I need to tell you about the night the son of God walked into my bedroom in Esvahan and destroyed everything I thought I knew about Islam.

For 32 years, I served the Islamic Republic of Iran with absolute devotion.

My father was a senior cleric in K, a man whose Friday sermons were broadcast on state television whose fat was carried weight in the highest circles of the regime.

I grew up reciting the Quran before I could read Farsy properly.

My name is Abdul Hussein.

I memorized hadith while other boys played football in the streets.

I fasted during Ramadan with a discipline that made my mother weep with pride.

I prayed five times a day, every single day, facing Mecca, bowing before Allah with a heart that desperately wanted to feel something, anything, but felt only emptiness.

I was everything a good Shia Muslim son should be.

I studied Islamic juristprudence at the seminary in K.

I joined the intelligence division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

I interrogated dissident, tracked down enemies of the state and believed with every fiber of my being that I was serving Allah by serving the Islamic Republic.

But on March 22nd, 2024, at 3:47 in the morning, Jesus Christ appeared in my locked bedroom in Esvahan, called me by name in perfect Farsy, and told me that everything I had built my life on was a lie.

I am telling you this story because what happened to me is happening to hundreds of thousands of Iranians right now in this moment as you watch this.

Jesus is moving across Iran in supernatural power.

Appearing in dreams and visions to Muslims who have never opened a Bible, who have never met a Christian, who have spent their entire lives serving Allah.

And the regime I once served is absolutely terrified because they cannot stop it.

Let me take you back to the beginning.

I was born in Esvahan in January 1992 in a large family compound in the Kaja district not far from the Zandanda River.

Our home was not a normal Iranian home.

It was a center of religious and political power.

My father Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein was one of the most respected clerics in Esvahan.

Known throughout the province for his knowledge of Shia theology and his unwavering loyalty to the Supreme Leader.

Our house was always filled with important men, revolutionary guard commanders, government officials, other Ayatalis.

They would sit in our reception hall drinking tea, discussing politics, religion, strategy.

I would sit quietly in the corner as a boy, listening, absorbing, learning that Islam was not just a religion, but a total system, a complete way of life that governed everything from prayer to politics to war.

My father had three sons.

I was the middle child.

My older brother Reza became a mulla like my father now teaching at a religious school in K.

My younger brother Ali joined the Basage militia and spent his time enforcing Islamic morality on the streets of Esvahan, stopping women for improper hijab, raiding parties, confiscating forbidden music and alcohol.

And me, I was chosen for intelligence work.

When I was 19, my father arranged for me to join the IRGC intelligence organization.

He had connections at the highest levels.

One phone call and I was in.

They sent me to a training facility outside Thran where I learned surveillance, interrogation techniques, counterintelligence, and ideological warfare.

They taught us that the enemies of Islam were everywhere.

America, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and most dangerously, the internal enemies, the ones who claimed to be Iranian but had betrayed Islam from within.

By the time I was 25, I was working in a division specifically tasked with monitoring and suppressing the spread of Christianity in Iran.

This was 2017, and the problem, as our commanders called it, was getting worse every year.

We started seeing reports from all over the country.

Shiraz to breeze Muslims, good Shia Muslims, suddenly abandoning Islam and claiming they had become followers of ISA Jesus.

At first, the numbers were small, a few dozen arrests per year.

But by 2019, the numbers exploded.

Our intelligence reports estimated that there were now over 800,000 Iranian Christians, most of them former Muslims, meeting in secret house churches across the country.

Some organizations outside Iran claimed the number was over 1 million.

We could not verify the exact figure because they operated underground in homes, in secret, using encrypted apps, constantly moving locations to avoid raids.

But what disturbed the regime most, what kept my commanders up at night was not just the numbers.

It was how these people were converting.

They were not being reached by missionaries.

We had expelled all foreign Christian workers decades ago.

They were not reading Bibles we had distributed.

Bibles were illegal, banned, confiscated.

They were not attending churches.

We had shut down or heavily monitored the few remaining Armenian and Assyrian churches.

and Iranians were not allowed to attend them anyway.

So, how were they converting dreams? Over and over in interrogation after interrogation, the story was the same.

A man in white appeared to them in a dream.

He spoke their name in Farsy.

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

He radiated love, overwhelming supernatural love.

” And when they woke up, they knew somehow they knew that the man was Jesus.

Most of them had never read the New Testament.

Most of them had no idea that the words he spoke to them were exact quotes from the angel, the Gospel of John.

But when they searched afterward, when they found Christians online or through secret networks and were shown the scriptures, they recognized everything.

This is him, they would say.

This is exactly what he told me.

I thought it was a mass delusion.

I thought it was Western propaganda, psychological warfare designed to destabilize the Islamic Republic.

I wrote reports recommending increased internet censorship, harsher sentences for apostasy, more raids on suspected house churches.

I believed I was defending Islam.

But in 2022, something happened that I could not explain away.

We arrested a man in Esvahan, my own city, a former revolutionary guard officer named Hussein, who had worked in the same organization I worked in.

He had been a loyal servant of the regime for 15 years.

He had participated in raids, arrested dissident, interrogated prisoners.

He was one of us.

Then one night he had a dream.

He told us during interrogation they brought him to a facility in the northern part of Esvahan and I was assigned to question him.

He sat across from me in that cold interrogation room, his hands cuffed, his face calm, and he told me his story, all her sins on the other.

The scale kept tipping back and forth, and she was terrified because she did not know which side would win.

Then a man in brilliant white walked into the courtroom and placed his hand on the scale.

Immediately, it balanced perfectly.

The man looked at her and said, “It is finished.

You are forgiven.

” She woke up sobbing.

She had no idea what it finished meant.

She searched online and found that it was one of the last things Jesus said on the cross according to the Gospel of John.

She realized the man in her dream was offering her something Islam never offered, certainty of forgiveness.

She broke off her engagement.

She left her family.

She joined a house church.

Her family downed her and put out word that if anyone saw her, they should report her to authorities.

I read file after file like this.

Dozens of them, hundreds of them.

The stories came from every city, every province, every social class, former revolutionary guards, university professors, taxi drivers, housewives, teenagers, old men.

The only thing they had in common was the dream, the man in white, the overwhelming love.

