Sentenced to Death:

An Iranian Christian’s Remarkable Story

VOLUME 11 NUMBER 2 ISSUE OF BROADCAST TALKS (PDF)

BROADCAST TALKS presents ideas to cultivate Christ-like thinking and living. Each issue features a transcription of a talk presented at an event of The C.S. Lewis Institute.  

The following is adapted from an interview with Maryam Rostampour-Keller, conducted by Joel Woodruff, President of the C.S. Lewis Institute. It was broadcast on February 7, 2025, as a virtual event titled “Sentenced to Death: An Iranian Christian’s Remarkable Story,” having been recorded in January 2025.

Despite Islamic law, which forbids the sharing of Christian beliefs, two young Christian Iranian women chose to obey God. We have the privilege of hearing the story of one of these women, Maryam Rostampour-Keller. Maryam was born into a Muslim family in Iran, and after becoming a Christian in her teens, she studied theology in Turkey. The story of how Maryam and her friend, Marziyeh Amirizadehis, were imprisoned for their faith and sentenced to death in Iran is told in their book, Captive in Iran: A Remarkable True Story of Hope and Triumph amid the Horror of Tehran’s Brutal Evin Prison. And we’ll be talking about some of the things that occurred in this book. Now, Maryam has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in international affairs from Georgia Tech, and it’s a pleasure to welcome Maryam to be with us today.

Maryam, you’ve led a pretty remarkable life and have a great story to tell, and we’d like to dive into it. But I’d like to begin in your early life. Tell us a little bit about what it was like growing up in Iran, in a Muslim country, in the early 2000s and what your life looked like and your family life.

Iran has been under the control of fundamentalist dictators since the Islamic revolution in 1979. And the Islamic rules dictate all aspects of daily life, from marriage to divorce, to inheritance, child custody, and many more areas. People in Iran have been forced to adhere to these Islamic rules. I often say that people in Iran live two different lives. At home, they are secular. They don’t pray Namaz. They don’t wear the hijab. They don’t follow Islamic rules. But in public, they must pretend to be devout Muslims to protect their education, jobs, families, and, most important, their lives. So growing up in Iran, I experienced all of this firsthand.

So you grew up in a Muslim home as well as in a Muslim culture. Can you describe what that was like, growing up in that kind of home?

As I mentioned, the majority of Iranians are nominal Muslims. They don’t practice Islamic rules. That included my own family members. I grew up in a secular family. I was born as a Muslim, but my family members, my parents, were not practicing Islam. They were not reading the Quran. They were not praying Namaz. But I’ve always wanted to know God and communicate with Him. I tried to get close to Him
through different ways. For a time, I prayed Namaz and tried to be a good Muslim. I also explored other spiritual practices I could access, such as Sufism and Zoroastrianism. Yet none of those practices helped me to get close to God. Eventually I stopped doing research completely. I stopped following any religion or religious practices altogether and began speaking to God in my own language, Farsi, asking Him to reveal the truth to me.

One day, my sister gave me a little booklet titled “His Name Is Wonderful.” As I read that booklet, which was part of the book of Luke, I encountered Jesus in my room for the first time. That day, I heard God’s voice and felt His presence so powerfully that I couldn’t stop crying. And I gave my heart to Jesus. Later I joined the Assembly of God church in Tehran and learned more about Christianity. My journey with Jesus started from there.

How old were you at that time?

I was around 17 years old.

So just in your teens and getting started. Did you have any other family members who were believers at the time?

Yes. Praise God! After me, my sister, and then my brother became believers. My mother wasn’t living with us. She got divorced when I was three years old. And we had a difficult time at home with my dad. He wasn’t a religious Muslim, but he was worried for us because he knew what would happen to Christians in Iran. He didn’t want us to go to church. But we were so determined, because we tasted the love of God, and we wanted to go to church and learn more about Christianity and just have the fellowship with other believers. For many years, we had a very difficult time at home with my dad, because he was also under so much pressure from his family members who thought we were dirty Christians because we converted and turned our back to Islam. They wouldn’t come to our house. So all of us were under so much pressure. But, praise God, years later, when I was in prison—and I will share more about that—my dad also met Jesus and gave his heart to Jesus.

