Iranian Believers Worship in Secret, Imprisoned for Faith

Knowing that a return to Iran would come at great risk, Soro and Ali faithfully followed the Spirit’s call to share the gospel with those who might otherwise never hear it in one of the world’s most restricted countries.

Soro drew the curtains against the sun in preparation for the evening gathering. The believers arrived a few at a time, knocking quietly on the door before entering the room and slipping off their shoes. Some of the women removed their head scarves before taking a seat on the intricately patterned blue rug, and at the appointed hour Soro locked the door and placed rolled-up towels at the threshold to block sound. The door would remain locked for the next hour and a half, no matter who knocked.

At the click of the deadbolt, those with Bibles brought them out in the open. The group prayed, read Scripture, listened to teaching, celebrated Communion and sang worship songs with muted voices. All the while, other group members stood watch near the windows.

As the meeting concluded, the group members left as they came, staggering their departures to avoid drawing attention. After their last guest left, Soro locked the door and she and her husband, Ali, exhaled with relief. Another successful gathering with no police raid.

A New Urgency for Iranian Believers

Soro and Ali returned to Iran in 2002 after living abroad for several years. More than 20 years had passed since the Islamic Revolution, and they knew the country was in desperate need of mature believers to disciple Christians in the closed nation. But they were also keenly aware of how dangerous it was.

The couple had counted the cost before returning to Iran, especially as each of their children was born. “It’s an interesting thing trusting God with your family,” Soro said. “For us, it was just so clear. The joy and the privilege of being able to go overshadowed the fact that something could happen.”

Although Soro and Ali wrestled with what it could cost their family, they concluded that God’s call was not only to them as individuals. “If we are one,” Soro said, “He called our kids, He called our family, and the Lord knew what He was doing with our kids.”

Soro asked friends to pray that their family would not be paralyzed by fear. “The tension was always present,” she said, “and we knew anything could happen at any time.”

They began their ministry by moving in with Ali’s family and gently witnessing to his sister and cousins, all of whom came to faith in Christ. Eventually, many other family members also became believers. They knew it was relatively safe to share the gospel within their family group, because Persian culture places a high value on family honor. If one family member becomes a Christian and other members object, Iranians generally prefer to hide the conversion and save face in society rather than report it to the government.

Within a few years, their ministry expanded beyond extended family, and they began to plant new house churches. Mindful of the risks, they took precautions with digital files and never kept lists of Christians in their group. As new believers grew in maturity, they boldly requested baptism, not only a decisive sign of Christian obedience but also an open rejection of their former Islamic faith. The secret baptisms occurred early in the morning, with just one or two other believers present as witnesses.

Before baptizing a new believer, Ali asked standard questions about faith, always ending with one final question: “Are you willing to give up your life for Jesus?” In Iran, that question holds great importance.

The first several years of their ministry were characterized by cautiousness and incremental growth, but in 2009 their work reached a turning point. They began hearing of Muslims coming to faith through dreams and visions of Jesus. “It felt like Jesus said, ‘I am not going to wait for people like you to do their job,’” Soro said. “It was after that we just grew in boldness.”

While the fear was still there, they had a new urgency. And other Iranian believers sensed a similar moving of the Spirit. The country as a whole was becoming more desperate for truth, and Christians felt compelled to share the message of Jesus. Soon, Ali began to venture into new neighborhoods and travel farther to meet new Christian converts. But the increased exposure also increased the danger, and on nights when Ali was out visiting believers, Soro prayed continuously until his safe return.

It was on one such night in 2009 that Soro received an unwelcome visit from the police.

The Arrest

Soro was cooking chickpea patties for her two sons, ages 5 and 7, when the secret police burst through the door of their apartment. “Woman, cover yourself!” an officer barked. The agents, dressed in solid black with surgical masks obscuring their faces, walked purposely across their Persian rug in violation of Iranian custom.

“Mommy, Mommy, who is that?” asked the frightened boys. “What do they want?”

