Fleeing violence and intimidation
For it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:6 NKJV
I was born in the city of Gorgan in the northeast of Iran, close to the Caspian Sea. I grew up with my parents and three siblings. We were not a religious family. We would all claim to be Muslim, of course, for the sake of progress and success in work and education, but at home we did not practise Islam. I was not taught to pray in Arabic, or forced to memorise the Quran like many other Iranians I knew.
About two years after graduating from university with a degree in Persian literature, I got married. I had first encountered my husband briefly whilst staying at my uncle’s home in Tehran, having travelled there to attend a national book fair. Around one month later, this man contacted my uncle to express his interest in me and to ask for the marriage to be arranged. My uncle agreed to speak to my family, and invited me to go to Tehran. After meeting the man in question on about four more occasions, and once his family had travelled to Gorgan to meet mine, I agreed to the marriage, having no particular objection. I did not have very high expectations of marriage, but I hoped for a reasonably comfortable and settled life in the capital city.
I soon discovered that my new husband took his religion far more seriously than I did. He insisted that I correctly perform my voozoo (ablutions) before praying five times a day in Arabic. This had never been my habit, and the ritualism seemed cheap and pointless to me. He also wanted me to always wear my hijab correctly, even within our home when other men were present. I tried to explain that I was used to my freedom, and asked why he would allow a man to come into our home in the first place if he had any doubts about his character or conduct, but I was never permitted to make decisions on such matters myself. Very soon, there was a lot of friction between us over these issues. I questioned why, if God was so strict, and wanted to control all our behaviour, including the details of our clothing and nutrition, he would have bothered to create us in the first place. These arguments over religious issues created a lot of conflict between us, and my husband’s clear devotion to Islam only served to highlight for me my own dislike of a religion which I saw as oppressive.
Now that I lived in Tehran I applied to train and work as an international flight attendant. As part of the recruitment process, I was interviewed about my knowledge and practice of Islam. I was accepted, despite my relative ignorance on this subject, and came to really love my job, but I was learning, through experiences such as this, about how Islam permeates every area of life in Iran. I had been somewhat shielded from this reality within the open-minded atmosphere of my home in Gorgan.
As time went on, my husband started to become physically abusive and violent towards me. Even now, as I think back to that period of my life, I feel the tension and the stress all over again. I was hospitalised three times. On one occasion, I needed surgery to repair my broken right arm, and I was unable to work for four months afterwards. I was afraid to tell my family or friends about the abuse, so I turned instead to counselling. I visited three different psychologists, hoping for some kind of advice or help, not principally for my own mental state, but for my husband’s. I asked them what I could do to change his attitude towards me, and to make him see things from my point of view. Each time I was told that it was not my duty to change him, but only to accept him for who he was, and to put up with his treatment of me.
Five years into marriage, I came to the decision that pursuing divorce was my only hope. It was not a decision that I came to easily. I did not know of anyone in my family who had ever been divorced before, and I was afraid that my parents would be very upset and ashamed of me. Nevertheless, after a year of deliberation, I called my brother-in-law to discuss the matter with him. I loved and trusted my sister’s husband as if he were my real brother, and I felt sure that I could confide my problems in him. He told me, “Yasmin, this is no small decision. You need to be very sure about this before you go ahead.” I told him that I had been considering it for a long time, but that my only issue was how my parents would react. I pleaded with him to call them on my behalf, and he agreed.
A week later, my brother-in-law called me back. He told me that my father had been shocked when he heard about what had been going on. He asked why, when I was a strong and independent person, with a good job, I had been so long-suffering. My mother had been in tears as they spoke, not having suspected what I was putting up with. This news was a huge relief to me. I had feared anger and shame, but received only love and sympathy. My parents were upset only that I had not told them earlier about my suffering.
Both my father and my mother soon came to Tehran to see me. When I spoke to my father, he told me, “Yasmin, you have just one life. You need to make sure that you live it well, and that you are happy. You need to be free. You should choose your life for yourself, and we will support you in every decision you make.” He warned me, however, that they could not stay with me in Tehran, and that I would need to be very strong. I was not choosing an easy path.