So it sounds like it was . . . Well, on the one hand, there was a joy and fulfillment you found in finding Christ and getting to know Jesus. At the same time, there was some pressure from family and just being in a culture that was antagonistic toward the Faith. How did you grow in your faith in those early years? What did you find to be helpful to you in that regard?

I believe that the fundamental of my faith was the encounter I had with Jesus that day in my room. I had no Christian friends. I had no connection with the church. I met Jesus in my room, and I believe that He chose me. I did not choose Him. When I read that little booklet, it was just part of the book of Luke, 20 or 30 pages, but it took me three hours to read that booklet. Each word I was reading—I could feel that Jesus was speaking to my heart. I could feel His presence so powerfully in my room. And He was the foundation of my faith throughout all the years that . . . whether I went through difficult times with my family or later in prison, or even now that I’m living in the US, it’s still that encounter that I had with Jesus that is the foundation of my faith. And, obviously, going to church, learning more about Christianity, having fellowship with other believers, that was also very helpful. But I emphasize that moment, that encounter with Jesus. That’s why I encourage people to seek the Lord and let Him speak to their hearts, so that the foundation of their faith is on His Word, not on—sometimes we go to a church, and we get excited by the different kinds of worship, or there are many things that can just attract our attention. But I believe that we need to focus and let Jesus speak to our hearts and just build the foundation of our heart.

Yes. It’s so important to have that personal encounter, personal relationship with Jesus, so that you know He’s real and a Person who’s interested in being with you.

Absolutely. That was true for me.

So my understanding is that, after you came to faith, you went to church, had some fellowship, but you ended up going overseas for a bit. Can you tell us what happened there? Why did you leave Iran for a while?

From the day I met Jesus and gave my heart to Him, I couldn’t stop talking about Him. Because I was so overwhelmed by His love and presence, I wanted to talk to everyone about Him. That day in my room, I felt God’s forgiveness and freedom in a way I had never known. He healed my past wounds and helped me release some unforgiveness toward some people who had hurt me in the past. That was the first miracle I personally experienced. I was so passionate to tell other people what the Lord had done for me personally and encouraged them to experience His incredible love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. That’s why I began sharing my faith with family, friends, even strangers on the streets. Later, after I joined the Assembly of God church in Tehran, I learned more about Christianity and evangelism. I began sharing Bibles with people, invited them to church services. I also had the privilege of working with new believers and women’s groups at the church, helping others grow in their faith as well.

And after a while, the leaders of the church could see that I was so passionate, especially for evangelizing. I couldn’t stop talking about Jesus. That’s why they encouraged me to go to Turkey to learn more about Christianity, because in Iran it was impossible. Also those classes were not just theology, but we were learning about leading house churches. So I went to Turkey. I was there for about eight months with a group of Iranians. After that, I met my friend Marziyeh Amirizadehis, and we both decided to go back to Iran.

Tell me a bit about that relationship with Marziyeh.

It was just God. It was His plan that connected us at the time. I believe, in our lives, we get connected to so many people. And sometimes we walk together for a few years, sometimes more. But God has a plan for each connection and each friendship in our life. And it was just a God connection. I remember the first day we met, we felt like we had known each other for years. We were laughing, talking, sharing about our background, our story. Also the most important thing was that we both had the same heart for sharing God’s love with Iranians, because we knew that they didn’t have access to Christianity, especially at that time. Now there is more access, and there are more ways that people can hear about Christianity, but at that time it was really impossible. So we both, after finishing those courses, decided to go back to Iran and start a mission.

So what was your plan? What was your mission strategy or plan for you and Marziyeh to go do?

