My name is Yasmin.

I am 18 years old and 3 weeks ago I watched Jesus Christ appear in the middle of my classroom in front of 63 Muslim girls in Cashen, Iran.

What I am about to tell you is not a story is my testimony.

This is what I saw with my own eyes, heard with my own ears, and felt with my own heart.

And it has cost me everything.

My family has disowned me.

But I need you to hear what happened because what happened to me is happening to thousands of others across Iran right now.

Jesus himself is appearing to Muslims.

He is visiting them in their rooms.

He is speaking to them in their language.

He is calling them by name.

And he is turning the Islamic Republic of Iran into the fastest growing church in the world.

This is my story.

This is how the daughter of a man who serves the supreme leader came face to face with the King of Kings.

And this is why I will never be silent again.

Cashin is a city in central Iran that most of the world has never heard of.

Cashin is old, beautiful in its own way with ancient gardens and mosques that have stood for centuries.

But it is also a city of secrets, a city of silence, a city where asking the wrong question can cost you everything.

I grew up in a world most Iranians will never experience.

My father is a senior official very close to the supreme leader himself.

I attended the Alzara Girls Academy on the northern edge of Cashin near the Aab Bozorg Mosque.

It was not a school for normal families.

It was a school for the daughters of governors, clerics, military generals, intelligence officers.

The building itself was beautiful with blue tiles and arch doorways.

But inside it was a fortress of control.

We studied the Quran every morning.

We studied Persian literature, mathematics, science, but always through the lens of Islamic thought.

We were taught that the West was corrupt, that Christianity was a twisted lie, that the only truth in the world was Islam and the revolution.

Our teachers were strict.

Our imam visited twice a week to inspect our progress and remind us that we were the future mothers of the Islamic Republic.

I never questioned any of it.

I was the perfect daughter.

I prayed.

I obeyed.

I memorized.

I smiled when I was supposed to smile and stayed silent when I was supposed to stay silent.

But there was something I never told anyone.

I loved my family.

I respected my father.

I honored my mother.

But when I prayed to Allah, I felt nothing.

When I recited the Quran, the words felt distant, like they were meant for someone else, not for me.

I thought something was wrong with me.

I thought maybe I was not faithful enough, not pure enough, not devoted enough.

So I tried harder.

I prayed longer.

I fasted more.

I wore my hijab tighter.

But the emptiness only grew.

At night, alone in my room on the second floor of our house, I would stare at the ceiling and wonder if this was all there was.

A life of rules, a life of fear, a life of trying to earn the approval of a god who felt a million miles away.

I am telling you all of this because I want you to understand who I was before that Thursday morning.

I was not a rebel.

I was not searching for truth.

I was exactly what the system wanted me to be.

Obedient, quiet, faithful.

I had no reason to doubt.

I had everything a girl in Iran could ever want.

Security status, a future already arranged.

I was engaged to be married to the son of another high-ranking official.

The wedding was planned for next spring.

My whole life was laid out in front of me like a smooth road.

And I was ready to walk it without question.

But Allah or whoever controls the universe had other plans.

Because on a quiet Thursday morning in October in a classroom at the Alzara Girls Academy in Cashion, everything I knew was shattered.

And I mean everything.

What happened to me and to 60 other girls that day is not something I can keep silent about.

Even if it costs me my life.

I do not know where I will be when you hear these words.

I do not know if I will be in prison or in hiding or dead.

But I know this.

What I saw was real.

What I heard was real.

And no threat, no punishment, no power on this earth can make me deny it.

It was a Thursday morning.

The sky over Cashion was clear that day.

The kind of bright blue that makes everything feel normal and safe.

I woke up at 5:30 in the morning like I always did.

I performed my morning prayers in my room, washed my face, put on my uniform, a long dark mantto and headscarf, and went downstairs for breakfast.

My mother had already prepared tea and flatbread with cheese and walnuts.

My younger brother was still asleep.

My father had left early for a meeting in Thyron.

Everything was routine.

Everything was exactly as it had always been.

I ate quickly, grabbed my school bag, and climbed into the back of the black sedan that took me to school every morning.

Our driver, a quiet man named Hassan, never spoken unless spoken to.

He drove through the narrow streets of Cashen, past the old bazaar, past the Agabosorg mosque with its tall minoretses, and finally through the iron gates of the Alzara Girls Academy.

I stepped out of the car at exactly 7:15.

The courtyard was already filled with girls in dark uniforms, their voices low and respectful.

I walked through the arched entrance and into the main building.

Our first class that morning was Quran studies.

We gathered in the large hall on the second floor, a long rectangular room with tall windows that overlooked the inner courtyard.

There were 63 of us that day.

I remember the number exactly because later when everything happened, they counted us over and over again trying to understand how so many of us could have seen the same thing.

Our teacher that morning was Sister Fate May, a woman in her 50s with a sharp voice and even sharper eyes.

She was known for being strict, for accepting no excuse, no laziness, no distraction.

We respected her out of fear more than love.

She stood at the front of the room beside a large wooden desk, her chatter perfectly arranged, her Quran open in front of her.

We sat on cushions on the floor in neat rows, our own Qurans on our laps, our heads covered, our voices ready to recite.

Sister Fate May began the lesson by reciting Sura Alicas.

We repeated after her in unison, our voices filling the room with the rhythm of Arabic words I had memorized since childhood.

Everything was normal.

Everything was calm.

Then it happened.

It started with the light.

At first, I thought it was the sun.

The windows faced east and sometimes in the morning, the sunlight could be blinding.

But this was different.

This light did not come from the windows.

It came from inside the room.

It filled the entire space in an instant.

Not harsh or painful, but so bright that I had to squint.

I heard girls around me gasp.

I heard sister fate may stop mid-sentence.

I looked up from my Quran and I saw it.