The words spoken in Farsy that they later discovered were direct quotes from the New Testament.

I started looking into research that had been done on this phenomenon.

There was a man named David Garrison who had written a book called A Wind in the House of Islam.

He was a Christian researcher who had traveled across the Middle East and North Africa interviewing former Muslims who had converted to Christianity.

He documented that between 1960 and 2010 there had been only a handful of small movements of Muslims coming to Christ.

But after 2010, something changed.

movements exploded, especially in Iran.

Garrison interviewed over a thousand converts and asked them what caused their conversion.

The number one answer was dreams and visions of Jesus.

Not preaching, not Bible reading, not missionary work, dreams.

There was also data from an organization called Open Doors that tracked Christian persecution worldwide.

Their reports showed that Iran had gone from having only a few thousand Christians in 1979 after the Islamic Revolution to having an estimated underground church of between 800,000 and 1.

2 million believers by 2024.

They called it the fastest growing church in the world.

The Iranian government had done everything possible to stop it.

They banned Bibles.

They arrested pastors.

They raided house churches.

They executed converts.

But the church kept growing because the more they persecuted it, the more God moved supernaturally to reach people directly.

I sat in my office in the IRGC intelligence headquarters in Esvahan reading these reports and feeling something I had never felt before.

Fear, not fear of an external enemy.

Fear that everything I believed might be wrong.

Fear that I had spent my entire life serving a system that was fighting against God himself.

I tried to push the thoughts away.

I told myself I was being weak.

I told myself this was spiritual warfare and the devil was trying to deceive me.

I increased my prayers.

I went to the mosque more often.

I asked my father to pray for me, but the questions would not leave.

In May 2024, we arrested a house church network in the Jula district of Esvahan.

It was a group of about 18 people meeting in a small apartment near the Vanc Cathedral.

We had received a tip from an informant.

We raided the meeting at night.

We arrested everyone, men and women, young and old.

We seized their Bibles, their phones, their laptops.

We brought them in for interrogation.

I was assigned to question a man named Behnam, who was about my age, maybe 30 years old.

He had been an engineer working for a construction company.

He came from a Muslim family.

He had a wife and a young daughter.

I sat across from Bethnam in the interrogation room and I asked him the same questions I always asked.

Who recruited you? Who is leading your network? What foreign organizations are funding you? He looked at me with calm eyes and said, “Brother, there is no recruitment.

There is no network in the way you think.

There is no foreign money.

Jesus is recruiting us himself.

” I felt anger rise in my chest.

I said, “Do not mock me.

Do not play games.

Tell me the truth or this will go very badly for you.

He said I am telling you the truth.

I did not choose this.

Jesus chose me.

He appeared to me in a dream two years ago.

He told me he loved me.

He told me to follow him.

I tried to ignore it.

I tried to go back to my normal life.

But I could not.

His love was too strong.

So I searched.

I found other believers.

I read the Bible.

I gave my life to him.

And now I cannot go back even if you kill me.

I stared at Bethnam and I saw the same thing I had seen in Hussein.

That same inexplicable peace, that same unshakable certainty.

I asked him, “Do you know what will happen to you? Do you know that you will lose everything? Your job, your family, your freedom, maybe your life?” He nodded slowly.

He said, “Yes, I know.

But Jesus is worth more than all of that.

I have tasted his love and nothing in this world compares.

You can take everything from me but you cannot take him.

I wanted to argue.

I wanted to break him but something inside me cracked instead.

I left the interrogation room and went to the bathroom.

I locked myself in a stall and I wept.

I did not even know why I was weeping.

I felt like something deep inside me that had been locked away for 32 years was finally breaking open.

I washed my face.

I went back to my office.

I wrote my report.

I recommended prosecution.

I did my job.

But that night, I went home to my apartment and I did something I had never done before.

I got on my knees in my bedroom and I prayed a prayer that was not from the Quran.

I prayed in my own words.

I said, “Allah, if you are real, then why do I feel so empty? Why do these Christians have peace and I have nothing? If Islam is the truth, then fill me.

If it is not, then show me what is.

I did not know it then, but that prayer set everything in motion.

That prayer opened a door I would never be able to close.

3 days after I prayed that prayer, nothing happened.

I went to work.

I filed reports.

I attended meetings at the IRGC headquarters.

I prayed my five daily prayers facing Mecca.

I recited my Quranic verses.

Everything continued exactly as it always had.

But inside I felt different.

I felt like I was waiting for something.

Like I had knocked on a door and I was standing there in silence wondering if anyone would answer.

I could not shake the feeling.

At night I would lie in bed staring at the ceiling of my small apartment in the Kaju district, unable to sleep.

My mind kept going back to the faces of the Christians I had interrogated.

Hussein who was executed.

Bethnam who was now sitting in detention waiting for trial.

Zara who had lost her family.

Ahmad the Mulla who had lost everything he had built in 20 years.

All of them had the same story.

All of them had seen the man in white.

On the fourth night after my prayer, I was lying in bed around midnight.

I had just finished praying Isa the final prayer of the day.

I turned off the lights.

I pulled the blanket over myself.

I closed my eyes.

I was exhausted.

The work had been heavy that week.

We had conducted three more raids on suspected house churches in Esvahan.

We had arrested 12 more people.

I had spent hours writing reports and sitting in interrogations.

My body was tired.

My mind was tired.

I fell asleep quickly.

But sometime in the early morning hours, I woke up suddenly.

My eyes opened.

My heart was pounding.

I did not know why.

I looked at the clock on my phone.

It was 3:47 in the morning.

The room was completely dark.

The only light came from the street lamp outside my window, filtering through the curtains.

I sat up in bed.

I felt strange.

The air in the room felt thick, heavy, like the atmosphere before a thunderstorm.

I looked around.

Everything looked normal.

My desk, my bookshelf, my closet.

But something was different.

I could feel it.

Then I saw light.

It started in the corner of the room near the window.

a faint glow.

At first, I thought maybe a car had pulled up outside and the headlights were shining through.

But the glow grew brighter.

It was not coming from outside.

It was coming from inside the room.

I stared at it.

My body went rigid.

I could not move.

The light expanded.

It filled the corner.

It grew so bright I had to shield my eyes.

And then I saw him, a figure, a man.

He was standing in my bedroom just a few meters away from my bed.

