REPLAY | Islam Taught Her to Hate Christians — Then She Became One | Lily Meschi

testimony what it was like growing up as a little girl in Iran fearing the morality

“police and what it's like now to be liberated by Christ and how she and the ministry”

that she is a part of are working to share the gospel with the people of Iran. You will be so encouraged by her testimony and by this conversation. Lily, think so much for taking the time to join us. If you could tell everyone who you are and what you do. Yes, of course, Ali, thank you so much for having me here. It's such an honor.

So my name is Lily Mashi. I first and foremost, I'm a daughter of the most high god and

professionally I serve at a ministry called Iran Alive Ministries where we

“air the love of Christ through satellite TV into people's homes in in Iran and Afghanistan and some other”

regions in the Middle East. Well, and tell me about your upbringing. How did you come to do what you do now? Yes. So I was born and raised in Iran and when I was 16, my parents wanted us to immigrate from Iran to outside of Iran. So anywhere accepts Iran due to some you know, economical challenges and my dad's business and all that. And so we moved to Germany where my mom started a family lived at the time and I I lived there for a couple of years and then

my dad started a business venture in the U.S. with my uncle who had been here for a long time and we won by one. We moved to the U.S. and about a year after I moved to the U.S. I came to know Christ and you know ever since it's been over 24 years now. Ever since I've been just growing in my faith and wanting to serve so Iran Alive Ministries Studio is in Dallas, Texas and I'm just privileged to be able to serve there and share my faith with my other Iranians and

other Muslims from Iran. So you were raised Muslim? Yes. Tell me what that was like especially living in Iran? Yes. It was very restrictive when I was in Iran. I can tell you the culture is such a shame and honor culture and so growing up I really faced lots of challenges with shame and fear in general. You know if we had a couple extra strands of hair showing from under our head covering we would be shamed by morality police and we would even be arrested to go to the

police station as a child or you ever arrested? No I was and but I was always afraid that I would be

my mom and dad were always nervous about us going out by by ourselves because they were like we don't want to pick you up from the police station because on one or two many or one too many of your hair is showing from your under. And what would happen if there was a young woman who say had a strand of hair showing from under her hijab and the morality police came and arrested her she was taken to the police station. What would be the consequence for her? Yeah so basically they go into detention and

“as you may remember back in 2021 a girl by the name of Massa Amini was taken to the police station”

by the morality police and she was beat up so severely that she died while in the custody of the police and so this has been happening over four decades now since the revolution the Islamic revolution and people are just so scared and afraid because the government intimidates them by you know scared tactics and all all kinds of different fearful intimidation tactics that they they have instilled in people you know you know that the consequences are going to be severe for just one

strand of your hair showing and for noncompliance and all that yeah it's it's been it's been brutal tell me a little more about the Islamic revolution you said that was 40 years ago I don't know much

women were dressed kind of like American women right they were going to school they were leading

“what seemed like normal lives and then what happened during the Islamic revolution that changed”

everything yes so I also was born after the Islamic revolution it happened in 1979 so what happened was Persian Empire was one of the largest you know empires back in the day when Cyrus the King in the Bible actually founded Persian Empire and so the monarchy for 2600 years of monarchy turned into theocracy almost overnight when the revolution happened in Iran and people it was actually

the desires of the people for this Islamic revolution because they thought that you know the

King was was doing them ugly and was you know using the the rich resources of the country for their own goods and benefits and you know they they don't really do just this for for the people and so they thought that the Islamic revolution religion can save them because back then it was very secular in Iran like the secularism was was prevalent and no religion was really being practiced as like the dictatorship Islamic government it wasn't being enforced it wasn't being

enforced there were a lot of Muslims there but it wasn't really a matter of morality please come in around making sure that you're obeying on the laws right and then the Islamic revolution happened and they said nope this is now a matter of the state we're going to make sure you abide by all of these laws yes and so you're as someone that was born after the revolution they just give you a religion like I was born as a Muslim I didn't have the choice to

or the freedom to choose my own religion I am automatically a Muslim if I was born after the revolution so that's that's something that not only is it being enforced but it's it's being