For one thing, pursuing divorce would certainly impact my working life. For my job, it was essential that I maintain my passport, whether I worked on international or domestic flights. But in Iran, a married woman’s passport must be signed by her husband to be valid. I knew my husband would not continue to sign if I was seeking to divorce him. I also knew that I did not have a good chance of success with my case. While it is very easy for a man to divorce his wife in Iran, for a woman, it is a very different matter.
I had to deal with two different courts: one for the divorce, and another over the issue of my passport. I was told that the only solution to the passport issue was to surrender a property document, and to renew my passport every six months, until such time as my divorce might be granted. I owned nothing of value at that time, so my father kindly agreed to bring his property documents to the court on my behalf. In this way, I was able to continue working and to support myself.
The divorce hearing came around, and as I expected, my husband refused to accept divorce, and the decision was made in his favour. I began an appeal, and this time I decided that I would try to bribe the three judges. It was not easy for me to raise the money for such a bribe, but I believed this was my best option. The judges promised to examine the case carefully and to make the decision that would be best for my life. They did indeed decide in my favour on this occasion, but not without allowing my husband time to appeal. The appeal was granted and the case went to the high court with five judges, much to the surprise and consternation of my solicitor.
I should explain here the system of mehrieh (which could be translated as “affection”) in Iranian marriage. Under this system, future husbands agree with their bride’s family, to pay a certain number of gold coins to their wife in the event of divorce. This can be a deterrent to easy divorce from the husband’s side. Before our marriage, my husband had discussed mehrieh with my parents, but they had told him they would not require it. They were straightforward and honest, and trusted him and his family. Nevertheless, he had set my mehrieh at five gold coins, roughly the equivalent of 50 million rials (around one thousand pounds sterling). I understood after marriage that he had done this merely to make a show of generosity towards my parents. Later experience proved him only to be dishonest and penny-pinching. At one point, my husband had taken out a big loan without my knowledge, and had named me as guarantor, which led to trouble for me when it was time for the loan to be repaid. I did not expect him to be willing to make any mehrieh payment if we divorced.
During the first divorce hearing, I had told the judges that I would not require the mehrieh to be paid. I naturally did not want to put any obstacle in my path to freedom. It was partly because of this that my solicitor was so surprised that my case should be taken to the high court. With no financial issues involved, the case should not have been considered a complicated one.
I testified about the occasions when I had been hospitalised, and about the physical, emotional and psychological abuse that I had suffered. To my relief, the high court judges granted the divorce. At that point in my life, this seemed to me my greatest ever achievement. I had been patient for far too long. I had put up with the trauma of my marriage, and had battled through the stress of the divorce proceedings. Finally, I had won my freedom, and I felt a stronger person for the experience. Life would now begin to get better, I hoped.
I could not have been more wrong.
I had discovered something about my husband during the period of our marriage which I believe eventually made matters much more complicated for me. I had noticed that he had two mobile phones. He had given me the number for one of them, but not for the other. I never asked him about this, because I had got to know him well enough to realise that it was better not to ask too many questions. When this second phone rang, he would generally go into another room of the house, close the door and speak in a hushed voice. I had grown suspicious of much of his behaviour, and being naturally curious, I sometimes tried to listen at the door. I thought I could understand from this eavesdropping, and the snippets of conversation that I could discern, that my husband worked for the intelligence services.
Being an intelligence officer is not something uncommon in Iran. Iranian intelligence infiltrates every area of life. Intelligence operatives are present in high schools, universities, hospitals and mosques. Iranian people have learnt not to trust one another. We are afraid to speak our minds in any context because it is impossible to tell who may be spying on us. My suspicions about my husband seemed confirmed when a very young neighbour of ours was arrested and imprisoned. I do not know the grounds of his arrest, but he had always seemed to me a very pleasant young man, a university student with a hopeful future ahead of him. I was upset for a long time after he was arrested. I could not understand why anyone would want to interfere in someone else’s life in what seemed to me such a cruel way. I never confronted my husband about his work, and I still have never told any of my family or friends in Iran about this because I know that it is something that would cause fear and panic.