Well, it was really no plan. We went back to Iran—and that’s a very good question because I remember for two, three months we were just praying. We had no plan. We didn’t know how to start, what to do. We just knew that we wanted to talk to people about Jesus. We did not have a strategy, but God spoke to us, and God spoke to Marziyeh separately, and then to me, through dreams and through His Word. He showed us that Iranians need to hear the Word of God. That was the first thing they needed. It was true for me. I had that encounter with Jesus through reading the Word of God. And we knew that millions of Iranians don’t have that access. You can’t go to a bookstore and buy a Bible. They sell a fake Bible called the Barnabas Bible. In that Bible, it says, after Jesus, Muhammad will come. Jesus was not—Muhammad was the last prophet. So we knew it was very important for us to share the gospel with people. That’s why we started talking to our pastors and contacts outside of Iran, and asked them to provide Bibles. They also prayed for a few months, and they had to find a way to smuggle those Bibles into Iran. Thank God, they could smuggle thousands of Bibles. In about two years, we could distribute thousands of Bibles—I think around 20,000—in Tehran and a few other cities.

How do you distribute 20,000 Bibles, just two young ladies? How do you accomplish something like that?

God. Well, at nights . . . We had a map. We bought a map and put the map on the wall. And we started, from the north of Tehran to the south. And we would just pick an area. We would put 70 Bibles—it was just the New Testaments. They were very small. And we would put them in our backpack and just pray for that area and would go and then walk for hours and then would put those New Testaments in people’s mailboxes. It took a long time. Sometimes we had to do it through winter. We had to go through snow, and it was cold, but it was just interesting how God protected us during the time that we were distributing the Bibles. Anything could happen to us, but we could see how He was protecting us. A few times, people saw us—that we were putting those New Testaments in their mailboxes—and started running after us, but God protected us and nothing happened. After we finished this mission, we heard from people in the parliament that a big Christian group started distributing Bibles in Tehran. They didn’t know it was just two ordinary women.

That’s great! Wow! And what other activities besides distributing these Bibles kind of clandestinely throughout Tehran? What other things were you doing to bring the gospel to people? 

Other than that mission—especially during the night, distributing the Bibles—we were also evangelizing people during the day, wherever we went—for shopping, eating at restaurants, in the taxi, because in Iran people share taxis. That was the time we had a lot of opportunities to share the message of salvation with people. And we had New Testaments with us. We would give them to people. During the day, it was different. We would have a conversation with people, give them a Bible, would invite them to our house church. But at night, we wouldn’t talk to people. We would just put the Bibles in their mailboxes. Also, we led two house churches, one for young adults and another one for widows involved in temporary marriage. Yes.

Tell us a bit about the widows. In Islamic culture, what does that look like?

The prophet of Islam, Muhammad, had four official wives and many temporary marriages. In Islam, they encourage men to have temporary marriage. Unfortunately, in Iran, the women who were doing this—it was out of frustration, they were all widows. There were not opportunities for them to support themselves financially, support themselves and families. That’s why they were doing temporary marriage, because they could get some financial support from these men. A temporary marriage is like you can marry a man for an hour, for a month, or for a few years. They just have to sign a paper, and they are wife and husband. And these women didn’t know what they were doing was really like prostitution. And they would tell us that this is according to the Quran; this is based on Islamic rules. We are not committing a sin. That’s why it was important for us to have these women in our group and just pray for them and also pray for God to provide a way for them, because they really needed a means to support themselves. We tried to help them, connect them with places we knew so they could get a job or help support themselves financially. God really blessed our house church. We started, I remember, with two women. At the end, we were working with about 40 women.

That’s wonderful. So really it was coming alongside women in great need and people who didn’t have the same kind of opportunities and resorting to this Islamic law, which is almost a formal form of prostitution.

Exactly.

And it’s very difficult to—

Later, in prison also, we realized that some of the women, like really prostitutes, the government arrested them and put them in the detention centers. They would go to the courts, and judges would offer them to do a temporary marriage with them, so they could be free, so they were using those women for . . . yeah.