He was wearing a white robe that seemed to glow with its own light.

His face was shining, radiant.

I could not look directly at it.

It was like trying to stare at the sun, but I could see his outline.

I could see his form and I could feel the presence radiating from him.

It was overwhelming.

It was love, pure, powerful, unconditional.

It hit me like a physical force.

I started trembling.

My whole body shook.

I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out.

Then he spoke.

The voice did not come from outside.

It came from inside me, inside my chest, inside my mind, but it was not my voice.

It was distinct, gentle.

And he spoke in Farsy.

He said my name Abdul Hussein, just my name.

But the way he said it carried so much weight.

It was not just identification.

It was recognition.

It was like he had known me my entire life, like he had been watching me, waiting for me.

I tried to speak again.

I whispered, “Who are you?” The light seemed to intensify.

The presence grew stronger.

And he said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

I have loved you with an everlasting love.

Come to me.

” Those words broke me completely.

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

I pressed my face into the carpet.

I started weeping.

I could not control it.

Tears poured out of me.

My whole body shook with sobs.

I knew who he was.

I did not need him to say the name.

This was This was Jesus.

This was the man in white that thousands of Iranians had seen in their dreams.

And he was here in my bedroom in Esvahan in the apartment of a revolutionary guard intelligence officer who had spent years hunting his followers.

He had come for me.

The weight of my entire life came crashing down on me in that moment.

32 years of striving, 32 years of religious performance, 32 years of trying to earn Allah’s favor through prayers and fasting and good deeds.

All of it felt like filthy rags in the presence of this light.

I had been serving a system that demanded perfection but offered no assurance.

Islam had given me rules, rituals, duties, but it had never given me love.

Not like this.

Not this overwhelming crushing beautiful love that radiated from the figures standing in my room.

I cried out loud.

I said, “Forgive me.

Forgive me for everything.

for persecuting your people, for arresting them, for mocking them, for serving a lie.

Forgive me for my pride, for my sin, for my emptiness.

I do not deserve this.

I do not deserve your love, but I need it.

I need you.

Please do not leave me.

” The voice spoke again.

It was so tender, so full of compassion.

He said, “Abdul, you are forgiven.

You are washed clean.

You are my beloved son.

I have called you out of darkness into my marvelous light.

I will never leave you.

I will never forsake you.

You are mine.

Hearing those words, beloved son, shattered me completely.

My father had never called me beloved.

He had called me beautiful, obedient, useful, but never beloved.

And here was God himself calling me his son, telling me I was loved not because of what I had done, but simply because I was his.

I remembered the Christians I had interrogated.

They had told me about underground networks, secret meetings, house churches.

I needed to find them.

I needed other believers who could teach me, who could disciple me, who could give me a Bible.

But how? I could not just walk up to someone and ask.

I was a known IRGC officer.

If I approached the wrong person, I would blow my cover and endanger everyone.

I sat there thinking, praying, asking Jesus to show me the way.

And then I remembered something.

One of the files I had read mentioned encrypted messaging apps that Christians use to communicate.

Signal Telegram.

I had access to those apps for surveillance purposes.

Maybe I could find a way in.

I picked up my phone.

My hands were shaking.

I opened Telegram and searched for Farsy Christian groups.

I found several.

Most of them were public channels sharing Bible verses and testimonies, but one of them had a contact link for people seeking help.

I clicked it.

A message appeared asking who I was and what I needed.

I typed carefully.

My name is Hussein.

I am an Esvahan.

I am a new believer.

I need help.

I hit send.

Then I waited.

My heart pounded.

I did not know if anyone would respond.

I did not know if this was a trap set by intelligence agencies, but I had no other option.

5 minutes later, my phone buzzed.

A reply came.

It said, “Brother, welcome to the family of God.

We have been praying for you.

You are not alone anymore.

” The message on my phone felt like a lifeline thrown to a drowning man.

I stared at the words on the screen, “Brother, welcome to the family of God.

We have been praying for you.

You are not alone anymore.

” My hands were still shaking.

I did not know who was on the other end of this conversation.

It could be a genuine believer.

It could be an intelligence trap.

But something inside me said to trust.

The same presence I had felt in my room hours earlier seemed to whisper peace into my spirit.

Heck, I need to learn.

I need to meet other believers.

I need a Bible.

Can you help me? The reply came quickly.

Yes, we can help, but we must be very careful.

You understand the risks? I understand.

I typed.

I work for the IRGC intelligence division.

If I am discovered, I will be arrested.

There was a pause, a longer one this time.

I imagine the person on the other end weighing whether to trust me or cut off contact immediately.

Then the message came.

We know who you are, Abdul Hussein.

We have known about you for months.

We have been praying for your salvation.

Jesus has been pursuing you.

Now he has found you.

I felt my breath catch in my throat.

They knew who I was.

They had been praying for me for months while I was interrogating their brothers and sisters.

While I was writing reports recommending harsher punishments for apostasy, while I was serving the very system that wanted to destroy them, they were praying for me.

I felt tears burning in my eyes again.

I typed, “How is that possible?” The reply came, “One of the believers you arrested last year was a man named Hussein.

Before he was executed, he sent word through the prison network.

He said the IRGC officer who interrogated him was under conviction.

He said the Holy Spirit was working on your heart.

He asked us to pray for you by name.

He said you would come to Jesus.

We have been praying ever since.

Now here you are.

” I sat on my bed weeping.

Osain, the man whose execution I had recommended.

The man whose peace I could not forget.

He had prayed for me even after I sent him to his death.

He prayed for my salvation.

That was not human.

That was Jesus in him.

That was the same love that had filled my room just hours ago.

I wiped my face and typed, “I want to meet you.

I want to learn.

Tell me what to do.

” The response came with detailed instructions.

There was a house church that met in the Nagshi Jahan area of Esvahan, not far from the Imam mosque.

They met on Thursday nights.

The location changed every week for security.

I would receive the address on Thursday afternoon.

I was to come alone.

I was to tell no one.

I was to park my car three blocks away and walk.

I was to knock three times, then wait, then knock twice.

Someone would let me in.

I read the instructions carefully.

Thursday was 2 days away.

I agreed.

I said I would be there.

The next 48 hours were the strangest of my life.

I had to go to work at the IRGC headquarters and pretend nothing had changed.

