Sometimes a scent will bring Marc right back to his prison cell.

A whiff in the market, a waft down an alley as he passes. And each time, something inside him freezes. He never wants to go to prison again.

When Marc first became a Christian in North Africa, he tried to hide his faith. But eventually, the secret police found out, and they put him in prison for three weeks.

“That was a very, very hard time for me,” he said.

When he was released, his family sent him to Mecca to complete the Muslim pilgrimage. They hoped this would bring him back to Allah.

“Instead, it had the opposite effect,” Marc said. “Whereas before I was floundering as a new follower of Jesus, … the experience in Mecca made me absolutely certain: believing in Allah was leading me down the wrong path.”

Marc was so certain; he took a big risk. One day, he stood among the throng of Muslim pilgrims before a long wall where many pilgrims write inspiring messages from the Quran. Marc wrote on the wall: “JESUS is the son of God.”

“If anyone had noticed, I would have been killed,” he said. But in that moment, Marc released his old beliefs as new ones about following Jesus became clear.

Despite his clarity, life hasn’t been easy.

“A Jesus follower in my country sacrifices a normal life. Every day I am haunted by fear that they will arrest me again,” Marc said. “It could happen at any time.”

Marc is still traumatized by his weeks in prison. Whenever he smells the scent of the cell, the awful words of his prison guards come back to him.

Today, Marc says, his country is even worse than it was when he was arrested, because the government is more strongly Islamist than before and “doesn’t hesitate to deal with Christian converts,” he said.

Marc’s ministry partner, Simon, is younger, but he has also spent time in prison for his faith.

Simon grew up in a Muslim family. As a teenager, many of his friends were becoming radicalized and going off to fight in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Many of them died. One night, Jesus came to Simon in a vision and declared that Simon was his child.

“I knew this was a completely different voice to that of Allah,” Simon said, “because in Islam, no one can be a child of God.”

Simon immediately became a follower of Jesus and told his family. They disinherited him and kicked him out of the house. The hardest part for him was that he could no longer go to school.

“It really hurt me… because I love learning and literature,” he said.

Simon freely spoke about his faith with everyone. He was arrested multiple times. He was tortured. He was constantly on the run. He couldn’t work and was severely depressed.

Years later, Simon still feels the effects of depression. “But I have seen God’s glory,” he said. He lost his biological family, but he gained a Christian family. He went back to school eventually, earned multiple degrees, pursued a career, and built a thriving business.

“Many people know that I am a Christian, and they take me as a role model,” he said.

He tries to help other young believers prepare for persecution. He doesn’t want them to face what he went through. Before, Simon was convinced he could argue people into the kingdom of God. Today, he tells younger believers to be more careful.

Life as a Christian is a life of sacrifice. He would like to be married, but he doesn’t see any opportunity for that.

“It’s something I have to do without because I’m a Christian,” he said.

Because Simon was born a Muslim, it is illegal to marry someone from a Christian background. If he marries a Muslim woman, there is a good chance he would be arrested and tortured if his wife found out about his faith. The only option is to find a woman from a Muslim background who is also a follower of Jesus.

“There are very few of them in my country.” Simon said. “Pray with me that God will give me such a partner.”

Despite the sufferings and sacrifices, for Simon, his life with Christ has eternal significance. “I know persecution in every dimension,” Simon said. “And yet I know that without Jesus, I would have died long ago in a trench for a wrong cause. God had a better plan for me.”

 *names changed