SPEAKER_01: This podcast is the Ministry of Grant Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_01: Helping people know.
SPEAKER_01: Enjoy.
SPEAKER_01: Glorify God.
SPEAKER_01: For more information on Grant Hartway.
SPEAKER_01: This is GrantHartway.org.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, we understand that the last enemy to be defeated is death.
SPEAKER_02: And death has been defeated, so we don't live in fear.
SPEAKER_02: It is not a fearful, unknown experience for us.
SPEAKER_02: It's us striking our earthly tent and moving into our permanent dwelling, leaving what is temporary for what is eternal.
SPEAKER_02: What is immortal gets swallowed up by life.
SPEAKER_02: And so, Lord, we don't esteem and we we don't have this over-exalted view of death.
SPEAKER_02: We just don't fear it anymore.
SPEAKER_02: There's plenty of life to be lived here on this earth for the glory of God and for the expansion of your kingdom.
SPEAKER_02: That's why we're breathing right now, God, is to be about both of those things.
SPEAKER_02: We by nature have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but you're a God of restoration, and you restore us to be men and women who live for your glory.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, let us hear a glory song come out of Nagma today.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, this is our prayer.
SPEAKER_02: We prayed in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen, amen.
SPEAKER_02: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_02: Uh let me introduce myself.
SPEAKER_02: If you're visiting today, my name is Neil.
SPEAKER_02: I'm the lead pastor at Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and about six years ago, uh, we had our friend Nagme Abedini at the time come, uh, her husband Said was imprisoned in Iran, and our church was one of thousands all over the country that had that held prayer rallies for his release.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we prayed for the him and them and their children as it went through all of that.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and and then uh Saeed got released, uh, and then some things came to light that no one knew was going on, and so it was a very uh dark, difficult time for Nagmay.
SPEAKER_02: And my wife, who is the forward-thinking visionary in our marriage, said to me months ago, Hey, I've been praying about it, and I want to have uh Miriam Ibrahim and Nagame at the table one night uh uh in in the spring.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, That's great.
SPEAKER_02: And and I said, Because I'm lazy, I said, Hey, uh, if they're gonna be here, uh, don't fly them in on Sunday.
SPEAKER_02: If they're gonna fly them in Saturday and see if Nagmane could come and just kind of tell some more of her story.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and she said, that well, okay, I'll ask it.
SPEAKER_02: Nagme was very gracious.
SPEAKER_02: Um, a lot has changed.
SPEAKER_02: Her, like, for example, her name is no longer uh Nagme Abedini, it is Nagma Panahi, uh, which is her maiden name, I believe.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and so uh six years ago she was with us, and instead of me trying to tell her story, she's agreed to let me interview her this morning.
SPEAKER_02: So, Grand Parkway, would you please welcome back Nagme Panahi?
SPEAKER_02: Well, long time no city.
SPEAKER_02: Um we know some of the story about Saeed, his imprisonment, all that, but I'd like to go back uh to the very beginning and just hear a little bit about you.
SPEAKER_02: I think you have a life uh and an identity apart from all that's happened to you.
SPEAKER_02: And so tell us a little bit about your upbringing.
SPEAKER_02: You were born and raised in Iran, lived there for a period of time, and then your family moved to the States.
SPEAKER_02: Kind of fill us in on all that.
SPEAKER_00: I was born into a strong Muslim family in Iran.
SPEAKER_00: Um at and uh at the age of nine we came to America.
SPEAKER_00: Uh my dad was a practicing Muslim, very strong, um, so was my mom.
SPEAKER_00: And um we grew up in war and we had a lot of questions.
SPEAKER_00: My brother and I saw people dying.
SPEAKER_00: We would go to our school and there'd be rubble where houses used to be.
SPEAKER_00: There was bombs and missiles being dropped.
SPEAKER_00: And we would always ask, okay, who is this God and why is he allowing this?
SPEAKER_00: We had really hard questions we couldn't get answered.
SPEAKER_00: We tried Islam um harder, we tried to pray harder, which in Islam you do the ritualistic prayer.
SPEAKER_00: We there's fasting, Ramadan, we try to do that at a young age.
SPEAKER_00: We try to follow our parents, but we couldn't get that question answered of who is God.
SPEAKER_00: And um the war got really bad where there was chemical warfare and little kids going to war.
SPEAKER_00: My brother How old are you?
SPEAKER_02: And all this is happening.
SPEAKER_00: Like eight or nine.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh the the situation with the war got really bad where there was chemical warfare, and uh my brother was getting indoctrinated in school to go fight in a jihad and die.
SPEAKER_00: That's how he could go to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Uh they were um going to schools and getting little boys to go to war so they could run through mines, and uh then the soldiers could go and they treat them like cattle.
SPEAKER_00: They would treat them like you know, so the training.
SPEAKER_02: So basically they send children into the minefield to clear the path for soldiers.
SPEAKER_00: For the soldiers, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: My parents were afraid that he my brother was gonna do that because uh the parents couldn't stop the kids from doing that.
SPEAKER_00: We had some friends, the parents said no, you can't go, and the parents were in prison because the Iranian government considered them um being against the government for not letting their child go to war.
SPEAKER_00: So my parents knew they couldn't say no to my brother, and there was chemical warfare.
SPEAKER_00: And right before we came, me and my brother was were praying very hard.
SPEAKER_00: And for the first time, we prayed directly to God.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't say the ritualistic prayer, which we didn't understand because our language is far sea and we had to pray in Arabic.
SPEAKER_00: But those prayers we would just repeat, repeat.
SPEAKER_00: But for the first time, we just prayed in our own language, and I said, we said, God, why?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you allowing this uh war?
SPEAKER_00: Why so many deaths?
SPEAKER_00: We want to know who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Within, I don't know, soon after my dad, uh maybe within weeks, my dad said, We got accepted, we can go to America.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna leave this war.
SPEAKER_02: Let me let me apologize for right there.
SPEAKER_02: Uh what do people at the time in Iran think about America?
SPEAKER_00: I at that time, I basically when I was born, soon after it was the hostage crisis and the revolution.
SPEAKER_00: I all I remember is war and chaos.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't think there was much uh discussion, but uh from our family's discussion about Iran was that um there was a lot of sin.
SPEAKER_00: It was a sinful country, it was a Christian country, but it was a lot of uh it was sinful.
SPEAKER_00: So when you go to America, you have to be have your guard up, keep your culture, keep your because the Christian culture is all about you know, drug, sex, and rock and roll, just all that crazy lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: And uh that's what that's how my parents saw America.
SPEAKER_02: So you moved to America, and where'd you move to?
SPEAKER_00: California, San Jose.
SPEAKER_02: Well, that your parents are right about that part, and that's not America.
SPEAKER_00: That's California, not America.
SPEAKER_02: Um just a joke, just a joke.
SPEAKER_02: So you moved to California.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we had my dad had some brothers that lived there that were studying in the university.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so we moved there.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't remember exactly, maybe within a few weeks or maybe a month after we arrived, my brother came running to me and he was crying.
SPEAKER_00: He was very emotional, and my brother doesn't get very emotional, and he said, Nagme, I found the God we've been looking for.
SPEAKER_00: His name is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I never heard that before.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I was just praying and I saw Jesus, and all I felt was God's love.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know all the answers to life, but I know his name is Jesus, and there's love.
