Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh – two Christian converts from Islam who were imprisoned for spreading the gospel in Iran. COURTESY PHOTO.
Two former Muslim women from Iran have shared testimonies about how they received Christ as their personal Lord and savior and later planted two churches, on top of distributing over 20,000 bibles in their country where 99.4% of the population is Muslim.
Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh revealed during an interview at HTB Church in London, England that Iranian officials forbade them from sharing their Christian faith, but in three years, they had covertly put New Testaments into the hands of 20,000 of their countrymen and started two secret house churches.
The two were later arrested and put behind bars for 259 days in the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran, the capital of Iran, a place where inmates are routinely tortured and executions are commonplace.
In the face of ruthless interrogations, persecution, and a death sentence, Maryam and Marziyeh turned prison wards turned into Churches, reaching out to soldiers, prostitutes and other political detainees.
They chose to take the radical—and dangerous—step of sharing their faith inside the very walls of the government stronghold that was meant to silence them.