No, I saw him.

In the center of the room, standing between our rows, there was a figure, a man.

He was tall, dressed in a long white robe that seemed to glow with its own light.

His face, I cannot describe it properly even now.

It was too bright to look at directly, like trying to stare at the sun, but I could see enough.

I could see his eyes.

They were filled with something I had never seen before.

Not anger, not judgment, not distance, but love, pure, overwhelming, unearned love.

I felt it hit me like a wave, and I could not breathe.

He stood there in the center of the room and he looked at us.

Not at the walls, not at the ceiling, at us, at me.

I felt his gaze land on me and I froze.

My heart was pounding so hard I thought it would break through my chest.

Around me, girls were reacting in different ways.

Some screamed, some started crying, some fell forward onto their faces as if they had been pushed by an invisible hand.

I wanted to move, but I could not.

I was locked in place.

My eyes fixed on him and then he spoke.

His voice was not loud but it filled the entire room.

It was deep and gentle at the same time and he spoke in perfect Farsy our language our words.

He said I am the way, the truth and the life.

Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.

Those were his exact words.

I will never forget them as long as I live.

He did not say them harshly.

He did not shout.

He said them like a father speaking to a beloved child, like someone who had been waiting a long time to say them.

The room exploded into chaos.

Girls were sobbing, some were shaking, others were trying to crawl backward toward the walls.

I looked to my left and saw my friend Sharen on her knees, her hands covering her face, tears streaming between her fingers.

I looked to my right and saw another girl, Anita, staring at the figure with her mouth open, completely frozen like I was.

Sister Fate May was shouting something, but I could not hear her words.

All I could hear was his voice still echoing in my head.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

I did not understand what it meant.

I had never heard those words before.

But I felt them.

I felt them in my chest, in my bones, in the deepest part of me that had been empty for so long.

And then, just as suddenly as he appeared, he was gone.

The light vanished.

The room returned to normal.

The sun was just the sun again, coming through the windows like it always did.

But nothing was normal.

Nothing would ever be normal again.

For a moment, there was complete silence.

63 girls sat or knelt or lay on the floor, stunned, gasping, trembling.

Then Sister Fate May screamed.

She screamed for help, her voice high and panicked.

And within seconds, the door burst open.

Two other teachers ran in, then a security guard, then the principal, a tall, severe woman named Mrs.

Kazmi.

They were shouting at us, demanding to know what happened, why we were crying, why the room was in chaos.

But none of us could answer.

Some girls were still sobbing.

Others were staring at the spot where he had stood as if hoping he would come back.

I was shaking so badly I could not stand.

Mrs.

Kazmi grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me.

Yasmin, what happened? she demanded.

Tell me what happened.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

How could I explain what I had just seen? How could I tell her that a man dressed in light had appeared in the middle of our Quran class and spoken words I did not understand, but felt in my soul? They pulled us out of the room one by one.

They separated us.

They took us into different classrooms and offices and began interrogating us.

I was taken to a small room on the first floor.

Mrs.

Kazmi sat across from me, her face hard and angry.

Another woman I did not recognize sat beside her, writing notes.

They asked me the same questions over and over.

What did you see? Did someone come into the room? Did you take something? Did someone give you something to drink? Are you part of a group? I told them the truth.

I told them I saw a man in white.

I told them he spoke to us.

I told him he said he was the way, the truth, and the life.

Mrs.

Kazmi’s face went pale.

She looked at the other woman and something passed between them.

Something like fear.

She leaned forward and said in a low, threatening voice, “You will never repeat those words again.

” “Do you understand me, Yasmin?” “Never.

You saw nothing.

You heard nothing.

This was mass hysteria.

This was a psychological episode.

That is the only truth.

” I stared at her.

I wanted to obey.

I wanted to agree, but I could not because I knew what I had seen and I knew it was real.

They kept us at the school for hours.

They searched the building.

They checked the security cameras.

They brought in an imam from the nearby mosque to pray over us and cleansed the room.

They called our parents.

I heard later that they told our families we had experienced a collective delusion, possibly caused by stress or outside influence.

When my father’s driver finally came to pick me up, it was almost evening.

The school was on lockdown.

Armed guards were at every entrance.

I walked out of that building and I felt like I was walking out of a tomb.

I climbed into the backseat of the car and Hassan did not say a word.

He drove me home in silence.

I stared out the window at the streets of Cashion, at the mosques and the shops and the people walking by and I realized something.

The world looked the same.

But I was not the same.

I had seen something that was not supposed to exist.

I had heard a voice that was not supposed to speak.

And deep inside, underneath all my fear and confusion, something had cracked open.

Something had woken up.

And I knew even then that there was no going back.

When I arrived home, my mother was waiting at the door.

Her face was tight with worry and anger.

She pulled me inside and took me straight to my room.

My father was still in Thrron, but he had already cold.

He had already heard.

My mother sat me down on my bed and held my hands tightly.

Too tightly.

She looked into my eyes and said, “Yasmine, listen to me very carefully.

You will forget what happened today.

You will never speak of it again.

Not to your friends.

Not to anyone.

This is for your safety.

This is for our family.

Do you understand?” I nodded.

I said yes.

But inside I was screaming because I could not forget.

I would never forget.

That night after my mother left my room and the house went silent, I lay in my bed staring at the ceiling and I whispered into the darkness a question I had never asked before.

Who are you? The days that followed were the strangest of my life.

On the surface, everything appeared normal.

I woke up each morning.

I ate breakfast with my mother and brother.

I got dressed in my uniform and climbed into the back of the black sedan.

Hassan drove me through the same streets, past the same mosques and shops.

I walked through the iron gates of the Alzara Girls Academy and sat in my classes like nothing had happened.

But everything had happened and everyone knew it.