I sat in meetings discussing strategies to crack down on house churches.

I reviewed files on arrested Christians.

I wrote reports on interrogation findings.

All while knowing that I was now one of them.

I was now the enemy I had spent years hunting.

The duplicity felt suffocating.

I wanted to stand up in the middle of a meeting and shout that Jesus was real, that he had appeared to me, that everything we were doing was fighting against God himself, but I could not.

Not yet.

I remembered what the believers had told me during interrogations.

Be wise.

Survive.

Wait for God’s timing.

So, I kept silent.

I played my role.

I went through the motions.

At home, I tried to pray the Islamic prayers, but I could not do it anymore.

The words felt empty.

How could I bow toward Mecca when I had met the living God face to face? How could I recite the sheda declaring that Muhammad was the messenger of Allah when Jesus himself had called me his son? So, I stopped.

I locked my bedroom door and I prayed to Jesus in my own words.

I thanked him.

I asked him questions.

I confessed my fears.

I felt his presence with me, quiet, steady, reassuring.

On Wednesday afternoon, my father called me.

He wanted me to come to the family home in calm for Friday prayers.

He said it had been too long since I visited.

He said my mother missed me.

I made an excuse.

I said I had work obligations in Esvahan.

He was not happy, but he accepted it.

I could not face my family yet.

I could not sit in that house surrounded by religious authority and pretend to be the son they thought I was.

Not when everything inside me had changed.

Thursday finally came.

I left work early claiming I had a doctor’s appointment.

I drove to the Nakshi Jan area and parked my car on a side street near the Sha Boss Hotel.

I walked three blocks through narrow alleys, checking over my shoulder constantly to make sure I was not being followed.

My training in counter surveillance was now being used to protect the very people I used to hunt.

The irony was not lost on me.

I found the address.

It was a modest apartment building.

Unremarkable.

The kind of place no one would notice.

I climbed the stairs to the second floor.

I stood outside apartment number seven.

I took a deep breath.

I knocked three times.

I waited.

I knocked twice.

I heard footsteps inside.

The door opened just a crack.

A young woman looked out.

She studied my face.

Then she smiled and opened the door wider.

She said, “Brother Hussein, welcome.

Come in quickly.

” I stepped inside and she locked the door behind me.

The apartment was small.

One main room with cushions on the floor, a tiny kitchen, the bathroom.

There were about 12 people sitting in a circle, men and women, young and old, all Iranians, all former Muslims.

They looked up as I entered and instead of fear or suspicion, I saw warmth in their eyes.

One man stood up.

He was older, maybe in his 50s.

He walked over to me and embraced me.

He said, “My name is Cyrus.

We are your family now.

Welcome home, brother.

” I felt my throat tighten.

I had not expected this.

I had expected questions, suspicion.

Instead, I was being welcomed like a long lost son.

Cyrus led me to a cushion in the circle.

I sat down.

Everyone introduced themselves by first name only.

Miam, Res, Sarah, Polly, Parisa, Navidiv.

Each one shared briefly how they came to faith.

Every single story included a dream or vision of Jesus.

a factory worker from Shiraas.

A university student from Thrron, a nurse from Mashad.

All of them had seen the man in white.

All of them had left Islam.

All of them had lost something, family or career or safety to follow Jesus.

Then Cyrus asked me to share my story.

I told them everything.

My background, my work with the IRGC, the interrogations, Hussein’s execution, my prayer, the visitation in my bedroom.

three nights ago.

As I spoke, several people started crying.

When I finished, Cyrus said, “Brother, what you experienced is exactly what is happening to hundreds of thousands of Iranians right now.

Jesus is moving across this nation in power.

The regime cannot stop it.

They can arrest us.

They can kill us, but they cannot arrest dreams.

They cannot kill the Holy Spirit.

He is bypassing every human barrier and going directly to hearts.

You are part of the greatest move of God in Iranian history.

He pulled out a small book wrapped in cloth.

He unwrapped it carefully.

It was a Farsy New Testament.

The pages were worn.

The cover was creased.

It had clearly been read many times.

He handed it to me.

He said, “This is yours now.

Read it every day.

Let the word of God teach you who Jesus is and who you are in him.

Hide it carefully.

If you are caught with it, you know what will happen.

” I took the book in my hands.

I had confiscated dozens of these during raids.

I had thrown them into evidence bags and sent them to be destroyed.

Now I was holding one as the most precious thing I owned.

I opened it to the first page, the Gospel of Matthew.

I began reading silently.

The genealogy of Jesus, the story of his birth, the visit of the wise men.

As I read, I felt the same presence I had felt in my bedroom.

Jesus was with me.

He was teaching me.

He was making himself known through his word.

Cyrus began teaching from the Gospel of John 3.

He read about a religious leader named Nicodemus who came to Jesus at night.

Jesus told him, “You must be born again.

” Cyrus explained that being born again was not a metaphor.

It was a spiritual reality.

It meant dying to your old life and receiving a completely new life from God.

It meant a new heart, a new spirit, a new identity as a child of God.

He said in Islam, we were taught to be slaves of Allah.

Always working, always striving, never certain if we had done enough, never sure if we would be accepted on judgment day.

But in Christ, we were not slaves.

We were children, sons and daughters, loved unconditionally, forgiven completely, saved eternally, not because of our works, but because of what Jesus did on the cross.

After the teaching, people began to share what God was doing in their lives.

Miriam told about leading her cousin to Christ after her cousin also had a dream of Jesus.

Reza shared about smuggling Bibles into Iran from Turkey hidden in shipments of commercial goods.

Sarah talked about a secret network of women who met every Tuesday morning while their husbands were at work to pray and study scripture.

One young man named Jabad said he had been a bas member enforcing Islamic morality on the streets of Esvahan.

He used to stop women for improper hijab.

He used to arrest couples for holding hands in public.

Then Jesus appeared to him in a dream and asked him, “Why do you burden my people with rules I never gave?” Javad quit the bas.

Next week he found a house church.

He had been following Jesus for 8 months now.

He said he had never known freedom until he met Christ.

Listening to these testimonies, I realized I was not alone.

I was not the only one living a double life.

Most of the people in this room still had families who thought they were Muslim.

Some of them still attended mosque to avoid suspicion.

