Christian Teen Flees Home, Says She Fears Honor Killing by Muslim Father

Aug. 12, 2009— -- An Ohio teenager who secretly converted from Islam to Christianity has fled to Florida because she claims her father threatened her with an "honor killing" for abandoning her Muslim upbringing.

The girl's father has gone to Florida where she sought refuge with a church that she found online. Although the father insists he is not a menace to his daughter, a Florida court has placed the 17-year-old girl in foster care until her claims can be investigated.

Fathima Rifqa Bary, who goes by Rifqa, left home in New Albany, Ohio, last month and hopped on a bus to Orlando to meet with husband and wife pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz, who she met through a Facebook prayer group for the couple's non-denominational Global Revolution Church.

"When she came to our house, she told us her parents would not report her missing," Blake Lorenz told ABCNews.com.

But they did report their daughter missing and the disappearance reached local news stations and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Lorenz said Rifqa, a native of Sri Lanka, had secretly converted from Islam to Christianity four years ago, but her religion was only discovered recently. Rifqa had snuck out to an area church where, according to Lorenz, she had an "incredible encounter with Jesus."

Lorenz said Rifqa was so moved she posted about it on her Facebook page, writings that would later be seen by her friends from her family's mosque and reported to her father, Mohamed Bary.

"That's when he threatened to kill her for the first time," Lorenz said, adding that he didn't know on how many other occasions that threat had been made.

The battle finally came to a head about a month ago, he said, when her mother found a Christian book in the house while Bary was out of town. Rifqa's mother, he said, threatened to tell her father.

"She did say she was dead to her" if she didn't renounce her Christian faith, Lorenz said.

Rifqa confirmed to ABC's Orlando affiliate WFTV that she believed her father would kill her.

"They have to kill me because I'm a Christian. It's an honor [killing]. If they love me more than God, then they have to kill me," she explained.

Terrifed and fearing she would be the victim of an honor killing, she got on a bus and borrowed a cell phone to contact Beverly Lorenz who she had been communicating with after finding the Lorenzes' church on Facebook.