Around two years after my divorce, my former husband began to appear sometimes when I was on my way to or from work, and to verbally abuse me. Herasat, a branch of the intelligence services, also began to call me frequently for questioning. They asked me why my hijab had not been worn perfectly, completely covering my hair, on some occasion, or why, when I was at work, I had rolled my sleeves up. They questioned me about my relationships with male co-workers, even asking me if I was trying to start an affair with one particular pilot. I became afraid that there was someone watching me constantly in my day-to-day life. I realised that even during flights my behaviour was being closely observed. I came to believe that my husband planned to break me down, step by step, through the questioning and intimidation, and by creating paranoia.
Before long, I was being interrogated after almost every flight I worked on. I did not want to give up my job. I loved the work, and the pay was very good for international flights, but life was now almost as unbearable as it had been during my marriage. I remember very clearly the circumstances of the very last flight that I went on. Before I flew, Herasat told me that if they discovered anything unacceptable in my behaviour during that flight, then on my return I would be arrested. They told me that once in prison I would be treated harshly, and they would not be able to do anything to protect me. They warned me that I would lose my job, lose my home – and indeed that I’d lose everything. I left in fear, but with the determination to do my job well, and trying just to focus on the financial reward that I would receive.
My last flight was an international one to London with a two-night stopover in a London hotel. On first arriving there, I had no intention other than to return home. My father had always taught me as I grew up to be honest and to work hard at whatever was given me to do, and this would be a particularly profitable job because I would be paid in British pounds. I had not spoken to anyone about the Herasat meetings because I did not want to cause any trouble or upset to my family. I loved them very much, and had no desire to lose their love and confidence in me.
But on the second night, as I lay in that London hotel, I could not sleep. Thoughts were racing through my mind. I pictured myself being arrested and interrogated by the police, and then being imprisoned and probably raped. As I have said, I was not religious, and yet I believed that there was an eternal God. I began to pray in Farsi. I said, “I am a woman, alone in this place. I don’t want to go home and be arrested, and cause heartache to my family. My parents are old. I don’t want them to be involved in this kind of trouble.”
This was the first time I had ever really prayed. I did not count my forced Arabic prayers as truly speaking to God. But now I just poured out my troubles to Him without really knowing what kind of answer I wanted. Still, I could not sleep. I sat on my bed and weighed up the two alternatives I saw before me. On the one hand, I could flee. That way I saw only darkness and the unknown. On the other hand, I could get back on the flight in the morning and return to Tehran. That way I felt certain about, and it was the certainty of imprisonment, persecution, rape and even execution. My family would not be able to bear that. I took the decision to go into the unknown. I had no idea what might be before me, but I tried to hope that maybe there really was a God who would answer my prayer.
At around six o’clock in the morning, I packed my small suitcase and left the hotel. I managed to find my way to a bus station. I had very little English, but I could manage, “I go Home Office.” I was directed to the right bus, and made my way to my destination. After some time, I was sent to a hostel and given an appointment for a screening interview in twenty days’ time. Three days later, my mother called me and asked me what was going on. She was crying and asked where I was. All I could do was hang up the phone. It was too upsetting for me and for her. About five minutes later, my older sister called. She was really angry with me, and blamed me for making my mother cry. They had realised that I had left Iran, but could not understand why. I hung up on my sister too. It was just too much for my mind and my emotions to cope with.
Eventually, my brother-in-law called. He had wisely waited some time for me to calm myself. I talked at length with him. I explained that I did not want him to get involved in my situation. I warned him that he may be questioned by the intelligence services, and that it would be better for him not to know where I was or what I was doing. I begged him not to ask me for any details. I knew him to be generally sensible, and I believe he then spoke to my parents, and persuaded them not to argue with me.