Some still fasted during Ramadan in public while breaking the fast in private.

They were living in the tension between survival and witness, between wisdom and boldness.

Cyrus said this was the reality of being a believer in Iran.

We had to be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves.

We could not be reckless.

The regime killed people like us.

But we also could not be silent forever.

There would come a time when God would call us to speak openly, to testify publicly, to let our light shine no matter the cost.

Until then, we had to be faithful in secret.

We had to grow strong in the word.

We had to build community.

We had to prepare for the day when our faith would be tested in the fire.

At the end of the meeting, Cyrus and several others gathered around me.

They laid their hands on my shoulders and head.

They prayed for me out loud.

They prayed for protection.

They prayed that I would grow strong in faith.

They prayed for wisdom as I navigated my work at the IRGC.

They prayed that my family would come to know Jesus.

They prayed that God would use my testimony to reach others in the regime.

They prayed that I would have courage when the time came to speak.

I stood in the center of that circle, tears streaming down my face, feeling more loved and supported than I had ever felt in my own family.

These were my brothers and sisters now.

We were bound not by blood, but by the blood of Jesus.

Before I left, Cyrus pulled me aside.

He said, “Abdul, you are in a very dangerous position.

You have access to intelligence that could destroy many of us.

You know how our networks operate.

You know how we communicate.

If you are ever arrested and tortured, they will try to force you to give up names and locations.

If you are ever arrested and tortured, they will try to force you to give up names and locations.

You need to be prepared for that possibility.

” I nodded.

I understood.

He continued, “But I also believe God has you in that position for a purpose.

You are inside the heart of the regime.

You see things we cannot see.

You have access we do not have.

Perhaps God will use you to protect believers, to warn us of raids, to sabotage operations from the inside.

Pray about it.

” Asked Jesus to show you how to use your position for his kingdom.

His words planted a seed in my mind.

What if my job at the IRGC was not a liability but an opportunity? What if God had allowed me to be born into this family to work in this organization at this exact moment in history for a purpose? What if I was positioned to be a protector instead of a persecutor? I left the apartment that night with the New Testament hidden under my jacket.

I walked back to my car praying quietly, thanking Jesus for these people, for this family, for his word.

I drove home and locked myself in my bedroom.

I pulled out the New Testament and I read for 3 hours straight.

I read Matthew, read Mark.

I read Luke.

I read John.

I read about Jesus healing the sick, raising the dead, forgiving sinners, welcoming outcasts, challenging religious hypocrites, loving his enemies, and dying on a cross for the sins of the world, then rising from the dead 3 days later.

Every page showed me a God I had never known.

A God who pursued people.

A God who laid down his life.

A God who offered grace instead of guilt.

A God who called me beloved.

I was falling more in love with him with every verse.

But the weight of my double life was crushing.

Every day I went to work and pretended to be a loyal servant of the Islamic Republic.

I sat in meetings planning raids on house churches.

I reviewed intelligence reports on Christian networks.

I wrote analysis on how to stop the spread of the gospel in Iran.

And every Thursday night, I went to that same apartment and worshiped Jesus with the very people my organization was trying to destroy.

The tension was unbearable.

I felt like I was betraying everyone, betraying my colleagues at work, betraying my family, betraying my country.

But I also felt like for the first time in my life, I was being true.

True to the voice that had called my name.

True to the love that had overwhelmed me.

True to the one who had saved me.

For 3 months I lived in that impossible tension.

3 months of attending house church meetings on Thursday nights while raiding other house churches during the week.

3 months of reading my hidden New Testament at dawn while writing intelligence reports on Christian networks by afternoon.

3 months of worshiping Jesus in secret while my family believed I was still a faithful Muslim son.

The weight of it was crushing me slowly.

I could feel myself being torn in.

But I kept going because I did not know what else to do.

I was learning, growing, being discipled by Cyrus and the others.

Every week I understood more about grace, more about the gospel, more about what it meant to follow Jesus.

But I also knew this could not last forever.

Eventually, something would break.

Eventually, I would be discovered.

Eventually, I would have to choose between my two lives.

The breaking point came in late August 2024.

We received intelligence at IRGC headquarters about a large house church network operating in Esvahan.

The network had over 40 members meeting in different homes across the city.

Our informant had infiltrated the group and provided detailed information, addresses, meeting times, phone numbers.

My commander assigned me to lead the operation.

We planned a coordinated raid across five locations simultaneously.

The date was set for Thursday night, September 5th.

I sat in the planning meeting listening to my colleagues discuss tactics, how many officers to assign to each location, whether to use armed units, how to block exits so no one could escape, what charges to file, what sentences to recommend.

And my stomach turned to stone because I knew exactly which network they were talking about.

It was my network, my church, Cyrus, Miriam, Res, Sarah, all of them.

The raid was scheduled for the exact night we met.

The exact time they were coming for my family.

I left the meeting and went to the bathroom.

I locked myself in a stall.

My hands were shaking.

My heart was pounding.

I had one week, one week to decide what to do.

I could say nothing.

I could let the raid happen.

I could protect my cover and watch my brothers and sisters get arrested.

Or I could warn them.

But if I warned them and they escaped, the IRGC would know there was a leak.

They would investigate.

They would trace it back to me.

I would be arrested, tortured, executed.

I sat there with my head in my hands, praying desperately.

Jesus, what do I do? I cannot let them be arrested.

But if I help them, I will lose everything.

Show me.

Please show me.

I felt a peace settle over me.

Not an answer in words, just a deep knowing, a certainty.

I had been saved to save others.

I had been placed in this position for this exact moment.

My life was not my own anymore.

I belonged to Jesus, and he was asking me to lay it down.

That night, I sent an encrypted message to Cyrus.

I told him everything, the informant, the planned raid, the date, the locations.

I told him they had to shut down immediately.

Stop meeting, change locations, warn everyone in the network, get the Bibles and devices out of the apartments, disappear for a while until the heat died down.

Cyrus replied quickly.

He thanked me.

He said he would spread the word.

He asked if I was safe.

I told him the truth.

Once the raid fails, they will investigate.

They will find the leak.

I do not have much time.

He asked what I was going to do.

I said, “I do not know yet.

I am praying.

He said, “Brother, we will help you escape if it comes to that.

