Equipping Iranians to Minister to Iranians

Afra, who is 31, described her life before Christ as confused and aimless. She prayed, fasted, and did her best to follow Islam’s commands perfectly, but she felt empty. She looked for God through her religious duties but saw no sign of Him.

Her life was consumed by addictions to alcohol and cigarettes and her partying.

An uncle and aunt who had converted to Christianity noticed the distress in Afra’s life and shared the Gospel with her.

“If He is a living God, if He is still on the ground,” Afra told her uncle and aunt, “He must show Himself to me.”

Afra continued to resist God until she had a dream in which she was standing on a prayer rug of Islam. Out of nowhere, a force like lightning knocked Afra to the ground.

Afra awakened and couldn’t wait to share her dream with her uncle.

“Try Christ once,” the uncle told her. “Open your heart and let God into your life.”

Afra still resisted the Gospel until one night when she became overwhelmed by disgust over her destructive addictions and meaningless partying.

She spent the rest of the night praying for God to remove the habits.

“When I woke up the next morning,” she recalls, “it was as if I were someone else. I hated cigarettes and alcohol and my ugly habits of the past. That same day, I turned my heart to Christ and asked the Holy Spirit to be the guide of my life.”

Afra and her mother recently contracted COVID-19, which has had devastating effects in Iran. Afra had a mild case, but her mother suffered from a lung infection so severe that doctors said she had no hope of recovery.

“But with the prayers of my brothers and sisters in Iran Alive’s prayer group,” Afra reports, “my mother miraculously recovered in a few days.”

After years of aimless living, Afra is proud to identify herself as a servant of God.

“I have left my whole life in the hands of Christ,” she says. “I walk the path of the cross and experience a good life in God with the teachings I receive from Christ and the pastors.”