COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The case of teenage Christian convert Rifqa Bary will be back in a Florida court room on Monday.
Bary is the 17-year-old from Ohio who converted from Islam to Christianity. She fled from her home after her parents discovered her conversion.
Bary told police her father threatened her and she could be killed. She boarded a bus in downtown Columbus and ran away from home in late July.
Her friends said it was a journey the former Muslim feared since the day she became a Christian at a Columbus church back in 2005.
"She was scared her dad would find out," said Adrianna Mancillas, a close friend of Bary. "That her parents would find out, and sometimes she would talk about being afraid of going back to Sri Lanka, and being sent back."
Mancillas is a student at Ohio State University and also led Bary to Christ.
"I wanted to protect her. I didn't want anything to happen to her," Mancillas continued. "So for me, hearing anything like that her book was found or hearing that she was threatened, things like that broke my heart."
Christians on the OSU campus were impressed with the strength of the high school girl who had to hide her faith from her family.
It is a testimony they quietly spread over the years, even off campus.
Rifqa had a relationship with some of the Young Life leaders in the New Albany area," said Mike Chilcoat of the Young Life outreach organization in Columbus. "I heard her name prior to this coming up. I know they had a relationship with her."
Her friends pray Bary gets what she wants as the battle of faith and family plays out in court.
"What she wants is not to be separated from her family," Mancillas said. "That is not what she wants. This whole things is about her being able to to worship Jesus. She loves God. She loves her family, but above all she just wants to do His will."
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