ICC Note:
Saturday, ICC had the pleasure of attending the 2014 Value Voters Summit Gala in Honor of Meriam Ibrahim, a 27-year-old mother of two who was sentenced to death in Sudan for her Christian faith. ICC worked extensively on Meriam’s case was overjoyed to celebrate her freedom and her family’s safe relocation to the United States. Welcomed on stage as one of several dedicated advocates for Meriam, ICC’s Regional Manager for Africa stood with Congressmen Frank Wolf, Chris Smith and Mark Meadows, Tina Ramirez of Hardwired International, Tiffany Barrens of the American Center for Law and Justice, Faith McDonnell of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, Dominic Sputo and Laurie Jalbert of Mute No More, and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council to receive Meriam as she was honored with the first ever Cost of Discipleship Award.
10/01/2014 Washington, DC (One News Now) – Meriam Ibrahim, the Sudanese-born woman who faced a sentence of death due to her Christian faith, told a gathering of social conservatives to trust in the Lord with their lives no matter the circumstances.
“Follow Him with all your steps, because He loves us all,” Ibrahim, speaking through an interpreter, said from the podium Saturday night at the annual Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C.
But it was the few words she said in English, when she first stepped to the podium, that made Summit attendees shout and dab away tears like an old-time revival.
“God is good,” she said, smiling while her eyes surveyed the packed ballroom at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.
“All the time!” many in the crowd shouted back at the stage.
Ibrahim was honored with the first-ever “Cost of Discipleship Award” presented to her by Tony Perkins, who heads the Family Research Council.
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From the stage Perkins explained that Ibrahim, raised as a Christian, was abandoned by her Muslim father when she was six. But according to Sharia law she is Muslim and her marriage to husband Daniel, a Christian, is apostasy and adultery. Her sentence, a court said, would be 100 lashes and death by hanging if she failed she recant.
“I am a Christian,” Ibrahim told a judge after three days had passed to reconsider.
With Ibrahim in jail awaiting death, the Sudanese government felt international pressure to release her, especially after it was learned she gave birth in prison while literally in shackles. The birth had delayed her hanging by two years – again, under Sudanese and Sharia law.
Ibrahim was released from prison and set to leave Sudan with her family in late June. But she was re-arrested at the airport by the Sudanese government over alleged passport problems. After intense negotiations, she was finally allowed to leave Sudan on July 24.
While Ibrahim sat through the dinner awaiting the award presentation, she met Naghmeh Abedini, whose Iranian-born husband Saeed has been in an Iranian prison for two years after returning there to help start an orphanage.
The two women talked and hugged, and held each other as Abedini cried.
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