“it's being impressed upon like it's being forced on you yeah and so so anyways that's how it”

it turned into theocracy through the revolution and people thought that religion or Islam can save them but then after 40 plus years now they realized that Islam is not the solution but the very problem and so most Iranians are rejecting Islam now even though a lot of people think that you know Iran is an Islamic country because of what the brutality and the cruelty that Iranians have been faced with because of Islam a lot of them have turned into different religions

some most of them are seeking other religions they they think gospel is something that they

“they need to cling on that's why it's open heaven in Iran right now people's hearts and minds are”

ready to for something new because they're second tired of of Islam and what has been

doing to the people of Iran when you are living in Iran as a child learning about Islam you mentioned the morality police but what else were you told about Islam about women in Islam I'm not I know a little bit about Islamic beliefs but I'm interested in what children are taught from an early age yes so from early age they taught us in school that Islam is the only religion then that can get to God every other religion is false except Islam and basically they

indoctrinated that type of theology into the children's minds to where everyone else is in the wrong except Muslims and so they put the fear and hatred inside of children's hearts towards

they're Zionist and in their belief that you know they have to be wiped off the map and they're

“the enemy and all that and so as children in school we don't know why this hatred exists or I didn't”

even know and I just knew that this was the way of life and it was ingrained in me until I moved to America and like I now have a totally different worldview but it was definitely it is still happening in Iran and they indoctrinated their own beliefs and their own mindset in the hearts and the minds of the children to really brainwash them anti-West anti-American anti-Israel anti-Christian anti-Judism and do women in girls I mean I know you've already described kind of the violence

“that they have to endure but can you tell us a little bit more about what it's like to be a woman”

or a girl in Iran? Yes so women in Iran are treated as second-class citizens the women

really struggle with their identity in Iran because it is it is more about what can a woman do for a man as opposed to who is she? Nobody cares about who she is they all care about what can she contribute to add value to a man's life and a lot of times you know maybe it's not publicly openly talked about but they're treated as a possession their their rights are violated in Iran you know one of the things one of the things that's really bothers me every time I talk about it

is that a woman's testimony in court is worth half of a man's so which really works against women for imagine family laws custody laws a lot of times women are subject to advances to their male superior in at work and so imagine if if a woman is exploited at work her own testimony is counted as half of a man so they don't even listen to her because her testimony is worthless it's half of a man's and so that's really that's that's a practice

that's happening inheritance law are favored towards men men get double portion of whatever the inheritance is when even though women in Iran are very very smart very intelligent like the number of enrollment at universities are women are twice as as many as men's so women are allowed to go to university they are yes they are allowed to earn education however only 19 percent of them are reported to be in the workforce okay and the the gender gap is around 40

percent so men earn for the same job 40 percent more than women do and so it's just they do face

“economic challenges a lot and I think the system is set up to where women have absolutely”

no or very little autonomy and they they want women to be dependent upon men for financial gains for financial necessity and one thing that one practice is of course child marriages the legal age to marry for a woman is 13 which which leads to child marriages for men for guys is 15 and so that right there it just leads to physiological challenges psychological challenges for women from early age then the the workforce issues because of all the you know they're vulnerable

at workplaces and so they're being taken advantage of and all that and so one of the practices in Iran is called temporary marriages and what happens is temporary marriage is really a loophole

woman agree upon to be legally married so that you know the man could sexually have relationship

with with the woman without any implications and they have made it legalized for a certain period of time for a certain amount of money it could be two hours it could be a week it could be months whatever they determine it is but they have legalized it so men could have the freedom to have sex with other women with no consequences or implications of the marriage and what happened if the woman gets pregnant nothing they asked them to abort the baby in fact it's funny you mentioned

that we we had a testimony that came to our ministry about the same thing woman gets pregnant

“the the woman wants to to keep the baby the man says no it's my reputation you have to abort”

the baby then he brings in an Arab guy to sell the 11 year 11 days old baby to an Arab and the woman flees and goes in hiding and all that and in one of the places that she was hiding they were broadcasting you know gospel in their own ethnic language which was one of our programming and she came to faith right then and there she started praying that you know he would change his mind about selling the baby and so she comes to faith she starts you know praying and then he comes

to faith and they come back together and they turn the temporary marriage into permanent marriage

