A God Ordained Time to Reach a Nation
Persian New Year from Mohamad’s Point of View
As long as I remember, when I was a child, I would get so excited about the Persian New Year. It was family time, it was traveling time, it was a time of gift exchange. Especially for us younger ones. We were at the receiving end of it. We didn’t give gifts, we just received them. The whole extended family gathered, visited, ate, exchanged gifts for two full weeks.
But after my conversion to Christianity, I wasn’t welcomed to the family gathering anymore. Actually, my family hid me from these types of things. I brought shame to them because of my conversion. They were afraid that I would talk to our relatives about my new found faith. My family ostracized me. The Persian New Years were not the same anymore.
As I was being pushed away by my own family, God had a beautiful alternative. He prepared another family for me. His family. The community of the ex-Muslim believers inside Iran. These ex-Muslim Christians were in a very similar situation as mine, so we clicked very fast. We were called a bunch of things such as traitors, apostates, converts, and more. We wore these titles as a badge of honor. But, truly, we were family. A new family. God’s family. Dysfunctional at times, but what family is not!
For the past 6 years, I have spent my Persian New Year with my new family. These believers are the direct fruit of our ministry. Nowadays, I am the father figure of this family. I organize everything. All of us are Iranian/Afghan ex-Muslim Christians. We gather in a neighboring country of Iran with a very specific goal. Our goal is to invite more people to our family, known as God’s family. We still give gifts and exchange gifts, but this time we give the best gift, the Word of God.
Every year during this time, we invite thousands of muslims to our party. Every time someone accepts our invitation, you must see the celebration – even heaven rejoices. At dinner, we sit around the table to eat and share stories of how someone accepted our invitation to be part of God’s family. It’s the best feeling, best dinner time stories you will ever hear.
Before Christ, our family gathering was very worldly with material goals. But now our family gathering is very Godly with eternal purposes. I would rather do this than anything in the world. We truly are changing the destiny of a nation through this family gathering.
The Journey of Thousands of Bibles into the Hands of Muslims
Since 2019, we have stayed in a hotel by the name Freedom. God has truly given us favor with the owner and the staff of this hotel. They clearly know about our operation but don’t mind it. Last year, the gentleman who owns the hotel asked us if he could read one of the books in his language, and we gladly provided him with one. The hotel has a one bedroom suite on the top floor which I call the “Upper Room.” This room is where our team (family) gathers to pray, strategize, prepare gifts, fellowship, and share testimonies. Over the years, the Upper Room has received north of a hundred thousand tracts and Bibles! These tracts and Bibles come to this room to be prepared for distribution. Every single Bible gets placed in a gift bag along with a Gospel tract, our contact information for follow-up, and a mini SD card which contains: the Jesus film, an electronic Bible in every language inside Iran, and other Christian Farsi material. When the gifts are ready to be handed out, they go inside our backpacks and shopping bags. This way we try to pretend to be tourists and blend in with the crowd. Each time we go out, our load is between 200 to 300 Bibles.
With backpacks full of gifts on our back, and in our shopping bags, we go on our treasure hunt. Each team usually includes 4 believers, a mixture of male and female, two seasoned believers and two younger ones in training. There is one in every team who has no confrontation problems (the evangelist type), who starts the conversation with ease, and another one who is articulate and can answer questions in love (the pastoral type). While these two are conversing with strangers, sharing the Gospel, the other two in training are watching to learn and to pray.This method has been developed through lots of prayer and studying of the Word of God. Of course, applying what God has shown me has been the key. So far the results have been absolutely supernatural.
The most important question we have heard from Muslims is, “How can you prove your God to me?” Our team loves this challenge. Our response is, “Do you have a problem that only God can resolve?” I have taught my team, our God is the God of the impossible. So, when the Muslims tell us their unsolvable issue, we lay hands on them, praying for their situation. I have witnessed with my very own eyes, these supposed tough Muslims, melt under the power of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, the presence of God is so tangible that no more conversation is necessary. The whole atmosphere changes. We quickly go from a hostile environment to a very receptive one through the power and the presence of God. By this, they know our God is real.
