A Daughter of Morocco, A Disciple of Christ: One Woman’s Journey to Find God

By Gail Parsons

For years, Karima Burdette was searching; searching for peace, for love, for belonging—a sense that her life had meaning beyond the pain she’d carried for decades.

Born in Morocco, raised partly in France, and now living in Effingham County, her journey has spanned continents, faiths, and identities. Today, she stands not only as a survivor of childhood trauma and domestic abuse but as a woman transformed by grace, by conviction, and, most of all, by God.

Her story, now told on the pages of her book, Muslim by Birth, Christian by Choice, began far from the quiet community of Guyton, where she lives today.

“It's really about my testimony,” she said of the book. “I was Muslim, and for the longest time, for years, really, I was looking for a sense of belonging and purpose and looking for love and all these things in the wrong places.”

Karima was born and raised in Morocco. Like most in her country, she was born into Islam.

“Being Moroccan and Muslim, it was almost like it's together,” she said. “When you are born in Morocco, you are born into the religion of being Muslim. There is nothing else. That’s who you are, that is your identity. If you leave that religion, you are almost like… you're disowning your family.”

Even before she met the man who would later become her husband of 24 years, Karima felt the Lord tugging on her heart.

“I had people inviting me to church,” she said. “I had people give me a little Jesus card, which I still have to this day.

She didn’t grow up in a strictly religious household. Once she moved to France, Outside of Ramadan, her mom didn’t follow the religion, therefore neither did Karima

Still, Karima remembers asking her mother how to stay faithful to Islam while living in France with no strong Muslim presence or a mosque — how can she continue to be Muslim.

“As long as you're a good person, that's all that matters,” was her mother’s response.

That idea or being a good person stayed with Karima as she grew up and eventually moved to the United States at age 18, part of a hairstylist exchange program.

“I was chosen out of the blue in Paris to come to the US in an exchange program as a hairstylist with 24 other hairstylists,” she said.

What followed was a tumultuous chapter of Karima’s life. She entered a marriage that turned abusive — mentally, emotionally and physically abusive, to the point of her almost losing her life. Fortunately, she was able to escape that situation.

Later, she met another man, but the relationship lacked the commitment she needed.

“He didn’t want to get serious, and I felt like we need to just get away from that,” she said. “Since he won't get serious, I wanted to do something new.”

That new beginning came unexpectedly—at a YMCA in Savannah.

“We met actually at the YMCA on Habersham in Savannah,” Karima said of the day she met her husband. “We were both divorced, we fell in love right away.”

That relationship led to marriage, but it also marked the start of Karima’s spiritual transformation.

“He was a Christian, and that's when I became a Christian,” she said. “I didn't realize … before I met my husband, but the Lord was after me.”

She started realizing, slowly, that God had a purpose for her. Her life started to transform but the change didn’t happen overnight.

“When I became a Christian. I got baptized on that same day,” Karima said. “I remember getting out of the baptism going, ‘Okay, is this it? Is this what it means to be a Christian?’ My life did not change right away. I was still smoking, I was still drinking, I was still dressing up revealing, I still went to clubs.”

She and her husband would go out and have a drink, go dancing, then go home and go to church on Sunday.

“I didn’t really know the Word of God then,” she said. “I didn’t read my Bible like I should.”

That began to shift as she experienced the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

“It took years to really see the Holy Spirit and feel the Holy Spirit and feel his conviction on my heart,” she said. “And that’s when I started changing. I started putting stuff down — just putting sin by sin down. That does not mean I’m sinless. I am far away from that. I am still a sinner, and I am under God’s grace every day, and I will sin till the day I die, because that’s who I am, and that’s who we are.”

The Bible tells her that all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God. But Karima now lives each day with purpose.

“I have to strive every day to be a better person,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I’m not gonna stumble. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to fall short, but I’m gonna strive every day to read His Word, to have a relationship with Jesus and to have his help with the Holy Spirit, to walk me through this life.”

Even more profound than the outward changes was the inward healing she experienced through forgiveness. She remembered sleepless nights filled with nightmares about the people in her life who had hurt her.

When she became a Christian, she forgave those people — not because she wanted to, rather because God asked her to.

“It was not easy,” she said. “You forgive, but you don’t forget. Through Him, I was able to forgive these people. And when I forgave them, that burden was lifted off my back, and I no longer felt this hatred towards them, this bitterness. Instead, I see them for who God made them to be. And I see that they were hurt people, and that’s why they hurt me.”

Today, Karima lives a very different life. She no longer smokes, drinks, cusses or dresses in the way she used to. The changes were all made possible because of the Lord’s guidance.

“He took all those things away from me and cleansed me, and I’m just a different person,” she said.

Still, sharing her transformation wasn’t easy, especially with her family. She was searching for the right way to broach the conversation.

“I did tell her eventually,” Karima said. “I said, “Hey mom, I just want to let you know, I became a Christian.’ She’s like, ‘What? No, no, no, no, no, you can’t be Christian. You’re Moroccan, you’re Muslim. That’s it.’ I’m like, ‘No, I am Moroccan. That is my origin. But I can be anything I want to be. If I want to be a Christian, I could be a Christian or Buddhist, whatever I want to be’”

The conversation stirred emotion in both mother and daughter. She wasn’t sure how to explain it, partly because she didn’t fully understand it herself. As she contemplated the issue she began to realize that the answer lied in her relationship with Jesus.

“At the end of the day, when I die, my mother cannot save me,” she said. “My father cannot save me. My family, no one can intercede for me, but Jesus, he's the only one who can say, let her in. My mother cannot be there with me to say, let her in. That's my daughter. So therefore, she can't save me.”

She went to her mother and said, “Mom, I love you. I’m not trying to disown you. I’m not trying to be mean, but I found this God that loves me… who changed me, who gave me this peace that I’ve never had before.”

Karima told her she had found a father that I’ve been looking for. Her mother has come to accept her daughter’s conversion and they will often get together after church on Sunday.

“My prayer is that they see the Lord through me… not me, but him through me,” she said. “And hopefully, they’ll see that he is the truth, and he is the life, and that they can give their life to Christ one day. That’s my hope.”

Karima’s journey from rejection to redemption, from religion to relationship, and from hurt to healing now serves a broader purpose. She wrote her story—her testimony—because she believes others need hope, too.

“I want to share that with the world,” she said. “Because we live in a world that’s full of hatred, and there’s a lot of people who are just really unhappy and depressed, and they’re all around us. I was one of them. I was one of those people with my makeup on and look my best and put a smile on and say, ‘Oh, I’m doing good. How are you doing?’ You know, I’d act like everything is good when it’s not.”

Now, when people read her book, they often share their own stories with her.