The school tried to pretend that Thursday morning was just a strange incident, a collective panic, a moment of hysteria that meant nothing.

They brought in counselors to speak with us.

They brought in imams to lead extra prayer sessions.

They even brought in a doctor from Thrron who gave us pills to help us sleep and calm our nerves.

But none of it worked because you cannot medicate away what we saw.

You cannot counsel away the voice that still echoed in our heads.

You cannot pray away the face of the man who stood in our classroom and spoke words that shattered everything we believed.

The teachers watched us constantly now.

They moved through the hallways with hard eyes, listening to every conversation, monitoring every interaction.

We were forbidden to speak about that day.

Not in the classrooms, not in the courtyard, not even in whispers.

Any girl caught discussing the incident would be sent home immediately and her family would be notified.

This was not an empty threat.

Within the first week, three girls were expelled.

I never saw them again.

I heard rumors that one of them had told her younger sister what happened and the sister had repeated it at her own school.

That was enough.

The family was disgraced.

The girl disappeared.

This is how things work in my country.

This is how silence is enforced.

You do not speak because speaking means losing everything.

Your reputation, your future, your family, maybe even your life.

And so we stayed quiet.

We walked through the halls like ghosts, our eyes avoiding each other, our mouth sealed shut.

But silence on the outside does not mean silence on the inside.

In my heart, in my mind, the questions would not stop.

Who was he? Why did he come to us? What did his words mean? I am the way, the truth, and the life.

I had memorized the entire Quran.

I knew the 99 names of Allah.

I knew the stories of the prophets Ibraim, Musa, Isa, Muhammad, peace be upon them all.

But I had never heard those words before.

They were not from the Quran.

They were not from any hadith I had studied.

They came from somewhere else.

And I needed to know where.

At night, when the house was silent and my family was asleep, I would lie in bed and replay the moment over and over again.

the light, the figure, the face, the eyes, that overwhelming sense of love that had washed over me like a flood.

I had prayed to all of my entire life.

And I had never felt anything like that.

Not once, not ever.

So, who was this man? And why did he look at me like he knew me? Like he had always known me.

I knew I could not ask anyone in my family.

My father would be furious.

My mother would be terrified.

My younger brother was too young to understand.

I could not ask my teachers.

They had already made it clear that the subject was forbidden.

I could not even ask the imam at our mosque because I knew he would report me to my father immediately.

I was completely alone with my questions.

But then I remembered something.

My father’s office on the first floor of our house had a computer connected to a special network.

It was not the normal internet that ordinary Iranians use, which is heavily censored and monitored.

It was a government network with access to foreign websites and information.

My father used it for his work, for reading international news and reports that regular citizens were not allowed to see.

I had watched him use it many times.

I knew his password.

He had never changed it because he never imagined his obedient daughter would dare to touch his computer without permission.

One night, about 2 weeks after the incident, I made a decision.

I waited until everyone was asleep.

I crept downstairs in the darkness, my heart pounding so loudly I was sure it would wake the whole house.

I reached my father’s office and gently pushed open the door.

The room was dark except for the faint glow of the computer screen in sleep mode.

I sat down in his chair and my hands were trembling so badly I could barely type.

I entered his password.

The screen lit up.

I was in.

I opened the browser and I stared at the search bar for a long moment.

What should I type? I did not even know the right words.

I thought about what he had said.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

I typed those words into the search bar and pressed enter.

The results that appeared changed everything.

The first result was a link to something called the Bible.

I had heard of this book, of course.

We were taught in school that it was a corrupted text, a distorted version of Allah’s message that the Christians had twisted over the centuries.

We were told it was full of lies and contradictions.

We were told that only the Quran contained the pure unchanged word of God.

But I clicked the link anyway.

I needed to know.

The page that opened showed me a verse from something called the Gospel of John 14 6.

It said, “Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me.

I read those words and my entire body went cold.

” Jesus as the prophet we learned about in the Quran.

The man Muslims believe was a messenger of Allah born of a virgin who performed miracles and will return at the end of days.

But in the Quran isa is just a prophet, a servant of Allah, nothing more.

He is not divine.

He is not to be worshiped.

He is certainly not someone who would say, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.

” No one comes to the father except through me.

Those are not the words of a prophet.

Those are the words of someone claiming to be God himself.

I sat there staring at the screen, my mind racing, my heart pounding.

This could not be right.

This had to be a Christian fabrication.

This had to be the corruption we were always warned about.

But then, why did he appear in our classroom? Why did he speak those exact words to 63 Muslim girls in an Islamic school in the heart of Cashion? Why did he look at me with those eyes filled with love? I scrolled down and kept reading.

I found more verses.

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.

Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

I am the light of the world.

He who follows me shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life.

These words were like water pouring into the empty place inside me.

They were like someone answering questions I had never been brave enough to ask.

I read for hours that night, clicking link after link, verse after verse, story after story.

I read about the miracles of Jesus.

I read about his teachings.

I read about his death on a cross and his resurrection from the dead.

None of this matched what I had been taught.

But all of it matched what I had seen in that classroom.

When I finally looked at the clock, it was almost 4:00 in the morning.

I had to stop.

I had to clear the browser history.

I had to get back to my room before anyone woke up.

But before I closed the computer, I did one more search.

I typed Muslims seeing Jesus in dreams.

The results were overwhelming.

Thousands of testimonies, hundreds of articles, videos, interviews, stories from Iran, from Afghanistan, from Saudi Arabia, from Egypt, from Pakistan.

Muslims all over the world were having encounters with ISA.

They were seeing him in visions.

They were hearing his voice.

They were converting to Christianity in numbers that no one could explain.

I was not alone.

What happened to me, what happened to us was happening everywhere.

And no government, no imam, no amount of censorship could stop it.

I closed the computer and crept back to my room.