Often, when we approach a group or a family to give them Bibles and to talk with them about Jesus, there is one person who opposes the Gospel. That person is a distraction for the rest of the group to hear the message. Many times, when someone from a group is at the verge of accepting Christ, that distraction escalates, seems sent by the Devil himself. When this happens, I have trained my team to eliminate the distraction quickly from the group. We don’t act nice, someone’s salvation is at stake. One of the workers takes that person away from the group. We also intensify our prayers in the Spirit in these types of situations.
In the last week of March, we went through a very similar situation. Our group approached a Muslim man with his family in the food court of a mall. He said to us, “All religions are the same.” We said, “No they are not. Our God is alive and well.” He said, “Prove it to me.” “Okay,” the pastor on my team replied, “Do you need prayer for anything?” The Muslim man mumbled, “I have been suffering from a migraine for a long time.” The pastor replied, “Please sit here, let me pray for you.” As he was sitting down to receive prayer, his wife started resisting us. One of the ladies on our team jumped in to distract her and took her away. The man sat down, and the pastor laid his hand on his head to pray for him. After the prayer, the pastor asked him, “How do you feel?” He said, “I FEEL GREAT! My pain is gone.” The pastor continued, “Do you now want to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?” He said, “Yes.” As he started to pray the prayer of salvation, a random fight broke out in the background. Two people, 5 feet away from this man, started to yell at one another. I just knew the Devil is mad and is trying to steal this salvation. I said, “Not today Devil,” I charged toward the fight and prayed in the Spirit. The closer I got to the fight, the further the fighting men walked away from me. Strange phenomenon. I repelled them with my prayers, and the man who was healed accepted Jesus into his heart.
The Team that is Changing Iran
Every year, during our outreach in the Middle-East, we bring new believers to mix in with the team in order to be trained and discipled. One time a preacher told me, “The Spirit of Faith is not something to be taught but something to be caught.” These new believers we bring to go on the streets with us are there to catch the fire while seeing us evangelizing. When you witness with your own eyes someone genuinely being saved, healed, delivered – it does something to you. The hands-on training we provide for these young cubs is turning them into some true lions. These new lions, when they go back to their cities or towns in Iran or other places, they take this fire with them. They have started printing shops in their homes to print Gospel tracts for evangelism, and they are doing it in one of the most hostile nations toward Christianity. They have seen results, and the results have been tremendous. With the help of our ministry, a few of these disciples have joined our team here in Colorado. On Easter Sunday, 5 of them went to an Iranian gathering in Denver. This gathering happened in a park because the 13th day of the Persian New Year is nature day. They took around 300 Gospels of John, New Testament and tracts. There, they evangelized for around 5 hours and saw 8 people come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This hands-on training has been truly the catalyst to turn some timid cubs to some bold lions. These ex-muslim believers are what Daniel 11:32 describes as “the people who know their God and are strong, and carry out great exploits.”
Your Partnership Fuels the Advancement of the Gospel
Why Become a Monthly Partner?
Monthly partners are an essential part of the ministry. Partnership is the intentional sowing and watering of seed to ensure a fruitful harvest. It is the steady stream of income from monthly partners that allows us to plan and prepare for projects around the world.
Your monthly commitment is changing lives and communities throughout the Muslim world – from evangelism in the Middle East to training indigenous pastors and church planters. At the end of May, we have planned two Church planting conferences in the Middle-East for our courageous leaders. The cost is around $30,000, and none of this would be possible without our monthly partners!
Last year, around the same time in March, we distributed 5000 Bibles to the Iranians in the same location. This year, some people when they saw us on the streets handing out Bibles, told us that we gave them a Bible last year. They actually recognized us. They said, “We have read it, and now want to become Christians.” Hallelujah!
What we sowed last year took one year to bear fruit. I believe God was just showing us that His Word is true when He says: “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void. But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11
It might take a while but the partnership in the Gospel will bear much fruit. Together with God we are changing the nations.
In Christ,
Mohamad Faridi and Susan Faridi