I stayed kneeling beside my bed for a long time, letting that peace wash over me, barely able to comprehend what was happening.

And then I spoke again, the words coming from somewhere deep inside.

I believe I believe you are who you said you are.

I believe you died for me.

I believe you rose again.

I believe you’re alive right now.

I give you my life.

All of it.

Whatever it costs.

In that moment, something fundamental shifted inside me.

I can’t explain it any better than that.

It was like a door that had been locked for 26 years suddenly swung open and Jesus walked through it and took up residence in my heart.

I was born again.

I finally understood what that phrase meant.

But I also understood with crystal clarity that this was just the beginning.

The hard part was still ahead.

The next morning, I woke up feeling different.

The chronic anxiety I’d carried for months was gone.

In its place was that same piece I’d felt the night before.

steady and sure like bedrock beneath my feet.

I went through my day in a kind of days.

I attended classes.

I had dinner with my family.

I helped Olli with his homework.

On the surface, everything was exactly as it had always been.

But inside, everything had changed.

I was no longer Muslim.

I was Christian.

I followed Jesus now.

And I had no idea how to tell anyone.

For the next few weeks, I lived this strange secret life.

I stopped praying the Islamic prayers.

I just couldn’t do it anymore.

Couldn’t speak words I didn’t believe.

When my family asked why I wasn’t praying, I made excuses about being busy, about praying at university, about doing it in my room.

They accepted these explanations at first, though I could see concerns starting to grow in my mother’s eyes.

I connected with Ali more frequently, and he put me in touch with a small underground house church in Thran.

There were more secret Christians in Iran than I’d ever imagined.

people living double lives, meeting in homes, in small groups, always careful, always aware of the danger.

My first meeting with this group was terrifying.

Uh, I met them in a nondescript apartment in a part of the city I didn’t know well.

There were maybe eight people there, men and women of various ages.

They welcomed me with warmth that felt almost overwhelming.

For the first time in my life, I prayed openly to Jesus in the presence of others.

I sang Christian songs in Farsy songs I’d never heard before.

But that somehow expressed exactly what my heart felt.

I heard testimonies from others who had walked the path I was on.

former Muslims who’ found Jesus and were paying the price for it.

One woman told us she hadn’t seen her children in 3 years since her ex-husband had won custody because of her conversion.

A man showed us scars on his arms from where his brothers had attacked him when they discovered his faith.

An elderly couple talked about losing their business and their life savings when word got out that they were Christians.

These were the real costs, not abstract theological positions or philosophical debates, real people losing real things, family, safety, livelihoods, homes.

And yet when they talked about Jesus, their faces lit up.

When they prayed, there was joy.

When they sang, there was genuine worship.

They had lost much, but they spoke about what they had gained, Jesus, truth, eternal life, as worth infinitely more than what they had given up.

They asked if I wanted to be baptized.

In Christian tradition, baptism is the public declaration of faith, the outward sign of the inward transformation for a Muslim converting to Christianity.

It was a point of no return.

I said yes.

Two weeks later, in that same apartment with that small group of believers as witnesses, I was baptized in a large basin they’d filled with water.

As I went under the water and came up again, I felt like I was physically acting out what had happened spiritually.

The old rays are dying, the new razor rising to new life in Christ.

I was crying.

Everyone there was crying.

It was one of the most profound moments of my life.

But it was also the moment I became in the eyes of Iranian law and Islamic Jewish prudence an apostate.

Someone who had left Islam.

Someone who in the most extreme interpretation deserved death.

I knew I couldn’t keep this secret forever.

The question wasn’t if my family would find out, but when and how.

The answer came sooner than I expected.

I’d been careless.

I’d left my Bible app open on my phone.

I’d been reading late one night and fallen asleep.

And when I woke up in the morning, the phone was still on my bed, still showing the Gospel of John.

I grabbed it and closed the app immediately.

But as I did uh I saw my younger brother Ali standing in the doorway of my room.

