On a Wednesday night in December, it was our Farsi translator's turn to preach. He decided to share his testimony, but when we opened the doors at 7 pm, we were a bit sad that none of our Armenian or Russian speaking friends (of late) came, but some of our staff went out to invite people on the spot. As they approached the refugee housing facility, five Iranians came walking out... it turned out that they were LITERALLY heading out to see if they could find a church to attend! SO, of course they accepted the invitation to come to The Oasis Bible lesson. When they came in, they asked us, "can you tell us more about Christ?" Well, yes, we can. :) Praise the Lord! It was really amazing, and they were all SO grateful to receive the Bible in Farsi.
They shared with us that they got to Austria just ten days prior. One of them, a young girl of 17 years old, accepted Jesus into her heart about two months ago. She is here with her twin brother. She said her aunts told her all about Jesus back in Iran, but that it was only while on the "refugee highway" that she truly came to trust and believe in Jesus. And so we invited her to church, to which she exclaimed almost with shouts of joy, that this would be the first time ever that she would get to go to church! She was SO excited to get to attend, and she really enjoyed it. Thankfully the church has both English and Farsi translation.
As for that Wednesday night, it just so happened, that there were only Farsi speakers in attendance, all nine of them from Iran! One Ethiopian did stop in, and accepted a New Testament in Amharic, but then he had to go because he already had a plan to meet a friend. So, our Farsi translator did not need to translate himself into English like usual, but was able to share his testimony and teach from Matthew 11:28, directly in Farsi! Some of them made a request to see the movie on the life of Jesus (from the book of John), which they watched over the course of two nights.
The only sad part about it all was that just a few weeks later, the girl and her twin brother were transferred to the other end of Austria. They attended church while they were with us, and we are in touch with them via the internet, but as they are quite a distance away, the most important thing we (and you) can do is to pray for them. I am not sure if her brother is a believer yet, or not. Thank you for your support in prayer, and we wish our blog readers a Happy New Year! -Ken
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