This was about transformation from the inside out.

The parables of Jesus about God’s love and grace moved her deeply.

The story of the prodigal son where the father runs to embrace his weward child and throws a celebration.

This was a picture of God she had never seen in Islam.

The story of the woman caught in adultery where Jesus refused to condemn her but told her to sin no more.

This showed a balance of truth and grace that Islam never offered.

And then, like so many others, she had a dream.

Jesus appeared to her dressed in white, radiating love and peace.

He told her not to be afraid, that she was seeking the truth and would find it.

He told her he loved her and had died for her.

When she woke up, she was weeping, overwhelmed by a love she had never experienced.

She eventually found our network through Christian websites, through encrypted messages and secret contacts designed to protect both the seeker and the believers.

When she came to our meeting for the first time, she was terrified, looking over her shoulder, constantly convinced someone had followed her.

By the end of the night, after hearing the gospel explained clearly, after having her questions answered with patience and biblical truth, she had prayed to receive Jesus as her Lord and Savior.

Two weeks later, we baptized her in secret late at night in a believer’s home.

She still had not told her family.

She was still pretending to be a faithful Muslim.

She still faced the possibility of honor killing if her conversion was discovered.

But she said with tears of joy streaming down her face that she had never been happier, never known such peace, never felt so loved.

Jesus was worth the risk.

Jesus was worth everything.

Her story was being repeated thousands of times across the Islamic world.

Young Muslims were questioning, searching, finding Jesus and being transformed.

The internet had broken the monopoly that Islam had on information in these countries.

Satellite TV channels were broadcasting Christian programming in Arabic and Farsy and other languages, reaching into homes where Christian presence had been forbidden.

Bible apps on smartphones meant anyone could secretly read scripture without the risk of being caught with a physical Bible.

But perhaps the most powerful factor in this awakening was the dreams and visions.

This phenomenon had become so widespread that even Islamic leaders could not ignore it or explain it away.

I personally met dozens of people, maybe over a hundred in those three years, whose journey to faith started with a dream of Jesus.

The dreams were remarkably similar across different countries, cultures, and backgrounds.

Jesus appeared in white, radiating love and peace.

He called people by name.

He told them he loved them and died for them.

He identified himself clearly not as just a prophet but as the son of God as the way, the truth and the life.

He invited people to follow him to come to him for rest and peace.

A young man named Hassan told us he had seen Jesus in a dream before he knew anything about Christianity, before he had ever read the Bible, before he had even met a Christian.

In the dream, Jesus showed him the scars on his hands and side and told him these were proof of his love.

Hassan woke up confused, not understanding what the dream meant.

He eventually found believers who explained that Jesus died on the cross, that he was pierced for our transgressions, that his wounds purchased our healing.

An older man who had been a soldier who had fought in wars and killed people told us he was haunted by guilt and nightmares of the men he had killed.

Then Jesus appeared to him in a dream and said the words from Matthew’s gospel, “Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest”.

The man had never read those words, had never heard them before, but they burned into his heart.

He searched for months to find Christians who could tell him how to know this Jesus from his dream.

How to find the rest he promised.

A teenage girl from a strict religious family saw Jesus standing in her room one night.

She was not asleep.

This was not a dream but a vision.

She saw him with her physical eyes as real as any person.

He spoke to her in Arabic and told her she was precious to him, that he had plans for her life, that she should not be afraid to follow him.

She thought she was losing her mind.

But when she secretly searched online and found hundreds of testimonies of other Muslims who had seen Jesus, she realized God was calling her.

These were not isolated incidents.

These were happening all across the Muslim world with such frequency that it had become impossible to dismiss as coincidence or imagination or mass hysteria.

Islamic scholars tried to explain it away as tricks of Satan as jin masquerading as Jesus as wishful thinking or western propaganda somehow invading people’s subconscious.

But the reality could not be denied.

Jesus was supernaturally revealing himself to Muslims in their dreams and visions.

Why was this happening now after 1400 years of Islamic dominance in these regions?

I believe it is the fulfillment of prophecy, the work of the Holy Spirit in the last days, the harvest that Jesus spoke about when he said, “The fields are white for harvest”.

I believe God is calling the descendants of Ishmael back to himself.

That he is showing his love for Arabs and Persians and Turks.

That he is reclaiming the lands where Christianity was born.

But there were also practical reasons why the movement was accelerating.

Muslims were becoming disillusioned with Islam.

They saw the violence committed in the name of Allah, the terrorism, the beheadings, the treatment of women as property, the oppression of minorities, the endless sectarian conflicts between Sunni and Shia.

Many young Muslims were asking themselves, “Is this really what God wants?

Is this really the religion of peace?

Is this really the straight path”?

They saw the empty ritualism of Islamic practice.

the focus on external conformity while hearts remained unchanged.

They saw religious leaders who were corrupt, who used Islam for political power and personal gain, who lived in luxury while preaching simplicity.

They saw the fearbased nature of Islamic faith, fear of punishment, fear of hell, fear of God’s wrath, fear of community judgment for any deviation.

and they were hungry for something different, something real, something that actually transformed lives.

