Maryam and I spent the next half hour praying with Leila and Sephideh. They cried softly as we prayed for them and hugged us when we finished. “You are angels from the Lord,” Leila said gratefully. They sincerely seemed to appreciate what we’d done, and after that they acted much calmer. We asked them to pray for us, too. This experience made us think that other women in the cell block might allow us to pray for them. We said good-bye to our new friends and took a walk down the hall.
We came to a cell that was still dark, with two figures wrapped in blankets on the floor. At the sound of our footsteps, they sat up—two girls in their late teens or early twenties, one with long, black, straight hair, and the other with a short, bleached style. We said hello and introduced ourselves. They were surprised by our gesture of friendship and asked why we were in prison. Again we shared our testimony, which put the girls at ease and led them to confide in us. They had been locked up for three days and were terrified of the other inmates, many of them rough and loud like Leila.
The girl with the bleached hair, Asieh, had gone to meet her new boyfriend for a date and took her friend, Sara, along because she didn’t want to meet him alone. When the girls got to his apartment, he said he wasn’t ready yet, but invited them to come in. While they were waiting, the basiji appeared and arrested them. The boyfriend had been using the apartment to meet a succession of young women, and the apartment manager had found out and sent the basiji to investigate. Everyone in the room was taken into custody for improper contact between unrelated Muslim men and women. The girls hadn’t been allowed to call their families, so their parents didn’t know where they were. They were terrified of what the authorities might do to them and of what their families would think when they found out.
We held their hands and prayed with them. Our suggestion that they put their trust in God seemed to calm them. Maybe they couldn’t see a way out of their predicament, but He could. We told them about how Jesus loved them unconditionally and was always there for them. They asked if they could stay with us—and before we could answer, they picked up their blankets and took them to our cell.
We went to another cell, which was the biggest one on the hall. There were six or seven middle-aged women huddled together inside, well-dressed and obviously out of place. Maryam greeted them and asked why they’d been arrested. They seemed very fearful and hesitant to talk to us. They wanted to know why we were there. Once we explained, their silence was broken by a flood of questions.
“Is Christianity really a crime?”
“How long have you been Christians?”
“How did they find out about you?”
“What will happen to you now?”
They were intensely curious about this religion that was so harshly condemned by the authorities.
As we answered them, the ladies loosened up a little, and finally one of them told us their story. They were shopping at a bakery when a flash mob appeared to protest the high price of bread. The rally had been staged by a group called We Are, whose members don’t know each other but are summoned by Internet messages to protest at a certain place. They would arrive at the location and at a predetermined time or signal, suddenly start chanting and clapping to make their point, then dissolve into the crowd. When the basiji came to break up the protest, they arrested anyone they could grab, including this woman and her friends. These innocent shoppers had spent the entire night locked in the back of a police car, all squeezed together, before being transported to Vozara. One of them had been beaten by a teenage basiji but hadn’t had any medical attention during the three days she had been in jail. The women were all afraid of losing face with their families. We prayed with them that they would be released soon and that their families would understand they were innocent.
In the middle of the day, a guard unlocked the hallway door and slid a big saucepan down the grimy hall floor. This was lunch.
Many of the women, with Leila and Sephideh in the lead, dove for the pan, scooping the lentils and rice out with their hands or burying their faces in the dish like dogs. Maryam and I stood frozen in our tracks, gaping at the spectacle. Leila looked up at us, gobs of food caught in her hair and dripping from her face. “This is how they feed us,” she explained between gulps. “No plates, no spoons.” When we still held back, she added, “If you don’t eat like this, you don’t eat.”
I looked at Maryam and said silently with my eyes, Then we don’t eat. At least not yet. We’re not desperate enough to be fed like animals in a zoo. The meal was symbolic of the way the detention center staff looked at everyone under their control: subhuman, unworthy of any respect, locked in filthy cages, and treated like mongrels.
A commotion at the end of the hallway caught my attention. Two young women, who had been arrested for attending a party where men were present, were banging on the bars of the cell-block door and calling for a guard. One of them badly needed a sanitary pad—her clothes were already ruined—and she was desperately calling for one. After a long time, a guard finally appeared. When the girl explained what she needed, the guard said, “Use one of the blankets.”
“Please,” the girl begged, “I’m bleeding.”
“So go die,” the guard replied. “It’s not my problem.”
“Please help me!”
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” the guard yelled, then turned away. An hour later, the guard came back with a single pad and threw it at the girl through the bars. “There. Now quit complaining.”
Later that evening, another disturbance erupted as fifteen or so young women, all attractive and very fashionably dressed, were herded through the hallway door of our cell block. They had been arrested by the basiji at a weekend family party on charges of having unhealthy and un-Islamic relationships with men. Though they were Iranian, they spoke English to each other as a way to protect themselves. After a few minutes, several of the women came over to Maryam and me because they said we looked and acted differently from the rest of the prisoners. When we told them the charges against us, they asked us to pray for them, especially the one in their group who was pregnant. They couldn’t all fit into our tiny cell, so they crowded in the doorway as we prayed that they would soon be released and that their families wouldn’t suffer any harassment or embarrassment because of what had happened.