Yes. I think there are some dark sides of Islam that a lot of people aren’t aware of in this part of the world. So you had this mission and you were distributing Bibles and starting house churches, reaching out to women in the name of Christ. How long did that last? And what transpired after that season?

We did that from about 2005 to 2009. Eventually, as a result of our activities, we got arrested by Iranian authorities and were detained in the infamous Evin Prison for almost nine months on charges of apostasy, blasphemy, promoting Christianity, and anti-government activities. We were supposed to be executed by hanging, endured hours of interrogations, mental torture, and physical hardship in that prison and in the detention centers.

How did the arrest occur? What were you doing? How did that happen?

I was home. I remember it was a day—I had a dentist appointment, and someone called Marziyeh early in the morning and told her that there was something wrong with the car documentations and asked  her to go to the police station. So they tricked her to go there. When she went there, she realized it was a different story, and she was there because someone reported that we were distributing Bibles. I believe in a restaurant they saw us giving Bibles to some people. Then they kept Marziyeh in the police station for a few hours. Then in the afternoon, Marziyeh, with a few guards, came back home. I had no idea what was going on. I could feel that something was wrong, but when they knocked on the door, I realized. She was there with a few security officers. They came inside. They searched our apartment. They found thousands of Bibles. At the time, we had DVDs of a Jesus movie in our apartment. But we had thousands of Bibles in the basement. Thank God, they didn’t even think about going there, and they didn’t find them, but they took us with all the Bibles and the Jesus movies to the police station. They were so happy. I remember they called the police station and they said, “We found the source.” Yeah, that’s how it started.

Yeah. So when . . . pretty amazing, at least in the West, where we have more freedom of religion, to hear this, that just because you had Bibles and were talking about Jesus, you get arrested and thrown into prison. What were the early days of your prison experience like?

It was really shocking. It was so overwhelming, just the shock and terror of being arrested and interrogated. I remember the first day, for long hours, until midnight. But we could feel God’s presence with us from the first day, even though it was harder to feel Him in the first few days, just because we were so shocked by their behaviors and questioning us and the interrogations, and we didn’t know what was happening. But after a few days, especially after we began sharing our faith with the fellow prisoners and saw how God was using us to reach out to them, everything started to change. And we knew that God had a plan for sending us to that dark place.

That’s pretty bold. You’re arrested for sharing your faith, and then you’re sharing it in prison. How did the other people respond? The prisoners, guards, what was the reaction to that? 

The first detention we went to was in a basement. It’s called the Vozara Detention Center. After a few days, we just realized that there were so many women in that detention center who needed to hear the truth. I mentioned that we had a group for those widows and prostitutes. In that detention center, we could see every day they were bringing more and more of those women. Before, we had to go find them, but in that detention center, they were bringing them to us. We realized that there was a purpose. After a few days, when we came out of the shock, we could see the plan, the bigger purpose that God had for us. So we just started talking to them, sharing the gospel with them, praying with them, and showing them God’s love, because they were all victims of the Iranian regime and Islamic rules. There were some young girls as young as I think 16. There were addicts, homeless in that detention center. And we saw God changing their hearts through our prayers. The same was true in Evin Prison and later in solitary confinement. It was just the miracles that we saw that helped us. First of all, it strengthened our faith and gave us courage to keep sharing Jesus in that place and later in Evin Prison. We saw how He was using us to heal other women in that place.

I imagine the conditions couldn’t have been very pleasant. Can you describe a little bit about what it was like as far as the physical conditions and the treatment of you all during that time?