The screening interview lasted about three and a half hours. I was presented with an ID card, and told that I would be taken to another city the next day. Following the interview, I felt at peace for some time. I was happy, and had no suffering in my heart. Somehow, I had hope. I felt sure that my family was in a safer position now that I was gone, and my mind was no longer dwelling on my worries about them. Maybe they would be angry and sad for some time, but it would not last – and indeed, after some months had passed, I was able to reconnect with them.
I began to struggle emotionally, however, when I was moved on to the next city. I began to think back to what I had left behind. I had really enjoyed my job. It was well-paid, and I had been able to afford a comfortable home. I still had no idea what the future would hold for me in this new country, and very little to occupy my time or distract me from my thoughts. As I arrived at a small hotel, where the other residents were all asylum seekers like myself, the tears started to flow. I was surrounded by strangers when it was the faces of my family that I wanted to see. It was there that I met Reza.
Reza was a well-educated man from the south of Iran. He asked me how I was feeling, and I told him all that had been going through my mind and my heart over the past few weeks. It was a relief just to be able to speak my own language and unburden my heart to a willing listener. Reza told me that there at the hotel everyone was the same, all experiencing the same struggles and emotional pulls. Then he asked me something unexpected.
“Yasmin, why don’t you come to church with me?”
“Reza,” I replied, “Don’t talk to me about religion. I left Iran because of religion. All the problems in my life have stemmed from religion. Why would I have anything to do with religion again? I would just be making problems for myself.”
“Yasmin, this is different,” Reza responded. “It is not like Islam. If you come with me, you can just sit and listen. You don’t have to do anything else. Maybe you will hear something helpful.”
Reza continued to invite me to go to church with him, and I continued to refuse his invitations. One day, on meeting him in the hotel, Reza told me that he had been informed that he would have to move to another city for more long-term accommodation. “Before I go”, he said, “Yasmin, I want you to promise me that you will go to the church some time. Just listen. Just listen. Nothing else.” He gave me a phone number. He told me it was the number of an Iranian who would be happy to pick me up and take me to the church if I called him. He would also translate the service into Farsi. Just to satisfy Reza, I said, “Okay, okay, I will go there one day.”
About a week later, I given accommodation in a house. It was a busy week, with the move, a meeting with my solicitor and my first Home Office interview. But following the move and the interview, I found myself with nothing much to do, and only my own morbid thoughts to fill the hours and long days. The ever-persistent Reza kept calling me. The conversation turned quickly to church, as it always did with him.
“Have you been to church yet Yasmin?”
“No, I’ve been busy.”
“But Yasmin, you promised me.”
“That’s true. Okay, this week I will think about going.”
On Saturday, I called the number Reza had given me. The man on the other end of the line agreed to meet me the next day and take me to the church. I remember vividly that first church service I attended. I did just listen, as Reza had told me to do, but the message was very strange. The pastor spoke about how Jesus is our shepherd, and we are His lambs. In Iran, to call someone a lamb is a huge insult! It means that a person is intellectually challenged. I was shocked. I looked around me in the church, hardly able to believe that everyone was still sitting there and listening passively as they were insulted in this way. I continued to dwell on this aspect of the message after returning home, wondering what the speaker could possibly have meant, and I was curious enough to return to church the next week. After two or three weeks of attending, it became a habit for me to go. I had very little else to do, and I had come to really enjoy the preaching. The pastor had begun to talk about the love of Jesus. This was a topic that touched an area of my heart that had seemed cold and dead. My experience of marriage had taught me nothing about love. I felt that love was no more than a joke, a game or a myth. It had never existed in reality for me. But the pastor’s message was truly beautiful. He spoke about a love that was real, and that did not depend on the efforts of broken human hearts.
Apart from the preaching, I was not particularly comfortable in the church. The other Iranians in our small group were all men, and I did not speak much English, so I could not communicate well with anyone else. I also had little motivation to talk as my spirits were still generally very low. I would attend the service, but then just return to my home, having barely spoken to anyone. However, one Sunday there was a lunch in the church hall after the service, and during the meal I received my first invitation to a British home. A lady around my age spoke with me and told me, “Yasmin, next week please come to our house for lunch after the morning service.” Her manner was gentle, and she had spoken with such kindness, that I accepted and promised to go.