Prisoners came and went all day. By the end of the evening, there were considerably more women in custody than there had been in the morning. We moved to a slightly bigger cell so there would be room for us and our two new friends to stretch out on the floor. The day guards left and the night shift came on duty. Though these guards slept most of the night, they had to be there when new prisoners came in late or in case of a disturbance. The lights went out, and we were left alone with our thoughts and the night sounds of the detention center.
As I waited for sleep, I heard conversations, curses, coughing, and crying fade in and out of the darkness. For a moment, one voice rose above the rumble. I recognized it as Leila’s, but this time she wasn’t screaming, she was singing—beautifully. She had a mellow, haunting voice, so tender and sweet. I could scarcely imagine it coming from that frightful face and that mouth filled with rotten teeth. Maybe it represented a part of her, deep inside, that remained pure and untouched by all the sadness and tragedy in her life.
What a day! On the surface, our situation was a complete disaster; but in another way, it was an incredible blessing. In a sense, we had been preparing for this day for a long time. First separately, and then together, we had spent years working to share the truth about Jesus in a country where evangelizing Muslims was punishable by death.
MARYAM
The fact that we had even heard the truth about Christianity in Iran is a miracle. We grew up in a country that indoctrinates children in the state religion from the youngest ages, when they are most impressionable. Like all other children in Iran, we were told that Islam is the only complete religion. Teachers told us that Jesus was one of many prophets and that He was the pr
ophet of love and peace, nothing more. Before school every morning we would line up to listen to one of the older children read the Koran in Arabic. Then we chanted, “Death to America! Death to Israel!” though we had no idea what “America” and “Israel” were. All we knew was that they were unspeakably evil.
Every year on the anniversary of the Shah’s downfall and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini, students still take part in huge demonstrations across the country. We did this too, because the authorities locked the schools and forced us to go. If we didn’t pray the namaz, the Islamic daily prayers, they wouldn’t give us our grades. Girls had to have their hair completely covered. If a teacher saw a strand or two sticking out from under our headscarves, she would pull our hair, hard.
Marziyeh and I were both born in Iran to Muslim families, yet as children both of us were thirsty for the truth and to know God. The Lord worked in amazing ways to call us to Him, and then to bring us together.
When I was growing up, I always had a lot of questions in my mind: What is the truth? Who is God, and how I can have a close relationship with Him? Why do I have to talk to God in a language I don’t know, praying words I don’t understand? I had many other questions about Islam and its rules, which frustrated and confused me.
I was eager to find the truth, so I tried to study and research other religions on my own. I read a Persian translation of the Koran and some other books—but not the Bible, because I couldn’t find one. Sometimes I prayed namaz, and I also attended meetings of other religions from time to time. However, none of these efforts could quench my thirst.
At age seventeen, I was completely disappointed and thought it would be better not to follow any religion. I was tired of the meaningless rules and religious laws, and tired of a faraway God whose voice I never heard. I had always longed for two-way communication with Him but had never experienced it.
Eventually, I completely stopped doing research. But even then, sometimes when I was alone, especially at night, I looked up into the sky and asked God to reveal Himself to me and speak to me. At times, I would talk to Him in Farsi, like a conversation, for an hour or two, and enjoyed it very much.
One day my sister gave me a little booklet titled His Name Is Wonderful. It was part of the Gospel of Luke, from the Bible. Shirin said she had received it from a man at the church near her university. She knew I was searching to know God and that I would read any book on the subject. “Just don’t read the last page,” she warned, “because it is a confession prayer for anyone who wants to become a Christian.”
I took the booklet from her and went to my room right away, closed the door, and started reading. From the first page, my heart was deeply moved. I started to cry because I could feel the presence of Christ in the room right in front of me. While I was reading, I felt as if I had already known and heard all of these words in the book and had just found what I had been seeking for many years: the love of Christ.
During those hours alone in my room, I realized why I had always felt a barrier between myself and God. As I read about the love of Christ and the work He did on the cross for my sins, I said to myself, That is exactly what I have been looking for all these years: love without conditions. None of those words sounded strange or unbelievable to me, even when I read that Jesus is the Son of God. I always tell people that Jesus Himself witnessed and delivered to me the Good News of salvation as a gift, even before I had spoken to anyone about Him or gone to church. He revealed His truth to me and prepared my heart for accepting it.
After two or three hours in my room, I knew I had discovered what I had been searching for; I felt like I had already known Jesus for many years. When I got to the last page of the booklet, I prayed the written prayer and gave my heart to Jesus without any doubt or second thought.
For two years, I attended a weekly Bible study in a woman’s home in Tehran, taking the hour-long taxi ride each way from my home in Karaj. One day, she led a Bible study on the book of Acts and read about believers in the early church receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. She spoke to me about her own experience. I was intrigued with the idea that God would give a gift to humans, a promise of a special spiritual experience. I wanted it for myself.