We have networks that get persecuted believers out of Iran.

If you need to run, let us know.

We will get you out.

” I thanked him.

I closed the encrypted app.

I sat on my bed holding my phone wondering if I had just signed my own death warrant.

The raid happened on schedule.

Thursday night, September 5th.

I was required to participate.

I went with the team assigned to raid the apartment in Nakshi Jan where we usually met.

We surrounded the building.

We climbed the stairs.

We broke down the door of apartment number seven.

The apartment was empty, completely empty.

No people, no Bibles, no phones, no evidence of any kind, just bare walls and cushions on the floor.

My commander was furious.

He screamed into his radio, demanding to know if the other teams had found anything.

One by one, the reports came back.

All the locations were empty.

The entire network had vanished.

He turned to me, his face red with anger, and shouted, “How did they know? How did they know we were coming?” I shook my head.

I said, “I do not know, sir.

Maybe the informant was compromised.

Maybe they suspected something.

He did not believe me.

I could see it in his eyes, but he had no proof.

Not yet.

” The next morning, I was called into my commander’s office.

He sat behind his desk staring at me with cold eyes.

He said, “Abdul, we have a serious problem.

Five coordinated raids and all of them empty.

That does not happen by accident.

Someone warned them.

Someone with access to our operation.

I felt sweat forming on the back of my neck, but I kept my face calm.

” I said, “Sir, I understand your frustration, but I assure you I had nothing to do with it.

Perhaps we should investigate the informant.

Perhaps he was playing both sides.

My commander leaned forward.

He said, “We are investigating everything, including everyone who had access to the operation details.

That includes you.

You are suspended from active duty pending internal review.

Hand over your weapon and your credentials.

You are not to leave Esvahan.

We will be in touch.

” I walked out of that office knowing my time was up.

They were investigating me.

It was only a matter of time before they found something.

A digital trace, a witness, a mistake I made somewhere.

I had maybe a few days before they arrested me.

I went home.

I locked my door.

I sent a message to Cyrus.

I need to leave Iran now.

Can you help? His reply came within minutes.

Pack nothing.

Bring only yourself and your identification.

Be ready tonight.

Someone will pick you up at midnight.

I sat on my bed looking around my small apartment.

This was my home, my life, my country.

Everything I knew was here.

My family was 2 hours away in calm.

My father, my mother, my brothers.

I would never see them again.

If I left, I could never come back.

I would be a fugitive, a traitor, an apostate.

My name would be cursed.

But I had no choice.

If I stayed, I would die.

And my death would accomplish nothing.

But if I escaped, I could tell my story.

I could testify to what Jesus had done.

I could be a voice for the thousands of Iranian believers who had no voice.

At 11:45 that night, I heard a quiet knock on my door.

I opened it.

A man I had never seen before stood there.

He said, “Are you Hussein?” I nodded.

He said, “Come with me now.

Do not speak.

Do not look back.

” I stepped out of my apartment.

I locked the door behind me.

I followed him down the stairs and into a waiting car.

There were two other people in the car, a driver and a woman in the back seat.

No one spoke.

We drove through the dark streets of Esvahan heading south.

We drove for over an hour through small villages and rural roads until we reached a farmhouse outside the city of Shiraz.

The man told me to get out.

He led me into the farmhouse.

Inside there were three other people, all of them Iranian believers.

All of them fleeing persecution.

One was a pastor from Thrron whose church had been raided.

One was a young woman from Mashad whose family had tried to kill her for converting.

One was a former Mulla from K who had seen Jesus in a dream and lost everything.

A woman named Nassarin who seemed to be in charge explained the plan.

We would be taken in small groups across the border into Turkey.

It was a dangerous journey.

We would travel on foot through mountains at night.

We would avoid border checkpoints.

If we were caught by Iranian border guards, we would be arrested and likely executed.

But if we made it into Turkey, we could claim asylum.

From there, we could be relocated to Europe or North America, where we could live as Christians openly without fear.

She said the journey would take 3 days.

We needed to be strong.

We needed to trust God.

We needed to pray.

She handed each of us a small bag with water and dried fruit.

She said, “Leave everything else behind.

Travel light.

Jesus will provide what you need.

” That night, we were loaded into a truck covered with a tarp.

We lay flat in the back, hidden from view.

The truck drove for hours.

I could not see where we were going.

I could only pray, “Jesus, I am trusting you.

I have left everything to follow you.

Protect us.

Guide us.

get us to safety.

After what felt like an eternity, the truck stopped.

The tarp was pulled back.

We were in a mountainous area near the border.

A guide was waiting for us.

He was a Kurdish man who made his living smuggling refugees across the border.

He said, “Follow me.

” Exactly.

Stay quiet.

Stay close.

Do not fall behind.

If you see lights drop to the ground and do not move.

Understand? We all nodded.

We began walking.

It was after midnight.

The moon was barely visible through the clouds.

We climbed steep, rocky paths.

My lungs burned.

My legs achd.

I had never done anything this physically demanding in my life.

But I kept going.

The pastor from Thrron was older and struggled to keep up.

I stayed beside him helping him over difficult sections.

The young woman from Mashhad was terrified.

She kept whispering prayers under her breath.

At one point, we saw lights in the distance.

The guide hissed drop.

We all threw ourselves to the ground.

We lay there in the dirt, barely breathing.

The lights moved slowly across the ridge.

Border Patrol.

After several minutes, the lights disappeared.

The guide said, “Move.

” We got up and continued climbing.

We walked through the entire night.

By dawn, we had crossed into Turkish territory.

The guide pointed to a village in the valley below.

He said, “Go there.

Find the church.

They will help you.

” Then he turned and disappeared back into the mountains.

We stumbled down the hillside exhausted and covered in dust.

We reached the village and found a small church.

We knocked on the door.

A Turkish pastor opened it.

He looked at us and immediately understood.

He said in broken Farsy, “Come in.

You are safe now.

” He brought us inside.

He gave us food and water.

He let us rest.

He made phone calls to organizations that helped refugees.

Within 2 days, we were transferred to a processing center in Istanbul.

I spent 3 weeks in that center.

It was a small building packed with refugees from Iran, Afghanistan, Syria.

Families, children, single men and women, all of us fleeing persecution or war.

All of us hoping for asylum in the West.