When the searching Muslims encountered Christianity, they found a stark contrast.

They found a God who loves unconditionally, who offers grace freely, who calls people into relationship rather than mere obedience.

They found Jesus who said, “Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest”.

Such a different message from the heavy burdened of Islamic law with its countless rules and regulations.

They found assurance of salvation rather than uncertainty.

In Islam, you can never know if you have done enough to earn paradise.

Even Muhammad himself said he did not know if he would go to paradise.

Even the most devout Muslim lives in doubt, hoping their good deeds outweigh their bad.

Never certain, always anxious.

But in Christianity, you can know with certainty that you are saved, that your sins are forgiven, that your name is written in the Lamb’s book of life, that nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

They found the value and dignity of women.

Jesus treated women with respect that was radical for his time and remains radical in Islamic cultures today.

He taught women, allowed them to be his disciples, appeared first to women after his resurrection.

The early church included women as ministers, as teachers, as leaders.

Christianity offers women freedom and equality and value that Islam denies.

They found answers to their intellectual questions.

Christianity has a rich tradition of philosophy and theology, of engaging with hard questions, of welcoming honest doubt and struggle.

Islam often responds to questions with assertions of authority and demands for blind submission.

But Christianity invites investigation, encourages seeking, promises that those who seek will find.

Most powerfully they found the person of Jesus himself.

Not just a prophet among many prophets, not just a teacher among many teachers, but God made flesh, who loved humanity enough to die for us, who conquered death and offers us eternal life.

The character of Jesus as revealed in the Gospels is so compelling, so beautiful, so unlike any other religious figure that Muslims who honestly study his life often find themselves falling in love with him despite themselves.

I saw this transformation happen again and again in those three years.

Muslims who came to faith did not just change their religious label.

Their entire countenance changed.

The fear left their eyes.

Joy entered their hearts.

Hardness softened.

Anger turned to peace.

They experienced the freedom that comes from knowing Christ.

And it was visible to everyone around them.

It was like watching people come alive, like watching prisoners being released from chains they had worn so long.

They had forgotten what freedom felt like.

But this awakening was not happening without fierce opposition.

As the number of converts grew, as the phenomenon became harder to hide, Islamic authorities across the Muslim world began to take more aggressive action.

Governments implemented harsher laws against apostasy.

In some countries, the penalty for converting from Islam was officially death.

In others, it was long imprisonment, torture, forced psychiatric treatment based on the claim that anyone who left Islam must be insane.

Imams preached increasingly aggressive sermons warning about the danger of Christianity, about Western conspiracies to destroy Islam, about the eternal punishment awaiting those who left the faith.

Families became more vigilant about monitoring, their children’s internet usage and social contacts.

Young people found their phones being searched, their computers being monitored, their movements being tracked, honor killings of converts became more common.

I heard stories that broke my heart and filled me with rage at the same time.

Adept young woman in Iran poisoned by her own father for becoming a Christian.

He put poison in her food at dinner and she died in agony while he watched believing he was defending family honor and Islamic faith.

A teenage boy in Afghanistan beaten to death by his uncles for refusing to recant his faith in Jesus.

A university student in Egypt who simply disappeared one day.

Her body was later found in the Nile River, her hands and feet bound, drowned by family members who could not bear the shame of having an apostate in their midst.

Islamic leaders and governments tried to stem the tide of conversions through various methods.

They organized massive da’wa campaigns, sending Muslim missionaries to reIslamize Muslims who were drifting or doubting.

They flooded social media with anti-Christian propaganda with videos and articles designed to refute Christianity and keep Muslims from questioning their faith.

They created sophisticated websites with arguments against Christianity with explanations for why Islam was superior with warnings about the dangers of leaving Islam.

Some countries blocked Christian websites and banned Christian apps.

Others invested heavily in monitoring internet activity using advanced technology to track who was visiting Christian sites, who was downloading Bibles, who was watching Christian videos.

Saudi Arabia and Iran especially became experts at cyber surveillance, catching secret believers through their digital footprints and arresting them.

But all these efforts were failing to stop the movement.

You cannot stop the wind with your hands.

You cannot hold back the tide with a wall of sand.

The Holy Spirit’s work cannot be hindered by human opposition.

The more Islamic authorities tried to suppress Christianity, the more Muslims became curious about what they were so desperate to hide.

The blood of martyrs became the seed of the church just as it had in the first centuries of Christianity when Rome tried to stamp out this new faith through persecution.

I met a man whose brother had been executed for converting to Christianity in Iran.

The execution was public, meant to intimidate others, to send a clear message that apostasy would not be tolerated, that anyone who left Islam would face the ultimate penalty.

But instead of intimidating people, the brothers courage and peace in the face of death caused several members of the extended family to start questioning Islam.

How could a dead religion produce such courage?

How could a false faith give such peace at the moment of death?

Within a year, three family members had secretly converted.

The authorities attempt at intimidation had backfired completely.