SPEAKER_00: And so we uh we were in a neighborhood that had a swimming pool, like a townhouse.
SPEAKER_00: We ran around asking people who Jesus was.
SPEAKER_00: There was Iranians there, so they had uh there was Iranian Christians there, gave us a Bible, Iranian Bible, baptized us.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, my parents found out, I remember it was a Psalm New Testament because I got into like the Psalm 2 before it was taken away from me.
SPEAKER_00: And uh it was the prayer that the last thing I read before my parents took the Bible away was Um, today I've begotten you, ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: And for me, at that young age, I felt like I was begotten as a child of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now I could ask for salvation of nations, and my heart's desire from the moment of salvation was to see the Muslim world come to know Christ because that's what I was saved out of.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you're saved out of something like a drug addiction or whatever, you know how bad it is, and you want other people to experience freedom.
SPEAKER_00: So that has been my passion since age and I.
SPEAKER_00: My dad got very angry.
SPEAKER_00: He said, What happened to you now?
SPEAKER_00: Becoming Christian is worse than if you would have died in the war.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he said, We're going back to Iran.
SPEAKER_00: If we die, we die.
SPEAKER_00: You've lost everything by becoming Christian.
SPEAKER_00: You've lost your culture, you've lost your identity.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so he was actually thinking of taking us back.
SPEAKER_00: And that time my brother was Christian, so he cried, said, I don't want to die, and I don't want to fight in a Muslim war.
SPEAKER_00: And he didn't want to do that anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but my uncle he said, You're making a very uh bad decision, uh, going back to war, and it was getting worse and worse towards the end.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I got he just graduated, my uncle had just graduated from college, um, and he said, I found a job in a place called Boisi, Idaho.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, It sounds to be in the middle of nowhere.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't heard of it.
SPEAKER_00: It is.
SPEAKER_00: It is, it is, and he said, Um, your kids are so small, they're gonna forget about Jesus, and uh, you can just watch them, debrainwash them back to Islam.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a big deal, just give it time.
SPEAKER_00: So that was the plan.
SPEAKER_00: They moved us to Idaho to, they watched, they took us our Bible away, they wouldn't let us pray together, they wouldn't let us associate with other uh Americans, they were afraid we might, you know, have Christian friends.
SPEAKER_00: And that that was their plan.
SPEAKER_00: We were gonna forget about it, we're so young.
SPEAKER_00: And as children, you want to please your parents.
SPEAKER_00: So they thought, of course, they're just they're not gonna mess up the family by just keeping bel keeping on believing in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And it was by God's grace God kept our faith because there was no Bible, there was no church, nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And uh during this time, are you praying?
SPEAKER_00: Personally, I he would, they wouldn't even let me and my brother pray together.
SPEAKER_00: So it was personal prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I would cry out to God for their salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I never thought it would come.
SPEAKER_00: I honestly was like, I thought if my parents ever get saved, it's like the end will be c will come.
SPEAKER_00: And they were just so I don't know if you have people like that in your life where you're like, you think there's never Yes, we do.
SPEAKER_00: Never gonna come to faith.
SPEAKER_00: Like if you the they come to faith, you'll be like, Hang on, hang on one second, pardon me to interrupt you.
SPEAKER_02: How many in this room out here have somebody in your life you just think they would be a miracle for that person to come to faith?
SPEAKER_02: Would you raise your hand?
SPEAKER_00: That's how it was.
SPEAKER_00: I just I couldn't imagine my strong-spirited Muslim dad who prided himself being a descendant of Muhammad, and that was our great family pride.
SPEAKER_00: We were uh sayids, which in my country you get people give you certain money because you have direct connection to the Prophet of Islam, you have his blood in you.
SPEAKER_00: He was so prideful and happy about that that I thought never, he will never kneel before Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And I would cry about it.
SPEAKER_00: So it was they were he was pretty intense.
SPEAKER_00: The there was um anger and abuse.
SPEAKER_00: He tried to bring us back to believing in Islam.
SPEAKER_00: My mom uh was also tried her own ways, but uh I was about 16, 17 when I noticed they weren't as mean and they weren't as aggressive about it of trying to convince us, and I couldn't understand why.
SPEAKER_00: And I uh would sneak out at age 16.
SPEAKER_00: I had just gotten my driver's license.
SPEAKER_00: I would sneak out Sunday morning and go to a church that was had an early service, eight o'clock, and uh my parents, you know, weekend they would sleep in, everyone would sleep in, so I would go to church and come back.
SPEAKER_02: Time out, you snuck out to go to church?
SPEAKER_00: I snuck out to go to church on Sunday.
SPEAKER_02: Happens in America all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And uh my parents found out, I was like 16 and a half, about a few months into it, they found out, and then um they weren't mad.
SPEAKER_00: And actually, right around I think I was 17, they started actually coming to the church and visiting with me.
SPEAKER_00: And I was and my brother came and um my sister years later said I was I believed what you guys believed, but I was afraid to say it because I saw what happened to you.
SPEAKER_00: So she was she's like, there was no way I was gonna do it.
SPEAKER_02: I'll stay back here, you guys go take take the punishment.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I saw, she's like, I saw how what you guys went through, and I was like, no, I believe in Jesus, but I'm not gonna say it.
SPEAKER_00: Um so my sister started coming.
SPEAKER_00: Years later, uh, I couldn't understand why my parents had changed, but it was years later that I learned uh because that was about eight, nine years into eight years into my me and my brother getting uh following Christ, and my parents had finally like um become better, they weren't as angry.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it was nine, eight years of intense persecution.
SPEAKER_00: And later I found out that the Bible that they had taken from us, my mom had started reading it.
SPEAKER_00: And um my dad had noticed a change in her, and she was afraid to tell him because my dad was like very strong Muslim, and he he just but she had changed, she was calm, their marriage was better, and um he started reading the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't know that at age 16, 17 that that's what was going on, but they were the same Bible that you said you read the first two Psalms.
SPEAKER_02: By the way, part of Psalm 2 says, Why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: So when God has his hand on you, every plot against you is in vain.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: So keep going.
SPEAKER_00: Your parents I love that psalm.
SPEAKER_00: It's the last psalm, last word of you know, last thing I read before my Bible was taken, it's always stayed with me.
SPEAKER_00: So um, and that's been my prayer.
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, my parents had uh had had been on this road of discovering Christ, or Christ was pursuing them.
SPEAKER_00: And uh we I went to college to kind of I didn't know at that time that my parents were reading the Bible, but I noticed they were better and and the way they were treating us.
SPEAKER_00: And me and my brother, twin brother, went to college and went to University of Puget Sound, which is a pretty liberal university near Seattle.
SPEAKER_02: Which is in Seattle, yes.
SPEAKER_02: If you don't know, it's in Seattle, just turn on the news and see what happens in the streets of Seattle.
SPEAKER_00: And in my mind, I thought we're going to away from my parents.
SPEAKER_00: This is where I can grow in my Christian walk, and I can join a church, you know, all the stuff I wanted to do, and I was surprised because it was so secular.
SPEAKER_00: Um and I joined a Christian group called Innvarsity, and I started sharing the gospel, and I did go to a local church there.
SPEAKER_00: Um and it was just amazing.
