June 2021

To Help you Pray this month for your Local Mosque Community.

I grew up in a Muslim family in Iran, however I wasn’t a practicing Muslim. Living in a strictly Muslim country made it almost impossible to go to churches and inquire since it is forbidden for a Muslim to go to church and to convert to Christianity or spread it, is punishable by death. 

Like many Iranians, I felt disillusioned by the abuses of the Regime and questioned its validity. Yet I wondered about if and who God really was, even considering myself an atheist at one point. One summer day, when I was 19 years old, I was going through satellite channels and I came across this Christian program which was showing a pastor preaching about Jesus during a church service. What he said about Jesus had such a profound effect on me that I ended up watching it to end of the service and surprisingly, I continued watching it every week for several months. From then on, I was determined to learn as much as I could about Jesus.  

When life took me away to military service, university and various jobs, my search for truth diminished but as plans formed to get a masters degree and better life in Canada, I realized this would also be my opportunity to freely explore Christianity! 

A few month after I arrived in Canada, I met a nice lady at the university who was promoting Christianity to international students. She answered some of the questions that I had and invited me to this Christianity Explored Program that her church was organizing on campus. I attended the class and went to their church with them about every other Sunday.  I was surprised by the friendliness and warmth of the people who included me as part of their lives and community even though I was a stranger – something I had not experienced before. I was also struck by their passion for Jesus and not just a religion. I made several friends as a result. 
 
Throughout this time, I encountered many personal problems, such as finances, employment, living situations, etc. As my Christian friends prayed with me and taught me to pray in the name of Jesus, I began to pray this way on my own at home. In each situation, I saw God work miraculously to provide for my needs and I grew to trust in His amazing grace because I felt I didn’t deserve it. All the while, my Christian friends kept encouraging me to put my faith in Christ as Saviour. However, my Muslim background that always told me what I could and couldn’t think, made me still hesitant. Now I decided to explore the Bible for myself and research Christian apologetics online.  
 
As a result, I became completely convinced I had found the truth I was searching for. One night the man who was mentoring me one on one, challenged me with the verse, “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” Those words spoke powerfully to me and later that week I put my trust in Jesus as my Saviour and became a Christian! I was baptized in front of about 20 friends in a backyard pool in July of 2020. 

Since then I’ve had to move from place to place and job to job like a gypsy, from Ontario to Vancouver and back, while waiting for a permanent job in my field. Yet I feel very “at home” now with Christ and His people. He has continued to provide for my needs at every turn and I am no longer anxious about everything as I used to be. I have great peace and joy in the Lord instead of being negative and pessimistic. God has a true purpose for my life and heaven is now my real home. I praise Him for his Amazing Grace! 
 
My prayer requests for you are as follows: 

• To continue to stay strong in my faith and grow as a believer and to be a faithful disciple.
• For my family to be open to the fact that I’ve converted to Christianity and to be able to safely visit them some day in my country. 
• To marry a Christian wife and settle down😊