He’d come to wake me for fajger prayer.

I don’t know how much he saw.

Maybe just the phone in my hand.

Maybe the English text on the screen.

Maybe nothing at all.

But the look on his face told me he knew something was wrong.

He didn’t say anything.

He just turned and left.

I felt sick.

I got up and went through the motions of morning prayer with my family.

But my mind was racing.

What had Ali seen? Would he tell our parents? What should I do? For 2 days, nothing happened.

Ali didn’t mention what he’d seen, and I didn’t bring it up.

But there was a new tension between us, a weariness in the way he looked at me.

On the third day, my mother found my Bible.

I downloaded a physical copy, too, ordering it through an underground Christian network.

I’d kept it hidden in a box under my bed, wrapped in plastic, but apparently not hidden well enough.

I came home from university to find my entire family in the living room.

My father, mother, sister, and brother, all sitting with grim expressions.

My Bible sat on the coffee table in front of them.

My mother’s face was stre with tears.

My father’s was stone.

My father spoke first.

His voice was quiet, controlled, but I could hear the anger beneath it.

What is this? I could have lied.

could have said I was doing research, that it was for a class, that I was studying Christianity to better defend Islam, but I was done lying.

I’d committed to following Jesus.

And part of that meant telling the truth even when it cost me everything.

It’s a Bible.

I can see that his voice was getting harder.

Why do you have it? I looked at my mother.

She was shaking.

Her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles were white.

I looked at my sister Mariam who had her face buried in her hands.

I looked at Ali who was staring at me with something between betrayal and fear.

Then I looked back at my father and spoke the words that would destroy my family.

Because I’m Christian now.

I believe in Jesus.

The silence that followed was absolute, like all the air had been sucked out of the room.

Then my mother made a sound, a whale that came from somewhere deep inside her.

A sound of pure anguish.

She collapsed forward and Mariam grabbed her, holding her as she sobbed.

My father stood up.

His face had gone red.

I thought he might hit me.

He’d never hit me in my life.

But in that moment, I thought he might.

Instead, the he just said one word.

How? So, I told them not everything.

I didn’t mention what had happened in Mecca.

Didn’t think they could handle that additional layer of what they’d see as blasphemy.

But I told them about the questions I’d had about reading the Bible, about coming to believe that Jesus was more than a prophet, that he was the son of God, that salvation came through him.

My father listened with his jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack.

When I finished, he spoke very slowly, very deliberately.

You have killed us.

Do you understand that? You have killed your mother.

You have killed me.

You have killed your sister’s chances of a good marriage.

When people find out her brother is an apostate, you have destroyed this family.

Each word was like a physical blow.

I wanted to say I was sorry, but I wasn’t sorry for finding Jesus.

I was only sorry for the pain it caused.

You will renounce this.

My father wasn’t asking.

He was commanding.

You will burn that book.

You will go to the mosque tomorrow and publicly reaffirm your faith in Islam.

You will fix this.

I can’t.

You will.

I can’t.

I was crying now, too.

I can’t deny Jesus.

I can’t go back to Islam.

I believe he died for me and rose again.

I believe he’s alive.

I can’t pretend that’s not true.

My father’s face twisted with rage and pain and disbelief.

He looked at me like I was a stranger, like the son he’d known had died and been replaced by someone unrecognizable.

Then you are not my son.

The words hung in the air.

Final absolute.

Get out, he said.

Get out of this house.

You are not welcome here.

You are dead to us.

My mother’s sobs got louder.

Miam was crying too.

Ali just stared at me with wide shocked eyes.

“Please,” I said.

“Please, can we just talk about this? Can we get out?” I went to my room and packed a bag with shaking hands, some clothes, my laptop, my phone, my Bible, the essentials.

I could hear my mother crying in the living room, hear my father’s angry voice, though I couldn’t make out the words.

When I came back out with my bag, only my father was there.

He stood blocking the door and for a moment I thought he might not let me leave, but then he stepped aside.

