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You. And he took my world, everything I had, he tested me. And I said, yes, Lord, I still, I follow you. And it's a big test, but it's a very sweet journey when we walk with Jesus. And I found it. At the beginning, maybe I could not. I was crying. I was complaining. Why all these horrible things happening to me? But over the time, I understood how sweet is that, walking with Jesus. And that's why I called my pains and sufferings, sweet pains and sufferings. Because of all those pains and sufferings, I was able to get to know Jesus and get closer to him. So we should always put him first in everything. If you truly wanted to be a follower of Jesus.
Jesus. And the second lesson is to love your enemies. That's very simple when we say that, but when we are in the actual place, it's very difficult. And later God put me in prison, and he told me, now you can see if you can love these people who are persecuting you. So if we do not build that strong relationship with Jesus, which is the first verse, loving God, we are not able to go to the second one, second command, and love others.
And God taught me all these things in my life by taking me to all these difficulties and sufferings. It wasn't I went to a church and I learned from a church. That's amazing to be at the church, to have a fellowship, but what's happening behind the scene in our private time is more important. If we have that personal relationship with him or not.
And as I mentioned, when I became a Christian, I went to lots of trials. Many horrible things happened to me. I had to leave the family. I experienced poverty for years, and I understood what is poverty. I grew up in a wealthy family. I lost everything. And the government killed my husband. I got married at 20s, and he was tortured by the regime. He was an intelligent guy, just wanted to graduate and to continue our life, have a happy life with me. But unfortunately, they ruined that for him. For accusation of drinking wine, he, he got 80 lashes, and then he tortured him to terrible things they did to him. And finally, as a result of those tortures, he passed away. So it was not just going to prison, but God was testing me in everything in my life. And they ruined my story. My husband's story is just one story, one example that I'm standing here to share with you.
And I'm sure you're going to you see the news, you read the news, that what's going on in Iran right now, that how brutally this evil regime, these radical Muslims killed thousands of tens of thousands of Iranians. They just came to the street, they protest, but they shoot at them and killed over, the news says, over 40,000 Iranians. But believe me, it's much higher than numbers, and I tell you why. And tens of people are getting executed every day. They went to the hospitals and shoot at the forehead of those who were injured during the protest. They arrested the nurses and doctors and tortured them. Some of the nurses, they shared their voices that they were raped because of that. Those who allowed the injured protesters at their home, they killed them. One story is Saleha Akbari. She and her husband allowed the protesters to come to their home. She was a nurse. She knew that she could not treat those injured protesters. That's why they would treat them at their home. And the government find out, raided their home. They arrested her. They tortured her. And after killing her under torture, they raped her, gang raped her, and sent the photos to her husband. And her husband could not bear that, and he committed suicide after that. So these are things are real, and it's happening in Iran. And I'm here to share my story. Honestly, it's hard for me to share my story because there are tons of stories, that is happening in Iran. But I continued my journey with Jesus.
I was following him. I was so thirsty. I went to Turkey in 2005. I wanted to learn more about Christianity. And after attending some classes, leadership and theology classes, I returned to Iran with my friend. And we started our mission in 2005. And we didn't have time to talk about it. We didn't have time to talk about it. We didn't know what to do. We just prayed. And God started talking to me through Bible. And he showed me, Iran needs Bible because you can't find Bible in any bookstores. And I called the ministry. We asked them to send thousands of Bibles to smuggle them to Iran. And we received them. And every time we would receive a few thousand, then we started distributing those Bibles in Iran. We bought a huge map of Tehran. And every night, we would carry the Bibles in our backpack and going to each areas, praying for that areas and putting them in the mailboxes and under the doors of people. And it wasn't that easy. Many times we were so close to get arrested, but we knew that God is with us. Because many times that we were so close to get arrested, God would do a miracle and save us. And we could see with our eyes. That it's the power of God with us. And finally we were able to distribute 20,000 Bibles in Tehran and a few other cities. We took Bibles to one of the holiest city in, it's not holy, holy to Muslim, because there is a shrine, Islamic shrine, and it's the center of the ayatollahs. And we decided to take it to that shrine because we knew that thousands of Iranians would go there to worship and to pray. And we were able to get the Bibles. And we took the Bibles to one of the and we smuggled Bibles there. It was very dangerous. We were so close to get arrested, but God saved us. And still we were, you know, running home churches, inviting people to our home, having Bible study, worshiping together in secret.