SPEAKER_00: I was studying pre-med, so a lot of uh by the way, my twin brother went on to become have a doctorate in quantum physics, and we were on this road of you gotta you you have to be a doctor, I don't care what kind of doctor.
SPEAKER_00: The family lineage depends on you.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so my brother ended up following through with that.
SPEAKER_00: I ended up just studying pre-med and then going to Iran as a missionary.
SPEAKER_00: But um, but all my teachers were like, you guys are so smart.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons my brother won it the doctorate degree, he didn't tell my dad at that time, was he could show his colleagues you can be very smart and you can believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Like it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: And um so uh my teachers would be like, Nogmazi, they would tell my friends, she's so smart.
SPEAKER_00: She's like, Why is she believing in this Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Why is she involved in this Bible studies, dorm Bible studies?
SPEAKER_00: I ended up leading one for uh non-believers seekers, and there was people that came to know Christ there.
SPEAKER_00: So my heart was always evangelism, and then I graduated from college, and I really felt like instead of going to med school, God called me to go to Iran.
SPEAKER_00: So um it's a long story, but uh it was a few years of fighting with the Lord because I went to India and God's like, nope, Iran, not India.
SPEAKER_00: And but long story.
SPEAKER_02: Nice try, but not where I want you to go.
SPEAKER_00: But long story short, it was right after September 11 that I really felt like God said it's the what's gonna change the Middle East is my gospel.
SPEAKER_02: So time out.
SPEAKER_02: You went to the Middle East right after September the 11th, on a plane.
SPEAKER_00: On a plane that in my life, even to this day, when I was coming here yesterday, I was having anxiety getting on a plane because for me, airplanes meant bombs.
SPEAKER_00: I've always struggled with airplanes, it just takes me back to my childhood of where bombs were being dropped, people were dying, and so um I have uh the first time I saw a commercial airplane, I it was really scary.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't I couldn't understand that there could be airplanes that were not meant to drop bombs.
SPEAKER_00: But um, so I was flying into the Middle East on an airplane where everyone was canceling their flights.
SPEAKER_00: If you remember that time, no one wanted to get on a flight.
SPEAKER_02: So there's you and six other people on the plane.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's me and the pilot flying into the Middle East.
SPEAKER_02: You want to sit on the jump seat?
SPEAKER_02: Come on up here.
SPEAKER_02: Look at the windshield.
SPEAKER_00: It was not a busy, you know, it's not a full flight.
SPEAKER_00: I was really scared, I have to say, you know, we want to paint the world wants to paint us as heroes and you know, the persecuted church, but they're humans.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I share this story because, you know, I was flying into Iran, it was right after September 11.
SPEAKER_00: The Iranian there was a talk of war, possible war, with George Bush.
SPEAKER_00: He was giving these talks, and um I was really scared.
SPEAKER_00: I knew if I wrote on my uh they ask you what religion you are when you get into the country.
SPEAKER_00: I know I was registered as a Muslim.
SPEAKER_00: When you're born, you're registered as a you're born into Islam.
SPEAKER_00: I knew if I wrote um Christian, I would get in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: So I actually wrote Muslim.
SPEAKER_00: I was it was a Peter moment.
SPEAKER_00: I got really scared.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember just so going home, getting off the plane, and everything was fine.
SPEAKER_00: I went home and I just cried.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Lord, give me another chance.
SPEAKER_00: Like I, it was like such a bad, like I could understand what Peter felt.
SPEAKER_00: And uh it was about three years later that I had a situation where I was arrested by Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, it's the same Revolutionary Guard that Sulaimani was the head of uh that got killed.
SPEAKER_00: They're really intense, they go after Christians, they kill them, they persecute them, they imprison them.
SPEAKER_00: I was arrested um by them.
SPEAKER_00: I had guns pointed to me, and I was told I was gonna go to prison, I was gonna get raped, I was gonna die if I did not say I was a Muslim.
SPEAKER_00: And they had this sheet in front of me.
SPEAKER_00: They said, choose.
SPEAKER_00: If you say you're Muslim, we're gonna call your, you know, my parents weren't in Iran at that time.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna call your um fiance's parents and you can go.
SPEAKER_00: But if you say you're Christian, this is what's gonna happen to you.
SPEAKER_00: You realize, and they said, now choose.
SPEAKER_02: So it's spelled out on a sheet of paper.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, they they had a sheet of paper that I had to write Muslim or Christian, and if I wrote Christian, I had to write, give them evidence.
SPEAKER_00: Like I basically everything I wrote was gonna be be used against me in court.
SPEAKER_00: So I had to write what how why did I become a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: How did I become a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: And my testimony, and all of that.
SPEAKER_00: Because in Iran, converting from Islam to Christianity has the death penalty.
SPEAKER_00: So they told me all of that, like read me my rights.
SPEAKER_00: This is what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: And at that moment I was frozen with fear, but it God says, you know, when you're arrested, he will give you the words.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, God, I didn't even want to, your your uh worldly flesh wants to shut down.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna say I'm a Christian, like save me, save me! Don't say it.
SPEAKER_00: And I literally couldn't speak, and God just opened my mouth and I said, I'm a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I can't go into detail of that, but what happened was through that, the this was the top interrogator who was threatening me through all of this.
SPEAKER_00: He cried at the end and asked for a Bible, and he said, Just go, just go.
SPEAKER_00: And um, I realized at that time that if I God gave me those words, not just for me to save my life, but that guy needed to hear, my persecutor, uh, who was gonna kill me for my faith, needed to hear.
SPEAKER_00: Because for him, that was why would someone say, Okay, I will do, I I'm willing to go down this road that you just said, because of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so I explained to him how I got saved, and I gave my story.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so uh I just love to share this story because um you know, the first time I was scared in my flesh, and I said I was a Muslim.
SPEAKER_00: The second time I was scared in my flesh, but the Holy Spirit, by the grace of God, took over.
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02: So your suffering becomes a platform for your message.
SPEAKER_00: It did, it really did for that one person.
SPEAKER_00: He needed to hear that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how God uses, you know, for one person he sent, you know.
SPEAKER_00: I I knew that the reason I said that was not, again, not just for to say protect me, but he was doing it for that guy who needed to hear it.
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02: So you're in Iran.
SPEAKER_02: How old are you at the time?
SPEAKER_00: Uh mid-twenties.
SPEAKER_02: So this is where you meet Said.
SPEAKER_00: I meet I meet Saeed.
SPEAKER_00: I met Said about a year after I went to Iran.
SPEAKER_02: What drew you to him?
SPEAKER_00: When you see him, what Yeah, charismatic.
SPEAKER_00: He was very charismatic.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I've always been a pretty intense Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Some people think I'm kind of on the crazy end, but I didn't really date.
SPEAKER_00: Um say that again?
SPEAKER_00: I didn't look crazy.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_02: The other part, I didn't really what?
SPEAKER_00: I didn't date at all.
SPEAKER_02: I've got two daughters.
SPEAKER_02: I just want them to hear that.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I was like just focused on Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I really the that kind of the party world dating, it just never really attracted my attention, and I was like set on Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Sharing the gospel, doing Bible studies.
SPEAKER_00: So, what caught my attention was Said was he was very charismatic and he seemed to have the same passion of evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm an evangelist at heart.