It’s horrible. That basement, the first detention center, I remember we got there at midnight. It was a long hallway, completely dark. We couldn’t see anything. We could see some eyes, like prisoners were
staring at us. There were a lot of cells on each side of the corridor. We had to sleep on a concrete floor. There was no carpet. There was a pile of blankets. The guards just pointed to the blankets and said, “You can use them,” but they were all wet, strongly smelling of urine because a lot of addicts were in that detention center. But we had to use them. And it was just terrible. Like the condition of the bathrooms. We couldn’t take a shower for, I think, 15 days, until they transferred us to Evin Prison, the public prison. And there was no food. I believe we didn’t eat for a few days. And then they would give us a big pot of dirty food—everyone had to use their hands to eat from that pot. It was really horrible. Later, in Evin Prison, the public ward, I believe, had several rooms. In each room, there were about 100 women. There were bunk beds. There were religious—I believe at the time it was me and Marziyeh who were religious prisoners, but there were also political prisoners, murderers, fraudulents, all kinds of crimes living together in the public ward.

And the solitary confinement is just . . . I don’t have to say anything about it. You are in a small room, days and nights with the light on. You don’t know if it’s day or nighttime. It’s really difficult. I think in the solitary confinement, the pressure was mentally. I would rather be in the public ward with other prisoners than be in solitary confinement. It was really hard sometimes to breathe.

What did you find kept you alive and kept giving you hope in the midst of those kinds of circumstances?

It was only God and His presence that really strengthened us. Every day, we could feel His presence with us, especially, as I mentioned, as we began sharing our faith with other prisoners and saw how He was using us to reach out to those women, to heal them, and to just . . . There were times that I remember—from day, when we would wake up, to night, we were sitting with prisoners and talking to them,
listening sometimes, just listening to their stories. It was heartbreaking. Sometimes we had nothing to tell them. Just listening to their stories was kind of what was bringing them healing and just praying for them and asking God to provide a way out for them and show miracles to them. Just seeing the work of the Holy Spirit in that dark place was really encouraging for both of us and hearing His voice. We did not have a Bible. For nine months, we couldn’t read the Bible, but we had the Holy Spirit, and He was speaking to us every day and strengthening us.

It sounds as if the charges against you were quite extreme, obviously proselytizing and sharing the Christian faith—but actually threatened with execution . . . Can you tell us how it is that you made it out of prison and made it out alive without being executed for your crimes against Islam and against the State of Iran?

Well, I would like to share something: In Iran, there’s no tolerance for any religion other than Islam. Christians who are born into recognized historical communities, such as Assyrians and Armenians, are allowed to practice their faith or attend church services if they do not worship in Farsi, evangelize, or share their faith with Muslims. One case that might not be familiar to your audience is that of Pastor Haik Hovsepian Mehr, an Iranian-Armenian who was a bishop of the Assemblies of God in Iran. He was an outspoken Christian and shared his faith, evangelized many Iranian Muslims, and advocated for the rights of Christians in Iran. Tragically, he was murdered by the regime agents after he began a campaign to help his friend, Pastor Mehdi Dibaj, an Iranian Muslim convert who had been sentenced to death on charges of apostasy. Both of them were murdered by the Iranian regime. This happened many years ago.

But now for Muslim converts, this situation is ten times worse, because converts are considered apostates, and apostasy is punishable by death. That’s why we received those charges. And we, Marziyeh and I, were the first women after the cases that I just mentioned, Pastor Haik and Pastor Dibaj, who were arrested because of converting to Christianity. That’s why we received apostasy charges. Now the regime has changed its policy. To avoid international backlash, the regime often sentences Christians to long prison terms on charges of national security instead of executing them.

So in your case, then, you were in prison, you’re sharing your faith, but you’re continuing to walk through the judicial process. What led to your release?

I say what the enemy meant for evil, God used for good. I believe we survived Evin Prison and the evil plans of the Islamic regime because it was part of God’s plan for our lives. He allowed us to share our faith with countless prisoners, He also let us witness many injustices firsthand. And then, in His perfect timing, He helped us get out of that prison. And thousands of Christians from around the world began praying and advocating for us. International leaders and organizations also pressured the regime to release us, which eventually led to our release in November 2009. However, after being interrogated, being threatened by our interrogators and judges, we realized that it was no longer safe for us to live in Iran as Christians. So in 2010, we made a difficult decision to leave Iran and go to Turkey as refugees. We went through the UN refugee process and arrived in the US in 2011.

