Carelinks | Germany

Thanks to the efforts of brother Vahid in Liverpool, UK, a kind of conference was arranged in Germany for the Iranian contacts who wished to be baptized. About 10 Iranians spent an intensive and wonderful time with us and we’re pleased to say that the following solemnly dedicated themselves to the Lord: Sisters Saida, Parvaneh, Masah and Mona; and brothers Yasser, Hadi, Mehdi and Reza. They had been underground Christians in Iran, and are all related to each other. They are nervous of appearing on public video on YouTube, which is understandable but a shame because their testimony was very gripping.

Reza described how they crossed from Turkey to the Greek island of Mitylene in a tiny dinghy, with 62 people onboard- including Reza and his wife and two little children. They were told the crossing would take 30 minutesthey left at 1 a.m., nearly overturned several times, and were rescued by Greek coastguards, finally arriving on the shores of Mitylene at dawn around 6a.m. This was in December, just a few months ago, and they felt they nearly died of the cold and wet that night. Reza says he still has nightmares about the dinghy and his children gripping on to him all that night. Then they had to walk, bus and train 12 days with the two little children across Eastern Europe, with temperatures well below freezing, until they arrived in Germany. We naturally enquired if they remembered the border halt on the Macedonian border, where we had distributed so many soups and welfare packages to refugees before they had to walk off down the railway tracks- and they did! They don’t recall seeing us there when they crossed, but it must’ve been around the same time. It is a small world when we are all working in response to the Lord’s promptings. They recounted the terrible persecution they endured from the Syrian Muslims on the journey.

And even now in one of the camps where they are currently staying, they felt fearful to be baptized there because other Muslims know they are Christian and are bullying them and warned them to bring no Christians into the camp. The situation is really awful and corresponds to similar testimony and observations we have made in these reports before. So please pray for them. Brother Vahid from the UK was present with us by phone and Skype. thank God for Skype and WiFi.