I lay in my bed as the first light of dawn crept through my window and the call to prayer echoed from the distant mosque.

But I did not pray.

Not to Allah.

Not that morning.

Instead, I whispered into the silence the same words I had read on the screen.

Jesus, if you are real, if you are truly the way, the truth, and the life, then show me.

I am searching.

I am asking.

I am knocking.

Please, please show me.

I did not know if he could hear me.

I did not know if I was committing blasphemy.

I did not know if I was damning my soul to hell, but I meant every word.

And deep inside, in that place that had been empty for so long, something flickered, a tiny flame, a spark of hope.

I did not have answers yet.

But I had a direction.

And for the first time in my life, I was not following the path my family had chosen for me.

I was following something else, someone else.

And I knew even then that there was no turning back.

3 days after I searched my father’s computer, I made contact with Shireen.

She was one of the girls who had been in the classroom that Thursday morning.

I had known her for 2 years, but we were never close friends.

She came from a family almost as powerful as mine.

Her father was a senior judge in the revolutionary court, the kind of man who sent people to prison with a signature.

Sharen was quiet, serious, always at the top of our class in Quranic studies.

She wore her hijab perfectly.

She never laughed too loud.

She was exactly the kind of girl our teachers praised as a model student.

But on that Thursday morning, I had seen her fall to her knees weeping when the man in white appeared.

I had seen her face and I knew she had seen what I saw.

Now 2 weeks later, I needed to know if she was asking the same questions I was asking.

If she was searching the same way I was searching, if she felt the same impossible pull toward the truth that I could not name but could no longer ignore.

I approached her carefully.

It was during our lunch break.

We were in the courtyard sitting in separate groups as usual.

The teachers were watching from the shade of the arcade, their eyes sweeping over us like hawks.

I got up and walked slowly toward the water fountain near where Shireen was sitting.

As I bent down to drink, I whispered without looking at her.

Sharen, I need to talk to you alone tonight.

She did not answer immediately.

She did not even look at me, but after a few seconds, I heard her voice low and steady.

There is a small park two blocks north of the Tabata Bay house.

9:00.

Come alone.

Then she stood up and walked away.

My heart was racing.

I had just agreed to sneak out of my house at night to meet secretly with another girl to discuss something that could get both of us arrested or worse.

But I had no choice.

I had to know if I was the only one feeling this way.

I had to know if I was losing my mind or if something real, something bigger than all of us, was happening.

That night, I told my mother I had a headache and went to my room early.

I waited until the house was quiet.

My father was home, but he was in his office as usual.

My mother was watching television in the living room.

My brother was asleep.

At 8:45, I changed out of my night clothes into a dark mant and headscarf.

I opened my bedroom window, which faced the back garden.

We lived on the second floor, but there was a drain pipe along the wall that I had climbed as a child when I used to play in the garden.

I had not done it in years, but my body remembered.

I climbed out the window, gripped the pipe, and slid down into the darkness.

My hands were shaking.

My legs felt weak, but I made it to the ground.

I stayed low, moving through the shadows of the garden, past the fountain and the pomegranate trees, until I reached the back gate.

It was locked, but I knew where my father kept the spare key, hidden under a loose brick in the wall.

I found it, unlocked the gate, and slipped out into the narrow alley behind our house.

I had never walked the streets of Cashion alone at night.

It was dangerous for a girl, especially a girl from a family like mine.

If anyone recognized me, if anyone reported me, my father would be humiliated, and I would be punished in ways I did not want to imagine.

But I kept my head down and walked quickly through the dim streets.

The city was quieter at night, but not empty.

I passed a few men smoking outside a tea house.

I passed a woman in a full chatter hurrying home.

No one looked at me closely.

I was just another shadow in a city full of shadows.

I reached the small park near the Tobata Bay house, one of the old merchant mansions that tourists used to visit before the sanctions made everything harder.

The park was little more than a square of grass and a few benches surrounded by trees.

There were no lights.

I stood at the edge, breathing hard, my heart pounding, and then I saw her.

Sharen was sitting on a bench in the far corner, her face barely visible in the darkness.

I walked over and sat down beside her.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

Then Sharen said quietly.

I did not think you would come.

I turned to look at her.

Her face was calm, but her eyes were different.

There was something in them I had never seen before.

Something awake.

I said I had to.

I need to know if you saw what I saw.

She nodded slowly.

I saw him, Yasmin.

I saw the man in white.

I heard his voice.

And I cannot stop thinking about it.

I felt a wave of relief wash over me.

I was not alone.

I was not crazy.

I leaned closer and whispered, “Have you been searching? Have you been trying to find out who he was?” Sharen looked around to make sure no one was near.

Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a small phone, the kind you can buy cheaply without registering your name.

She turned it on and showed me the screen.

It was open to a website I recognized, the same Bible website I had found on my father’s computer.

She said, “I have been reading this every night for 2 weeks.

I have read the entire Gospel of John.

I have read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and Yasmin.

Everything he said in our classroom is in this book.

every single word.

I stared at the screen and then at her.

I said, “Do you believe it? Do you believe this is true?” Sharen closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

When she opened them again, there were tears on her cheeks.

She said, “I do not know what I believe yet, but I know what I saw.

I know what I felt.

And I know that I have never felt that kind of love in my entire life.

Not from my family, not from Allah, not from anyone.

” When he looked at me, Yasmin, I felt like I was seen, like I mattered, like I was not just a daughter or a student or a future wife.

I was a person.

I was loved.

I started crying too.

I said I felt the same thing.

I have been so empty for so long and I thought it was my fault.

I thought I was not faithful enough.

But when he appeared, it was like something inside me woke up.

Like I had been asleep my whole life and suddenly I could see.

Sharen grabbed my hand and held it tightly.

She said, “We are not the only ones.

