A few weeks ago I was at Greater Grace Community Church and witnessed the personal testimony of an Iranian woman named Afrooze Emami.
She was telling everyone how she became a Christian, and the subsequent persecutions she went through in her country (her story appeared in "The Voice of the Martyrs" - Oct/2003).
To the best of my memory, here is what she said:
About 10 years ago, while attempting to be a good Muslim and praying on her prayer mat every evening, she became increasingly frustrated at the lack of connection she felt with God.
Being taunted by her friends to "forget God and come and party with us", one night she exclaimed in prayer that if God did not make an effort to connect with her heart, that she was going to forget about religion altogether and join her friends.
That evening, in the middle of the night, she awoke from her sleep to find her room totally lit up like daylight. In the room with her was a man. Even though she had NEVER seen an image of Jesus Christ before in her life, she immediately knew the man to be Jesus. She was confused, certainly not expecting a Christian figure to have been the answer to her prayers. And then He was gone.
"Was this a trick? Is Satan trying to fool me?" she said to herself.
The next night, this time in a dream, Jesus appeared to her again. There was a passage from the Book of Matthew over His head:
Matthew 11:28
"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." RSV
Upon awakening she immediately wrote the verse number down. The next day she sought out a Christian pastor from an underground church (all Christian churches in Iran are underground churches), and he looked up the passage.
She converted to Christianity and started to attend services at the underground church. After a few months, she met a Christian man there and fell in love with him. A short while later, they were married. It was around that time that they noticed that government officials were starting to follow them from church.
One night, two gov't. men stopped them and asked them where they were coming from. With the boldness of the Holy Spirit she replied "You know very well where we were coming from, we were in church!"
At this point, they took her new husband from her side and one of the men put a gun to his head and said "Convert back to Islam or we will kill your husband". She replied "Do so if you have to, just don't kill him in front of me".
Thank God, the men let her and her husband go. But they still occasionally followed them, and people from her neighborhood would stone their house and their cars because they were known Christians.
A while later she became pregnant and had her baby. When registering the child the people from the government noticed the baby had a Christian name. They told her that if she and her husband didn't revert back to Islam, that they were going to take their baby away from them. At this point, her pastor told her to leave the country. She refused.
The gov't. officials said she had 2 weeks to turn her child over to the state or they would take it from her. This time, her pastor was forceful in convincing them to leave the country. Not being able to leave by plane because agents at the airport had their names on a list, they escaped by bus to Turkey and then emigrated to the US.
I should emphasize at this point that she stated the threats of the gov't. officials were not empty ones. She said 3 pastors from her town were executed. One was found in his refrigerator, cut up into over 30 pieces. Another pastor was found dead hanging from a tree, with an apparent "suicide letter" saying how he was having problems with his wife (when shown the note, the wife steadfastly claimed NO such problems existed). A third pastor went into prison, and was later "found dead".
So after they come to the US, her husband joins the military and is sent back to the Middle East as an English/Arabic interpreter. Her husband says that while serving in that function, some of the high ranking Arab officials had heard of how he had become a Christian. He stated that late one night, Islamic military officers would come to his quarters asking him about Jesus!
When I asked Mrs. Emami if she and her husband felt like they had special plans to fulfill for God in their lives, she said that as soon as her husband is released from the military, they want to return to Turkey as missionaries for Christ.
Wow ...
She was telling everyone how she became a Christian, and the subsequent persecutions she went through in her country (her story appeared in "The Voice of the Martyrs" - Oct/2003).
To the best of my memory, here is what she said:
About 10 years ago, while attempting to be a good Muslim and praying on her prayer mat every evening, she became increasingly frustrated at the lack of connection she felt with God.
Being taunted by her friends to "forget God and come and party with us", one night she exclaimed in prayer that if God did not make an effort to connect with her heart, that she was going to forget about religion altogether and join her friends.
That evening, in the middle of the night, she awoke from her sleep to find her room totally lit up like daylight. In the room with her was a man. Even though she had NEVER seen an image of Jesus Christ before in her life, she immediately knew the man to be Jesus. She was confused, certainly not expecting a Christian figure to have been the answer to her prayers. And then He was gone.
"Was this a trick? Is Satan trying to fool me?" she said to herself.
The next night, this time in a dream, Jesus appeared to her again. There was a passage from the Book of Matthew over His head:
Matthew 11:28
"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." RSV
Upon awakening she immediately wrote the verse number down. The next day she sought out a Christian pastor from an underground church (all Christian churches in Iran are underground churches), and he looked up the passage.
She converted to Christianity and started to attend services at the underground church. After a few months, she met a Christian man there and fell in love with him. A short while later, they were married. It was around that time that they noticed that government officials were starting to follow them from church.
One night, two gov't. men stopped them and asked them where they were coming from. With the boldness of the Holy Spirit she replied "You know very well where we were coming from, we were in church!"
At this point, they took her new husband from her side and one of the men put a gun to his head and said "Convert back to Islam or we will kill your husband". She replied "Do so if you have to, just don't kill him in front of me".
Thank God, the men let her and her husband go. But they still occasionally followed them, and people from her neighborhood would stone their house and their cars because they were known Christians.
A while later she became pregnant and had her baby. When registering the child the people from the government noticed the baby had a Christian name. They told her that if she and her husband didn't revert back to Islam, that they were going to take their baby away from them. At this point, her pastor told her to leave the country. She refused.
The gov't. officials said she had 2 weeks to turn her child over to the state or they would take it from her. This time, her pastor was forceful in convincing them to leave the country. Not being able to leave by plane because agents at the airport had their names on a list, they escaped by bus to Turkey and then emigrated to the US.
I should emphasize at this point that she stated the threats of the gov't. officials were not empty ones. She said 3 pastors from her town were executed. One was found in his refrigerator, cut up into over 30 pieces. Another pastor was found dead hanging from a tree, with an apparent "suicide letter" saying how he was having problems with his wife (when shown the note, the wife steadfastly claimed NO such problems existed). A third pastor went into prison, and was later "found dead".
So after they come to the US, her husband joins the military and is sent back to the Middle East as an English/Arabic interpreter. Her husband says that while serving in that function, some of the high ranking Arab officials had heard of how he had become a Christian. He stated that late one night, Islamic military officers would come to his quarters asking him about Jesus!
When I asked Mrs. Emami if she and her husband felt like they had special plans to fulfill for God in their lives, she said that as soon as her husband is released from the military, they want to return to Turkey as missionaries for Christ.
Wow ...
