“There is something about experience . . . When somebody becomes a Christian after he has persecuted the church, he knows what persecution is about and it is important to support him to be able to go back and live the Christian life and be an evangelist because he has something to say to persecutors. He can say, ‘I have been there; I know what it means.’ He has a message that is not only theoretical but personal—a message that is out of both the Bible and personal experience that will reach out to the people because of his personal experience.”

Last year VOM shared this video produced by one of our ministry partners, Iran Alive Ministries:

In 2007, Babasola’s oldest son was attending classes at his university [in Nigeria] when three Muslim men armed with machetes approached him. They called out his name.

Kris kept a little notebook on hand. The Name Notebook. On her trip through several Muslim countries, she met dozens of people. At a salon, Kris took the names of the beauticians she met. From bathroom cleaners to teenagers sitting beside her in a coffee shop, if she got to know them personally, she asked their names and wrote them down in the Name Notebook. Why? To pray for them.

Still blindfolded, Hussein was taken inside a building; he couldn’t tell if it was a house or a business. He was led down four steps just inside the door, and then after 15 feet there were more stairs. He was going to a basement. He heard men speaking Kurdish, a language he didn’t know. Looking down past the edge of his blindfold, he could see that the floor was made of tiles. Hussein was taken to the manager of solitary confinement; he was placed in a cell and the blindfold and handcuffs were finally removed. They gave him a gray jumpsuit to put on and took his clothes. The cell was a 10’ by 6’ room, with no bed or toilet or sink. On one wall were two floodlights, and one of them was always on.

Hussein and his ministry partner had gathered in an apartment belonging to a Christian in a Kurdish area of Iran. The man who lived in the apartment had also invited 10 young Kurdish, Muslim women to come hear about Jesus. The previous week, the believers had received a secret shipment of 500 New Testaments, which were stacked in three large boxes in one of the apartment’s bedrooms.

Iranian Christian Hussein stood in amazement at how far God had brought him. Just a few years earlier, he had been a drug addict, a patron of prostitutes and a criminal. Yet the drugs and women and ill-gotten money brought no joy to his life; he felt only misery and desperation. He became so depressed that he planned to end his life. He came up with a plan to make his death painless: he would get high on ecstasy and then jump off a tall building. He found an appropriate building, and he even found a way to get to the roof. All he needed now was the drugs; he was trying to locate them when an old army buddy came to town and asked Hussein to coffee.

Has it ever occurred to you that Muslims might be as afraid of you as you are of them?

From the minute I stepped into VOM's offices for a college internship, I felt welcomed and loved – and very much disturbed. While a warm lady greeted me and an office manager gave me a tour, I couldn't take my eyes off the pictures on the walls. A young boy whose limbs were burned. An Asian woman smiling brightly, her face disfigured beyond recognition. A man and his family standing outside what used to be their home. A lump caught in my throat. I shifted in my sandals. My life was about to be turned upside down.