I shared a room with six other men.

We slept on thin mattresses on the floor.

We ate simple meals of rice and lentils.

We waited.

During those weeks, I met dozens of other Iranian Christians.

Their stories were almost identical to mine.

Dreams of Jesus, conversion, persecution.

Some had been tortured in prison before they fled.

Some had lost children or spouses.

Some had been downed by their entire families.

But not one of them regretted following Jesus.

Every single one said he was worth it.

Worth everything.

One afternoon, a case worker called my name.

She said my asylum application had been approved.

I was being relocated to Germany.

A church in a city called H Highleberg had agreed to sponsor me.

I would be given temporary housing, language classes, job training, support to help me rebuild my life.

I felt overwhelming gratitude and overwhelming grief at the same time.

Gratitude that I was free, that I could worship Jesus openly, that I would not be killed for my faith.

But grief that I had lost my country, my family, my language, my culture, everything familiar was gone.

I was starting over completely.

Two weeks later, I was on a plane to Frankfurt.

I had never been on a plane before.

I had never left Iran before.

I sat by the window and watched as Turkey disappeared below me, then the Mediterranean Sea, then the mountains of Europe.

When we landed in Germany, I was met by a man named Thomas who worked with a refugee ministry.

He spoke a little Farsy.

He drove me to H Highleberg and showed me to a small apartment that had been prepared for me.

One bedroom, a tiny kitchen, a bathroom, furniture donated by church members, a Bible in Farsy on the table.

Thomas said, “This is your home now.

Learn German.

We will walk with you.

You are not alone.

” I sat down on the bed and I wept.

I wept for everything I had lost.

But I also wept with thanksgiving because Jesus had kept his promise.

He had never left me.

He had brought me through.

For the first 6 months in Germany, I focused on surviving.

I attended German language classes 5 days a week.

I met regularly with a counselor who helped refugees process trauma.

I attended a Persian language church in H Highleberg where there were about 30 other Iranian believers.

I made friends.

I found community.

I began to heal.

But I could not shake the burden to tell my story.

I kept thinking about the thousands of believers still in Iran, still hiding, still risking everything.

I thought about Cyrus and Miam and Resa and the others.

I thought about my family in comm who had no idea where I was or what had happened to me.

I thought about my former colleagues at the IRGC still hunting Christians and I felt Jesus saying clearly you did not escape just to be silent.

You escaped to be a voice.

In March 2025, exactly 1 year after Jesus appeared in my bedroom, I was connected with a ministry that recorded video testimonies of Iranian Christians.

They asked if I would be willing to share my story on camera.

I hesitated.

Going public would mean my family would know.

It would mean I could never return to Iran, even if the government changed.

It would mean permanently severing every connection to my old life.

But I prayed about it and I felt God saying, “I saved you to be a witness.

I gave you this story so you could tell it.

Do not hide your light under a basket.

Let it shine.

” So I agreed.

I sat in front of a camera in a small studio in H Highleberg.

I took a deep breath and I began to speak.

I told them my name, Abdul Hussein from Esvahan.

I told them about my father, the Ayatollah, about my work with the IRGC.

About the Christians I interrogated, about Hussein who prayed for me even after I sent him to his death.

about my desperate prayer, about the night Jesus appeared in my bedroom, about his words in Farsy, about the overwhelming love, about my conversion, about my double life, about warning the church, about my escape.

And I ended with a declaration that I knew would spread like wildfire across Iran.

I said, “Jesus Christ is moving across Iran right now in supernatural power.

He is appearing to Muslims in dreams and visions.

He is calling them by name.

He is offering them love and forgiveness and freedom.

I am one of hundreds of thousands who have seen him.

The regime cannot stop this.

They can arrest us.

They can torture us.

They can kill us, but they cannot stop Jesus.

He is building his church in Iran and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

The video was uploaded to YouTube on a Friday morning.

Within 6 hours, it had 500,000 views.

By Saturday afternoon, it had crossed 2 million.

By Sunday evening, it had been viewed over 5 million times.

The numbers kept climbing.

The video was being shared across every social media platform, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram.

It was being translated into English, Turkish, Arabic, subtitled and re-uploaded by channels across the world.

My face was everywhere.

My story was being told in languages I did not even know existed.

I sat in my small apartment in H Highleberg watching the view counter rise and I felt terror and awe at the same time.

Terror because I knew what this meant.

Awe because I could see God’s hand moving in ways I could never have orchestrated.

By Monday morning, Iranian state media had picked up the story.

Press TV ran a segment calling me a traitor and a foreign agent.

They claimed I had been bribed by Western intelligence agencies to fabricate my testimony.

They said I was mentally unstable.

They interviewed a so-called expert who said my story was clearly scripted propaganda designed to destabilize the Islamic Republic.

They showed old photos of me in my IRGC uniform and called me a disgrace to my family and my country.

My father was forced to make a public statement.

I watched the video of him standing outside our family home in calms surrounded by reporters.

His face was hard.

His voice was cold.

He said, “I no longer have a son named Abdul Hussein.

He has betrayed Islam.

He has betrayed Iran.

He has brought unbearable shame on our family.

He is dead to us.

Whatever happens to him now is the judgment of Allah.

I watched my father disown me on national television and I wept.

Not because I regretted my decision, but because I loved him.

I had hoped that somehow my testimony might reach him, that somehow Jesus might open his heart.

But instead, he hardened it.

The threats started immediately.

Messages flooded my social media accounts.

Death threats in Farsy, curses, promises that I would be found and killed.

Some were from random people.

Others seemed more organized, more serious.

The German police contacted me.

They said they had credible intelligence that the Iranian government had put a bounty on my head.

They offered me protection.

They moved me to a safe house.

They assigned officers to monitor my movements.

For 2 weeks, I lived in hiding, wondering if I had made a terrible mistake.

Wondering if speaking publicly had been reckless.

But then the other messages started coming.

Messages from Iranians inside Iran.

messages that made everything worth it.

A message from a young woman in Thrron.

She said, “I saw the man in white, too.

I thought I was going crazy.

I thought I was the only one.

Thank you for speaking.

Now I know I am not alone.

Now I know he is real.

” A message from a man in Mashad.

He said, “I am a mala.

I have taught in the seminary for 15 years.