It was an interesting experience for me. I was brought a British cup of tea for the first time. I thought at first that it might be a joke. Tea with milk in it! But then I saw that my new friend’s husband had been given the same, and that she was drinking it herself. The food was delicious, and the couple and their four children put me at ease. From that time on, I began to get to know others at the church, and to feel more and more as though I was welcomed, and that I belonged there, as though part of a very big family.
As I listened each week to the preaching, I began to think about the differences between Islam and Christianity. The God of Islam was harsh. If you took a wrong step, he would be angry with you, and you would receive the punishment of death both in this world and the next. Yet the actions considered sinful in Islam seemed insignificant – allowing a man to see your hair, or breaking the fast during Ramadan. I could not see these things as important, or worthy of the attention of an eternal God. In Islam, you have to try to be a good person, and then maybe God will accept you. But I had come to understand that in Christianity, whatever you do, and whatever kind of person you are, God loves you. In fact, Jesus spoke of sin as something in the heart of every man and woman. He said that it is sinful for a man just to look at a woman in a lustful way, or for a person to be angry with anyone without a good cause. Despite this higher view of sin, God loves us. His love is not dependent on our actions or our habits of religion. I remember hearing the words of John 3:16 for the first time:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:16 NKJV
This was not like anything I had ever heard before, and it filled my heart with joy. It told me that salvation and eternal life with God depends not on me but on the gift of His Son through His great love for me.
After some months of attending church and learning more about God’s love each week, I had a supernatural experience. I was at home alone, and had just finished cleaning the house. I decided to go into my room and rest. On opening the bedroom door, I saw a man standing beside my bed. I knew that there was no one else in the house, and I also knew immediately that it was Jesus. My first instinct was to close the door again, which I did without hesitation, and in fear. But at that moment, the most beautiful feeling of warmth and joy overpowered me. I sensed that my sins were forgiven, that I was loved, and that I was saved. It was like a huge, heavy burden had been lifted off my back. I opened the door again. He was still there. I could not look for long, but fell on my knees and wept. I do not know how long I remained like that. The feeling of joy and excitement was powerful. It was the knowledge that I was a new person, that I was born again, that my sins had been washed away. It was a new dawn in my life, a brand-new beginning!
Besides hearing the sermons preached each Sunday in church, I was reading the Bible in Farsi for myself at home. From the New Testament, I loved especially John’s Gospel, and from the Old Testament, my favourite book was Daniel. Daniel lived at the beginning of the Persian Empire, and I was struck by his wisdom in choosing to live for his God in a foreign land, and by the opportunities he had through God to accurately interpret dreams and visions of the future.
I asked my Iranian friend at the church if we could start a Persian Bible study, and in the meantime, I had found one in a different church on a weekday. The pastor of that church asked me if I would like to be baptised. He suggested that it would help with my asylum application, but I declined to be baptised on those grounds. I explained that my case was not to do with my new Christian faith, and it seemed wrong to me that the church should encourage me to pursue baptism for that reason. I had been going to church because I enjoyed it, and because I wanted to hear about Jesus and the God of the Bible. I determined that if I was to be baptised, it would be in the church that I attended on Sundays anyway, as I felt more at home there. I spoke to my Iranian friend in that church. To begin with, I was nervous about telling him that I was now a Christian. In Islam, we are taught that if you have some kind of experience, like a vision, or a dream, then you should keep it to yourself. It should remain only in your heart. But my friend was very pleased to hear that I now believed in Jesus. He told me that it was right for me to tell people that I was a Christian, and to share my faith with others who maybe did not believe in Jesus yet. It would be an encouragement to the church. So, after some time I decided to ask to be baptised. I was interviewed by the pastor, and he agreed that I was ready for baptism. It was a wonderful experience for me, and an open declaration of my faith. I discussed my decision to be baptised as a Christian believer with my parents. My father told me that I was free to do what I wanted, but my mother was upset, and it took longer for her to accept what had happened to me.