“It’s OK,” she reassured them. “It’s the secret police. We knew they were going to come for us sometime.”

The agents rounded up Soro’s family members from adjoining apartments and ordered them all to sit on the floor in a U-shape while they ransacked Soro and Ali’s apartment. In God’s providence, the couple had moved their supply of stored Bibles to another believer’s home two weeks earlier, so there wasn’t much for police to find.

The family sat on the floor for more than two hours while the agents repeatedly asked Soro where her husband was. She wasn’t about to admit that he was at a house church meeting, and she prayed that he would not come home while the police were there. But just as the agents were leading Soro out to the police van, Ali arrived and was arrested along with his wife. They were bound and blindfolded before being driven to the city’s interrogation unit.

After separating Soro and Ali at the prison, a guard led Soro — still blindfolded — into her cell, left the room and slammed the metal door behind him. Soro stood quietly until she was sure she was alone, then pulled down her blindfold and let the prison-issue chador (a black sheet-like garment) fall from her shoulders.

She was standing in a room about 8 feet wide by 20 feet long with a thin carpet on the floor and three wool blankets folded in a corner. Another corner of the room had a tiled floor, with a squat toilet and a shower faucet. It was 11 p.m., and Soro had no idea what might happen to her or her family. Would she be interrogated? How long would she be detained? And who was caring for her sons?

She woke up the next morning slumped against the wall on top of the blankets. She had felt too vulnerable to stretch out, expecting someone to walk in at any moment. Again, she wondered what would happen that day.

She paced the room. “I was trying to pray,” Soro said, “but it was hard to pray, I think because I was still in shock.”

She found it easier to connect with God by singing. At first she sang quietly, but as her confidence grew she began singing louder and louder. “You know what?” she thought, “If they are listening to me, I am going to sing about the God who I know — that He is love, He is truth, He is faithful and He is good.”

The interrogations began later that day. Each time, Soro was blindfolded, covered in her chador and led to the interrogation room. She was accused of collaborating with the American government and ordered never to talk about Jesus with anyone. They even tried to use Scripture to persuade her to talk to them, and they wanted names of church members.

“After a while,” Soro said, “the fear just goes away and a boldness comes.” While her interrogators intended to crush the church in Iran, she knew from church history that it could not happen. “Sure, they can bring fear and scatter people,” she said, “but eventually the people grow bold, and then they are not afraid anymore.”

As the days passed, Soro thought constantly of her children. “I knew it was a privilege to be there with the Lord, so that was sweet,” she said, “but I also wanted to go be with them.”

Walking Through Persecution as Iranian believers

After almost two weeks in prison, a guard walked into Soro’s cell and announced that she was being released. He led her down a long corridor and through a large door, and suddenly she was standing alone on the sidewalk in the bright sunshine … wondering about her husband.

Soro was overjoyed to be back home with her family, but she was still reeling from her imprisonment. She refused to leave her boys, sleeping between their beds each night, and none of them knew when or if Ali would come home.

She had recognized the presence of evil in her interrogators, but she also came to understand that the entire experience was ordained by God. “He was allowing us, His children, to suffer because He wanted us to carry His presence into their presence,” Soro said. “He loved them so much — the judges, the interrogators, the guards — that He allowed us to go through a really, really hard time to carry His presence into their presence so they could come in touch with Him.”

Finally, after more than a month of waiting, Soro got the call she had been hoping for: Ali was coming home. Although Soro and Ali were out on bail, they faced the possibility of re-imprisonment at the conclusion of their trial; they had been charged with disrupting national security (a common charge against anyone who organizes Christian gatherings) and apostasy from Islam.

Soro and Ali lived in constant fear, enduring continuous surveillance. Watchers positioned outside their home even followed Soro when she left to buy groceries.

Many Iranian Christians choose to leave the country after facing imprisonment, surveillance, social pressure, limited economic opportunities and the threat of a longer prison sentence. But Soro and Ali felt the Lord was telling them to stay. “We knew we had to help the church learn how to walk through persecution,” Soro said. “If we just fled, anybody after us would follow our example.”

