Captive in Iran

I'm beginning to regret ever getting a Kindle Fire (review possibly coming soon). After relatively few book purchases, but a multitude of internet searches, Amazon is wisely tailoring their advertising to my tastes. Having purchased and completed reading A Passport Through Darkness, Amazon accurately assessed that I am a sucker for human interest stories. If it relates to God and what He is doing to dispel darkness and evil in some of the worst places on Earth...even better.

That sounds sarcastic and even a little smug, but that is not my intent. Amazon simply has me pegged! Ever since I read Corrie Ten Boom's The Hiding Place when I was 10 years old, I have never been able to get enough of God doing amazing things through His people in places that I will probably never visit and cannot imagine the suffering endured.

Such is the case with Captive in Iran, written by Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh. These two women, both native Iranians, came to know Jesus personally without the assistance of a church, a fellow convert or anyone. Solely by the power of the Holy Spirit, they both had amazing conversion stories. But God did not stop there.

While technically not illegal to be a Christian in Iran, proselytizing and sharing your faith in an attempt to convert others is. These women had given away thousands of New Testaments in the Farsi language, hosted home churches and shared their faith with multitudes of hungry, seeking Muslims before being "caught" by the Revolutionary Guard's basiji squad. Under interrogation and even casual questioning from fellow prisoners, Maryam and Marziyeh found countless opportunities to share their faith with those they would have otherwise believed to be antagonistic to their belief in Jesus as Saviour...not merely another prophet as Islam teaches.

Given my recent foray into Iranian history with Argo and Perseopolis and Perseopolis 2, to get a more current perspective on life in Iran was compelling to me. About two years ago, I had a consistent follower on this blog from Iran. I often imagined at what great risk did the reader have to go in order to read a blog about God and what He is doing. I have prayed many times when they have come to mind that they would be protected, empowered and comforted by the Holy Spirit. After reading this book and better understanding what Christians in Iran must endure, they may have stopped reading my blog because my piddly problems and whining about money are absolutely pitiful compared to life there. Truly...we in the "Christian West" have no clue what it means to suffer for Jesus.

Reading this book at a time when the well-publicized case of Pastor Saeed Abedini is in the headlines, made Captive in Iran all the more gripping to me. [For more information about this case, you can go to the Facebook Page which was started on his behalf.] As I read about the supernatural peace, encouragement, and love these women experienced and how they thanked God repeatedly for the chance to serve others for Him in this dark place, I kept envisioning the day when Pastor Saeed's story would also be told. Undoubtedly, he will have remarkable and unexplainable miracles to tell. On the day I finished this book, there was a new post about just such a thing that is currently happening for him.

What these women endured was far from easy, but their stories of other prisoners being tortured and beaten, poisoned by expired medication from the "clinic" and even executed without a legal conviction show just how much God protected them throughout their incarceration. They speak of hope, laughter, caring for one another and Love in a place that we would think would be ruled by survival of the fittest. That mentality was present, but these two ladies carried God's Light wherever they went and it was obvious to all who met them.

In the way that only God can...He brought good out of a situation that man intended for evil:
"Whereas before we had searched for people (on the outside) to speak to, now they came looking for us: "Go see the Christian girls!" The very prison system that tried to silence us was now our megaphone: Our arrest, our story, and our message of faith were news around the world. Our interrogators were helping us share the gospel!"

Amen!