“When they put me in the prison and shut the door, I just fell on my knees and kissed the ground. I said to God, you have got a purpose that we are here.”
Rahim, whose name has been changed for security reasons, ran away from home at an early age following his father’s death. Living on a meager income and often sleeping on the streets, Rahim’s single mission soon became to get out of Iran.
Rahim resented God for his hardships and began experimenting with witchcraft.
“I knew that God was there, but God was doing nothing for me so I went to Satan instead,” Rahim told ICC.
By God’s grace, Rahim met a Christian who gave him a Bible. An inner-struggle consumed Rahim’s thoughts and conscience while he was reading the Word of God.
“I have lived so long with you, and I have done everything with you, but I am still in a bad situation and always in a bad mood,” Rahim said in opposition to the demonic thoughts within him. “I just want to see what the Bible is saying.”
Rahim began asking God why he felt ignored during his most difficult trials. Scriptures revealed to Rahim that God had not deserted him and that Rahim had to surrender his life completely to Christ by walking away from his sin. Still, the demonic influence over Rahim’s life continued to torment him.
During a prayer gathering that Rahim attended with his new Christian friend, a group of Christians laid their hands on Rahim and began praying for him. Rahim found himself weeping and aching.
“I became free. It was suddenly like my eyes were open,” Rahim said. “I did not even have the strength to think about anything. It was like I was seeing everything for the first time.”
Rahim’s newfound freedom changed every aspect of his life. He no longer wanted to flee Iran, but longed to grow in the Christian faith. He soon met Farrin, his wife, at a Christian gathering and was introduced to her friends who had been instrumental in Farrin’s conversion to Christianity (click here to read Farrin’s testimony). Together, they began serving in the church and evangelizing.
On September 4, 2010, Iranian security forces raided a house fellowship in Hamadan. Rahim, Farrin, and other Christians were arrested. Rahim was immediately put in solitary confinement and would stay there for 43 days.
“When they put me in the prison and shut the door, I just fell on my knees and kissed the ground. I said to God, you have got a purpose that we are here.”
Interrogations were intense that first month, Rahim recalls. “The whole goal was to get me to confess that [a certain pastor] had forced me to become a Christian.”
The hardest part for Rahim, however, was not the interrogations, but hearing his wife crying in a nearby cell. “I heard the crying and weeping of Farrin… It was very hard; very heavy… I was not able to do anything. The only thing I could do was to find refuge in God.”
After his time in solitary confinement, Rahim was moved to another prison where he was able to interact with other inmates. Rahim remembered praying before his arrest to be sent “where suffering is, even if it is a prison.” Several people gave their lives to Christ during Rahim’s ministry during the next seven months in prison.
However, circumstances in prison never improved. Rahim witnessed the brutal killing of a fellow inmate by a guard and heard the screams from countless suicides. Even so, Rahim did all he could to help ease the suffering of prisoners and learned how to smuggle blankets and clothes into the prison to give to those who were freezing in cells with open windows in the snowy winter.
“I knew that some of these people were killers and thieves and dealers, but Jesus was a friend of sinners. So, I started to disciple these people,” Rahim explained.
The only place Rahim was not being watched was in the prison mosque. Every week, he would gather the new believers to worship together and proclaim the name of Christ in the mosque. Rahim also witnessed miraculous healings of the sick.
Rahim and Farrin were finally released after eight months in prison. “The fact is that they had no excuse to detain us in the first place,” Rahim said. “My wife and I are both from dysfunctional families and backgrounds. We have been directly touched and saved by our Lord Jesus Christ, who turned our lives around. For this reason and to thank God for his deliverance, we only spoke of our own personal experiences with Jesus Christ to people and especially other social victims. After eight months I guess they realized they were wrong about us, and caught on to the fact that we are but simple witnesses to Christ.”
Rahim and Farrin continue their ministry today among Iranians living abroad.
Please continue to pray for the Iranian church. In recent months, the Iranian government has raided numerous house churches and arrested many believers. Additionally, Youcef Nadarkhani, a pastor from Rasht, Iran, is scheduled to be executed any day now for his Christian faith. Click here to read about the current persecution of Christians in Iran.
Note: In our recent blog post we informed you about thirty-five Christians imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for their faith in Christ. The believers, twenty-nine women and six men, have been in prison since December 15, 2011 for holding a private prayer meeting. This article gives you some updates on their situation and how God is using the lives of the prisoners to reach non-believers in the prison.
We have been closely following the situation of our imprisoned Christian brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia. These past two months of imprisonment have not been easy for them. Some of the prisoners are missing the spouses and children they left behind. They are suffering from the inhumane prison conditions, are not given clean water or healthy food, and are crammed together in small prison rooms with convicted murderers, thieves and other criminals.
Despite the challenges, our brothers and sisters see God’s hand working through their presence in the prison. They have continued to rely on God and seek out His presence in spite of the conditions they face. The women continued to pray together in their cells, gaining the attention of their fellow inmates; this is especially true for some of the prisoners with evil spirits. The prayers of the women have caused evil spirits to scream and eventually depart from the prisoners’ bodies. The prison guards have acknowledged this event and split the women up into separate cells to keep them from praying together. The faith of these Christians is evident of God’s presence in the prison.
The imprisonment of the prisoners reminds us of John 12:24 which says, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”
“We are glad that the word of God has been fulfilled in our lives. The Lord has told us that, as his followers, we would be persecuted,” one prisoner said. “Please pray for us that we will be able to accomplish the will of God while we are here in prison.”
Details about the situation of the prisoners and efforts to release them are one of the topics in our upcoming newsletter. Please sign up to receive the newsletter.
It was December 15th, 2011 and a group of Christians were praying at a private home Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; it was part of their weekly prayer gathering. But that particular Thursday was different because it was the day Saudi Arabian officials discovered about the underground prayer gathering. At first, the security forces seemed to be friendly; they even let the Christians finish their prayers. Then they took the twenty-nine female and six male Christians to their office. The securities promised the Christians that they would release them after brief investigation. Unfortunately, the Christians still remain behind bars.
In a recent interview with the Voice of America’s Amharic language interview, one of the female Christian prisoners recounts the ordeal they went through simply because of their faith in Christ. The prisoner said:
They (the Saudi security officials) took us to their office at 2 am in the night. We spent the night in their office. Then in the morning, they put us in a very cold room. There is a restroom within that room and it is very stinky. There are insects in the room. In the night, they took us to a waiting room at Briman jail. When we arrived, they started to insult, harass and push us around. Then they started to search us. They took off all our clothes, including our underwear. Then they inserted their fingers into our genitals. They used the same hand glove to search about ten of us. Then they threw away our clothes and gave us pajamas to wear.
The plight of our brothers and sisters has continued. When ICC called them on February 7 to inquiry about their situation, a female prisoner spoke about Saudi officials pressuring the Christian prisoners to convert to Islam. The Saudis sent a preacher who gathered the prisoners and vilified Christianity and the Bible. The preacher told the Christians to convert to Islam because “Islam is the only true religion.” Despite such pressure the Christians refused compromising on their faith.
We at ICC have continued to raise our voice on behalf of our brothers and sisters. We are asking all concerned to sign this petition on behalf of the prisoners. We are also organizing a protest rally demanding the Saudis to release the Christians. The rally will be held on February 21st at 10 am in front of the Saudi Arabian Embassy located at 601 New Hampshire Ave, NW Washington D.C. If you live in Washington D.C. area, please join us! The Bible clearly tells us that we are the same body of Christ and commands us to “remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering,” Hebrew 13:3. Also pray for our imprisoned brothers and sisters. Pray for their release and that they stay encouraged in their faith.
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