of the Martyrs Radio Network. Welcome again to The Voice of the Martyrs Radio. My name is Todd Nettleton, and we are in our studio this week in Bartlesville, Oklahoma with Yusuf Saddique. He is a professor at Wheaton College.
0:56.4	We will talk a little bit about that. He is also the co-leader of the Luzon-persecuted Church
1:02.7	Initiative. And we're going to talk about that as well. Yusuf, welcome to the Voice of the Martyrs Radio.
1:08.0	Well, Todd, thank you so much for the invitation. I truly
1:11.6	appreciate. Well, we are excited to have you here, and I want to start out with your background
1:17.6	because you are Pakistani. You grew up as a Christian in a Muslim country, in a Muslim context.
1:25.0	Talk a little bit about your family background and growing up in that context
1:30.1	where all your classmates were Muslims and they weren't necessarily happy to have a Christian
1:35.0	in their class.
1:36.4	I would go back to in order for a better understanding of who are Christians in Pakistan.
1:44.0	This all goes back to the late 19th century, a group of people
1:49.0	today known as the Dalits or the Untouchables. And I would say a vast majority of today's Christians in Pakistan
1:58.0	belong to that untouchable or Dalit background.
2:01.6	And in the late 19th century, in fact, a man from the state of Illinois went to the Punjab region of India
2:09.6	and fasted for 10 days for a revival.
	...

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