Ali Pektash, a Turkish man whose life was in shambles, decided to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in order to find some clarity in his life. He found more than that since, to his utter surprise, Jesus Christ appeared to him twice in a dream while he was there in the heart of the Islamic world.
According to Breaking Christian News, Pektash was a Muslim and an alcoholic who used to beat up his wife. He had a rough childhood, since his own mother rejected him and he was taken in by his uncle, who later chased him out of the house as well.
Pektash later worked in Saudi Arabia, and there, his friends encouraged him to go on a pilgrimage in Mecca to find success in life.
"I knew I belonged to God somehow—He was my friend—but I did not belong to a religion I could find. I circled the Ka'ba (the cube-like building at the centre of the Great Mosque) seven times (one of the specified rites involved in the pilgrimage), and watched everybody kissing this black stone. But I walked the other way. I believed in a living God, not in a rock," he said.
When they went back to their tents to rest, Pektash chose to sleep under the stars because it was so hot. That was when he had the life-changing dream.
"Jesus came to me in a dream, put His finger on my forehead and His hand on my heart. He was smiling at me and said: 'Get up and leave this place,'" he recalled.
"I didn't really understand, but I knew I was saved. There was a vibration in my kidney area where it felt like someone was speaking to me, and He kept saying the same thing. I became very afraid, and remembered reading how too much alcohol could affect your brain. I thought maybe I was going crazy; that my end had come."
When he told his friends about his dream, they laughed at him and suggested that it might have been a result of him eating too much. They then asked him, "What does Jesus have to do with Mohammed?"
He chose not to complete the Muslim pilgrimage, which upset his friends. Before he left, he saw that the black hair on his chest had the white imprint of a hand on one side. When he tried rubbing it off, he heard the Voice say, "You're going to see a lot more things than this."
"So I got down on my knees and said, 'Lord, whatever You want from me I will do,'" said Pektash.
He left the place thereafter and returned to his wife a changed man. He even studied to become a pastor in Ankara, Istanbul. Now his goal is to deliver God's word in Turkey.
