Brother Mohammad Basser was a former MILF colonel based in Central Mindanao. He has admitted to carrying out several assassinations and acts of terrorism for the MILF. To illustrate the change in his life, he has admitted to slaughtering 80 people without mercy when he was a mujahid and imitating the lifestyle of Islam’s apostle and his companions. He confessed that he was among the terrorists that burned a Bachelor Bus.

Brother Basser testified that at one time he was suffering from a “complicated illness.” Late one night, he was watching television and he saw the “flash of Almeda’s Crusade in Tagum.” He secretly attended the Crusade. He knew the risk that he was taking because he would be killed on sight by his fellow MILF mujahidin if they knew that he went up for prayer and the Christian infidels laid hands upon him and prayed for his deliverance. However, the God of Abraham and Jacob honored his faith and Colonel Mohammad Basser was healed of his sickness. He immediately joined the JMC and left the MILF. Mohammad Basser repented for his sins and became a JMC preacher who ministered to other Muslims in Mindanao and in prisons.

Back in 1997, Brother Basser told an eager audience in a Crusade at Butuan City that several of his former MILF rebel fighters had heard his testimony that he turned from jihad to follow Christ. The MILF commandos hunted him down. They intended to keep the Prophet Muhammad’s instructions: “Whoseoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him.”

These fundamentalist Moros believed it was their Islamic duty to kill Brother Basser, the Islamic transgressor. The Quran clearly stated that anyone who gives up his religion is a “perverted transgressor” (Surah 3:82) and the Prophet Muhammad prescribed the death penalty for apostates that left Islam.

Brother Basser’s former Muslim brothers-in-arms found him in Davao City and chased him down. Basser knew what fate waited for the apostate who turned from Islam, so he fled for his life. They finally cornered him when he could no longer run. He was surrounded and trapped like a caged animal waiting to be slaughtered. As the Moro warriors reached for their krises  to behead him, Basser remembered the words of the Evangelist and turned and faced them.

Even though he was out of breath, he uttered the words, “Hallelujah… Praise the Lord.” To his complete bewilderment, his former MILF comrades smiled at him, sheathed their swords, and said that their commander was looking for him and wanted him to report back.

The shaking and trembling Mohammad Basser wiped the sweat from his forehead and called the beloved Evangelist who advised him not to report to his former MILF commander because now he had a new commander…His name is Jesus Christ.

Excerpt from the Book, Miracles in Moroland: A Journey of Faith, Love and Courage (The Inside Story of the Sipadan Hostage Crisis) by Sam Smith, published in 2015