When Samir started attending Crosspoint Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, he was committed to Islam.
“I always wanted a relationship with God,” Samir said. Raised as a Muslim in Alexandria, Egypt, he’d always had a lot of questions about God. He wanted a religion that combined faith and understanding. But he found that many Muslims around him were wary of his curiosity.
“Why can’t we ask those questions?” Samir said. “If God allowed me and my brain, that he created, to go to that extent … he wants me to understand what I’m believing.”
Samir moved to the U.S. when he was 15. In high school, he made two friends who became strong influences in his life — both of whom happened to be Christ followers. They began sharing their faith with Samir in different ways.
“We had many conversations about God and what we believe,” Samir said.
A few years later, Samir met Emily, who is now his wife. Emily grew up in Crosspoint and became Samir’s first link to the church.
“I didn't have any family around,” Samir said. Seeing the community Emily had access to, “I kind of envied that.” So, he encouraged Emily to go to church with her family and joined her there — more so he could meet her family than desiring to participate, though he still had many questions about faith and religion.
For a while, Samir visited Crosspoint on and off out of curiosity. Emily’s father, Dale Carson, grew into a major figure in his life, although their relationship had a rocky start. Samir’s continued Muslim faith was a source of deep concern for Emily’s family. When Samir and Emily decided to get married, Samir went to church to get Dale’s permission.
“When I asked him,” Samir shared, “he said, ‘You're a great guy. I love you. Got nothing against you, but I can't bless this marriage.’” Dale had many conversations with the couple to express his disapproval and try to persuade them that they needed a united relationship with God.
Despite that tension, however, Dale showed deep love for Samir and Emily. To Samir, whose relationship with his own father had never been strong, Dale’s example was powerful. “I saw how he was as a parent, how he was as a husband, how he was as a friend, you know, and a man of God, too. He just lived the gospel.”
After marrying Emily, Samir continued attending Crosspoint when he wasn’t too busy with work. His two close high school friends go to Crosspoint, and over the years, Samir often discussed theology with them and Crosspoint’s pastors.
As time passed, Samir noticed something. “For four years before I even came to Christ … I don’t know what it was. It was like a heavy stone on my heart … I'm not even joking, I thought many times that I even have some heart problems, and I went to a doctor.”
Seeking relief, Samir turned to prayer. “Every morning I asked, please, God, show me the way,” he said.
He wrestled with the different faith models he’d seen in his life from Muslim family members and Christian friends. “I felt Islam was needing to keep a scorebook with you,” Samir related, “the more I do good, the more points I would get with God to get to heaven … Our relationship with God should not, it cannot be like that.”
Years passed without a breakthrough for Samir’s heavy heart. Sadly, his father-in-law, Dale, passed away in November 2021 while Samir still followed Islam.
But on a cold January afternoon in 2023, Samir sat alone in his food truck, which Dale had built with him before passing. Business was slow. “My wife sent me a four-minute or three-minute clip,” Samir said. The video was an explanation of the Trinity by Nabeel Qureshi.
Some time before, one of Samir’s longtime friends had given him a copy of Qureshi’s book “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus,” but he hadn’t gotten around to reading it. The video was his introduction to Qureshi, and as he watched, the idea of the Trinity finally clicked.
Suddenly, he had a new question. “What if this is true?” Right away, he wanted to speak with someone from Crosspoint. “I got to the point where I was scared to leave the truck, because if I die right now and I'm not on the right track, what will really happen?”
That night, the friend who’d given him Qureshi’s book listened for over three hours while Samir processed. He began to see all the ways God had worked in his life up to that point. A few days later, Samir met with Crosspoint’s executive pastor, Glen Robinson, and committed his life to Jesus.
Ten years had passed since he started attending Crosspoint as a Muslim. While he still had a lot of uncertainties, Samir was sure about one thing: “This is a God I want to worship. The God with unconditional love, the God that served me before I even thought about serving him.”
Crosspoint’s lead pastor, Josh Ratliff, shared, “He wanted to be baptized right away.” Baptism was a bold step for Samir, whose mother and sisters were still following Islam.
“He went through with his baptism thinking he could lose everything on that side of the family,” Pastor Josh said. “But what he found was that God was faithful and had prepared the hearts of his family.”
The church continues to pray for Samir’s relatives in Egypt, who have now heard his story and were more accepting of his choice to follow Jesus than he expected.
Samir is grateful for the people God surrounded him with throughout his journey to Christ. He recommends Dale’s approach to sharing about Jesus with nonbelievers: “Love them unconditionally. Show them what you believe in versus telling them about it.”