April 2013 Newsletter Media

“The promotion of Christianity in this country must be stopped.” — Ayatollah Khorasani

The threats against God’s people in Iran are real: threats of arrest, of torture and even of death. But God is opening the eyes of Iranian Christians, allowing them to see past the threats.

Prolific sowing of gospel seeds in Islamic Iran means you will face persecution. But God provides opportunities for planting more seeds even within persecution.
Please pray that God will continue to work mightily throughout Iran. And pray that God will open our eyes just as he is opening the eyes of our Iranian brothers and sisters.
Mohammed: Everything I Have
April 2013 Newsletter Feature
Mohammed is the kind of person who can’t do anything half way. He is driven pursue every endeavor with complete, pedal-to-the-floor abandon.
“Whatever I did I was an extremist,” he says, “using drugs, even my religion. The first time I used drugs I smoked it from night until morning. In everything I was an extremist. I couldn’t control my own flesh.”
Iran has one of the highest drug addiction rates in the world, and Mohammed was a drug addict for 20 years. In the months before he met Jesus he was using five different kinds of drugs.
One day as he was high Mohammed was flipping through TV channels. On one channel he heard the speaker say, “when I gave my heart to Jesus.” He flipped to the next channel, thinking how crazy Christians must be to give away their hearts!
Ten days later he was drunk and again flipping TV channels. Again he landed on a Christian channel, and heard the very same phrase: “when I gave my heart to Jesus.” He changed the station. Mohammed’s family had gone on a trip, but decided that in his strung-out state he wouldn’t be invited to go along. So he stayed home, spending evenings taking drugs on the roof of his house and feeling hopeless about his life.
“That night I was on drugs and I was tired of life,” Mohammed remembers. “I realized I may be powerful over many things but I have no power over my drug addiction. So I lifted my head and said, ‘God, save me.’ I asked him to save me from my addiction to drugs. I couldn’t even imagine that I could live without drugs for even one day. Because I had tried before to be free from drugs but had failed.”
“I said, ‘God, you have to save me from these drugs tonight.’ I was praying and lifting my hands for two hours and my hands went numb.”

Continue reading Mohammed’s testimony.

April 2013 newsletter, page three

Artist Emma Fernelius created this depiction of a police raid on a house church meeting in Iran. Because of the extreme crackdown in recent years on Christian in Iran, house church meetings have gotten smaller and smaller. Though our brothers and sisters are very active in sharing their faith, they do so very carefully and cautiously. Only after a new convert is vetted carefully do leaders invite them to a house church meeting. Despite the need for caution, house church leader know how critical Christian fellowship is for a new Christian leaving Islam in a society where Islam in melded with every aspect of life, society and family.

Over the past few months, several groups have been raided. Police collect the names and identity cards of anyone present and sometimes take them for interrogation at the police station, seeking information on other Christian groups. Leaders are often arrested and held for months, often with no trial. Of late, every arrested Christian has experienced torture.

What we wish we could show you are the many hundreds of photos we receive each year of Iranian believers joyfully worshipping in the house church groups. They revel in the freedom they have in Christ that they share in the presence of other believers. However, in order to keep them safe, we cannot show their faces. Please continue to life up the Church in Iran.

Painting Detail

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