A message that has stayed with me from the pastor’s preaching is that when we pray, we are not alone. There are four people present. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are with each of us as we pray. We can come to the Father because we have been cleansed by the blood of the Son. The Spirit works in us to help us to know how to pray. Since hearing that, I have never felt alone, and I know also that I can speak to Him in my own language, and with complete freedom. I have come to understand too why the pastor said that we, as people, are like lambs. We are indeed ignorant. We cannot understand our lives by ourselves. We do not know where we are going. We need the shepherd to lead us, and He is a wonderful shepherd, because He loves us. When I first came to the UK, everything looked dark for me. Yet He had and has a plan for my life. I am in His hands.
I gradually began to feel a change in my personality after becoming a Christian. I had been a very unsociable person before. I did not like to chat, especially with people I did not know well. My focus was only on my own life. I used to see people chatting in church, and I just wanted to escape. It really bothered me that others seemed to enjoy just talking with each other, and I could not understand why they did. I hated to be asked questions about myself and about my previous life in Iran. On becoming a Christian, this all changed. I loved to be with people. I loved to chat, and to help others if I possibly could, and to share my experiences of God’s love for me in Christ. I came to understand that Christian friends were not just being nosy when they asked me about my life. They genuinely wanted to know about me because they loved me, and they wanted to pray for me. Life and love were blossoming in my heart, and I loved people to be able to see that in me.
The people of the church are truly family to me. I will never be able to adequately express my gratitude towards those who have led me along the way, and sacrificed much of their time and resources for me. When I was asked in one of my court hearings about how the church had supported me, the judge was surprised by my answer. She knew that the church had given me support for accommodation, and that for a period they had also supported me financially, but I told her that they supported me by their prayers. She did not question me any more about this.
I should explain the trouble that I have had to go through over my asylum application. It has not been a simple journey for me. My first application was refused, and I had to appeal. I needed two people to go to the appeal hearing with me as witnesses. The women’s worker at the church and one of the elders agreed to go with me, but when I arrived at the court, I saw another elder and his wife had also come. I asked them why they were there, and whether they had some issue to resolve at the court, but they told me, “No, Yasmin, we are here for you, just for you.” My church friends testified that they knew that I was a Christian, though by that time I had not yet been baptised. My case had been put forward on the grounds that I had fled from a violent husband, so my faith was not considered relevant, especially as I was already divorced from my husband. I was told that as I had no documents to prove that I had been threatened and intimidated, my claims did not stand up. I tried to explain that naturally the intelligence services would not give me any documents as a record of my interviews with them, but the case seemed hopeless.
I remember clearly the letter that I received on the 16th May, informing me that I had to leave my home, and that my financial support would be stopped. Without the love and kindness of the church members, I do not know what would have happened to me. A very kind British friend from the church collected me and my things, and took me to her home. She was preparing to get married at the time to an older Iranian man from the church, so I did not feel comfortable about staying in her home for long. I was there for about two weeks, and then received a text message from another friend from the church. She told me that she and others had decided together that they would pay for accommodation and support me for one year. They would pay my rent for a room in a shared house with students, very close to the church, and they would give me an allowance equal to what I had been receiving before from the Home Office. How could I refuse? I had no other option, and I was so immensely grateful for this kindness. There were other Christian girls living in the house, and it became a lovely home for me.
The same friend who had arranged for my accommodation and support also helped me to find a new solicitor. The solicitor was in another city, about an hour’s drive away, but she drove me there and back whenever it was necessary. I was overwhelmed by the kindness of this friend, even at a time when her mother was passing away. I felt she supported me more than my own parents had ever done. My mother and father had always tried to instill independence in me, and often left me in situations where I just had to fend for myself, but now I felt like a child again. I was loved and guided along the way.