There are others.

” I looked at her in shock.

“What do you mean others?” She said, “I have been in contact with four other girls from our class secretly through encrypted messages.

All of them are searching.

All of them are reading the Bible.

All of them are asking the same questions we are.

” And Yasmin, it is not just us.

I found testimony after testimony online.

Iranians all over the country are seeing ISA in dreams and visions.

They are converting.

They are starting secret churches in their homes.

This is happening everywhere and the government cannot stop it.

I felt my whole body trembling.

This was bigger than I had imagined.

This was not just a strange incident at our school.

This was a movement.

This was something unstoppable.

I said, “What do we do now?” Shireen looked at me with fierce determination in her eyes.

She said, “We keep searching.

We keep reading.

We meet again.

And if he is real, if he truly is who he says he is, then he will show us the next step.

We just have to be brave enough to follow.

” We sat there in the darkness for another hour, whispering, sharing what we had each discovered, reading verses to each other from Sharen’s phone.

She showed me a passage from the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus said, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

” I read those words and I felt something break open inside me.

All my life I had carried the heavy burden of rules and fear and performance.

All my life I had tried to earn the approval of a distant god who never seemed satisfied.

But this Jesus, this is offering something completely different.

Rest, gentleness, love, a burden that was light.

I wanted it so badly it hurt.

I wanted to believe it was real.

I wanted to believe he was real.

But I was terrified because believing meant betraying everything I had been taught.

It meant risking everything I had.

It meant walking away from Islam, from my family, from my future.

It meant possibly dying.

Sharen must have seen the fear on my face because she squeezed my hand and said, “I am scared too.

But I would rather die knowing the truth than live my whole life in a lie.

” Those words stayed with me.

I nodded and we made a plan.

We would meet again in one week.

We would keep reading.

We would keep searching and we would not speak of this to anyone outside our small group.

The risk was too great.

We said goodbye and I walked back through the dark streets of Cashin, climbed the drain pipe, slipped back through my window, and lay in my bed with my heart still racing.

I had crossed a line tonight.

I had stepped into dangerous territory.

But I did not regret it because for the first time in my life, I was not just obeying.

I was choosing.

I was seeking.

I was knocking on a door I had been taught never to approach.

And somewhere deep inside, I believed that door was about to open.

Over the next two weeks, I met with Shireen three more times.

Each time, we brought more questions and more discoveries.

She introduced me to two of the other girls, Narges and La.

We met in different locations each time, always at night, always in secret.

We read the Bible together on Sharen’s phone.

We talked about what we were learning.

We shared our doubts and our fears.

And slowly carefully we began to believe.

We began to see that the Isa we had been taught about in the Quran, the prophet who was just a man was not the full picture.

The Jesus we were reading about in the Gospels was claiming to be the son of God.

He was claiming to be the only way to the father.

He was claiming to forgive sins.

He was claiming to be the resurrection and the life.

And he had proven it by rising from the dead.

This was not just a prophet.

This was God himself coming to earth, dying for our sins, and rising again to offer us eternal life.

It was the most incredible, most impossible, most beautiful truth I had ever heard.

And I wanted it to be true more than I had ever wanted anything.

But wanting something to be true is not the same as knowing it is true.

I still had doubts.

I still had questions.

I still lay awake at night wondering if I was deceiving myself, if I was falling into a trap, if I was committing the unforgivable sin of sherk, associating partners with Allah.

I prayed to Allah and asked him to guide me, to show me the truth, to protect me from deception.

But every time I prayed, I felt nothing, just emptiness, just silence.

And then I would read the words of Jesus and I would feel that warmth again, that love, that presence.

I was being pulled in a direction I could not resist.

I was falling toward a truth I could not deny.

And I knew that soon, very soon, I would have to make a choice.

A choice that would cost me everything.

A choice that would change my life forever.

A choice I could never take back.

I will never forget the night he came to me.

It was a Wednesday, exactly 3 weeks after the incident in the classroom.

I had spent the evening in my room pretending to study, but actually reading the Gospel of Matthew on the small phone Sharen had given me.

She had bought two of them with cash.

untraceable so we could communicate safely.

I had hidden mine inside a hollowedout copy of a Persian poetry book on my shelf.

No one would ever think to look there.

That night I had been reading about the sermon on the mount where Jesus taught his followers about the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

These words were so different from everything I had been taught.

In Islam, we were taught about strength, about submission, about following the law perfectly.

But Jesus was talking about weakness, about mourning, about meekness.

He was saying that the kingdom of God belonged to the broken, to the humble, to those who knew they had nothing to offer.

I was reading these words and crying quietly because I realized that was me.

I was poor in spirit.

I was mourning.

I was weak.

And Jesus was saying that I was exactly the kind of person he came for.

Around 11:00, I heard my father come upstairs and go to his bedroom.

My mother had already gone to sleep an hour earlier.

The house became silent.

I turned off the phone and hid it back in the book.

I performed my ablution in the bathroom out of habit.

Even though my heart was no longer in it, I put on my nightc clothes and lay down in my bed.

I turned off the lamp.

The room was dark except for the faint glow of moonlight coming through the window.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but my mind would not stop.

I kept thinking about everything I had read.

I kept thinking about the choice I knew I had to make.

I kept thinking about what it would cost.

My family, my future, possibly my life.

In Iran, apostasy, leaving Islam is punishable by death.

The law is clear.

If a Muslim converts to another religion, they can be executed.

It does not happen often in public, but it happens.

People disappear.

People have accidents.

People are found dead and no one asks questions.

I knew this and I knew that if I chose to follow Jesus, I would be putting my life in his hands completely.

I lay there in the darkness and I prayed.

But this time, I did not pray to Allah.

I prayed to Jesus.

I whispered into the silence.