Later that day, in my room at home, I received this gift and spoke in tongues. I was surprised and overwhelmed with joy. Nothing like this had happened to me before. When I prayed, I knew what I was saying, and I knew that God understood.
I realize that not every Christian has this experience. The Bible describes many gifts, and this was one that I received. I believe that God, in His wisdom, uses whatever tools He has available to bring the gospel into people’s hearts.
I wanted to be baptized in the official church in Tehran, where we attended, but the regime monitored the church closely and frowned on church baptisms. Instead, in 2002, I was baptized secretly at midnight in the basement of another small church. Though I was only nineteen, the pastors asked me to start serving in the church, speaking to new believers and working with a group of elderly ladies. The pastors said I had a great passion for evangelism, though when I boldly talked about Christ in the subway or riding in a taxi, the pastors said with a note of caution, “Save it for church!”
After I had served in that church for a year and a half, my pastor introduced me to Elam Ministries. It was while taking theology courses sponsored by Elam in Turkey in 2005 that I met Marziyeh.
Marziyeh
Ever since I was a young child, I loved God and wanted to find out more about His truth. I did everything I knew to get closer to Him. Because my family was Muslim, my only means of getting to know God were through Muslim religious teachings and things I learned at school. But I always had many questions about God that Islamic theology and Sharia law could not answer.
I used to think of God as a kind father who is closer to us than members of our own family, because I believed that the God who created my body was closer to my heart than my own flesh and blood. I had been taught the beliefs of Islam and debated them with friends and teachers in school; I could not accept the Koran’s teachings, as they did not seem true to me. I did not accept the image of God that many Muslims have as one who harshly rules over the human race and punishes us for the slightest sins. That is a terrifying image of God.
I believed that the daily namaz prayers, bending several times a day in front of a God who was already in my heart, were a waste of time and unnecessary, and I could not accept them. I also had many questions about why I had to speak to God in Arabic instead of in Farsi, my native language. Doesn’t this God who taught me my own mother tongue know it Himself? Why should I pray to Him as if He’s a great leader or ruler over me? Why can’t I speak with Him in my own language? These were the questions that had long occupied my mind. The answers I received at school were not convincing.
Despite my reservations, I did my best to fulfill my religious duties. I told myself that I might be wrong, and that the truth would show itself to me one day in the future. I prayed namaz for two years without fail. I used to read the Koran, and I would even wake up in the middle of the night and pray again. But these types of prayers and worship were not making me feel any closer to God. On the contrary, they created a greater distance from Him as they became a routine action that I was forced to do, not something that I wanted to do.
Even before I found Christ, I was certain that God spoke to me in dreams. In one dream, I was praying toward the sky when it opened up and a white horse came down and spoke to me: “Sit on my back,” it said. When I obeyed, the horse took me to a city where worshipers coming out of a mosque were performing the Islamic Ashura and Tasua ceremonies, mournful chanting and self-beating. At first, they couldn’t see me or the horse. But suddenly they appeared to change into wild animals with savage features, not like people at all. As soon as I saw them, they could also see me and tried to kill me. The horse ran like the wind to save me. As I held fast to its neck, I felt its love pouring into me with a power and purity I h
ad never known. After we eluded our pursuers, the horse came to a fork in the road where one path turned up into the sky. As the tired horse started on the upward path, I awoke.
For a week after that, all I could think about was the deep love I had experienced in the dream. I have never since experienced love like that in this world. God, why did You let me wake up? I wanted to be in this dream forever! (That same horse has reappeared to me in a dream, with a message, every few years since then.)
After some thought and consideration, I came to the conclusion that the most important part of being a believer is my heart, and I decided to put aside my religion. I began to speak to God with my heart, in the manner of a relationship between a child and her father. One day, I heard from a friend of mine who had converted to Christianity that, in their religion, Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of humankind, who has come to the earth to free people from their sins. I became curious; I had not heard anything like that before about Jesus. I used to think He was just another prophet, as He had been introduced to us in our textbooks at school. I said to myself, How do I know He is the truth?
I decided to study different religions in search of the truth and began to read the Bible. After a while, I realized I could not possibly spend the many years necessary to study all the religions of the world, and that there might be some faith in the world that I would never be able to know in full. Therefore, I knelt and prayed, asking God to show me the right path to reach the truth. I said, “If Jesus is the truth, then You must guide me in the path that would take me to the truth and save me from being misguided.”
The next thing that happened was a real miracle. During this time, I was invited to a church by a friend. On that same day, I had a medical appointment scheduled with a specialist. My visit to the church was an incredible experience. People were worshiping with joy and praying freely to God. Suddenly, in my heart, I heard a voice: Marziyeh, you are healed. I wanted to ignore this voice, but when I told my friend, she said it was Jesus and that He could heal me.
Captive in Iran Page 4