SPEAKER_00: That's like that's what I love.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so he seemed to have the same, there's was charismatic, and he seemed to really want to reach Muslims for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's what drew me to him, and so we got married in 2004 in Iran.
SPEAKER_02: In Iran?
SPEAKER_00: He'd never been to America.
SPEAKER_02: So when did you guys come to America?
SPEAKER_00: About a year later.
SPEAKER_00: The so when I went to Iran in 2001, there was maybe five, I was sharing the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Five people came to know the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Three of them were my cousins and two others.
SPEAKER_00: And by 2005, when we left Iran, it was over 2,000.
SPEAKER_00: And anyone knows if you've evangelized to anyone better yet, Muslims, you can't argue someone into faith.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it really it's it's it's a miracle and it's a move of God.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way I can say I reached this many people for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's like you're kind of watching like the rest of us.
SPEAKER_00: Like you're just it's kind of like right now, Iran is becoming, there's revival happening, it's becoming there's a movement of Christian people coming to know Christ.
SPEAKER_00: No man can get get credit for that.
SPEAKER_00: It has to be a move of God for a Muslim to see the light and to bow down.
SPEAKER_00: The same thing that happened.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, by the way, my parents, my dad, the first time I have to say this, I graduated from college, I went to church with them.
SPEAKER_00: He went down to the altar, kneeled, and was crying.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, never thought I would see this.
SPEAKER_00: Never, never, never thought I would see my prideful, strong Muslim dad bowing before Jesus and crying out to him.
SPEAKER_00: And so that was that's one of the images I will always carry with me.
SPEAKER_00: But um, if anyone comes to know Christ, it's by God, it's the move of God.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way you can convince them.
SPEAKER_00: So what's happening in Iran?
SPEAKER_00: We saw thousands come to know the Lord in 30 cities, it was growing, the persecution was intense, and that's why Said and I left Iran, and I was at that time pregnant with my um daughter, Rebecca.
SPEAKER_02: That's your first child.
SPEAKER_00: My first child.
SPEAKER_00: In 2005, I was pregnant with her.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: At what point in the relationship did you think I don't think this should be happening?
SPEAKER_02: I shouldn't be treated this way.
SPEAKER_00: You know, um, early on I could see stuff.
SPEAKER_00: The way he was treating me was not right.
SPEAKER_00: He was um it was very bad.
SPEAKER_00: There was physical abuse, um, a lot, you know, a lot of violence and things.
SPEAKER_00: But I thought it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I I know You thought what?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I thought this is what I'm glad God calls us sheep because I'm definitely a sheep.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm dumb, not very smart.
SPEAKER_00: But I um I thought, you know what, as long as he loves God and he's evangelizing, that's fine.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't need to abuses me.
SPEAKER_02: As long as you love God and that's fine.
SPEAKER_02: My wife would never go for that, by the way.
SPEAKER_02: I would wake up with her with an axe and a clown mask standing over my bed.
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe that.
SPEAKER_02: So your thinking is your thinking is uh as long as he loves God, this is okay.
SPEAKER_02: I can take that.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't correlate that if you love God, you're gonna treat people right.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't connect that too.
SPEAKER_00: That your relationship with God is a direct correlation of how you treat people, especially your family.
SPEAKER_00: I just didn't um I was caught up in the charisma, and it was, I have to tell you, I've been a you know Christian since I was nine.
SPEAKER_00: It was not until uh four years ago, five years ago, that God showed me that, really revealed that Bible verse where it says, In the end days, many will say to Jesus, I did miracles in your name.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'll did all this big stuff, miracles, prophecy, and Jesus will say, I never knew you.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, What?
SPEAKER_00: How could someone do big stuff for God?
SPEAKER_00: And God says, I never knew you.
SPEAKER_00: And God had really opened up my word through uh his word through um, really opened up my mind through his word that as Christians we want heroes, we want people to do great stuff for God, we want saviors, we want, and we want to clap for them, and we are we are so consumed with the good works.
SPEAKER_00: We don't care if they treat other people wrongly, we don't care if they have a foul mouth or uh they beat their wife or they cheat on them.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, oh, but they're doing so much good stuff for God, and that's what caught me up.
SPEAKER_00: That's how I got caught up.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, but he's doing so much good stuff for God.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't care if he has these flaws and alarms would go off, and and eventually it will come back to get you because it will it does matter to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Because um, for me, it was like it doesn't matter as long as the kingdom of God is what matters, it doesn't matter all this stuff that so I picked up on the alarms early on, but I kept pushing it down like it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: We're reaching people for Christ, that's all that matters, and I'm just gonna forgive, I'm just gonna submit more, I'm gonna love more, and I'm just gonna lay down my life.
SPEAKER_02: And um So this is going on how how long before you start dating?
SPEAKER_02: How long into the relationship before you're like the dating?
SPEAKER_00: There was a few times I almost broke it off.
SPEAKER_00: Even in the dating, it was I was it was already happening.
SPEAKER_00: It was already happening.
SPEAKER_02: So the most subtle form of what I would call abuse was what he he started saying my family was all bad.
SPEAKER_00: He was he started cutting off my connection.
SPEAKER_00: He isolate you isolated me.
SPEAKER_00: He started saying, Oh, your dad has this, your mom's this, your sister's emotional, your brother is crazy.
SPEAKER_00: It's just and all of a sudden all my friends and family were bad, and he was my only the only person I could trust.
SPEAKER_00: And he wanted he and isolation is a big, big way people try to control you because abuse is not about someone beating someone else, it's about someone controlling someone else.
SPEAKER_00: So one of the things it's about it's all about power and control, it's not about physical abuse, which a lot of people think it's someone trying to control another person.
SPEAKER_00: So one of the ways they do it, they cut off your other support systems.
SPEAKER_00: So they can be your only source of uh dependence.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's the first sign, but I couldn't understand.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, maybe he's more spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the other was uh he started tearing me to pieces.
SPEAKER_00: Like um, I was not like I never thought I was like the most beautiful person, but I didn't think I was ugly, but he would say, Oh my goodness, you need to do surgery, your nose, your eyebrows need to, you're not so pretty.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, look at your weight.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, if this it was just like all of a sudden I start being like, Oh, oh my goodness, I'm not.
SPEAKER_00: And he starts I was feeling good about myself, but now I hate myself.
SPEAKER_00: But tearing me down and then questioning my, are you sure you thought about that right?
SPEAKER_00: Or um, they call gaslighting where you're like, Are you sure you saw this the way it was?
SPEAKER_00: Because he would do certain things and I would know it was wrong, and he'd say, No, you saw it wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but then he I also so in order to control you, they need to also make you question your own um yourself, like your own uh brain that God has given you.
SPEAKER_00: And then also the word of God, because he was very charismatic, and I was raised in a very the word of God was trumped everything, and he would say, You're not letting the Holy Spirit move, you're just can't you're just like bound down to this word of God.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit works outside of this, and there's apostles that are rewriting, you know, I'm one of them.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so moving me away from the word of God was also another one where Saeed became my source of truth, and that's what God had to break me free of was idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: And it shocked me to the core that I was following Christ, I was sharing the gospel to the world when he was in prison, and I was bowing down to idols.
SPEAKER_00: The moment God opened my eyes up to the idols of this world, money, fame, peoples, opinions, marriage, another human being, a human being should not, no, nothing in life should um control you by fear.