“and they're they're living happily ever after serving the Lord now but there are”

incidences that you know the the woman becomes pregnant and they don't want to have anything to do with with that it's which is very unfortunate you were married young craft yes tell me about that so when I was 18 I was introduced to my dad's business partner who was 14 years older than me and so in a way this marriage was arranged for me and the string attached to it was the business that that he was helping my dad to open and so in a way I was forced by circumstances to marry him

I did not like him I was not attracted to him at all but from the get go he started manipulating me you know he exploited me sexually before marriage to seal the deal so to speak to say hey you know if I exploit her she's gonna stay with me and I was just scarred I was I was very hurt after that but I felt like I needed to be the savior of my family and just keep on going with this with this arranged marriage which turned very toxic very abusive on all fronts and was this

in the U.S. it was in the U.S. okay so a Muslim man yes came to your dad yes and was like yeah I want to marry your daughter and your dad who is was I guess strict theologically when it came to

“Islam but yeah this is great this is a custom that we need to yes continue yes that's how that was”

set up absolutely so growing up my dad was very very strict he was very overprotective and I thought

of my dad always as my my hero he was always very honoring honorable and I thought you know

if my dad is introducing this guy to me he must be really good at age 18 and it's it's worth to mention that when I was in Iran it was a societal norm to I had seen and witness you know young girls being arranged to marry an older man who's semi well off and this was the way of life you know I did not think anything of it I didn't even think it was a thing like arranged marriage later on you know I I learned about arranged marriages but I thought this was the culture this was

something that we do as Iranians and as Muslims and so yeah he asked for my dad's permission to

but you know it turned south yeah so tell me about the beginning of the marriage and how it turned

“abusive yes so from the beginning the foundation of this relationship was based on fear and”

intimidation manipulation and so going into it it was it was very hurtful emotionally because then

you know my dad's business was always held over my head like I helped your dad do this and that

and my and he would just use that as you know the winning card on me and all that and so he started he started like asserting his dominance and like he wanted to to say hey I'm the dominating you know figure here in this marriage but you said you were 18 I was 18 and he was in his 30s yes 32 okay yes and so he wanted from from the beginning he wanted to make sure that I know that he's the alpha he is the guy that dominates he is he's you know his word is the final say

and all that and all of that is cultural disposition that he also had learned from back from home and so

you know it turned abusive it turned into physical abuse sometimes he would he would accuse me of liking other men so much that it had it just became the biggest fear of his life and so

“one time this actually happened a few times but one time I remember like as I was in as I was”

sleeping he started throttling mine and and because he had a dream that you know I was with another man like he was very jealous very controlling I woke up feeling I was being choked oh my goodness because of that and so there were just the the physical struggle the emotional and mental verbal it was just constant yeah constant accusations constantly I was trying to prove myself trustworthy that he he can trust me he can't you know he we can have a relationship based on trust

but he he always would just find other ways to accuse me of different things and were you still

“wearing like a hijab at this point in America okay oh you are not okay so the the hijab is only”

enforced in Iran yeah and like if you're not a devout muslim you if it's not and you know of course your dad didn't make you that your husband didn't make you do that we were nominal muslim like again you know yeah as we were born into that culture we were known as muslims but we weren't really practicing it to it yeah when did you become a Christian what did you become a Christian while you were married so I became a Christian a year after I got married okay and that's the story of me coming to

faith because I was you know the relationship was very toxic and I was so depressed at age 18 back then I was 19 it was a year after I literally had no hopes for my life I felt trapped with him because of the way he was behaving the way he was treating me he wouldn't let me go he would just you know manipulate me in every which way possible to keep me in this marriage and I didn't know if I wanted to continue education I started going to college he would follow me to college peek through

the windows of the classroom to see who I was sitting next to and then he would monitor my phone afterwards to see who I was talking to and whatnot he was just you know like that and so you know it was an outlet for me to go to college and you know studying thinking that I'm doing something good a value for my life but then I would come home and he would just make me cry from his accusations and the way he treated me and all that I just didn't know what to do anymore

it was a period of my life that I was very very down and depressed and in complete darkness thinking that I'm trapped in this in this relationship and there's no way out that's when some of our friends came to visit us out of a blue and they brought Jesus this film with them and they brought

friends from back when we were in Iran they had moved to Oklahoma and when we moved to the