I had the same dream you described.

I have been terrified to tell anyone.

Your testimony gave me courage.

I am ready to follow Jesus no matter the cost.

A message from a woman in Tibre.

She said, “My husband and I both had dreams of Jesus within a week of each other.

We did not know what to do.

We found your video.

We prayed the prayer you prayed.

We gave our lives to Christ.

Please help us find other believers.

” The messages kept coming.

Dozens, then hundreds, then thousands.

I could not answer them all.

So I connected with underground church networks.

I forwarded contact information.

I helped link seeking Iranians with established house churches inside Iran.

I watched as God used my story to become a bridge, a confirmation, a catalyst.

People who had been afraid to speak about their dreams now had permission.

People who thought they were alone now knew they were part of a massive movement.

My inbox became a digital meeting place where the scattered church of Iran found each other.

One message in particular broke me completely.

It came 3 months after the video was posted.

The sender did not give a name, but the message said, “I am in Esvahan.

I was part of the house church you attended.

You saved our lives when you warned us about the raid.

We have been praying for you every single day since you left.

We are still here, still meeting, still growing.

The network is now over 60 people.

New believers are coming every week.

Most of them saw your video.

They contacted us asking how to follow Jesus.

Brother, you think you lost everything when you left Iran, but you planted seeds that are producing a harvest you cannot even see.

Your obedience is bearing fruit.

Do not lose heart.

I read that message over and over until I had it memorized.

I had thought my time in Iran was wasted.

I had thought my three months as a secret believer accomplished nothing.

But God had been working in ways I could not see.

He had been planting, watering, growing, and now the harvest was coming.

I realized that my story was not just about me.

It was about what Jesus was doing across an entire nation.

I was one testimony among hundreds of thousands.

one voice in a chorus that was rising from the heart of the Islamic Republic declaring that Jesus is Lord.

The video continued to spread.

Six months after it was posted, it had over 15 million views.

It had been featured in documentaries about the Iranian church.

It had been discussed in articles by organizations like Open Doors and Voice of the Martyrs.

Researchers studying the growth of Christianity in the Muslim world cited it as evidence of the phenomenon they were tracking.

A phenomenon they said was unprecedented in history.

Iran was experiencing the fastest growing church in the world.

Estimates now ranged from 1 million to over 1.

5 million Iranian Christians.

Most of them converts from Islam.

Most of them meeting in secret house churches.

Most of them reached not by missionaries or evangelists but by Jesus himself appearing in dreams and visions.

A pastor named Hormas who had been documenting these testimonies for years reached out to me.

He said he had personally met thousands of Iranian believers and he could count on one hand the number of them whose conversion did not include a supernatural encounter with Jesus.

He said what I experienced was not unusual.

It was normal.

It was how God was choosing to move in Iran.

He quoted Joel 2:28.

I will pour out my spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy.

Your old men will dream dreams.

Your young men will see visions.

He said this prophecy was being fulfilled right now in Iran.

When human methods were blocked, God moved in supernatural power.

When Bibles were banned, he wrote his word on hearts.

When churches were closed, he met people in their bedrooms.

When missionaries were expelled, he became the missionary.

No wall was high enough.

No regime was strong enough.

No persecution was brutal enough to stop him.

I now work full-time with a ministry that helps Iranian refugees resettle in Europe.

I assist with asylum applications.

I help new arrivals find housing and language classes.

I connect them with Persian speaking churches.

And most importantly, I disciple new believers.

Every week, I meet with Iranians who have just escaped persecution who have just lost everything to follow Jesus.

And I tell them what Cyrus told me in that apartment in Esvahan.

You are not alone.

You are part of the family of God.

You are part of a movement that is shaking the foundations of the Islamic Republic.

Your suffering is not in vain.

Your testimony matters.

I also travel to churches across Europe sharing my story, asking Christians in the West to pray for Iran, to support the underground church, to send resources, to sponsor refugees, to be the hands and feet of Jesus to Iranians who are fleeing for their lives.

Every time I speak, I am the same way.

I say, if you are watching this and you are Iranian and you are searching, I want you to know that Jesus sees you.

He knows your name.

He knows the emptiness you feel.

He knows the questions you are afraid to ask.

And he is reaching for you right now.

Not with condemnation, not with anger, but beloved, the same love that walked into my bedroom in Esvahan and called me by name.

The same love that died on a cross for your sins.

The same love that rose from the grave and is now pursuing you wherever you are.

I invite you to pray with me right now.

Not a ritual prayer, just an honest conversation with God.

Say this with me.

Jesus, I do not know if you are real, but I want to know.

If you are who you say you are, reveal yourself to me.

Forgive my sins.

Save me.

I surrender my life to you.

Come into my heart.

Be my Lord.

Be my Savior.

I’m yours.

And then I tell them to wait, to watch, to see what Jesus does.

Because I promise based on my own experience and the testimonies of hundreds of thousands of others that he will answer.

He will reveal himself.

He will call you by name.

He will fill the emptiness.

He will give you peace.

He will give you purpose.

He will give you a love that nothing in this world can match.

The Islamic Republic is terrified of this message.

They are terrified because they know they cannot stop it.

They can block websites.

They can jam satellite signals.

They can arrest believers, but they cannot arrest the Holy Spirit.

They cannot stop Jesus from walking into locked bedrooms across Iran and calling Muslims by name.

They cannot stop dreams.

They cannot stop visions.

They cannot stop the supernatural move of God that is sweeping across their nation.

I end every testimony with a call to action.

I say, if this story impacted you, write in the comments, “Jesus is moving in Iran.

” Let it be a declaration.

Let it be a prayer.

Let it be a witness to the world that no regime, no matter how powerful, can stand against the unstoppable love of Jesus Christ.

Within hours of every video I post, the comments fill up.

Thousands of them, tens of thousands, people from Iran, people from Afghanistan, people from Iraq, people from across the Muslim world saying Jesus is moving in Iran.

And every time I read those comments, I weep with gratitude because I know it is true.

He is moving.

He is calling.

And he will not stop until every person he died for has heard his voice and had the chance to respond.

My name is Abdul Hussein.

I am from Esvahan Iran.

And I am a follower of Jesus Christ.

He saved me.

He rescued me.

And now I will spend the rest of my life telling the world what he has