As I passed him, he spoke one more time.

If you walk out that door, you can never come back.

Do you understand? Never.

I understood.

I walked out anyway.

I stayed with a member of the underground church for a few days, sleeping on their couch, trying to process what had happened.

The reality of what I’d lost started to sink in.

No more family dinners.

No more working on architecture projects with my father.

No more of my mother’s cooking or my sister’s laugh or my brother’s questions about homework.

They were alive.

But to me, they might as well have been dead or rather I was dead to them.

But it got worse.

Word spread quickly through our community.

The son of the respected engineer who designed mosques had become a Christian.

People were shocked, outraged.

My father’s business started suffering as clients canceled contracts, not wanting to be associated with a family touched by aust.

My fiance, I hadn’t mentioned her before, but I’d been engaged to be married to a woman from another devout family.

broke off the engagement immediately.

She released a public statement saying she had no knowledge of my apostasy and condemning it in the strongest terms.

I lost my tutoring students.

Their parents didn’t want their children anywhere near someone who would left Islam.

The mentorship program at the mosque shut down my group immediately.

Then came the threats.

Anonymous messages on social media saying, “I deserve to die for betraying Islam.

” A brick thrown through the window of the apartment where I was staying.

Phone calls in the middle of the night with voices saying they knew where I was, that I couldn’t hide forever.

The family hosting me got scared.

They had children.

They couldn’t risk it.

I understood completely.

The underground church leaders sat down with me and told me the truth I’d been avoiding.

I wasn’t safe in Thran anymore.

Maybe not safe in Iran at all.

They connected me with a network that helped people in my situation.

The details of what happened next are vague for the safety of those who helped me.

But after a series of tense frightening days, I found myself crossing a border I won’t name into a country I won’t identify, beginning a journey that would eventually lead me far from Iran.

From there, I applied for asylum.

The process was long, uncertain, terrifying interviews with immigration officials who didn’t understand why I couldn’t just go back and pretend.

Months in temporary housing, not knowing if I’d be accepted or deported.

The constant fear that somehow word would reach back to Iran, putting my family in even more danger.

But eventually I was accepted by a western country willing to take in Christians fleeing religious persecution.

I’ve been here for over 2 years now.

I live in a small apartment.

I work at a job far below my education level because my Iranian credentials aren’t fully recognized here.

I attend a church where people speak a language I’m still learning.

Though I can communicate well enough now, I can’t contact my family.

It would put them in danger.

Guilt by association with an apostate.

Sometimes I search for them online, finding small traces.

I saw a photo of Mariam’s wedding last year.

I wasn’t there.

I’ll never meet her husband.

I’ll never meet any children she might have.

I see their faces only in old photos now frozen in time from before everything changed.

Some days the loneliness is crushing.

I think about what I’ve lost.

Not just my family, but my home, my culture, my language as my primary tongue, my career plans, my whole life as I knew it.

Sorry.

Some days I look at those old photos and the weight of it all threatens to overwhelm me.

But then I remember that night kneeling beside my bed, the peace that flooded my heart when I prayed to Jesus for the first time.

I remember the joy of baptism, of openly worshiping Jesus with other believers.

I remember reading the gospels and encountering the living Christ in those pages.

And I remember Mccah.

I remember standing in the grand mosque proclaiming words I didn’t choose to say.

I remember God reaching down into the heart of Islam’s holiest sight and grabbing hold of me, refusing to let go even when I tried to run.

Even when I was terrified, even when I didn’t understand, I didn’t seek Jesus.

I was perfectly content being Muslim.

I had no doubts.

No questions, no dissatisfaction with my faith.

But Jesus sought me.

He pursued me across religious boundaries, cultural divides, and my own resistance.

He spoke through me when I couldn’t speak for myself.

He waited patiently while I wrestled with the implications.

And when I finally surrendered, when I finally said yes, he flooded my life with a peace and purpose I’d never known before.

Has it cost me everything? Yes.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Would I do it again? Every single day, I would do it again because I gained Jesus.