SPEAKER_00: Only fear of uh reverence for God.
SPEAKER_00: So if there's any fear of what if people do this, what you know, any fear of losing things, losing your family, losing your mare, any fear that that paralyzes you is a form of idolatry, is what I I had to learn.
SPEAKER_00: But for me, it was shocking that I could be so in love with Christ, I could follow Christ so closely, and I didn't know I had idols in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't see it until God really lifted that.
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it uh it was during the last year of Saeed's imprisonment when I was laying down my life, I was traveling three or four times a month, and I knew between me and God that why I was doing it was for Saeed.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't for fame, it wasn't for money, it wasn't for attention, it was for him.
SPEAKER_00: And um and meanwhile, back in the prison, what's happening?
SPEAKER_00: In the prison, God, I couldn't understand why, God allowed me to see inside the prison how he got a phone, he got a smartphone, he had a phone with internet.
SPEAKER_00: There's parts of America that I can't I go that I have no internet.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, how is he having internet inside of an Iranian prison?
SPEAKER_00: And he had a phone, and later I realized there was a nuclear deal happening, and every time something would happen to Saeed, I would freak out, I would go to media.
SPEAKER_00: So the Iranian government was upping their hostage money, and so I realized I was being caught up in a game, and that's probably why they gave him a phone.
SPEAKER_00: Um, they smuggled a phone, he had to buy it, but it was like he got access to it and he had internet.
SPEAKER_00: So um later I realized I was maybe part of a bigger like game.
SPEAKER_02: So you appear on Fox News and then their their their ransom demand goes up.
SPEAKER_00: I appear and I'm like, oh, he's in person.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like literally crying to the State Department, we need to get him out.
SPEAKER_00: And um, and that's what happened because when I stopped traveling, when I told State Department, I think I'm caught up, like I was tired, I realized I had been under abuse, but they said that's a really good decision.
SPEAKER_00: And six weeks after that, site was released.
SPEAKER_00: From the moment that the Iranian government could no longer like control, you know, fuel me to go to the media, I was done.
SPEAKER_00: Um within six weeks, they were all released.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know, it just makes me wonder.
SPEAKER_00: But he had a smartphone inside of the prison, and uh he got-I know sounds crazy, he was linked to my Amazon account watching movies, and some of these movies were borderline pornography, it was really bad.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I can't even say their names, and um I was shocked because my kids were super small and it was coming in their recommended video, and I couldn't understand why.
SPEAKER_00: And I looked and I'm like, Oh boy, you're watching this inside of prison.
SPEAKER_00: People are praying for you.
SPEAKER_00: I for me, I don't even watch PG 13.
SPEAKER_00: I have to like I I watch PG with my kids.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't tell my kids you can't watch that, and then I watch it.
SPEAKER_00: They know that.
SPEAKER_00: I watch what they watch at this age.
SPEAKER_00: I don't give myself any because my eyes, my ears, and my eyes have to have the same protection as my kids.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care if I'm 43 and they're not, you know, 10.
SPEAKER_00: So I was shocked.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, people are praying for you, and you're letting your eyes see that.
SPEAKER_00: Like, and then I noticed he was searching for Lamborghinis and million-dollar home in New York, couple million dollar home in California, private jet, and I'm thinking while in prison.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm like, it just dawned on me.
SPEAKER_00: Are you thinking we're so famous?
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna come out and you're gonna use Christ for your benefit and it just to cash in, and there was a book deal.
SPEAKER_00: I had people calling me for movie deals, and I knew from that moment, I knew from the uh word of God that friendship with this world is an enemy to God.
SPEAKER_00: And kind we can sometimes deceive ourselves and say, Oh, I can be a Christian and have all these things and still have a comfortable life in this world.
SPEAKER_02: Private Jed allows me to get around quicker and preach the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, love, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00: It's like you can you can justify so much.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you really can.
SPEAKER_00: Even watching um those kind of movies, he would justify it as it's gonna make our sex life better.
SPEAKER_00: There's just so much you can justify by evil, the what you hear, what you see, the money you can justify.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus said, We're not of this world, we'll we're pilgrims, we're not supposed to be building a house, we're just passing through.
SPEAKER_00: So if you are focused on this world, it's gonna entangle you.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna, as a Christian, if you're a true believer, it's gonna make you depressed, it's gonna make you sad, and it's never gonna be enough.
SPEAKER_00: And um, that that's not what we're called to.
SPEAKER_00: So I was in the Christian world, but I was getting tangled up by the world, and God was like, no, this is not okay.
SPEAKER_00: I was on TV with um prosperity gospel people, I don't want to name names, but really famous ones from this area.
SPEAKER_02: Um 17 miles that way.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I was in the Christian world, but it wasn't Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know how to say it.
SPEAKER_00: It was very deceptive.
SPEAKER_02: And so it's just a world with a cross on top.
SPEAKER_02: Allow me to brief.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I know some of you think, oh, Pastor Neil's so harsh sometimes.
SPEAKER_02: Uh the religious subculture always needs somebody to clap for.
SPEAKER_02: We need heroes.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible calls them idols, and so you don't want to know what really goes on in these people's lives.
SPEAKER_02: You don't care about the house they live in, the six million dollar mansion, and you can't put food on the table.
SPEAKER_02: And they don't care about that.
SPEAKER_00: And you have brothers and sisters who are dying for their faith, who are struggling.
SPEAKER_00: Right now, the Christian church in Iran is growing, but they are poor because of all the sanctions and stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And but they are struggling, and you you're live, you're driving, you're flying with private jets to these poor, it just makes no sense.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it just it's not the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: So I knew that because I was in it and I was making God, there was a lot of money coming in, and God's like, this is not my gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And um, anyways, but I still I could see more and more alarms as I was drawing closer to the Lord, and Saeed was definitely far moving farther away, and I'm thinking, this is deception.
SPEAKER_00: People are praying for you because you're supposed to be standing up for the gospel, but you want to use the gospel for your benefit.
SPEAKER_00: A few weeks ago, he wrote on his Facebook post that you know he was talking about how he flew around with Franklin Graham and his jet, and he said, Oh man, my biggest dream is to have a private jet.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, How could that be your biggest dream?
SPEAKER_00: As a Christian, from the age of nine, if someone says, What's your biggest dream?
SPEAKER_00: I want, I that's something that I cry about, I pray about is to see the Muslim world come to know Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's been something I've prayed about since the age of nine.
SPEAKER_00: If that costs my life, which it has a few times, it has been close, that let it be.
SPEAKER_00: But I want, I've cried out to God for that.
SPEAKER_00: So that's my biggest dream first for someone who says that they're a follower of Christ, to have something in this world that you can't take with you, and then what are you gonna tell Christ?
SPEAKER_00: What is the what's the treasure?
SPEAKER_00: Where where you're building your treasure?
SPEAKER_00: So it made no sense to me that he was pursuing so much under the cloak of Christianity, and I didn't want to be a part of that.
SPEAKER_02: So, did you speak up?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I started drawing boundaries with him.
SPEAKER_00: I cut off him, cut him off from Amazon, and I said, I don't want I I got rid of the book deal, which made him furious.
SPEAKER_00: I we had a piece of land, I lived with my parents, and I still do.
SPEAKER_00: We had one land we were hoping to build on and have this.