“U.S we were in Austin Texas they came to visit us after so long and so they they had become Christians”

in Oklahoma and so they wanted to share the gospel with us as well and so when I went to visit them at my parents house they were watching Jesus' film in in in Farsi in my parents living room and so when I went in I started watching it with them didn't think anything of it I was more of a dead person walking I was so numb to myself I thought I was betrayed by my own family being you know

put up with this guy and in my marriage marital issues and all that I just didn't have any hopes I was just

very aimless no purpose in my life didn't didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel and so I sat there watch watch the movie and got up to leave one of the one of the women there said

“Lily I know you've been through a lot did you know that when you come to Christ all your past will be gone”

and you will become a new creation in Christ and everything will become new in him and that just struck a court with me because I had been wanting a new fresh start I thought well my life had been

wasted I what would it happen if I could have a do-over if I could have a fresh start and when she

said that I knew the Holy Spirit was speaking through her and so I didn't know back then but I know now that the Holy Spirit was speaking through her because that was the very thing I needed to hear back then and so when I got up to leave the daughter of this woman that said that to me walk me to the door and said Lily I know I know that things are looking very dark in your life and

“I know you've been struggling but know that there is hope and Christ can can pull you out of this”

dungeon that you're in do you mind if I share a couple of verses from the Bible with you and at this point I am thinking she's plotting something against me everyone's against me everyone wants to destroy me and what not and I was like okay whatever I mean I've got everything that everyone wanted to destroy you because I felt that my immediate family was the blame for arranging this marriage and they did that to destroy me and like now I'm dealing with this man who's very toxic and doesn't trust me and

every you know every turn he moves he he just blames me for everything and I I saw everyone as someone who wants to harm me who wants to do something to destroy my future and whatnot I just had become very defensive because of all the hurts and the exploitation and all that I was very sensitive like who's talking to me and about what what do they want from me like I thought that everyone wants something from me and so when she shared that with me she opened up the word of God

and she started reading John one one in the beginning was the word the word was with God and the word was God and the word became flesh and dwelt among us John one fourteen and the moment she read these two verses um even though I had no knowledge no prior knowledge about Jesus other than you know he was one of the prophets that performed many miracles I knew that I knew that I knew that Jesus was my Lord and Savior and I had this you know Holy Spirit in counter now I I know that it

was the Holy Spirit in counter that just made everything so clear to me and all my questions were answered interestingly enough that that afternoon my sister met me at the mall and she said Lily you know these friends of my our mom and dad they say Jesus is God and I was like that's ridiculous who calls a man God that that's they're they're so deceived and so that afternoon I said that and that evening it was revealed to me that Jesus is God and it was so clear that I I didn't even

question it the moment she said the word became flesh and dwelt among us I was like that's God

Jesus film which is like the gospel of Luke right yes what was their immediate reaction to hearing

“this they were their hearts were softened by it and they saw something different in their friends”

that they had never seen in the past you know I talked with my dad and my mom I was trying to

record all their testimonies and as to how they came to face it's like what were you thinking like they were like the kind of love we saw and witness in in our friends was so different than anything we had experienced and so we were intrigued to know more about Christ as they were speaking to us and so it was it was through their love and genuine care that they accepted to read the Bible and to find out for themselves they started praying and they both have their own stories one had a

“vision in in in his dream my dad had a vision in my mom just felt that conviction that Jesus is”

Christ one time at church and so yeah they both came to fate they didn't reject Christianity at all

because even though their background was from Islam they were open to even to hear the gospel they were they weren't rejecting it or anything my mom was afraid my mom was scared because she thought that she was betraying God the Father if she calls Christ God and so that took her a little bit to really receive that revelation and what happened in your marriage after you became a Christian so I I changed I started going to church I started reading the word

“I started receiving the kind of peace that transcends all understanding it was just I was in”

the midst of so much hurts and abuse but I had peace with it and but it what I was going through

the sanctification process when you know when when I came to faith I didn't know anything about Christ I had to learn about who he is what he does what is it what are his ways how how to even read the word how to interpret it all that so I was a very very baby Christian and so but I was I was committed to learning about Christianity nothing really changed to the dynamic of our marriage in fact it was getting more and more abusive because of the bipolar disorder that

