During the Easter Season, Symbol of Faith Reappears

Pakistani immigrant Abraham Joshua had given up hope of finding the ring he asked a jeweler friend to design to proclaim his Christianity. (Screenshots via The Grand Rapids Press/MLive.com)

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When Abraham Joshua emigrated from Pakistan in 1981 so he could openly practice Christianity, a gold ring with the cut-out cross was a daily reminder of the freedoms he enjoyed in his new home in the United States.

And then he lost it about 20 years ago.

Joshua, now 70, told The Grand Rapids Press/MLive.com he got down on his hands and knees and scoured the lawn of his West Michigan home looking for the symbol of his religious freedom, then resigned himself to the reality that it was probably gone forever.

Then during Holy Week, the season of renewal, the ring reappeared.

County workers had been repairing a clogged culvert and when one of them knocked on his door Tuesday morning, he assumed the man wanted to tell him the job had been completed.

Instead, the worker opened his palm to reveal the ring, still glistening despite having been buried in the dirt for two decades. Light still poured through the carved-out cross.

“The man goes, ‘Does this belong to you?’ ” Joshua said.

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Joshua commissioned a jeweler friend in Chicago, his first home in the United States, to make the ring shortly after his arrival.

As a government worker in Pakistan, he said he was blocked from important policy-making positions because of his Christian faith. After emigrating to the United States, he discovered the other side of discrimination often directed at Muslims and other non-Christian religions, he said.

“Having brown skin ... people automatically think you’re different and wonder if you’re Muslim or Sikh,” Joshua said. “I’m a Christian, and the ring says that without me saying it.”

Michael Raisch of the Kent County Road Commission said the ring was found “just by chance” after several digs on the property.

“I was running the excavator and we were doing our regular ditching process ... when we’re done, we kind of smooth things out with a rake,” Raisch said. “Tom (VenHuizen) was raking when he spotted the ring and yelled, ‘Hey, what’s this?’ ”

The ring is now back on Joshua’s finger, a gleaming symbol of faith, just in time for Easter.