There in the open with many people close enough to hear every word of our conversation, he asked me: “Will you tell me about Jesus?” I knew that if one of the people around us listening to the conversation didn’t like what I said, we could very easily end up in prison. But also, if I took him aside to talk to him alone, I would only be feeding the fear that keep so many of them away from following Jesus. So I decided to share the Gospel with him, because to know the Father and to know the Son is eternal life. He and his wife listened intently. We also talked about some other things and then they had to leave. When they left, I felt and voiced my feeling with Shadrach and Abednego that I wish we could spend more time with them.

Later that evening we were sitting outside a fast-food restaurant when, to our surprise, we saw them walking past us on the other side of the road. They saw us and stopped and Abednego ran to go greet them. After about a minute, he came running back saying that we must go with them. They had asked Abednego where we were going to sleep that night. When he told them that our plan was to go to the Mosque to sleep there (since there is an area where people can sleep for free), they said that they would love to host us for the night. On our way there, the father sang some Farsi songs to their baby daughter, and we then sang the traditional “In die Hemel is die Heer” too.

At their place, he showed us his Quran after a very good Persian tea. He also showed us where it talks about Jesus. Abednego felt he should read “The Prodigal Son” and read a short part when the Berean requested the phone and started to read the story himself. He asked Abednego if the story is on pdf. He replied that it is an application, which the Berean wanted to have downloaded. We silently worshipped God for the way that He is drawing people to Himself. We went to sleep 2 o’clock in the morning.

When we went back to the city that evening, the Berean said they couldn’t host us for another night, but some of their family would like for us to stay with them. We gladly accepted the invitation. First he dropped Shadrach and Abednego off at their family while I waited with the luggage. When he fetched me the muslim call for prayer sounded and he asked me if we have it in South Africa. I told him in some places we do have Mosques, and then asked in return what the words mean. He replied that they are saying that God is all powerful and we can’t explain Him with words. He was silent for a while before he said that they also say that there is only one God. Hesitantly, as if pondering about this question for a long time, he asked: “You believe in 3 God’s, right?”

No, we do not believe in 3 Gods. We believe in God as one Being, but 3 in person. Even in Genesis, God refers to Himself in the plural form. I told him some of what Nabeel Qureshi said when someone asked him in a debate the same question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0JpwOSKRC0

But in the end, I knew it will not be a good explanation that makes him believe, but if the Holy Spirit does a work in him. After I was finished talking, he was quiet for a while. Then he said these words as if realizing something very important: “So it is the truth…”

We greeted him, his wife and baby daughter that night. They said that they would like to see us again the next evening, which we did, and gave them one of the Farsi audio Bibles that we took with us. He was overjoyed. Abednego explained how to use it and encouraged him to listen to it with his family. 

Having received this he said two things that really stood out for me:

1. He feels God has chosen him.

2. God is giving him a responsibility.

We had to catch our bus to Yazd that night. Phoebe’s family that we stayed with drove us to the bus stop. A short while before the bus left, we were surprised to see the Berean, Phoebe and their baby girl, walking up to us. We greeted for the last time, “see you later.” Hopefully we will see them again, if not in this life then in heaven worshipping Jesus together. We do not believe that they were only part of the harvest. We believe this family will be workers in gathering the harvest for the Kingdom.

Ps. The next day, our friend put the verse of the day from the Bible application on his Whatsapp story! Quite a bold move considering the persecution that they can face for doing that. We can’t help but have a big dream for how God will use this family to play a part in building His Kingdom in their city.