So that was quite a process . But how would you talk about the prayers of the saints for people in prison like yourself? What impact do Christians have when they pray?

Well, I believe prayers are powerful. I experienced it firsthand before prison, because there were so many people praying for us when we were doing our mission in Iran. God really protected us until the time that it was His plan for us to go to prison. And inside prison, I believe it was the power of prayers that kept us going every day. I remember, after a few months, when we had our first visit with our sisters, they mentioned to us that many Christians were praying for us. Because we were inside the prison, we had no idea what was going on outside. Just hearing that people were praying for us was really encouraging. We could feel, at different times, that the power of prayers was strengthening us, especially when we were in solitary confinement. Especially during the interrogations, there were times that we realized we were saying the same things to our interrogators, even though we were separate. It was because of the prayers and the work of the Holy Spirit through those prayers.

That’s why I would like to encourage Christians to keep praying for their brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. We can pray for underground churches and their members, asking God to protect them and empower the church to shine as a light in darkness, so that many more people can experience God’s love and miracles, healings, and discover the truth through Jesus Christ. And we should pray for prisoners and their family members. There are some practical ways we can get involved and help them by writing letters and sending them to prison, signing petitions, reaching out to our representatives, and just advocating for them in whatever way God leads us.

And I want to say this: Christians in Iran face danger every single day. Sadly, when they are forced to leave the country because of the persecution, they face new challenges, particularly as refugees in Turkey. The UN has abandoned them. They can’t go back to their home country, and Turkey doesn’t want them. I know many Iranian Christians who have been waiting for over ten years to be resettled in a new country. What these families are experiencing is unimaginable, and words cannot describe their pain. So I would like to encourage your audience to also pray for displaced Christians and pray that God will provide a way out for them. There are many practical ways we can help them that I hope I can talk about more in the future.

Well, tell us about some of those ways now. It sounds like, from your story, God used the prayers of the people around the world, He used people advocating through governments, telling the Iranian regime that they were opposed to this and communicating. So God used a number of different ways, both through prayer and action. Maybe you can share some other ways that we can, even today—what are some practical things we can do?

One thing that was impactful in our case was sending letters to prison. When we were in prison, I believe Voice of the Martyrs started a campaign for writing letters to prison. They encouraged Christians, school kids, even at Sunday schools—they encouraged Christians to write letters and send them to Evin Prison and put our names on the envelope. And they arrived! We were in prison, after months, and one day some guards came to prison and wanted to visit us. When we talked to them, they said, “What’s going on? We have a room full of letters for you.” So we had no idea what was going on, but we could see that those letters changed their behaviors, because they knew that there were people who were aware of our situation. They didn’t let us read those letters, and they told us, “We don’t want to encourage you,” but we realized later that the judges forced the guards in prison to open them and read them, because they were scared. It was funny, because a lot of Christians wrote this verse, “God is our shepherd.” Some of the guards came to us and asked us, “What does it mean, ‘God is our shepherd’? A lot of people wrote this in the letter.” And we started talking to them about Jesus.

God uses different ways to reach out to people, but the letters really made a huge difference in our case. In some cases, things like this can stop, for example, physical torture; in our case, they knew that the world was aware, and people were praying and concerned, and they were writing letters. That’s why they couldn’t torture us physically. After months, we could see their behavior also changed with us. The way they were talking to us changed.

That’s powerful to hear. So you were released from prison, and you felt it was unsafe to stay in Iran, due to the people out to come against you in different ways. So you fled to Turkey, eventually immigrated to the United States. What was it like, moving from the Middle East to the United States of America? And what were some of the opportunities but also the challenges you faced in coming to this country?