We started a new application. The solicitor advised me to change my case, and to apply on the grounds that it would be dangerous for me to return to Iran because I was a Christian. He told me that I should try to make my case as strong as possible. My friend from the church helped me to make plans for this. She suggested that each time I went to a church meeting, I should ask someone to sign a document to prove that I had been there. I was uncomfortable about doing this. I went to church because I loved going there, because I loved reading the Bible and sharing my life with my Christian friends. In fact, I was in church frequently during the week, as well as on Sundays. One morning each week there was a Bible study for women, and on another morning there was a smaller international ladies’ group. I was also working a shift as a volunteer in the coffee shop next to the church, and enjoying fellowship there as I worked. Nothing could have stopped me from going to church, but I did understand that my best hope for remaining in the UK was to now go along with my friend’s suggestions. And so I began to gather my evidence.
I was very distressed when my case was refused yet again. I had been moved on to another city some time before the hearing, but my original church family continued to support me. I found a new church, a smaller one, and settled there, but I still missed my first church home. My friends there organised a petition to the Home Office in support of my appeal, stating that I could not go back to Iran because my life would be in danger as a Christian. At the appeal hearing twelve people from the first church attended, and five people from my new church, making a total of seventeen Christian brothers and sisters present to support my case. One of the elders of my new church, a young man, in his early thirties, came as witness. He was always telling jokes and laughing with people, and I was nervous before the hearing, not expecting him to be able to deal well with the questions he would be asked. To my surprise, he answered everything wisely and clearly. He was asked what he knew about my case. He answered that he knew me from church, and that usually when people come to church, he does not ask questions about their asylum application, or about other areas of their life that may be too personal or difficult to talk about. He would always ask first and foremost about their faith in Christ, to understand whether or not they trust that He has forgiven their sins. He said that I had asked him to come to the court, and that he was there simply to testify that I was a Christian. They asked him how he knew that I was a Christian. He told them that I came to church on Sundays, I came to the prayer meeting and the Persian Bible study, but that more importantly we had often washed the dishes together after a meeting and had talked about our faith and the love of Jesus as we did so. He said that during these conversations he could see the joy that my faith had brought to my life, and that he knew of the love and patience that I had shown to a moody housemate in a recent difficult situation. These were clear signs, he said, that I really was a Christian, that I was born again in Christ. As he continued to speak, each answer seemed so direct and apt, and we were reminded of Jesus’s words to His disciples in Luke 12:11-12:
“Now when they bring you to the synagogues and magistrates and authorities, do not worry about how or what you should answer, or what you should say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”
Luke 12:11-12 NKJV
After a certain point the judge suddenly stopped the proceedings and said, “That’s enough. I do not need to hear any more. It is very unusual for me to proclaim my decision during a hearing, but in your case I want to tell you and your friends here and now that I accept that you are a genuine Christian, and you can stay in the UK.” I was overjoyed, and saw many tears of relief and happiness on the faces of my friends. Many messages were sent between myself, and between other friends throughout the rest of the day, as my loved ones rejoiced with me. I had never experienced anything like this back in Iran, where the nature of our government means that people never trust even their close friends and neighbours. There I’d had only my immediate family members, but here I had a huge network of brothers and sisters who cared deeply for me.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, my father back in Iran passed away. In some ways it was a relief because he had been bed-bound for the last seven years of his life and more recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He had been merely existing rather than living his life. I found it very hard to be so far away from my family at this time, and to see that social distancing measures allowed only my mother to go near to my father’s grave at the funeral. I loved my father very much and feel his loss deeply, even though we have long been separated by physical distance. I pray very often for my mother. She also has health problems and is unable to leave the house. It is so difficult to communicate my faith with family back home for fear of getting them into trouble. I know that the best thing that I can do is to pray for them.
I am still attending church every week, of course. If I cannot go one Sunday for any reason, I feel that something is missing from my week, and I am impatient to be back there the following Sunday. My dream is that I will be able to get a job some day at the airport near to my first church home, but in the meantime, I visit my family there when I can. I have recently remarried, and I continue to rest my hope for my future in the wisdom of my heavenly Father.
Persian Voices 