SPEAKER_00: Um I sold that land and I paid off all the speaking engagements.
SPEAKER_00: I I didn't want to speak anymore.
SPEAKER_00: I paid off uh the book deal.
SPEAKER_00: I had to dish out close to$100,000 because my um uh the book of people, Tyndale, was the they had the publisher had already paid my agent, they'd already paid the ghostwriter, the process had already started.
SPEAKER_02: Hang on a second.
SPEAKER_02: What she's describing is in America, if you go through anything difficult, you get a book deal.
SPEAKER_02: If your car breaks down, write a book about it.
SPEAKER_02: Uh everybody got a book, and the way it works is the publisher prays, it's called front money.
SPEAKER_02: They pay everybody and then they pay a ghostwriter, somebody that just writes books for a living, they take the story and they build it out, make it a book, and then you get a book tour and all this kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_02: It's just it's it's the very it's the world, it's bit it's a business with a cross on top.
SPEAKER_00: It is.
SPEAKER_00: It's it and that's the the more dangerous because I was afraid of the outside world.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't party, I didn't date, but I well, I didn't have my guards up in the Christian world.
SPEAKER_00: No, and that's where the greatest deception came for me was it had the cloak of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: And in the last days, Jesus says that that's where we're gonna be deceived the most, even the elect.
SPEAKER_00: It says that the enemy will try to even deceive the elect.
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna come from the outside.
SPEAKER_00: We can see the outside, we can see the sins and say that's bad, that's bad.
SPEAKER_00: But it's gonna be the inside that's cloaked with a lot of Christianity that's gonna bring a lot of confusion.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's what God but um the book deal, they were expecting to make a lot of for us to make a lot of money.
SPEAKER_00: So if they think it's a big deal, that's when they start paying you ahead of time.
SPEAKER_00: So they were supposed to pay us in chunks.
SPEAKER_00: The beginning for the writer to start, the middle, the end, and then you had to sign a contract to speak for six months straight beyond the news.
SPEAKER_00: Promote it.
SPEAKER_00: And I already had like I could call up Fox News, I could be on Fox News anytime I wanted, I could be on CNN.
SPEAKER_00: I already had all the media connections.
SPEAKER_00: My first time that I spoke with Said stuff came out was on Fox News with Hannity.
SPEAKER_00: And but um I was I was actually on Fox News so many times that that my daughter was like, Are you hired?
SPEAKER_00: Are you like I was like, No.
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, um, so I got rid of everything and paid.
SPEAKER_02: I so you you you paid back everybody, you said I don't want to do this.
SPEAKER_02: And you I know you sought counsel from church leaders, different people.
SPEAKER_02: What were you told?
SPEAKER_00: So um before I could understand, I was under abuse because it was so confusing.
SPEAKER_00: I are I uh what woke me up initially to it was wait a minute, um this is damaging the the church, you know.
SPEAKER_00: But what I was told was uh my last trip, I went to a church and the pastor I told him everything for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: I you know when you're you're told not to air your dirty laundry for the first time I aired it.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, here it is.
SPEAKER_00: Brought it to light.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 4, I forget which it says uh in Ephesians says uh don't participate in the deeds of darkness, but instead expose them.
SPEAKER_00: But we're told to hide them, don't talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: For the first time I exposed it, and this pastor said, You know, I'm not just a pastor, I have my doctorate in uh psychology.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, You're an abused wife.
SPEAKER_00: And that's when it got a name.
SPEAKER_00: I have a friend who has uh found out she has cancer, but she was having body pain, she was having all these symptoms, she couldn't understand what.
SPEAKER_00: And when it got a name and it had all the symptoms, she finally knew why.
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's the moment that happened to me when it had a name of abuse.
SPEAKER_00: I could understand all the isolation, the man like all of it made sense that I was you know under this uh power and control world.
SPEAKER_00: And so from there I dropped everything, and and I knew the moment God gave me the strength, I knew the moment I walked away and I touched an idol that everyone loved, I was gonna get stoned to death.
SPEAKER_00: And it's you know, the Bible says count the cost.
SPEAKER_00: I knew the cost.
SPEAKER_00: God was like, You're gonna get stoned, you're gonna lose everything, people are gonna hit you, you're gonna come from a hero wife to a bad wife, but you're gonna have me.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna lose the world, you're gonna have me.
SPEAKER_00: And that was the best thing that happened in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I have to say, at this point in my life, life is harder than it's ever been, but I have so much peace and joy.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the thing I try to tell other believers.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we have that the world doesn't have.
SPEAKER_00: The world, we we walk through the same suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph was um a slave.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't know he was gonna ever come out of that slavery, but in that moment he was faithful to God, he stayed called, God was with him.
SPEAKER_00: In both instances, the prison says God was with him.
SPEAKER_00: God didn't take him out of the situation, God was with him.
SPEAKER_00: And God, you know, it's it's God is with us, and that's what the world doesn't have.
SPEAKER_00: That's why they crumble.
SPEAKER_00: But us as Christians, we can walk through the same heartache.
SPEAKER_00: You know, my husband came out and divorced me.
SPEAKER_00: I was afraid of divorce.
SPEAKER_00: It was the most heartbreaking thing that ever happened to me.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible calls it violence, uh, says a husband.
SPEAKER_00: It really felt like violence.
SPEAKER_00: It was like I gave my life.
SPEAKER_02: So he he does all this, pardon my interrupt.
SPEAKER_02: He does all this in prison, lives this double life.
SPEAKER_02: You're out here contending for him.
SPEAKER_02: You say, you know what, I'm done with that.
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to be in the religious subculture, I don't want to be a personality.
SPEAKER_02: Uh he gets out of prison and divorces you.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, he's like, You destroyed my plan.
SPEAKER_00: You got rid of the book deal, you got rid of like I there's nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, We're here, like it's good for you.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just have a normal Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get help on the stuff you've been struggling with.
SPEAKER_00: And he couldn't, he, he, for he hated me.
SPEAKER_00: And prison had also given him really severe PTSD.
SPEAKER_00: So he was he'd become very dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: And people don't didn't know that part of the story, so I got judged.
SPEAKER_00: I was told um by very famous religious leaders, you're probably cheating on him.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you did it for the fame and money.
SPEAKER_00: And to this date, up to up to now, I've never been with dated or talked to or texted or called any other guy other than Sae.
SPEAKER_00: So um, but it was it hurt because that was the area that I'd God by God's grace I never struggled with for to be accused of adultery.
SPEAKER_00: And so he came out and he divorced me.
SPEAKER_00: And um it was shocking because I was like, You're not even gonna fight for this.
SPEAKER_00: What was heartbreaking was as we were going through the divorce court, I was crying, I said, I just want you to get help.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want it.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want the divorce.
SPEAKER_00: What was heartbreaking was you know, they bring out all your financial stuff and they you know, they bring out all your it showed that the moment he got out of prison, he signed up for a dating site that was costing them forty five hundred dollars.
SPEAKER_00: So he didn't even want to save the marriage for like it was like Franklin Graham was saying, let's Work on your marriage in North Carolina.
SPEAKER_00: There was all this stuff of let's work on your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't even want to work on it.
SPEAKER_00: He had signed up for a dating site the moment he got out.
SPEAKER_00: And he was dating.
