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As soon as I arrived, I noticed several differences compared to the Catholic church. The fact that there were no images. The fact the men sat on one side and the women on the other. We did not pray to the virgin Mary, the “saints”, for the ones who are dead; we didn’t say the “Lord’s prayer,” which was something frequent in the Catholic mass. “Jesus is God.” Because that is what I had believed my whole life. At the time, I mentioned it to a minister, “Why are these things not done in the Church Of Christ?”
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Julien Khalil: My name is Julien Khalil, I am 23 years old. I was born in Syria in the city of Aleppo. I grew up there until I was 14, then came to France in 2012, and have stayed since.
First Explosion
The event that turned my life upside down was the start of the war in Syria. It was in May 2012. I was 13 years old. It all started with the sound of the first explosion. So it was the first bomb that was unexpected. What I felt when I heard those bombs, like everyone else at school at that time, it was: surprise, fear, the unexpected, the shock effect.
I had my eyes fixed on the door. “Will my father or my mother pick me up from school, too?” Because not everyone could go home [because] we were not allowed to leave school alone as a child. I was scared, until I saw my father. That reassured me to know someone had come to get me.
In a film, it can already be traumatic, but this was in real life: destroyed buildings, sets [of] victims on the ground. It was quite traumatic for everyone. We realized that it was not temporary. The attacks continued. There is one after the other. The bombs multiplied. So when we leave our house, to go buy groceries or do something else. We tell ourselves, “Am I going to go back?”
A Little Lost
So among all the countries where we could go to “take refuge,” why France? It’s because we already had family who had been in France for years. And through my mother, we already had French nationality from birth because my mother is French. When arriving in France, our plans were very clearly naïve. We thought we were going to spend a few weeks or a few months maximum. Why did I say these were naïve plans? Because today, it’s been ten years. We are still in France, and the situation has still not improved in Syria.
I Immediately Accepted
After these 4 years, I wanted to resume a little bit of my passion, which was basketball. So I started looking for clubs [for basketball] where I could play, and the part that made me change my plan was the fact that when I saw my level didn’t follow the levels they possessed today, to people with whom for years hadn’t stopped playing—unlike me.
So I wanted to find an alternative. So I became a basketball referee. I had followed the training and one day the French Basketball Federation and one day the French Basketball Federation contacted me to be a referee in a basketball game.
It was one of my first official games being a referee. It wasn’t training, it wasn’t practice. And during the basketball game, I met one of the members in the Church [Of Christ] who was Marlon. So he came and approached me, saying how come I’m a referee? What is my course? What is my background? And I told him that I came from Syria. And he asked me, “Isn’t Syria a Muslim country? Are you a Muslim?” And I said, “No I’m a Christian.” And he said, “That’s great. You could one day come with us to our worship service.” And I immediately accepted.
Several Differences
In the summer of 2017, that day, I remember was a Sunday. I came to the worship service. As soon as I arrived, I noticed several differences compared to the Catholic church. Since my birth, I have always attended catechism, first communion, all masses on Sunday. I never missed religious holidays. God, for us, when I say “we”, it is for me and all my family. We grew up in a Catholic environment, so God was “God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.”
The fact that there were no images,tThe fact that the men sat on one side and the women on the other, that they were all very well dressed, that they arrived on time, that there were officers who directed the members to sit on one side or the other, it was very formal. And the fact that during the worship service, we did not pray to the virgin Mary, the “saints”, for the ones who are dead, we didn’t say the “Lord’s prayer,” which was something frequent in the Catholic mass. At the time I mentioned it to a minister, “Why are these things not done in the Church Of Christ?” And I still remember to this day the way he approached the topic with me by asking, “Broth Julien, I have a question for you, so we can start this discussion. Who is Jesus?” And so of course with confidence, I said, “Jesus is God.” And he told me, “Brother Julien, this is what I was afraid of.” And I said, “Why?” And he read to me the verse that said, where Jesus Christ on the cross said, “That there is only one true God and it is the Father.”
So he told me, “If Jesus himself said that there is only one true God, who is the Father, how can Jesus be God?” And so there it clicked with me immediately and I told myself, “There is something to find or at least to study, to go in depth here in the Church [Of Christ.]” And Brother Daniel had offered to continue my Bible studies.
Answered My Questions
What I immediately appreciated was the fact that the minister was available to answer all of my questions. He didn’t give me a subsequent appointment. He didn’t tell me to come back another day. Right after, he told me if I had any questions, we could see. So we went to his office.
Interviewer: Why did you continue to listen to the Bible studies?
First, all the answers he gave, he knew exactly where to find in the Bible. That is to say, he never explained to me what he thought of my question or my answer. It was a question, and he came out with a verse that answered my question right away. There were also the worship services. There were also the brothers and sisters in the Church who often asked me: did I have any other questions,
could I participate in all these activities? So there was volleyball right around the corner. So all this activity facilitated the exchange of communication between us, which made me want to continue participating in all of the events that took place.
My Faith Developed
The way my faith developed in the Church of Christ has been exponential. I began to want to share what I knew here with my friends, my family. It is absolutely necessary that you know the existence of the Church Of Christ. You will understand the importance of being part of it, of understanding where all these differences came from. There are no doctrines that contradict other doctrines, and especially there are no doctrines that contradict the Bible.
The Privilege To Worship Him
What makes me happy is to be sure when I address God, to be able to have the privilege, in fact, to have my prayers answered. To have the privilege to be able to worship Him. To have the privilege to be able to worship Him. To be able to be part of a big family. To be able to talk about my religion without being ashamed.
To be able to have very solid arguments to argue or convince all the people who want to know more about the religion or the Church Of Christ. So what makes me happy today is the fact that I am in the [right] place, quite simply.
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