The big change: when believing is a sin

Madeleine Collins | 26 September 2006

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When she arrived in Australia, Mehri* was like many Muslim refugees who fled their native Iran to start a new life in Western Sydney.

Now divorced and living in North Parramatta with a 10-year-old son, Mehri struggled for years with her identity as a nominal Muslim woman whose only God was Allah.

“I was born into a Muslim family – I was not a religious person but I believed in God,” Mehri said.

Mehri and her former husband escaped problems in Iran and went to Turkey.

However, they both experienced many difficulties there and Mehri turned to Allah for comfort.

“I was getting closer to God but that was the God of Islam,” she said.

“When we came to Australia, because of our past problems and also because of lonlieness, I asked God to help me. I was angry with God and quarrelled with him.”

Mehri became an Australian citizen and attended classes to learn English (ESL). She met Christian volunteers there, who took her to an English language church for the first time.

She was impressed by the Christian songs, although she didn’t understand them.

She watched the Jesus movie and was profoundly moved by his painful death on the cross.

“I was cursing those who crucified Jesus,” she said.

“But I didn’t believe that he was God. He was another prophet – I was thinking, how could a person become God?”

She prayed to ask Jesus to come into her heart, but admits she was ‘afraid’ to become a Christian when she still believed Allah was God.

“I was trying to accept the invitation but still I was afraid. I was very angry – I didn’t want to be a Christian or a Muslim, I just wanted to believe in God,” she says.

“I was confused and didn’t know what to do. For three years I was fighting with myself. I thought it was a sin to become a Christian.”

Mehri was told about a Persian church and decided to visit there with her son. She says she was moved by the gospel message, but was still afraid to believe.

Then one night she dreamt that she saw Jesus in a pool of clear water, inviting her to be baptised.

She was afraid, but heard Jesus in her dreaming telling a friend who with her that he was God.

“When I woke up, I thought that I didn’t deserve to dream about Jesus. But I believed that Jesus is my Lord – it was only then that I understood,” Mehri says. “He has called me and opened my eyes and my heart. I felt I was born again.”

She began studying the Bible and praying, aware that she was a very young Christian and weak in her faith.

“I started to read the gospels regularly and my faith became stronger and brought me closer to God. Now I can’t go a night without reading my Bible.”

“I believed for salvation there is no other way but through Jesus. Jesus says, ‘I’m standing at the door, and I knock, and if anyone hears my voice I will enter’.”

Mehri was baptised in February this year and ‘thanks God’ that her Lord has washed her clean of her sins.

“I feel that Jesus is alongside me and protecting me, I really feel God is working in my life.”

*Surname withheld on request.

She attends a Persian congregation that meets every Sunday at 5pm at St John’s, Parramatta. The congregation’s pastor is another former Muslim, Michael Safari.

The vast majority of the growing congregation of 60 people are former Muslims, Michael says.

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