שלום חברים
Shalom Dear Friends,
Our November 2013 newsletter featured the ministry of Josh and Irena in the Czech Republic. In that article we introduced you to the E. Family, an Iranian refugee family living in a Czech refugee camp whom Josh and Irena had befriended. We asked you all to pray for their salvation during the ensuing months. God has answered our prayers in a wonderful way! Here is the story of the E. Family’s salvation from Josh and Irena. I think it will bring praise and gratitude to your soul. Josh writes:
Two weeks ago on Sunday evening we met the E. Family after church at our friend’s home. Several people from the church were also there. I asked Ebi what he thinks of Christianity and he smiled and said, “We are 90% Christian!” So I asked him about the other 10% and he said, “We just don’t understand it when in one place Jesus says He is God and in another place He says He is from God and in another place He says He is the Son of God.” We all spent a long time trying to explain the incarnation, the Trinity and their importance in our faith, but because of the language barrier they didn’t really get it. So we have been praying that they would be able to meet some good Christian Iranians who could answer their questions.
The very next week the E. Family were invited to the international church in Prague to meet some Christian Iranians! On Tuesday, while the E. Family were in the car on their way back to the refugee camp, Ebi wrote me this message: “We met Iranians in the international church and now we are 100% Christians! We want to see you and speak about what we feel!”
Eventually the E. Family called me on Skype and our discussion was one I will not soon forget. I wish everyone could have heard our discussion. It was so full of life and joy and peace and the celebration of the miracle of salvation!
Ebi was ecstatic trying to explain to me in his broken English everything that happened in Prague. He said they met Iranian Christians who study at the Bible school and they asked them all their questions. Ebi kept saying over and over, “We couldn’t control ourselves, we cried, we cried, we couldn’t stop. The Iranians explained to us everything and we understood it all! They told us about Jesus, they told us about sin and they told us how Jesus took our sin on Himself and how He came back to life! We only thought, why didn’t we come to Prague earlier? Our whole body was…I can’t explain it. We feel different, we feel free.”
All the while I could hear Ebi’s wife yelling in the background at Ebi all the little details that he forgot or left out. She said, “Tell Yosh (that’s what they call me) how I slept, tell him how I slept!” Then Ebi said his wife “has not been sleeping well since we were refused residency in Czech. She has been having a lot of stress and anxiety, but the night after we found Jesus I came into the room and I found her sleeping like a child! This never happened. Then I slept and I never slept so well than that night. We feel different.”
The church in Prague was presenting communion at the time and when it came time to partake Ebi said, “But we are not baptized!” Their Czech friend George said, “Do you believe with all your heart that Jesus is Lord?” They said, “Yes, we believe!” They took the wine and drank. Then George took the bread and broke it into three pieces. Ebi said, “George, you do the same as Jesus!” George, with tears in his eyes, gave them the bread and they ate.
During our conversation on Skype I saw how they finally grasped the true meaning of their sin and Christ’s sacrifice. It was such a privilege for me to witness the miracle of salvation taking place before my very eyes. Ebi said, “The Bible you gave us from HaDavar, this is our foundation, this is our important basic thing. All things came from this. We had nothing! Nothing! Only this Farsi Bible and now we have everything! If I have big house or big bank account what can I do without Jesus? Now all our questions are answered and God has called us! God is love, I feel it, I touch it! I have to know all the Bible! I have to show the other people the way. I got it and now I must share it.”
For me to hear these words thrilled my heart. I was speechless. I just wanted to hear more.
Ebi continued, “This hard situation has brought us to Jesus! Now we are in Jesus’ hands. He knows how to make our future. We are not in hands of court or government, we are in hands of Jesus. We are content and we feel free! Pray that God will make us brave to say to the Iranians about Jesus. We don’t want to be Christians in tongue only we want to show it by our living, like you and Irena. Now we want to be baptized. We must organize this day. Yosh, please now explain everything about this baptize from beginning to end please.” So I went on to explain baptism to them…When I finished explaining, Ebi said, “We have no shame in front of Jesus, we will be baptized.”
We all laughed and then I asked them if I could pray to thank God for answering our prayers. Ebi said, “Wait, I will get our daughter.” I said, “Are you ready?” He said, “Yes, we are sitting and praying.” I prayed and thanked God for hearing us and for giving light to bring understanding, for giving joy to a hopeless situation and for giving peace for a future hope. Then they prayed in Farsi and we finished our conversation.
(Pictured from left to right) Josh, Ebi’s wife, Irena, and Ebi
The international church gave them even more material in Farsi and now they seem to have all they need for good godly material to help them in their new life. For Irena and I to see the God of Israel enter the hearts of Iranians and transform them into His precious possession, to seal them with His Spirit, to enlighten what was once darkness and to make them His children with an incorruptible inheritance is to us something beyond beauty, something more than just awesome, it’s a miracle. A miracle that only comes from God and His redemptive work in hearts of men.
Thank you for all you have done on behalf of the E. Family. Please continue to pray for them as they enter the difficulties of finding a home and country that will accept them.
Please join us in prayer for the E. Family. That they would grow in the Lord and find a home and country that will accept them.
Thank you for being part of our ministry team.