SPEAKER_00: Like we while we were still technically married.
SPEAKER_00: And so that broke my heart because I knew I'd laid down my life for him.
SPEAKER_00: But through all of that, God broke all I mean, um, my biggest fear is that I still have idols I don't see.
SPEAKER_00: There's so much spiritual blindness that can happen in our life.
SPEAKER_00: But God broke down so many idols, um, took the world from like cleaned me, cleansed me, sanctified me from the world.
SPEAKER_00: I there was three and a half years of me just reading the word and praying and with the Lord, and it was the best time of knowing God's word and being sanctified by Him.
SPEAKER_00: But I lost people's praises, I was labeled about I was untouchable.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the few people that touched me in my untouchable years was Marcy and Pastor Neil.
SPEAKER_00: They continued to reach out, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: Because I became from a hero wife to an untouchable.
SPEAKER_00: Ugh, messy.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're not in the limelight anymore.
SPEAKER_00: No, you're not in the limelight.
SPEAKER_00: You're you're just you just uh aired out your dirty laundry.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to talk about abuse.
SPEAKER_00: Let's not talk about a hero not being a hero.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I was told if this comes out, because uh I had letters from Saeed's head, he was part of uh a charismatic church, the head of that church wrote a letter to uh and said, I don't want to say to who, to a lot of um important people, and said, uh we knew about about this that he was beating Nagme, beating her dad, destroying property, and they said that's why our denomination never gave him a platform.
SPEAKER_00: And these religious leaders knew that, and they called and said, This better not come out.
SPEAKER_00: They and my pastor defended me and they told my pastor, this better not come out, because it's gonna uh damage the cause of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: If this truth comes out about Sayyid, it's gonna damage the cause of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And there was a moment I was afraid of that, that was my biggest fear.
SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna end?
SPEAKER_00: There was it was when God really spoke to me and said, No, God is never afraid of the truth coming out.
SPEAKER_00: He talks about David's and all.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, full disclosure.
SPEAKER_00: Still to this day, Muslims are shocked that the Bible has all these stories like with David, because in the Muslim culture you hide, your prophets are perfect, of course they wouldn't sin.
SPEAKER_00: And to this day, uh one of the main questions Muslims asked me is like, why did why does the Bible talk about David committing adultery?
SPEAKER_00: And and I'm like, because there's only one hero, and that's Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Yes and and God allowed us to see that because He doesn't want any other hero.
SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, I was told to cover it up, but I knew if if the story hadn't gotten so big, I probably would have continued in that marriage for the sake of the kids.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I was told in my culture and my mindset for the sake of the kids.
SPEAKER_00: But because the story got so big and it became about deception to the church, that's what I knew.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm gonna, God's gonna help me pay the price by by God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be stoned to death, I'm gonna be bleeding on the floor for three years just crying, but it's worth it.
SPEAKER_00: Because now, and actually, the head of that denomination emailed me and said, Nagme, millions could have gotten deceived.
SPEAKER_00: What you did, how you stood.
SPEAKER_00: It was hard, but millions could have gotten deceived.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think it's an accident.
SPEAKER_00: We serve a sovereign God.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's an accident that He brought, He allowed the story to get so big because I I've prayed about that.
SPEAKER_00: God, why couldn't you open my eyes early on?
SPEAKER_00: I would have relaxed, sold the land, had relaxing time with my kids, found the job, been a mom.
SPEAKER_00: Like, but God allowed it to get so big because I believe in the last days he's bringing to light that deception can come from within.
SPEAKER_00: And we should never be uh fooled by grand and amazing works.
SPEAKER_00: We should we should be careful, fruit, watching for fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Is this a humble spirit that's dependent on the Lord, that's giving glory to God?
SPEAKER_00: And the and it says those people that came and said, I did miracles in your name, they were talking about me.
SPEAKER_00: I did this.
SPEAKER_00: And in the book of Revelation, it says, the elders threw their crown at the feet of Jesus and said, You are worthy.
SPEAKER_00: So that was the difference that God showed me was when it's about you doing something for the kingdom of God, that's dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: That's cloaked with Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: But you look at the true followers of Christ in the book of Revelation, they didn't even say they got the crown for a reason, right?
SPEAKER_00: They they they they did do amazing things for God.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this belongs to you.
SPEAKER_00: But they knew where it was coming from.
SPEAKER_00: If they did, if there was any moment they stood up for the gospel, they gave their life, if anything, it was Jesus giving them the grace.
SPEAKER_00: So the glory went back to God.
SPEAKER_00: It was never back on them.
SPEAKER_00: So that was the big difference that God showed me.
SPEAKER_02: Two uh final questions.
SPEAKER_02: Uh because I know you pray for Saeed, uh, how can we pray for Saeed?
SPEAKER_02: Because let me be clear, Saeed is not the enemy.
SPEAKER_02: He's deceived, but if you can touch it, it's not your enemy.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says we don't war against flesh and blood, but against principalities and spiritual wickedness in high places.
SPEAKER_02: And so the the takeaway from this morning is not Nagma good, Said bad.
SPEAKER_02: Uh the takeaway this morning is we need to pray for Saeed.
SPEAKER_02: So how do we pray?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I do want to say there's there might be people here who have who are dealing with some kind of a toxic, narcissistic, prideful, whatever word you want to use, personality, abusive.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's actually loving to draw boundaries.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually because I was called unforgiving, bitter.
SPEAKER_00: When I drew those boundaries for Saeed and called him to repentance, I loved him the most.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a parent who says, I will not give you drugs anymore.
SPEAKER_00: I will not fund your drug addiction anymore, and people calling that person hateful and angry and unforgiving.
SPEAKER_00: No, I wasn't that.
SPEAKER_00: That's not why I drew the boundary.
SPEAKER_00: The moment God had me draw the boundary was do you love Saeed?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Then you need to draw.
SPEAKER_00: God who gave his life for us, whoever believes in him, has eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: You have to repent.
SPEAKER_00: You have to repent to have a relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: So I just want to say another lesson is you have those kind of people in your life, boundaries, and calling them to repentance is actually the most loving thing.
SPEAKER_00: And people that do that, your friends might be doing that with a parent, with a coworker.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: There's a I sat down in the plane with someone who had an abusive mom.
SPEAKER_00: Boundaries are actually them not being hateful or angry or unforgiving.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually godly.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we're told to do that in 1 Corinthians 5, 9 through 13.
SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, I pray for Said.
SPEAKER_00: We still love him.
SPEAKER_00: I don't bad talk, talk bad about him.
SPEAKER_00: The kids, how we pray for him, because at first I was confused, I was like, why do I pray?
SPEAKER_00: Success?
SPEAKER_00: More world, like more worldly stuff.
SPEAKER_00: So what God laid on my heart to pray for him is God's mercy, and that God would have mercy on him and would grant him a heart of repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Because he's done, he's been with a lot of people, he's done a lot of things against me, but the moment there's repentance, it's forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's how God treated us.
SPEAKER_00: That's how God has treated us.
SPEAKER_00: We've done way worse to him, and we do way worse.
SPEAKER_00: So the moment there's repentance, it's done, it's finished, our family can heal.
SPEAKER_00: But until there's repentance, that wall is there.
SPEAKER_00: And so I, if you can pray for repentance for him, my kids pray for him for that every day.
