Student Highlight: Jamila's Journey to Summit

When I moved to the UK from Cameroon In 2012 I only spoke French. I began attending a local college to learn English. I met a girl there who was a Christian. I was Muslim so at first I was skeptical of her, but she kept speaking to me about Christ and she was a woman of prayer. I had a dream where I saw the face of Jesus and I knew it was the truth.

When my family would pray in the hijab, I would be praying to Christ in secret. I had a Bible that nobody could know about. I knew that if I wanted to follow Christ I would have to leave home.

I left my home with no support and no income. I stayed at women’s refuge for some time in London. I was newly converted to Christianity and didn’t know where to begin. I started to study the 10 commandments. One day on YouTube I saw an older video of David Wilkerson preaching. I started watching his preaching online. I learned about

repentance and sin and reading the Bible. Videos of Pastor Carter started to pop up on my YouTube page, so I started listening to him as well.

In 2017, I saw Pastor Teresa Conlon preaching at Times Square Church. I had never seen a woman speak. I didn’t know women could preach and have such authority. My heart was moved. I got on my knees in my room and prayed, “God can you make me a woman like her?”

I was accepted to law school to study international human rights. I wanted to become an advocate for women and children who experienced the same things I did as a child. Because of lockdown I had to study online. I was isolated and living by myself. It was a very difficult time, and because of the language barrier, online classes were too challenging, and I didn’t think I could continue. I began praying and crying to God to help me. I asked him to show me what to do next.

I went online and I saw that Times Square Church was live. I had no idea they had live services! I watched and Pastor Tim Dilena spoke about connect groups so I joined a group. In the group we started talking about Summit and something started burning in my heart. The people in my group started praying with me about Summit. They encouraged me to apply. I wanted to go but I had no idea how I would pay to go. That night, I had another dream that I was at TSC and Pastor Carter came to me and said, “Your room is waiting at Summit”.

I got an email from Summit after I applied saying that I was going to receive a scholarship from Times Square Church. The people in my connect group would tell me, “Do you know what faith means?” That was the first time I learned about faith.

My sister who was Muslim also started watching TSC and joined a connect group. She is 21 and gave her heart to the Lord, knowing that she will face the same hardships for her conversion that I have. One day she told me, “God is fighting for you.” My little sister, she has so much wisdom already.

I don’t know why I’m here. But I know God brought me here miraculously. I am not sure what comes next, but he has given me so much faith to believe Him.