Six years ago, the nation was captivated by the story of a young teen named Rifqa Bary who was forced to flee her family home in Ohio after converting from Islam to Christianity. Even though she still can’t reveal her whereabouts, her new book chronicles her journey from a life of fear into that of a happy Christian college student who is now free to love the God who set her free.

The Columbia Dispatch is reporting on Bary’s new book, Hiding in the Light: Why I Risked Everything to Leave Islam and Follow Jesus, which documents the long and turbulent history of the brave young teen whose highly publicized flight from a strict Muslim home into the light of Christianity fascinated the nation in 2009.

“Writing this book was so painful. I wept so much reliving everything again, and my hope is to save others who read it, to shed hope and light, and that it would cause other people to see that you can leave, that there is hope,” said Bary, now an evangelical Christian, in a telephone interview.

“Even though I’ve had so much loss in my life, I’ve experienced more joy and love than I ever dreamed of, and I found that to be in my faith in Jesus Christ.”

In her memoir, the now 22 year-old aspiring lawyer reveals that she was molested as a child by a member of her extended family, an incident that was largely responsible for the family’s flight from her native Sri Lanka in the year 2000. Her parents claimed publicly that they left the country to find better care for Bary whose left eye was blinded when her brother threw a toy airplane at her, but the book tells a different story.

“In some Muslim cultures, like mine, this kind of violation is a great source of dishonor,” Bary explained. “Yet the shame is not attached to the abuser; it is cast on the victim.

“So not only was I viewed now in my parents’ eyes as a half-blind picture of imperfection, but I was also a shameful disgrace to the Bary name. My mere presence and appearance were a stain against the most important thing of all — our family honor.”

She was only 12 years-old when she found Jesus and began to practice Christianity. She documents how she broke down in tears while looking at a cross during her first church service, which to her symbolized “freedom,” “hope” and “unyielding love.”

Bary managed to hide her newfound faith from her parents for several years but was eventually discovered. As a result, her father threatened to kill her if she didn’t return to Islam and her mother wanted to send her to a mental asylum in Sri Lanka. Then the abuse began, from her parents and older brother, which she blames on the family’s faith and the mosque they were attending.

On July 19, 2009, at the age of 16, Bary boarded a Greyhound bus in Ohio and made the two-day journey to Orlando, Florida where she was taken in by a woman with whom she had been communicating on Facebook. Police tracked her down to the Florida-based Global Revolution Church and the Reverend Blake Lorenz.

Her parents claimed they were not abusing or threatening her and even though Bary was eventually returned to Ohio, she managed to stay in foster homes until turning 18 and going out on her own.

Thanks to a scholarship and a loving family who wanted to help her, Bary is now a sophomore in college, studying philosophy and politics with aspirations for law school.

But her newfound freedom has not been without crosses. At the age of 17, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer. After receiving chemotherapy, doctors recommended that she have a hysterectomy. She refused, citing her beliefs, and was told that she had only one year to live. Remarkably, that was four years ago and she remains in remission.

She is also unable to disclose where she lives due to the constant threat of becoming a victim of an “honor killing”.

Regardless of the suffering she’s endured, Bary claims she’d do it all again and says she never wanted to become a national symbol.

“I simply wanted to worship Jesus freely and go to church and be a Christian and not be afraid that my faith would cost me my life.”

For as long as the Lord allows, she plans to continue to tell her story.

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