The fear gradually subsided after about four months, and Ali again began to gather people for teaching and worship. Although they were still closely watched, people were coming to faith. Soro said it was by God’s grace that they were not discovered. Despite the stress, she took joy in watching young Iranian believers grow strong in faith and even share it with others.

For the next two years, Soro and Ali continued to invest in each new believer, teaching them God’s Word and preparing them to stand firm under persecution. Meanwhile, every two months they were required to attend court hearings, one in the Islamic Revolutionary Court (for disrupting national security) and one in a lower court (for apostasy from Islam).

Testifying to the Judge

The trials dragged on, exhausting the entire family. For each hearing, the couple had to leave their children — still sensitive to their parents’ absence due to imprisonment — with relatives and travel to the court, where Soro was required to wear a full black covering. They then passed through court security only to wait for hours in a crowded courthouse for a judge who allowed them to speak for less than two minutes at a time.

Soro was disappointed that she had never been able to testify about Jesus during a court hearing, so she asked the Lord for that chance. One day, she arrived at the court alone and the normally crowded halls were empty. She began to tremble as she sensed the Holy Spirit saying, “This is the day!” And to her great joy, the judge agreed to let her speak.

Soro began by explaining the creation and fall of man, then moved through the Old Testament stories, showing how God used each event to point toward something yet to come. She spoke for 45 minutes, finishing by describing Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb of God. “That was God’s provision for our sin,” she told the judge. “Jesus died on the cross and He rose [from the dead].”

People came and went from the courtroom as Soro spoke. When the judge’s secretary came in, he told her to sit and listen. Then a guard with a prisoner entered the room and stayed. Others arrived with paperwork for the judge, but he merely signed the papers and motioned for Soro to continue her speech.

When she had finished, the judge said, “You know, we Muslims can’t be perfect all the time.”

“I know,” Soro replied, “neither can I. That is why we need a Savior, a sacrifice for our sins.”

Soro ended the conversation by praying for the judge and left the courtroom with a lighter spirit, even though she could not know how their case would be resolved. “It felt so good to pray in Jesus’ name for this man,” she said.

Growing the Church in iran

After working with Iranian believers for several more months, Soro and Ali decided it was time to leave the country and continue their work with Iranian Christians elsewhere. Today, they live in a nearby country, where they train leaders to plant new churches throughout Iran. Soro said Iranian believers have become very bold, fearlessly meeting and reaching out to their Muslim neighbors. “We help them catch a vision about reproducing,” Soro said, “and what it means to listen to God and be on the alert for the people He has prepared.”

While Soro said she does not miss living under the pressure they faced inside Iran, she does miss the complete dependence on the Holy Spirit and sensitivity to His leading that it required. In safer countries, such as the U.S. and the country where Soro and Ali now live, believers do not have to be careful when they share the gospel because there is little risk. “We respond more to the beeps on our phone, I find, than to the Holy Spirit,” Soro said.

She said it is important, during our busy schedules, to consider each day what God wants us to do and with whom He wants us to speak. “Are our ears tuned to the Holy Spirit’s leading?” she asked. “You really have to be close to Him. You really have to listen and can’t go on with all your plans.”

Soro and Ali’s boys, now teenagers, have not expressed much about the experience of their parents’ imprisonment, but Soro knows God is at work in them. “I am waiting for the time,” Soro said, “when they begin to see the richness that came out of that and make those connections of, ‘Wow, God let me go through that and He had a purpose for me, not just for my parents.’”

Soro’s prayer for her family is that God will give them peace and unity as they serve Him in situations that are not always stable. Her prayer for the church in Iran is that God will pour out His grace on them amid economic and social pressures so they can continue to thrive and creatively reach all segments of society.

The call Soro and Ali received from God more than 15 years ago was difficult for their family. But they followed the Spirit’s leading into what appeared to be a dark valley, only to find instead the beauty of many Iranians coming to know Christ and an Iranian church emboldened by His Spirit.