Masoud’s Story
Hello my brothers and sisters. My name is Masoud, and I am from Afghanistan. I was born into an Afghan Muslim family. My mom was a very religious person, and my father served in the army. I was 14 years old when we left Afghanistan because of the war, and ever since then, I have lived as an “asylum seeker.” We ended up going west to Iran, and never returned to our own country.
While in Iran, we were still looking for a better opportunity and better life, which ultimately meant going farther west to Europe. So, we crossed the border to Turkey, and from Turkey to Greece. In 2014, we arrived in Greece, and it was there that somebody shared the Gospel with me for the first time.
I had heard about Christianity before, but back home I was taught that Christianity was a false religion—that its people are infidels—because they called Jesus Christ the son of God. They bring Jesus, whom Muslims see as a great prophet, as a god and they honor him as Lord.
When I was a Muslim believer, I was a righteous true believer of the Abrahamic faith and the true religion of Islam. When I was young, I studied and learned to read and write the Koran, as well as Islamic law and theology.
But the first time I heard the Gospel in Athens, somebody preached that Jesus was the son of God and he died for our sins. That just wasn’t something I could accept. I was sure that they were corrupting the Gospel and changing the scripture. They couldn’t be right. The interpretation was all wrong, because the Bible doesn’t say that Jesus is the son of God.
All this happened while we were invited for a summer camp in South Athens for one week as a family. The invitation come from a Christian organization called Hellenic Ministries. I actually went there to dissuade other people to become Christians.
Because I heard—and then I saw—that other people were coming to Christianity, I felt I needed to protect my people from becoming Christians. If not, they would surely go to Hell. I needed to do something. I needed to prove myself and show the Christians that they were wrong—that there was no scripture that says that Jesus is the son of God.
When I came for the first time, they studied the book of Genesis, then the book of John, and then the book of Romans. At that time, I was faced with the truth, and I saw for myself that the word of God said that Jesus was not only the son of God, and not only a great prophet, but the Great God. He is the God, the God Himself who became flesh, became man. In John 1:1-3 and 14, I realized that Jesus is not just a great prophet.
This truth was very powerful to me, but I knew that because I was a Muslim, I could never become a Christian. I thought, “Ok, even though the Gospel says that, I am Muslim. I cannot change my religion. I must keep it.”
While on a journey to Germany, I kept thinking about it. I knew my faith was not something changeable. So I promised myself to continue to be a Muslim and not become Christian.
But, a few days later, I couldn’t forget what I had learned. I was remembering the scripture John 14:6 where Jesus says, “I am the truth, I am the Life, I am the way.” I also remembered the verse in Romans that says “When we are enemies of God, he sent his son and Jesus died for our sin.” Those verses always came to my mind and it was something I couldn’t forget. I couldn’t put it aside. There was a battle within me, and finally in August of 2014 I accepted Jesus.
I surrendered to Him and accepted Him as my Lord and Savior. Since then, Jesus has changed my life. He healed my relationship with my wife. I was in a marriage that was, what you call in English, “an arranged marriage.” I wasn’t a happy person, but God healed me. He showed me how much He loved me and how much He loved my wife. After that, I felt like I could love her for the first time in my life. I could love her really, truly, because of the love of Christ. And then everything changed in my life. I promised the Lord that I would serve Him for the rest of my life.
Paul said “I die with Jesus on the cross and I do not live any more, but He lives in me.” So I promised the Lord that my life would belong to Him. We started a ministry here to share the Gospel, and now we are a church among Afghans and Iranians! I now have a passion, and I have a dream to reach Afghans, and I pray that some day we will have a church in Afghanistan. So please pray for us and this ministry. I thank you so much for your prayers.
I’d like to say a short bit about my family. When I first became a Christian, my wife was against it. She didn’t accept it. She said what I did was wrong, and we had a very difficult time as a married couple—to the point that we nearly become divorced. But God saved her, and I served her as the Lord served me, and she felt the love of God. She became a Christian one year later. Afterward, my daughter gave her life to the Lord in 2016—just three years later. My mom became a Christian when we shared the Gospel with her in 2018.
Please pray for my father and the rest of the family. Please keep praying for us, because I believe that the Lord took us out from Afghanistan, not for a better life in Europe, but to change us and share His love for us. Now we are carrying this love to others.
I continue to share the Gospel, and my hope and dream is that every Afghan can hear the Gospel in Afghanistan. I pray that God brings the day that we can return to Afghanistan and share the Gospel in Afghanistan and open a church there.
Thank you.