And Jesus, I’ve learned, is worth more than everything I lost.

Worth more than family, home, security, comfort, reputation, safety.

I work now with other ex-Muslims who’ve come to faith in Christ.

I help them navigate the challenges I’ve faced.

I share my testimony whenever I’m asked, hoping that someone else who wrestling with these questions might find encouragement in my story.

to Muslims who might be reading this or hearing this.

I understand your faith.

I lived it deeply.

I’m not asking you to stop being devoted.

I’m asking you to be open if God speaks to you in unexpected ways.

I’m asking you to consider that maybe, just maybe, Jesus is more than what you’ve been taught he is.

To Christians, never underestimate what God can do.

Never give up on people you think are too far gone or too committed to another faith.

God met me in the grand mosque in Mecca of all places.

If he can reach me there, he can reach anyone anywhere.

To anyone searching for truth, it exists.

Truth is real and it’s worth any cost to find it.

Don’t settle for comfortable lies when uncomfortable truth is available.

Don’t let fear of consequences keep you from following where truth leads.

This is my testimony.

This is my story.

I share it not to argue or debate or convince, but simply to tell the truth about what happened to me.

What you do with it is between you and God.

But I pray to Jesus, to the one who pursued me relentlessly, to the one who spoke through me before I could speak for myself.

I pray that if there’s anyone reading this who’s wrestling with similar questions, who’s had an experience they can’t explain, who’s feeling drawn toward Jesus but terrified of what it might cost, I pray you will have the courage to take that step because on the other side of that fear, on the other side of that cost is Jesus.

And Jesus is worth everything.

 

 

 

 

Muslim Group Attack an Underground Church in Yemen — What Happened Next Shocked Everyone

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My name is Pastor Khaled and I am alive today because God stopped bullets from firing.

I know how that sounds.

Believe me, I know.

But I’m not asking you to take my word for it just yet.

I’m asking you to listen to my story and then decide for yourself what you believe.

I was born in Yemen in S into a secret that defined my entire life before I before I even understood what it meant.

I grew up thinking every family was like mine.

That every family had two faces.

One for the outside world and one for inside the walls of home.

I thought everyone whispered their prayers and hid their holy books.

I didn’t know until I was older that my family was different, dangerously different.

My grandparents were the first.

They converted to Christianity in the 1970s, back when Yemen was even more closed than it is now.

I never knew exactly how it happened.

My grandmother died before I was born.

And my grandfather would never tell the full story.

He would only say that Jesus appeared to him in a dream and after that dream he could never go back to his old faith.

He told his wife, my grandmother, and she believed too.

Together they carried this secret for decades.

They raised my father in the faith, teaching him about Jesus in whispers, making him memorize scripture in hidden corners of their home.

Hello viewers from around the world.

Before Pastor Khaled continues his story, we’d love to know where you are watching from and we would love to pray for you in your city.

Thank you and may God bless you as you listen to this powerful testimony.

They taught him to live two lives.

The outer life that everyone could see and the inner life that only God knew.

My father grew up attending mosque on Fridays to keep up appearances but praying to Jesus in his heart.

He learned to bow toward Mecca with his body while his spirit bowed to the cross.

When my father married my mother, he told her the truth on their wedding night.

It was the ultimate risk.

She could have reported him, divorced him, told her family the penalty for apostasy from Islam is death.

He was trusting her with his life.

My mother cried that night, not from anger or fear, but because she had been carrying her own secret.

She too had dreamed of Jesus.

She too had been searching for truth.

She had been praying in secret, asking God to show her the way.

And now here was her new husband telling her he followed Christ.

She saw it as God’s answer.

So I was born into this hidden faith.

My earliest memories are of my parents reading to me from a Bible hidden inside the hollowedout Quran.

I remember my grandfather placing his weathered hands on my head and praying blessings over me in whispered Arabic, asking Jesus to protect me, to make me strong, to use me for his purposes.

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