Jesus, if you are real, I need you to show me.

I cannot do this on my own.

I am terrified.

I do not know if I am strong enough.

I do not know if I can give up everything.

But if you are truly the way, the truth, and the life, then I am asking you to come to me.

Please show me that you are real.

Show me that I am not making a mistake.

Show me that you love me the way you say you do.

I want to believe.

Help my unbelief.

I kept whispering these words over and over, tears streaming down my face, my body shaking.

And then, just as I was about to give up, just as exhaustion was about to pull me into sleep, the room changed.

It started with a warmth, a presence.

I felt it before I saw anything.

It was like the air itself became thick with love, with peace, with a weight that was not heavy but comforting.

I opened my eyes and the room was filled with light.

Not the harsh light of a lamp, not the cold light of the moon.

This was a warm golden light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

And then I saw him.

He was standing at the foot of my bed.

The same man I had seen in the classroom.

The same white robe, the same radiant face.

But this time he was closer.

This time there was no one else.

It was just him and me.

I sat up in my bed, my heart pounding, my breath caught in my throat.

I was not dreaming.

I was fully awake.

This was real.

He was real.

And he was looking at me with those eyes, those impossible eyes filled with a love so pure and so complete that I felt like I would shatter under the weight of it.

He spoke my name, Yasmin.

His voice was gentle, like a whisper and a thunder at the same time.

I could not move.

I could not speak.

I could only stare at him, tears pouring down my face.

He said, “Beloved daughter, you are mine.

You have always been mine.

I knew you before you were born.

I formed you in your mother’s womb.

I have watched every step you have taken.

I have heard every prayer you have whispered, and I have loved you with an everlasting love.

Do not be afraid of what you must leave behind.

Do not be afraid of what man can do to your body.

I hold your soul in my hands, and no one can take you from me.

” I tried to speak, but my voice would not work.

I felt like I was collapsing under the weight of his presence.

He took a step closer and said, “I did not come to bring you a religion, Yasmin.

I came to bring you life.

I am the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me, though he may die, yet shall he live.

And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.

” Do you believe this? I found my voice.

It came out as a broken whisper.

I said, “I want to believe.

I want to follow you, but I am so afraid.

He smiled.

It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

He said, “Fear is natural, but perfect love casts out fear.

I love you perfectly, Yasmin, and I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Even when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will be with you.

My rod and my staff, they will comfort you.

You will lose much in this world, but you will gain everything that matters.

And one day you will stand before my father in heaven and he will say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant.

Enter into the joy of your Lord.

” As he spoke, I felt something happened inside me.

It was like a damn breaking.

All the fear, all the doubt, all the emptiness that I had carried my entire life came flooding out of me.

And in its place, something new rushed in.

peace, joy, love.

A certainty so strong and so clear that I knew beyond any shadow of doubt that this was the truth.

This was real.

He was real and he was mine and I was his.

I fell out of my bed onto my knees on the floor.

I was sobbing so hard I could barely breathe.

I said, “I believe.

I believe you are the son of God.

I believe you died for my sins.

I believe you rose from the dead.

I give you my life.

All of it.

Take it.

I am yours.

He knelt down in front of me.

I could not see his face clearly because the light was too bright and my eyes were blurred with tears.

But I felt his hand on my head.

It was warm and strong and gentle.

He said, “Then you are born again, Yasmin.

You are a new creation.

The old has passed away.

Behold, the new has come.

You are my daughter.

You are forgiven.

You are free.

Go now and tell others what you have seen.

Do not be afraid.

I will give you the words to speak.

I will give you the strength to stand.

And when your time comes, I will carry you home.

Then he stood up.

The light grew brighter and brighter until I had to close my eyes.

And when I opened them again, he was gone.

The room was dark and quiet.

The moon was still shining through the window.

Everything looked normal.

But I was not normal.

I was completely, utterly, forever changed.

I stayed on my knees on the floor for a long time.

I did not know what time it was.

I did not care.

I was laughing and crying at the same time.

I felt like I was floating.

I felt like I could run through walls.

I felt like my heart was going to explode from the joy that was filling every part of me.

I had met him not in a crowd, not in a vision shared with 60 other girls, but alone, face to face.

And he had called me by name.

He had called me his daughter.

He had called me beloved.

I had spent 18 years trying to earn the approval of a God who felt distant and cold.

And in one moment, Jesus had given me everything I had been searching for.

Love, acceptance, purpose, life.

I finally stood up and sat on the edge of my bed.

My hands were still shaking.

I looked around my room and everything looked different.

The same furniture, the same walls, the same books on the shelf.

But I saw it all with new eyes because I was new.

I was born again just like he said.

I knew what I had to do.

I knew that I could not keep this to myself.

I knew that he had not come to me just for my sake.

He had come so that I could be a witness.

so that I could tell others what I had seen, so that the light that had invaded my life could spread to others who were sitting in darkness just like I had been.

I pulled out the hidden phone and I sent a message to Shireen.

It was past midnight, but I knew she would be awake.

I typed, “He came to me tonight in my room.

I saw him.

I believe I am his.

” A few seconds later, she replied, “Praise God, Yasmin.

Praise Jesus.

I am so happy.

We need to meet tomorrow.

There is something I need to tell you.

I agreed and we set a time and place.

Then I lay back down in my bed.

I did not sleep that night.

I could not.

I was too awake, too alive.

I lay there until the sun began to rise and the call to prayer echoed from the mosque down the street.

I heard my father get up and go downstairs.

I heard my mother moving in the kitchen.

I heard my brother talking.

And I knew that my life in this house with this family under this system was about to end because I could not go back.

I could not pretend.

I could not keep this fire hidden inside me.

It was going to burst out.

And when it did, everything would change.

The next afternoon, I met Sharen at a different location, a quiet corner near the Bora house, one of the old historical homes tourists used to visit.

