Former Taliban from Afghanistan Baptized on Mount Athos
Ahmed was born and raised in a village in Afghanistan in the middle of war. His childhood memories are dust, poverty, and compulsory Islamic education in the sacred writings and war.
“I do not remember anymore who fought whom, however there was constant warfare.” [...]
All these years after work I would go to the outside of the churches in the beginning – something was pulling me there – and afterwards I began to enter within. I would become calm. As my Greek was getting better, I wanted to know more about Christ. I found a New Testament, however it was in a language I did not understand [Koine Greek]. Eventually I found a blue one in the Greek I had learned. I began to read it. I decided that I wanted to become a Christian. I left Athens when the company closed and went to the provinces to find various rural jobs. Eventually I found a small basement apartment in the city nearby. It had a beach. I like the beaches very much in Greece. Shortly before Pascha in 2013, I decided to ask to become a Christian.”
On Wednesday June 5th, in the evening, on Mid-Pentecost according to the Old Calendar, on the balcony of the Athonite Cell of Marouda over Karyes, looking towards the Skete of Saint Andrew and the endless blue Aegean, the same sea he crossed one night from the opposite direction, under a beautiful sky and brilliant sun, Ahmed became a Christian.
He took the name Alexander.
http://journeytoorthodoxy.com/2013/0...n-mount-athos/