And finally, some people reported about us and we got arrested in 2009. And that started the journey with the second verse I mentioned, how to love your enemies and those who persecute you. I learned that lesson in that prison. So from the beginning, they treated us like animals and they called us dirty Christians for months because in the eyes of radical Muslims, if you convert from Islam to any other religion, you are infidel and dirty. And they kept us for the first 14 days in the most horrible jail that we could not see the light. We had to sleep on a cold concrete floor. We had to cover ourselves with wet blankets that were soaked in urine. In the first court, I had a conversation with the judge because from the beginning, they told us, we will execute you by hanging because your charge is apostasy. And our biggest charge was apostasy. Which is punishable by death under Sharia law. And I was shocked. And I told the judge, are you kidding? Is that punishable by death? And he said, yes, you need to be executed by hanging. And I said, if you are that serious, why don't you show in your national TV that for everyone to see that how you kill people, innocent people, just because of being a Christian. And also, I mentioned to him that you are not fighting against us. You are fighting against a God who is behind us. And he will give us the victory. And he got so mad. And that was the reason that he decided to keep us in that horrible jail that usually they keep prisoners for maximum four days because it's very hard to be in that place. And after four days, they decide if they go to another prison or get released. But they do not expect prisoners like us to stand in front of them and to talk that way. They usually want prisoners to break them, to cry, and to beg. But it didn't happen. And I say that it wasn't like that I was a very courageous person, that I was able to stand in front of these evil people to talk to them that way. It wasn't just at the court, in each court, but also during interrogations. Sometimes I could hear my own voice that how powerful I was talking to them with an authority, but my body was shaking. I had so much fear physically, I could feel it. And that would remind me the words in Bible that Jesus told us, whenever you got arrested, don't worry about what to say, just open your mouth and the power of the Holy Spirit will talk to you. And I experienced a lot of that. Experienced that, that God didn't want us, didn't want me to look weak in their eyes, even though I had so much fear. That's what we can tell that we should never turn our cheek to evil. God taught me to how to pray for them, not to insult them. When they were insulting me, that's a lesson that we know as Christians, which we are not supposed to be like them. But at the same time, God wanted to us to be strong and never turn your cheek to evil.
They told me we will cut, because we were talking to a lot of prisoners about our faith, and they threatened me. They told me, we will cut your tongue. You need to stop talking to prisoners about your faith, brainwashing our kids with your fake religion, which I told them that it's Islam that brainwashed, you brainwashed Iranian people. Why all these youth, instead of being in the universities, are in prisons? I told them that even if you cut my tongue, I will find a way to talk to people. There are other ways I can talk to them. So when I was saying these kind of things, honestly, sometimes I would hear my voice, and I was telling myself, you are in a big trouble. But I couldn't control the way I was talking to them, even though I could feel the fear and shaking in my whole body, having so much stress.
And later after that jail, they send us to Evin prison, which is notorious for raping, executing innocent people. And I witnessed firsthand the brutality of this regime against lots of innocent people. People in that prison, I shared lots of stories in my books that you can read about that, that how they rape innocent women in prisons. I heard tons of stories in prison. I experienced the execution of my cellmates. I never had such experience in my life. I was shocked. My whole body was freezed the first time. They intentionally sent me to one of the cells of a murderer. And then they took one prisoners after I building the friendship and executed her. And that was my first experience of how easily they can kill people. And later they killed one of my best friend, which I made a build a friendship from the beginning for nine months. And that was still after years, I have that trauma with me. She was an amazing person. She was an amazing person. She was an amazing person. She was an amazing person. She was They tortured her for months. Terrible tortures. It's hard for me to describe that because they don't want to cry. And finally they hanged her. They didn't give her body back to the family. Like many other political prisoners, they usually do that. During these protests many families could not get back their the, the body of their loved ones. They charge them thousands of dollars in order to give their buddy they charge for the bullet that they shoot at their children. And for women, they usually do not give back their body because they rape women. They rape virgins before their execution because they believe that if we execute them as a virgin, they will go to heaven, and we need to avoid that.
