Dan Baumann spent many years as a Christian missionary in Muslim countries, a very dangerous undertaking. In January of 1997, he and a fellow missionary began a two week visit to Iran, during which time they came to love the country and its people. All was fine until they were ready to leave the country.
After turning in their travel documents to be stamped, they were detained at the border exit. They were told there was a problem with their papers. The two men were separated and put into separate rooms where they were beaten and interrogated for the next six hours. Then they were dressed in prison clothes, blindfolded and imprisoned in separate cells. As Dan says, “I was imprisoned in Iran. It was out of my hands, there was nothing I could do. Either God would do a miracle, or I would stay there.”
In his isolated cell, it was hard to sense any feeling of God. All Dan could do was trust the Lord and know that He was true no matter how Dan felt or what they did to him. His cell had only one dim light in a corner that was on 24 hours a day. Though it was wintertime, the heater in the cell did not work well. The only time he left the cell was when he was taken daily into a dark interrogation room with blood-stained floors. There he was beaten, slapped, punched and kicked. It was a terrifying experience.
There came a time when Dan did not think he could go on, and he resolved to end his life. He tried four times to drown himself in a small sink in the cell, but each time he was too afraid to carry it through. He was completely broken in spirit and felt great shame. He relates that all of a sudden the cell was filled with a bright light, and there was Jesus saying to him, “Dan, I love you, and I promise to carry you through this time.”
From that time on Dan never had those doubting thoughts again. He says, “And that’s who Jesus is. He meets us at our lowest, and He can rescue us from the depths of us. And He wants to give us life in the midst of the pain of life. And He meets us and He loves us and He wants to rescue us no matter what we’re going through.”
His encounter with Jesus challenged his attitude towards his interrogator. He was able to see him as God saw and loved him. At the next interrogation, Dan found himself telling the interrogator that if they were going to continue to meet, they should become friends and call one another by name. At first the interrogator refused, but then Dan stuck out his hand. The man froze and after a few minutes began to shake. Slowly his hand came towards Dan and tears starting rolling down his cheeks. He looked at Dan, called him by name, and then said, “My name is Rizak, and I would love to be your friend”.
There is no heart that is too hard for Jesus to soften. He taught Dan to love his enemy.
Later Dan overheard some of the guards talking about how Dan and his friend were Christians and followers of Jesus. The guards knew that Dan had a reason to live and a reason to die, and that they wanted that, too. They wanted to follow Jesus and the Way. Dan knew now why he had been put in the prison.
Dan realized that he was under two death sentences, one as a missionary and one as a spy. When it was his time to appear in court, before the judge, cameras and hundreds of people, he was asked, “Tell us today sir, why did you come to Iran?”
Dan felt the power of the Lord surge in him and he looked directly at the judge and said, “I came to Iran to tell you about Jesus Christ”. He said it again and again, and then for the next twenty minutes preached the Gospel and how God loved them. Dan knew that he was free no matter what happened to him on earth—he had a home in Heaven with Jesus. No one could take that away from him.
Dan was imprisoned for nine weeks in Iran, and then released by the country’s highest court. He served with Youth With a Mission at YWAM in Trinidad, Colorado. He has written two books, Imprisoned in Iran—Love’s Victory Over Fear, 2002 YWAM Publishing, and A Beautiful Way, 2005, YWAM Publishing.
In 2007, Dan moved to Kona, Hawaii, and joined the YWAM training center there to continue his work with discipling young people. Currently he spends over half of his year traveling and teaching in YWAM, churches and universities, challenging and encouraging people to run after and fall in love with Jesus. The rest of the year he is at home at the YWAM Base in Kona, Hawaii, working with the Discipleship Training schools. His passion is to see a generation of people discover who Jesus is and help and encourage them to walk with Him in every area of their life.
- Miracles, Prophecy and God’s Other Ways” - Kenneth Robb Kersey
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Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. 1 Peter 3:15 NLT
All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. Hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. 1 Peter 3:16-17 NLT
He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.” Matthew 9:37-38 NLT
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