SPEAKER_00: They've really been raised without a father, and I tell them God is their father, but they have those moments of father and daughter dance and sport.
SPEAKER_02: I can't play basketball with God.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I'm I don't play basketball.
SPEAKER_00: My son's in basketball, and he's not the best.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Mom, other kids have their dads that play basketball with them.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: So, anyways.
SPEAKER_02: Let me say this.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, my dad abandoned us when I was 11.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and my mom came from Phoenix and raised us.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and Marcy's asked me before, how did you not just be so bitter?
SPEAKER_02: I knew my dad was a piece of work, but I just this just came out one day, and I say this to you as an encouragement because I I think you're the same way.
SPEAKER_02: My mom knew more about the goodness of God than than she did the badness of my father.
SPEAKER_02: And she was always saying that, and I was just like, that is jacked up.
SPEAKER_02: But I know you believe that.
SPEAKER_02: And she was right.
SPEAKER_02: And so you have that capacity in the life of your children.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, last question What could we do that would bless Nagma?
SPEAKER_02: Um I don't want to hear about an organization or anybody.
SPEAKER_02: I want what would bless you?
SPEAKER_00: Prayers that I would finish the race well.
SPEAKER_00: Um I've seen how I've been blindsided by spiritual blindness and idolatry that I couldn't see before.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, what am I not seeing?
SPEAKER_00: Like, am I, you know, um, just it's not it's not as hard as it once was.
SPEAKER_02: I must be doing something wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, it's just I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I I really felt like I was like so such a strong Christian, and God's like, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, what?
SPEAKER_00: And so I I really um that God would continue by his grace, keep me on the right path.
SPEAKER_00: And I could finish well, and I could Jesus could say, good job, you did it.
SPEAKER_00: And by and he did it, because I didn't do it.
SPEAKER_00: So I I that's well well done, my good and faithful servant.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's all I want to hear.
SPEAKER_00: And I knew the moment I walked away from it all, I knew that um I knew that that was my motivation.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I I just want you here to I just want to hear you say good job, like when I see you.
SPEAKER_00: So sure.
SPEAKER_00: That's my prayer.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So my kids, that my kids would also um grow grow up to be strong in their faith.
SPEAKER_00: That's that they would um they're gonna know it's costly to stand up for righteousness, that life has ups and downs and crashes and burns.
SPEAKER_00: And um, but they can have one thing, the biggest thing I learned to be content in God no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: You know, all we're always waiting if this, my child would do this, if my husband would do this, if my we're always waiting for something to happen to be content and happy.
SPEAKER_00: If I had more money, if I had this.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like to learn as the body of Christ to be content, exactly where you're at.
SPEAKER_00: And um, and that's what I teach my kids, be content.
SPEAKER_00: And I take them to, I know Miriam, she's not here, but she takes her kids there.
SPEAKER_00: We take them to low-income families where there's broken up marriages, and I say, Great, now see you can minister to them.
SPEAKER_00: You can say, I know your pain without a father.
SPEAKER_00: We go to Muslim refugees, we go where the fathers are, a lot of them are abusive, and I tell the kids, do you see this blessing that we get to understand what they're going through?
SPEAKER_00: Because before then I would have, I was a prideful, I couldn't understand other people's compass uh pain.
SPEAKER_00: And through this, God broke me of my pride.
SPEAKER_00: God says He uses everything for our good.
SPEAKER_00: It's not our earthly good, it's our spiritual good.
SPEAKER_00: And so I tell the kids, look how amazing this is.
SPEAKER_00: You get to minister to broken kids.
SPEAKER_00: And so pray that they would walk with the, they would continue to walk with the Lord and um they would finish their race well as well.
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02: Well, uh, I'd like to close by praying.
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: We'll just pray right now.
SPEAKER_02: Uh before I pray, I'm gonna ask you just to take some time and pray first of all for Said, and then I want you to pray for Nagme and her two children, her son and her daughter.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray together, church.
SPEAKER_02: Father, first of all, we appeal to your mercy.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible tells us that you're rich in mercy.
SPEAKER_02: So we ask you to have mercy on Saeed, uh, God, to deal with him gracefully, uh, but to turn his heart back to you.
SPEAKER_02: Uh Lord, he's been deceived.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we're not mad at him, uh, but we are mindful of what the word says.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and the word is very clear.
SPEAKER_02: And so we trust your word.
SPEAKER_02: Pray, Holy Spirit, that you would even now would begin to do a deep work of brokenness in Saeed that brings about and manifests itself in repentance.
SPEAKER_02: In the meantime, protect uh their children from believing things about you, God, that aren't true, about Christianity that aren't true, uh, from believing things about their dad that aren't true, or believing things about their mom that aren't true.
SPEAKER_02: Uh she's not heroic, she's their mom.
SPEAKER_02: And this is what moms do.
SPEAKER_02: And so, Holy Spirit, you said, uh, Father, you say in your word that you'll restore that which the locusts have eaten.
SPEAKER_02: And I pray that for Nagmay, that you would give back, restore uh what's been devoured by sin and destruction and deceit.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, Lord, we trust you.
SPEAKER_02: We bless her in Jesus' name, uh, and we're grateful for her and for her story.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, continue, God, to give her a platform uh to tell the gospel story, uh, of which her story magnifies the gospel story.
SPEAKER_02: And for that, we're blessed today.
SPEAKER_02: So we say thank you in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_02: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_02: One more time for Nagmay.
SPEAKER_02: Panama.
SPEAKER_02: Say sending him if you will.
SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, we uh if you're visiting today, uh, our service went long because I didn't want to cut that off.
SPEAKER_02: I was like, keep going, keep going, keep going.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but not like past the timeline.
SPEAKER_02: Our next service, we can always just push it back.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: We're not on TV or anything.
SPEAKER_02: We'll just, hey, we'll start 10 minutes late.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I need a cup of coffee.
SPEAKER_02: Uh anyway, uh, if you're a guest, hopefully you had an opportunity.
SPEAKER_02: There's a little guest card in your sick back pocket.
SPEAKER_02: Hopefully you have a chance to pull one of those and fill it out.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, if you will, just drop it in the wooden box by the door on your way out.
SPEAKER_02: And for the rest of us, if this is what you call your church, if today's the day you worship God through obedience or generosity, that's where you take care of that as well.
SPEAKER_02: All right?
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we'd like to close our service.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we won't show you announcements, but let me just say this: the table is tonight.
SPEAKER_02: It's women only, men, you cannot come, don't come.
SPEAKER_02: The table, right here in the sanctuary, 6 30 with Nagme and Miriam Ibrahim, whose story is equally fascinating.
SPEAKER_02: So you're in for a blessing tonight, ladies.
SPEAKER_02: Do not miss that, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Lindsay Frelick will be leading worship, and then these ladies will share.
SPEAKER_02: All right?
SPEAKER_02: We'd like to close our service with a spoken blessing.
SPEAKER_02: So hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_02: Your father has overcome the world.
SPEAKER_02: In this world, you will have tribulation.
SPEAKER_02: But be of the good cheer that says to the world, My Father's overcome this world.
SPEAKER_02: Do not become entangled by it or ensnared with it.
SPEAKER_02: Depart now and live in the freedom you were created to live in.
SPEAKER_02: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Bless you.