he had like he would wake up one day and say oh yeah Jesus is Christ and he's awesome he's my best friend all that the next day you know you're being deceived you're not you know Jesus is is not who you think he is and all that I would be reading my Bible in the living room and he would just grab my Bible and throw it across the room and say this is all BS why are you deceiving yourself what not so it was it's it's I was in a very difficult you know environment in a way kind of persecution

from my own husband but was was resident in our in our home but I thought based on my very immature faith that he's in my life because he's my assignment I thought that he's my cross to carry and I will not do anything against the word of God to divorce him or to separate from him or anything like that I thought that you know to to live his Christ and part of it you know may come with suffering and he's my suffering and he was still physically abusing you at this point yes

yes he was very violent he was very aggressive and so anyways I just I just stayed in the marriage and let him let him manipulate me every which way and because of you know the word of God that says you know forgive and if your brother you know does your wrong forgive seven times seven you know all that but going into this new faith I still brought in my performance

to deserve God's goodness and grace and so I looked at my new faith as a Christian as you know

“I need to do everything right such as bearing with his you know tolerating his abuse”

carrying my my cross bearing with him and let him abuse me let him walk all over me let him dominate me divorce is no option for me it was very black and white and couldn't dry I did not understand that Christianity is not a religion Christianity is our way to have a relationship with God the Father it's through what Christ has done for us and through the Holy Spirit that lives on the inside of us I approached it as a religion and a set of dues and don's as opposed to

I hear uniquely from the Holy Spirit what is it that the Father wants for me what is it that

I need to accomplish what is my purpose here what does he want me to learn from the situation

“does the Father want me to stay in this abusive relationship or he wants peace for me he wants”

growth for me he wants me to live out my purpose which which one is it that he wants for me there may be for some people that I want you to stay in this relationship because I'm doing something in you but for for me after 14 years the Lord clearly released me from from this marriage because it wasn't my cross to carry to begin with I just made it my own cross based on my own perception my own misinterpretation of the Word of God my own failure to hear the voice of God

for my life uniquely for me not but not based on set of rules of dues and don'ts yeah just to clarify a couple things that I'm sure that you would agree with anyone who is in an abusive

“relationship needs to find safety and should leave that so should absolutely leave that marriage”

yes sometimes marriages are difficult and there is disagreement and I have Christian friends who are married to unbelieving husbands and that is you know very hard and God does use those marriages to

sanctify those women to draw those women to himself marriages it always going to be easy but

an abusive marriage a woman needs to find refuge for herself for her children and also totally agree with you about the legalism that sometimes comes into our mind of this like performance based religion that if we do this then we get this in return or if we don't do this then God doesn't love us or he loves us less Christianity is religion in that you know like the book of James says like pure religion is this it's taking care of what is in an orphans and so it is a religion

but it's different than Islam it's different than every other religion in that every other faith tells you this is how you can get to God this is how you earn it this is how you climb up the mountain you show yourself worthy and then maybe God will look down upon you and show favor to you but Christianity is that no there's nothing you can do to earn it Christ came down from the mountain proverbial mountain and came to you because you could not save yourself there's nothing you can

do to climb out there's nothing you can do to clean yourself up or to make yourself worthy of my love Christ made us worthy he gave us his righteousness and so it is a religion in a sense but it's different yet because of that relationship aspect because of the grace yes because there's nothing we can do to earn our salvation and no matter someone's background that takes a long time I mean it might even take our whole lives yes for us to really understand God's love and grace for us through Christ so I

imagine it was especially transformative for you considering your background yes absolutely was the the one thing that sets Christianity apart from any other religions out there is that we are given this advocate and the comforter and the Holy Spirit that teaches us all things and we can rely on that and that was the aspect that came to me as a revelation that I didn't understand as a baby in Christ and you know it just leaning in to hearing the promptings

Spirit is something that absolutely sets Christian the apart from every every other religions out there

“so you got out of that abusive marriage and how did you meet your current husband we actually”

met through a mutual friend and it was very difficult for me to see myself with another man it took about eight years of healing and recovery from all the hurts and the pains on the inside of me because I had developed this outlook that all men are abusive and controlling and jealous and they just want to exploit women and I had closed myself up to any possibility of you know marriage or dating or

anything like that I just did not want to have any man in my life and it took a couple of years