The martyr’s death had planted seeds of faith in his own family.

This pattern repeated across the Muslim world.

Persecution was intended to stop the spread of Christianity.

But instead, it was fueling curiosity and confirming to many Muslims that Islam was a religion of violence and fear, while Christianity was a faith worth dying for.

People noticed that Christians died with peace and forgiveness, while Muslims died with curses and rage.

They noticed that Christian martyrs prayed for their executioners while Muslim martyrs cursed their enemies.

Islamic leaders knew they were fighting a losing battle.

In private conversations that leaked out through various channels, some admitted that the situation was out of control, that they did not know how to stop what they called the hemorraing of believers from Islam.

Some predicted that if current trends continued, significant portions of the Middle East could be Christian majority within a generation or two.

This prospect terrified them.

Islam’s power was built on geographic dominance, controlling the Arabian Peninsula, controlling the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, controlling the lands of ancient Islamic empires.

If these regions became Christian, the entire foundation of Islamic authority would collapse.

The psychological impact would be devastating.

How could Islam claim to be the final superior religion if its heartland returned to Christianity?

So, they increased their efforts to hide the reality from the rest of the world.

International media rarely reported on the conversion phenomenon because Islamic countries controlled the information and Western media was often reluctant to tell stories that might be seen as Islamophobic.

Islamic countries certainly did not publish statistics on how many Muslims were leaving Islam.

They presented a facade of Islamic unity and strength to the outside world while secretly panicking about the mass exodus happening within their borders.

But those of us within the underground church knew the truth.

We lived it every day.

We saw lives transformed.

We saw families slowly turning to Christ, sometimes one member at a time over years.

We saw entire villages in some regions where Christianity was spreading through kinship networks where cousins would convert and then share with other cousins who would share with their siblings until extended families had multiple secret believers.

We saw that ancient prophecies were being fulfilled before our eyes.

Isaiah’s vision of a highway from Egypt to Assyria, of Egyptians and Assyrians worshiping together, of God calling Egypt my people and Assyria my handiwork.

This was coming to pass in our generation.

The Psalms that spoke of Arabia and Khedar and the desert tribes praising the Lord were being literally fulfilled.

The Middle East, which had been the birthplace of Christianity before Islam swept through and suppressed it for 14 centuries, was experiencing a resurrection of faith.

And I knew with absolute certainty that comes from seeing God’s hand at work, that this was only the beginning.

The awakening was accelerating, not slowing down.

The rate of conversions was increasing, not decreasing.

The future of the Middle East was Christian.

Not because of political or military power, not because of Western influence or colonialism, but because Jesus himself was calling his sheep and they were hearing his voice.

I began to understand during this time that my role in this movement was to tell the story to testify to what God was doing to encourage both the secret believers in the Middle East who felt alone and isolated and Christians around the world who needed to know that God was moving powerfully in the Muslim world.

My suffering, my loss of family and position, the price I had paid, all of it had meaning and purpose.

I was a witness to the greatest move of God in the Islamic world in over a thousand years.

And I knew that eventually I would need to speak more publicly, to share my testimony more widely, to let the world know what was happening behind the closed doors of Islamic countries.

The truth could not remain hidden forever.

The light of Christ was shining in the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it.

It is now early 2025 and I am sitting in a place where I can finally tell my story openly to the world.

I am no longer in Iraq.

After years of prayer, careful consideration and counsel from church leaders who became like family to me, I made the difficult decision to leave my homeland so I could speak publicly about what is happening without putting other believers at risk.

The specific details of how I left and where I am now must remain private for security reasons.

There are still people who would kill me if they could find me.

And I must protect the network of believers who helped me escape.

But I am safe.

I am free.

And I have a platform to share what God is doing.

Looking back on my journey from cleric to convert, from respected religious leader to persecuted refugee, from servant of Islam to follower of Christ, I am overwhelmed with gratitude that fills my chest until I can barely breathe.

Yes, I have lost much.

I have lost my family, my homeland, my career, my reputation, my comfort, my security.

Everything that defined my identity in the eyes of the world has been stripped away.

But I have gained infinitely more than I lost.

I have gained Jesus.

I have gained eternal life.

I have gained peace and joy and purpose beyond anything I ever knew in Islam.

I have gained brothers and sisters in Christ from every nation.

I have gained freedom from the fear that dominated my life as a Muslim.

Every morning I wake up and thank God for rescuing me from darkness and bringing me into his marvelous light.

Every day I am amazed that he would love me enough to pursue me relentlessly, to send dreams and visions when I was lost, to orchestrate circumstances and bring people across my path to lead me to himself.

I was his enemy, a servant of a false religion, actively teaching others to reject the true Savior.

Yet he loved me anyway.

He died for me on the cross when I was still his enemy.

He called me by name when I did not even know his name.

He never gave up on me.

This is the gospel, the good news that has transformed my life and is transforming millions of lives across the Muslim world at this very moment.

It is not about religion or rules or ritual.

It is not about being good enough or doing enough good deeds.

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