She was waiting for me with a look on her face I had never seen before.

Excitement mixed with fear.

She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the shadow of a wall.

She said, “Yasmine, you are not the only one.

Last night, two other girls had the same experience.

Lala and Miam.

” He appeared to them in their rooms.

He spoke to them.

He called them by name.

We are not alone anymore.

There are now seven of us who have seen him privately.

Seven of us who believe.

And I think there are more.

I think this is just the beginning.

I stared at her, my heart racing.

I said, “What do we do now? What is the next step?” Sharen looked me in the eyes and said, “We have to tell our stories.

We have to testify.

If we stay silent, we are no different than people who never saw him at all.

” Jesus said, “Whoever confesses me before men, him I will also confess before my father in heaven.

But whoever denies me before men, him I will also deny before my father in heaven.

” We cannot hide this, Yasmin.

We have to speak, even if it costs us everything.

I knew she was right.

I knew that the time for secrecy was coming to an end.

I knew that Jesus had not appeared to us so that we could hide in the shadows forever.

He had appeared so that his light could shine in the darkest place on earth.

And Iran, my beautiful, broken, oppressed Iran, was one of the darkest places.

But it was also ready.

It was hungry.

It was thirsty.

And Jesus was offering living water to anyone who would drink.

I took Sharen’s hand and I said, “Then let us speak.

Let us testify.

Let us tell the world what we have seen.

And whatever happens after that, we trust him.

” She nodded and squeezed my hand.

And in that moment, standing in the shadow of an ancient house in the heart of Cashion, two 18-year-old girls made a decision that would change everything.

We decided to stop hiding.

We decided to stop being afraid.

We decided to tell the truth, no matter what it cost.

The plan was simple but terrifying.

Sharen and I would record our testimonies on video and release them online.

We would tell the world what happened in our classroom at the Alzara Girls Academy.

We would tell them about the man in white who appeared to over 60 students.

We would tell them about our personal encounters with Jesus.

We would use our real first names, but no family names.

no specific details that could immediately identify our fathers or endanger our families beyond what was already inevitable.

We knew the moment those videos went public, our lives as we knew them would be over.

The regime would come for us.

Our families would disown us.

We might be arrested, imprisoned, or worse.

But we also knew that silence was no longer an option.

Jesus had not revealed himself to us so we could hide his light under a basket.

He had called us to be witnesses and that is exactly what we were going to do.

We spent two days preparing.

Sharen had a friend, a young man named Resza who had left Islam 3 years earlier and now ran an underground network helping secret Christians in Iran.

He lived in Thyron, but he had contacts in Cashion.

Sharen reached out to him through encrypted messages and he agreed to help us.

He sent us instructions on how to record the videos safely, how to disguise our location, how to upload them through networks the government could not immediately trace.

He also warned us, “Once you do this, there is no going back.

Your faces will be everywhere.

The intelligence services will hunt you.

Your families will be questioned.

You need to have a plan for what happens next.

Are you ready for that?” Sharen and I talked about it for hours.

We prayed.

We read the Bible.

We reminded each other of what Jesus had said to us.

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.

And we made our decision.

Yes, we were ready.

Or at least we were willing.

Ready or not, we were going to obey.

On a Friday afternoon, we went to a safe location Reza had arranged for us.

It was a small apartment in the old section of Cashion, rented under a false name, used by the underground church for secret meetings.

A young couple lived there.

believers who had converted years ago and somehow managed to avoid detection.

They welcomed us with tears in their eyes.

They said they had been praying for this moment, praying that someone from the elite families, someone the regime could not easily ignore, would have the courage to speak.

They set up a simple camera on a tripod in front of a blank white wall.

No identifying features, no windows, no furniture visible, just me sitting on a chair facing the lens.

Sharen would record hers separately.

We agreed that two separate videos would have more impact than one.

It would show that this was not just a single crazy girl.

This was a movement.

This was real.

I sat down in front of the camera.

My hands were shaking.

My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might break through my chest.

The young woman, her name was Sata, knelt down beside me and held my hand.

She said, “Yasmine, you are so brave.

Jesus is with you.

Just speak from your heart.

Tell them what you saw.

Tell them what he did for you.

The Holy Spirit will give you the words.

I nodded.

I took a deep breath.

Satara pressed the record button and stepped back.

The red light on the camera blinked.

I was live.

I stared into the lens and for a moment I could not speak.

My throat was tight.

My mind was blank.

But then I remembered his face.

I remembered his voice.

I remembered the way he had called me beloved daughter.

And the words came.

I said, “My name is Yasmin.

I am 18 years old.

I am from Cashen, Iran.

I am the daughter of a man who serves close to the Supreme Leader.

I was raised as a devout Muslim.

I memorized the Quran.

I prayed five times a day.

I believed that Islam was the only truth and that Allah was the only God.

But 3 weeks ago, something happened that changed everything I thought I knew.

I was in my classroom at the Alzara Girls Academy with over 60 other students.

We were studying the Quran and suddenly without warning a man appeared in the center of the room.

He was dressed in white.

His face was shining like the sun and he spoke to us.

He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.

” We all saw him.

All 63 of us.

The teachers did not see him.

only the students.

But we saw him clearly.

And I knew in that moment that this was not a hallucination.

This was not mass hysteria.

This was real.

This was Jesus Christ, the son of God, appearing to a room full of Muslim girls in the heart of Iran.

I paused and took a breath.

Tears were already running down my face.

But I kept going.

I said, “After that day, I started searching.

I started reading the Bible in secret.

I started asking questions I had never been brave enough to ask.

And then one week ago, he came to me again.

Not in a classroom, not in a dream, but in my bedroom in the middle of the night while I was fully awake.

He stood at the foot of my bed and he spoke my name.

