In part one (October 2025), Samuel Wyler was practicing his language and culture learning in an unreached North African city when a shopkeeper called the police. After intense questioning, Samuel was arrested and taken to prison. Facilities were squalid and cold, and rats plentiful, but he determined to trust in God. Meanwhile, Eve was two hours away from their house, meeting with an attorney, when her landlord called: “The police are at your house.”

Eve rushed back to the hotel, hurriedly gathered her belongings, and set off for home. She spent the two-hour bus trip calling and texting people to arrange for our three children to be taken care of in case she were arrested. 

Three plainclothes detectives, arrayed in black garb and sunglasses, awaited her arrival in front of our house. Apprehensively, she led them into our home. They searched several rooms, specifically my office area, our bedroom and other personal items, allowing Eve to be present in each room they investigated. They confiscated more of my language-learning materials and a few flash drives, and then . . . that was it. They left. Eve had not been arrested. 

Mercifully, I was released from the rat-infested jail cell on Sabbath morning. Now at a different local police station, they sat me down across from a detective, who inquired, “Do you know why you are here?”

“No, I don’t,” I retorted. “In fact, I would love to know the reason why I’m here!”

“We think you are a spy!” he asserted decisively. At these words, my heart sank. Coupled with this, a security guard had misidentified me as a person who had taken pictures of a government building and then fled the scene, nearly running the guard down in the process. It began to dawn on me that I was in serious trouble. 

That day was one of the longest, most troublesome days I have ever experienced. Transferred that morning to the capital city, I was now in the custody of the federal police. There, I waited long hours sitting handcuffed with other detainees without being offered food or water. My only sustenance was two leftover cookies I had purchased at the shop where I was first arrested. I then underwent another three hours of interrogation, once again in a heatless room, late into the night. 

Finally, at midnight, they took me to the detention center along with two lines of detainees handcuffed in pairs. The humongous, black metal doors, on which the police guards loudly banged, loomed ominously above us in the cold night air. As they creaked open, we were led inside, given thin mattresses and a single blanket, ordered to remove our shoes, then put into large 30-by-15-foot holding cells. Around 30 men were sitting down or lying on their mattresses along the walls, chatting or staring blankly at no one in particular. The room was permeated with the acrid odor of cigarette smoke, with approximately half of the men puffing away. Finding an open spot near the toilet stall, I sat down, trying to keep my cool, but inside my stomach was in knots, vainly trying to process my situation.

My nerves being fully on edge, I slept little, if at all, my thoughts turning to my wife. Did she know what had happened? Did she even know where I was? She must be so worried! And what will become of me? And the children! 

Through conversing with other detainees, I learned that we were being held in a facility where people await arraignment. What I did not know was that I would be here for the next ten days.

For about half of those days, I was taken to the police station, where I spent from mid-morning to late afternoon waiting to be questioned by the investigative judge. Twelve or so of us sat handcuffed in small holding cells with no heat, no speaking allowed. If we were not called out, we would at least get fed lunch around 2:00 p.m. But if we were called, we would usually miss the mealtime and go the entire day without food.

The other days at the detention center were long and uneventful. We walked in the outside concrete yard the whole morning. From noon until the next morning, we sat in our cells on our floor mattresses, napping and talking, immersed in a thick cloud of secondhand smoke. We were served a meager breakfast: one plain white baguette and a small cup of milk. Lunches and dinners consisted of white bread with one-third of a normal serving of white pasta with sauce, slopped onto the unwashed and unrinsed plate and spoon of the previous prisoner. The real catch was that they only gave us three minutes to scarf it down before hastily herding us back to our cells. I endured a constant state of hunger for 10 days, as well as an increasing sense of malnourishment. 

The one toilet in the cell, an upright flush toilet, was an overflowing, filthy mess. There were no showers, no toothbrushes. After about five days, I could no longer take the grungy feeling on my teeth and resorted to scraping them with my fingernail. (Which actually worked quite well.)  Later, after nine days in custody, I was finally allowed to shower! A group of four of us had to make a special request. The fact that we had to scrounge around the shower stalls for leftover scraps of soap in no way made it any less glorious–the feeling of having clean skin again, absent for so long, was exhilarating.

Over 90 percent of the detainees were North Africans, almost all Muslim. And it seemed that every one of them wanted to know why I had been arrested. Telling my story to dozens of men actually led to numerous religion-themed conversations. Some of these men tried their best to “convert” me to Islam, simply by getting me to recite the Shahada, which affirms that there is only one God and that Mohammed is his prophet. I refused!

One of the most amusing of these evangelistic attempts occurred right after my shower. As we strode back out into the open yard, feeling like new men, one of my shower cohorts, who was one of the most genuine, winsome young guys I have ever met, began calling some of his friends over. “Now that Samuel is ‘ceremonially clean,’ I believe he is ready to make his commitment to Allah!” he began to proclaim. When I realized what he was saying, I started waving my arms emphatically to cancel the whole operation, explaining as tactfully as I could that this was not my intention. “Okay, okay,” he said, grinning broadly as he hugged me.

My time in the detention center afforded me ample opportunity to pour my heart out to God in prayer. One time, as I pleaded with him to let me return to my family, I heard that still, small voice gently entreat, “I WILL release you. But right now I want you to be my witness in THIS place.”

In response, I tried to put aside the crisis that my family and I were going through so that I could simply be available for how God wanted to use me. I found that several Muslim men were sincerely open to dialoguing about the differences in our faiths. However, their disbelief in the divinity of Christ and the trustworthiness of the Scriptures were continual stumbling blocks. Perhaps the best approach I discovered was to share the story of Abraham offering his son as a sacrifice, also found in the Koran, then to give the following questions for reflection: “Why did God send a ram to replace the young man on the altar? What’s the deeper significance?” As Muslims, they rarely consider this. 

God is merciful, and in spite of the miserable conditions I was in, He allowed me to experience His joy in sharing about His salvation with others. But the day came at last for me to be officially charged. Brought before the judge, weak and weary, he battered me with questions. I withstood his hostility as best I could, and at last he drove home the question, “ARE you here in this country as a CHRISTIAN?”

“Yes,” I answered.

At that, his tone softened. Being a foreign missionary in their country is technically not a crime, but socially and culturally speaking, it is not well accepted. Concluding the interrogation, the judge summed up: “We will search your laptop; if we don’t find anything suspicious, I will let you go.”

When they took me back down into the court basement holding cell, a mixture of stress and relief burst forth. I began sobbing uncontrollably, certain that they would not find any incriminating evidence against me, and I would be back home with my family in one or two weeks, tops. Little did I realize the long journey that still lay ahead, for I was about to be transferred to the main prison, where new challenges, trials and opportunities awaited. 

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