“after I met my current husband to for the Lord to really convict me of this mindset because I was”

absolutely against the institution of marriage I was I was against it and I thought that I knew that this was not God's will but I was against it because of all the hurts and the pains and the experiences I had and so I had formed this deception in my in my head that marriage is not for everyone and and that that that that was a journey that the Holy Spirit convicted me of that marriage is God's will marriage is something that God has in store for me and you know my

my perspective changed completely in that in that period of time to where I wanted to do the

“will of God and to marry whereas before I was totally against it and it was through this marriage that”

the Lord redeemed me from all my pains and all my hurts in the past I was I always say it was

it was a divine encounter that you know the moment I opened myself up to the will of God in my life the Lord brought that right person into my life to be to be alongside me to compliment me to do ministry together to serve together tell me about your ministry what is it doing right now yes so right now as as we mentioned darkness is so abundant in error on I mean the sexual immorality is is increasing a suicide rate is increasing rate of addiction is going through the roof

and people are becoming more desperate and more hopeless every day because of the governmental restrictions the ingest unfair treatments of people in so many different different brutality that's happening in Iran so what we do because missionaries cannot go to Iran and there you know there there's risks of persecution execution all that in Iran and so through the satellite TV

we beam into people's homes the the love of Christ and the gospel and we basically broadcast

church services for those that are believers we share the gospel with non believers you know we we have teachings for women and their identity on our channel and children kids so every with movies that are faith based there are all being aired in farcee and so over the years Iran alive ministries has been ministering to Iranians since 2000 and so over the last 24 years 100,000 people over 100,000 people have contacted us and documented their

salvation and we know that so many others because of you know the risk of getting found out and the persecution they don't ever reach out or anything we we believe that there are millions

is picking up momentum in Iran the discipleship making movement is picking up momentum in Iran and more and more people are becoming open to the gospel and receiving Christ which is an

amazing phenomenon Iran has the fastest growing evangelical population in the world you know

“the operations manual was saying that the I think in 2019 Iran had a rate of 19%”

of evangelical population so they're growing every single day and because of the discipleship making movement it's you know it's growing even more than that now and what consequences do they face if they were found out that they were watching church services at home so there are house rates that are happening you know almost every day so people have to be very very cautious

to practice practice Christianity in Iran even like doing worship and praise like if we do a

lot of praise and worship in Farsi on our channel they have to turn down the volumes so much they can't even hear themselves worship because if a neighbor hears them and reports them they're going to be arrested and sometimes execute that and sometimes are being sent to exile it's just you know the repercussion of being a Christian in Iran is very severe have you guys received any formal opposition from the government there in Iran because you'll have distributed over 100,000

“bibles right since 2001 I believe yes and so I imagine they don't like Iran alive over there”

they do not they do not we actually there were some governmental of a government officials that

came to faith and contacted us well and they said that the government is scared of the movement that is happening in Iran and they want to shut it off every every way possible that they they get the the founder of the ministry gets death threats all the time I mean they're threatening us there but they haven't been able to take down the satellite dishes and they haven't been able to prevail the move of God in Iran which which is great yes yes yes and what can this audience do

how can they support you guys pray for Iranians hearts and minds to open even more

“to the message of Christ and for the veil to be removed from their from their sites”

because the people of Iran are desperate and exhausted and they they're seeking freedom but they they think that the freedom comes through democracy but we want we want to bring to them that the ultimate freedom that comes only by Christ and so I would say just pray share the stories that are coming you know we put them on our website around alive dot org sharing with your neighbors with your friends with your circle of people bring awareness about

what's happening in Iran because the misconception is that Iran is an Islamic country and most people think that the government and people are the same whereas the government is very separated from the people people are open to the gospel while the government is an agent of anti-Christ and so you know so just bring awareness support our work so that we can we can continue on sharing the gospel with Iranians and the people in the Middle East yeah most most importantly just pray

thank you so much and I will put the link to thank you website where people can learn more about it donate if they're able to can they follow you yes they can okay where's can they follow you so I am personally on on Instagram really meshi and Iran alive ministries also is on Instagram Twitter and TikTok and all that and so yes and we we also have a phone number which if you don't mind me saying I can just let let people know they can text the word Iran

to 85789 and we send them updates and stories we have all become text savvy nowadays so we rather do text so if they are interested in connecting with us that's also another way okay awesome

definitely be praying thank you I appreciate you Lily thank you so much