He called me his beloved daughter.

He told me that I was forgiven.

He told me that I was free.

He told me not to be afraid of what man could do to my body because he holds my soul in his hands.

And in that moment, I gave my life to him.

I renounced Islam.

I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.

I was born again.

And I have never felt more alive, more loved, more at peace than I do right now.

I wiped my eyes and looked directly into the camera.

I said, “I know what this confession will cost me.

I know that my family will reject me.

I know that the government will come for me.

I know that under Islamic law, I could be killed for what I am saying right now.

But I do not care because I have met the living God.

I have seen his face.

I have heard his voice and I cannot deny him.

I will not deny him.

Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.

He is not just a prophet.

He is the son of God.

He died on the cross to pay for our sins.

He rose from the dead on the third day and he is alive today appearing to Muslims all over Iran, all over the world, calling them out of darkness into his marvelous light.

If you are watching this and you are searching, if you are empty, if you are tired of trying to earn the approval of a God who feels distant and cold, I want you to know that Jesus is calling you.

He loves you.

He sees you.

He knows your name.

And he is ready to give you the rest and the peace and the life that you have been searching for your whole life.

I took one more breath and said, “I do not know what will happen to me after I release this video.

I do not know if I will be arrested or killed or forced into hiding.

But I know this.

Jesus is worth it.

He is worth everything.

He is worth my family.

He is worth my future.

He is worth my life.

And I would rather die as his daughter than live as a slave to fear.

” My name is Yasmin.

I am 18 years old.

I am from Cashen, Iran.

and I have seen Jesus Christ with my own eyes.

He is real.

He is alive and he is coming for his people.

Do not be afraid.

Turn to him.

He is waiting for you.

Then I looked down and set stopped the recording.

The room was silent.

I sat there shaking, tears streaming down my face and I felt a hand on my shoulder.

It was Shireen.

She was crying too.

She said, “That was perfect, Yasmin.

That was the truth.

Now it is my turn.

Sharen sat down in the same chair and recorded her own testimony.

She told the same story from her perspective.

She described the classroom, the light, the figure, the words.

She described her own search, her own encounter, her own surrender to Jesus.

She spoke with the same courage and conviction that I had.

When she finished, we had two videos, two witnesses, two daughters of powerful men speaking the most dangerous truth in Iran.

Raise’s contact uploaded the videos that night to multiple platforms, YouTube, Instagram, Telegram, Twitter, Facebook.

They used VPNs and proxy servers to hide the upload location.

They tagged the videos with Persian and English hashtags.

Supreme Leader, Iran, Christianity, Jesus, Miracle, Testimony, Cashion.

Within an hour, the videos were live.

Within two hours they had hundreds of views.

Within 6 hours thousands.

By the next morning tens of thousands.

The videos were being downloaded, re-uploaded, shared across every social media platform.

Persian language news agencies picked them up.

International Christian organizations picked them up.

BBC Persian, Voice of America, Iran International.

Everyone was talking about the two girls from Cashion who claimed Jesus had appeared in their school.

I was still at the safe house when the news reached my family.

Satara’s husband came into the room holding his phone with a grim expression.

He said, “Yasmin, it has started.

Your video is everywhere and the government has already issued a statement.

They are calling it a western propaganda operation.

They are saying you were paid by foreign agents to lie.

They are saying you have been kidnapped and brainwashed.

and they have sent security forces to your home.

My heart stopped.

I said, “What about my family? What about my mother and my brother?” He shook his head.

I do not know yet, but you cannot go back there.

If you go back, they will arrest you immediately.

You need to disappear.

Sharen’s phone rang.

It was a call from an unknown number.

She answered and her face went pale.

She listened for a moment and then hung up.

She looked at me and said, “That was my cousin.

My father knows.

He has disowned me publicly.

He released a statement saying, “I have brought shame on the family and that I am no longer his daughter.

” He said, “I have been deceived by Satan and that I deserve whatever punishment the state decides.

” Her voice cracked and tears filled her eyes.

But she straightened her shoulders and said, “It does not matter.

I knew this would happen.

Jesus told us we would be hated by our families for his name’s sake.

We are not alone.

He is with us.

Reza sent us a message.

You need to leave Cashin tonight.

I have arranged transportation.

You will go to a safe location outside the city.

From there, we will figure out the next steps.

There are people who can help you.

You are part of the family now, the family of God.

We take care of our own.

Within an hour, a car arrived.

an old unmarked sedan driven by a man who did not give his name.

Sharen and I climbed into the back seat with nothing but the clothes on our backs and the phones in our pockets.

We left Cashen in the darkness, driving through back roads and villages heading north toward the mountains.

I looked out the window at the city I had grown up in, the city I would probably never see again, and I felt a strange mixture of grief and freedom.

I had lost everything, my family, my home, my future.

But I had gained something infinitely greater.

I had gained Jesus.

I had gained truth.

I had gained eternal life.

And no one, no government, no law, no power on earth or in hell could take that away from me.

As we drove through the night, Shireen and I held hands in the back seat.

We did not speak much.

We prayed quietly.

We thanked Jesus for his courage, for his presence, for his promise to never leave us or forsake us.

And we thought about the thousands of people who were watching our videos at that very moment.

Young Iranians just like us, sitting in their rooms, searching for truth, hungry for something real.

We thought about the light that was spreading, the fire that was growing, the movement that could not be stopped.

The government could arrest us.

They could kill us.

They could scrub the internet and threaten our families and shut down the churches.

But they could not stop Jesus.

They could not stop the Holy Spirit.

They could not stop the kingdom of God from advancing in the darkness.

We had done our part.

We had spoken.

We had testified.

And now whatever happened next was in his hands.

We were his daughters.

We were his witnesses.

And we were ready for whatever came next.