Fourteen-year-old Anahita* was bored one day and went to the bookshelf in her father’s library to find something to read. As she searched through the books, one in particular attracted her attention. It had a cross on it. When she asked her father what it was, he told her it was a Bible.
Anahita was surprised. She didn’t know much about the Bible. But she did know that the leader of the very conservative country in which they lived wouldn’t approve of their owning one. “Where did you get it? she asked hesitantly.
Anahita discovered that about a year before a stranger had handed the book to her mother at a nearby park. “I didn’t think too much about it,” her mother told her. “I set it on the shelf and eventually forgot it was there.”
Anahita curled up with the mysterious book and began reading a chapter in the Old Testament. But she didn’t get very far because the words were difficult to understand. She was tired, so she went to bed.
The next morning after a refreshing sleep, she tried to read the Bible again. This time, she started with the book of John and continued through the book of Revelation. She read nonstop for five hours!
Anahita couldn’t comprehend many things that she read, but what she did understand deeply touched her heart.
“I read many amazing things about God that day,” she said. “I believed, I pled for forgiveness, and I told Him that I wanted to follow Him.” Anahita realized that she’d never known God’s true character. “I thought God was someone who would become angry and punish me if I sinned. Now, I knew that He was loving and kind.”
Anahita couldn’t sleep that night, and in the early morning hours she began to talk with God. “There are so many things in the Bible that I can’t understand, and because I live in this country, I won’t be able to get anyone to help me,” she lamented. She asked Him to help her and her family move to a place that allowed people to study His Word freely. She even mentioned a specific country where she thought she’d like to live.
Anahita told her parents that she wanted to study the Bible in a safe country, and they applied for refugee status in the very country she had asked God to move them to. Less than a year later, they were living there!
Anahita and her parents now attend an Adventist church, and Anahita attends a youth Bible study class led by a Global Mission pioneer who is working specifically with refugees from the country she left behind.
Please pray that God will grant miracles that will allow His work to flourish in the Middle East and North Africa and that He will provide a way for all those who are seeking Him to find Him.
* Name has been changed.
Pioneers in the 10/40 Window
Global Mission supports thousands of local missionaries, called pioneers, in starting new groups of believers in the Middle East and other areas of the 10/40 Window where there is no Adventist presence. Their ministry wouldn’t be possible without your donations and prayers. Thank you for your support!
To donate, please visit Global-Mission.org/giving, and select “Pioneers in the 10/40 Window.”
To see what’s happening in mission in the Middle East and North Africa Union Mission, visit m360.tv/middleeast.