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The moment that changed John Hillawi’s life came during an Alpha course.
The Gosport grandfather was being prayed for by a retired priest who had his hand on John’s shoulder. Suddenly John heard him saying the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic – the language Jesus used.
For Iraqi-born John, this was astonishing. Aramaic was also the language he had used when he helped out at mass in Basra as a teenager. The retired priest not only didn’t know Aramaic, but also wouldn’t understand why hearing that language would be so significant for John.
Then – even more amazing – John opened his eyes to discover he was actually alone in the room. Everyone had gone! So whose hand had he been feeling? And who had been speaking? John assumes it was the Holy Spirit.
The experience transformed his outlook. Although he had been groomed for the Catholic priesthood as a boy, he came to the UK as a teenager and his faith lapsed for 40 years.
But after this Alpha course, John became a committed member of St Mary’s Church, Alverstoke, leading Alpha courses himself and even contemplating becoming a Reader.
“Since that course, I’ve changed from being an atheist who had moments of belief, to someone who believes and is in constant communication with God,” he said.
John was born to a family that had been Christians for five generations and was an altar boy from the age of two or three. He went to a Catholic school in Basra and helped out at mass.
He can remember having diphtheria at the age of three, praying to a picture of the Madonna and Child, and hearing Mary tell him that it would be OK. And he can remember, as a 10-year-old, singing a solo hymn at a seminary in Mosul, and being tipped as a future patriarch.
He came to England to study medicine at 17 with the intention of then studying theology at the Vatican. But he found his faith slipping away.
He actually studied physics and maths at university in London and then as a postgraduate in Salford, where he met his wife Mary. But by his early 20s, he had stopped going to church, and priesthood was no longer something he wanted to do.
“Before I came to England, all I had known about was the church,” he said. “I had this blind faith that my destiny was to be a priest. Then I started studying philosophy, sciences and so on, and I started to doubt the teaching I had received. You never lose it completely, of course. It was always at the back of my mind, and I did pray occasionally, but I didn’t go to church.”
He worked in electronic design automation for many years, moving to Gosport to work for the now-defunct company Genrad, and then setting up his own consultancy business in the same field. He wound up the company, DA Solutions, in 2000 and retired. He and Mary had three children and now have five grandchildren.
“One day, about five years ago, a business friend who was running Alpha at Alverstoke asked me to join,” he said. “Apparently, at the first session, I asked seven of the nine most frequently-asked questions! I thought I was being too disruptive and causing other people to have doubts, so I stopped going. But my friend pleaded with me to come back to stimulate discussion because no one else was asking any questions!
“During the Alpha course, there is a ‘Holy Spirit’ retreat, where you go away for teaching and prayer about the work of the Spirit. They invited the Holy Spirit to come down and people were crying, shaking and falling over. But nothing happened to me. So asked the organiser if I could go on the Holy Spirit day on the next Alpha course. That’s what had the big influence on my life.
“Two people were praying for me, and I went into some sort of trance. I could hear one of the people going and the retired priest saying ‘John needs some more prayer’, and staying. Then I heard him pray the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic. I thought: ‘How does he know Aramaic?’ And when I opened my eyes, there was nobody in the room. It must have been the Holy Spirit! From that moment, my faith has gone from strength to strength.”
He led Alpha courses in Haslar detention centre, which meant he got to know many asylum seekers. He has been to bail hearings with many of them, and even been best man for both a Zimbabwean and an Iraqi.
He was praying each day with the clergy at St Mary’s and even completed two courses with the aim of becoming a Reader. But he now rules out the prospect. And earlier this year John suffered a heart attack and had an operation on a blocked artery.
“Unlike before when I had blind faith, I now have a faith that involves being more analytical and scientific. I approach it with more of a critical eye. But it’s real and involves a genuine relationship with God.”
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JOHN is in no doubt that it is the Iraqi people who have suffered from the two Gulf wars Britain has been involved in.
Three years ago, he re-visited the country for the first time since he was 17. He was shocked to see homes, schools and churches demolished.
“Basra used to be beautiful, the Venice of the Middle East,” he said. “I used to fish in the clean river with a nail on the end of a piece of string. But now it’s dirty, there’s raw sewage in the river, tombstones are ripped up, and my old school and former homes are no longer there. That was because of the war in 1991.”
John’s older brother Victor died after a robbery in the lawlessness of post-war Iraq in 1991. And when it came to the war against in Iraq last year, John was very cynical of western motives.
“This war was not about terrorism or world peace,” he said. “It was about the agenda of the USA, about oil, and about their presence in the Middle East. The USA used Iraq when it suited them in the war against Iran. Saddam was an evil man, but he was created by the west.
“It’s the people who suffered. I still have family there, and security is terrible now. Letters don’t get there and there is no phone system. There’s no clean, running water and people are scared to go out in the dark.
“Not only that, but my family are Christians in an area that is predominantly Shi’ite and there is a lot of bad feeling because people associate Christians with the USA. My nephew was abducted and imprisoned for three months, and couldn’t get a job. I’d like to get him out of the country, but it’s difficult for him to get to another country to claim asylum.”
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