*Mariam attended the Farsi literacy class at the Good Samaritan Center, where she heard about Jesus for the first time and received prayer. She was also taking some Bible study classes with two of our staff members (Cameron and Dumitritsa), until her husband forbid her to come to any kind of religious lessons again. 

For several months we had no communication with Mariam, until we saw her at the Evripidou Center. She told us that her children and her husband had gone to Germany, but due to complications with her passport, she could not go with them. 

A friend, *Rosana, invited her to the Refugee Women’s program at Porto Astro and encouraged her to know more about Jesus.  Rosana was Muslim too, but she had been going to some churches to learn about Jesus, and the only thing that kept her from confessing that Jesus is Lord, was her husband. She was afraid that if she believed in Him, her family would be destroyed. We found Mariam and Rosana as they were talking, and we encouraged them both. Mariam was telling Rosana that she was confused! Ever since she heard a lesson at the summer program, she was not 100% sure about what she believed as a Muslim anymore. 

One night *Mariam shared an experience she had with the group. She said: “Before I came to this program, I was hopeless, and I felt like no one cared about me. But when Dumitritsa invited me here, I realized God was looking for me, and there is still hope for me.” She was crying and we were very moved by her testimony. She said that she would continue to search and find out more. She believed that God had not invited her to this Christian program for no reason. 

* names have been changed for protection reasons