I vividly remember the day I left Iran. As the plane took off, it was nighttime. I could see Tehran, the city that is so bright at night. And I was so heartbroken. Sorry. Because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to see my home country again anytime soon. Not until the Islamic regime was no longer in power. I was leaving my family, my friends, the people I loved. It was really a painful moment. At the same time, I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to be in the US, where I can practice my Christian faith freely without the constant fear of getting arrested for evangelizing or sharing my faith. Also, I believe it is a blessing to be in a country, to live in a country where women are not treated as second-class citizens, where opportunities for growth and empowerment are available to everyone, regardless of their gender. So, yes, I am very grateful. I appreciate and value my freedom in this country every day.

But you asked about challenges. I believe the biggest challenge for me today is seeing churches compromise biblical values. I think that can have many reasons, including fear of not being accepted by the world, the loss of members, government funding, or simply ignorance. I hear from Christians all the time that they are concerned about how Christian values are diminishing in this country. They worry about the future of their children, the new and confusing teachings and how they could impact them, and how difficult it is to talk to nonbelievers about their faith because of increasing hostility toward evangelical Christians.

I believe one of the main reasons we face these challenges today in America is that we as Christians are not strong enough in our faith. The church, as I mentioned, has compromised so much, whether it’s by displaying pride flags from church buildings or watering down biblical teachings, focusing more on performance than on true worship, or just becoming an institution that is full of excitement but empty of the Holy Spirit. I think that’s the biggest challenge for me and I’m sure for many Christians in America today.

What ways have you yourself personally dealt with some of the personal challenges you’ve had in the United States?

Well, just trusting God and remembering who you are in Jesus. For me personally, Jesus saved me from darkness, the darkness of Islam, my sin. Before I met Jesus, I tried so many things. As I mentioned, I tried different ways to get close to God. It was like me talking to Him, but I felt that there was a barrier. And my prayers wouldn’t go up farther than the ceilings. It was Jesus who removed that barrier. It was Jesus who saved me from my sins, from that darkness, and brought me to light. I believe that, just by focusing on Jesus, remembering what He did for us, how He saved us, how He saved me as a sinner and brought me to light, just focusing on that and focusing on the great purpose and plan that He has for each one of us . . ..I believe whoever we are, whatever we do, whatever jobs we have, our main purpose is to glorify God. And we need to keep talking about Jesus. We need to glorify Him in our workplace and in the society, even if it’s awkward. We need to keep talking about Him. Otherwise, we will lose our faith as well. I realize that every time I talk about Jesus, I feel bolder, and my faith grows stronger.

That’s a powerful principle, isn’t it? That as we share Christ, we become more confident in our faith as the Holy Spirit uses that to empower us to continue. You were imprisoned for doing that in Iran, but now in America, you’re seeing, sadly, that many of us aren’t sharing our faith as boldly as we could. There are some challenges we face in the workplace or other places, and yet that’s not much compared to facing a prison sentence or even execution for sharing our faith. So I think we do have some things here in the US to think about—and also praying for our brothers and sisters in persecuted countries.

In the past few years, especially since I moved to DC, God has repeatedly placed me in situations where talking about faith felt awkward. But He asked me to trust Him and share the gospel anyway. I’ve learned that every time we overcome our fears and fully trust God and let Him lead the conversation, we will see miracles. I’ve shared my faith with people whom I initially felt would mock me or even get mad, but instead I’ve seen tears in their eyes. God has shown me how much those people needed to see His miracles and experience His love. So we need to trust Him and know that He is God. He’s the one who changes people’s hearts.

[Video of the complete version of this interview, including additional content, is available at: Sentenced to Death - C.S. Lewis Institute.org/imprisoned. Additional information about the topic of this interview is included in the book Captive in Iran: A Remarkable True Story of Hope and Triumph Amid the Horror of Tehran’s Brutal Evin Prison, by Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadehis (Tyndale Momentum, 2013).]