"From Baghdad to the Netherlands, from Babylon to Zion" by Saher Haddad

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Good morning. Welcome here to Strength to Strength. It is our prayer here at S2S that our resources will strengthen your love, faith, relationship with King Jesus, and give you solid footing in a shaky world. This morning, we are anticipating hearing from Saher Haddad from over in the Netherlands. So welcome here, Saher. It's good to have you with us. Thank you.

My wife and I have had the privilege of meeting with Saher and his wife almost monthly, the last maybe six months or more. I'm not sure when we started that. We would have met through Strength to Strength here. Saher, you began coming on here to these calls and your wife on the sisters' calls. And kind of through that, we got connected and we've been meeting just to connect for fellowship once a month typically. And we really enjoyed that. I've been so challenged and inspired by Saher and Evan and just their love for truth and their desire to be faithful in God's kingdom and advance God's kingdom there or wherever God calls them to. So we're looking forward to having him share a talk kind of about his journey from Baghdad to the Netherlands here this morning.

But before we jump into his talk, I just want to make a special announcement here or let you in on a kind of a behind-the-scenes secret, if you will, here at Strength to Strength. And that is we are starting a bookstore called S2S Books.

So it's actually live on our website right now. And we are actually later on this morning planning to put it out on our marketing groups, letting everyone know about this, about our bookstore. And we're not only going to be selling books, we're going to also be publishing books, which is kind of a little bit of a dream that we've had here. We feel like there's a lot of potential writers. Some people are writers and just don't know it yet.

And there's many topics that need to be written about in the kingdom. And so we, Lord willing, plan to publish authors, more authors. We've actually had two new books that we're bringing on to S2S Books right here at the beginning. One by Hector Schroyer, a brother from our congregation called Jesus and the Mennonites.

And also one by the one and only Glenn Martin here. As you know, Glenn, he's the main brother behind the scenes here that makes this happen. Glenn loves Old Testament studies, and he's written a book called Righteous Lot.

And so we'll plan to interview him at some point here about the backstory behind that, but you can see that on the store as well. So check it out. We plan to bring on more books in the future. We're just getting started here.

It's kind of a step of faith in many ways. We're currently investing in inventory. And so if there's anyone here who'll be interested in contributing to help us stock up on inventory and make it so we can really do well with our inventory and shipping, we would love that. So you could contribute on the contribute button there on Strength to Strength if you would be interested.

So yeah, starting off today, Glenn is actually his wife was looking for a part-time job. And so Glenn set up a book shipping warehouse right out of his property there. So the books will be shipped out of Granby, Massachusetts, out of Glenn Martin's place. So again, you can watch for an announcement here later on this morning about that, an interview with Hector. We plan to interview our authors too.

So that'll be something that we'll probably do more kind of behind the scenes and then just make those interviews live. So you can be watching for those as well. So again, welcome here to Strength to Strength. And our desire is that through this ministry, many people could be encouraged in their walk with God and that God's kingdom could come in new and fresh ways, particularly in places where it's not. And so we're excited to have Saher here from the Netherlands, a part of the world that it seems like there's a lot of darkness. Europe is quickly moving, becoming very post-Christian, just like Canada and the United States is, but we tend to be about 20 years behind, I think, that part of the world.

So Saher, good to have you here with us. And let's go ahead and just bow our heads for prayer as we get started to pray.

Father, God of heaven, our creator, we come to you this morning. We want to acknowledge you as God. We want to acknowledge you too as a God that's so merciful. Your mercies are new every day, every morning. Great is your faithfulness. Your compassion, your love for us is beyond what we can comprehend.

And Father, we truly want to be your children, be faithful to you and love you deeply in our hearts. And so Father, I pray this morning as Saher shares his testimony, his journey, that our hearts will be opened in a new way, that those hard places in our hearts will be softened, and that the seeds of the kingdom could fall into fertile soil and could bring forth fruit.

Father, we pray against the work of the evil one, the spiritual principalities and powers, the evil forces in heavenly places that are at work in the world. Father, we pray against those in the name of Jesus. We remove those and that they would be a place, a peaceful place, a place of shalom here on this call. And for any of our listeners that are listening later in their lives, Lord, that you could work in us, that your spirit can move in us, and that we could be empowered to be your ambassadors, your workers in this world in the way that you want us to be, to represent you in the way that you want us to represent you, Father.

And so Lord, may we go from strength to strength here again today, guide and direct this call, this talk, bless Saher in a special way, Lord, as he shares. English is not his first language. And so Father, we pray that you give him just a clear mind and the ability to communicate what he wants to share. And we ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen. All right. Saher, again, thank you for joining us. It is 12:10. It's good afternoon for you there. And so why don't you, yeah, just launch in and we'll kind of have a conversation as we go along here.

So yeah, go ahead and introduce who you are and start the journey of telling us about your journey here this morning. Thank you very much, Brother Brent. And I would like to say we are tremendously blessed to know you personally, to meet with you every month. So you are being very encouraging for us, for my wife and I. And yeah, also this platform, Strength to Strength, has been very tremendously blessing for us.

So yeah, thank you. Thank you. So yes, I would like to introduce myself. So I am Saher Haddad. I'm 41 years old. I have been for 14 years, I believe, maybe 15 years. And I entered to, yeah, how shall I say it, to know more about kingdom theology or Anabaptism since four years, maybe four years ago.

So yes, this is my journey to establish the church and the place where I am now in Holland or maybe somewhere else. So I would like to share something about my background, how I came to know Jesus as a king and personal savior.

So I was born in Iraq in 1981. So I have four sisters and one brother and my parents who loved us. So we have, yeah, just a good family life.

I was raised up as a Catholic. I think there are 4% Catholic in Iraq, maybe at that time 3%. So we are a minority of Chaldean Catholic believers. So we are seen as a Christian fellowship there.

Yeah, as a Catholic, we didn't have necessary family devotion every day and Bible reading. So we went sometimes to the church as a child. I went to when it was Christmas time or sometimes nearly every Sunday almost. So my first

knowing about Jesus, we had a videotape called the Jesus Movie. I don't know if you know that, the Jesus Movie from 1997. So this was my first introduction about the gospel. That movie is according to the Gospel of Luke.

So I don't know what you feel about the movie or what you think about it. For me, it was a blessing because Jesus and his teaching impressed me a lot. So I thought actually as a child it was Jesus on videotape. So this is the first time I met with the knowing about Jesus.

So further on, it was just a religion. So I went and my 12 years old, I made the Holy Communion of Catholics. So it's a Catholic teaching. And after that, then you can break a bread when you go Sunday to the church.

And I kept on to be kind of a religious believer. So to pray, to fasting, but nothing about devotional life to have a relationship. But it was a, yeah, a privilege because I was conscious about God's existence and also God's fear.

As a Catholic, we know if you made a sin, one of the family members told me, "You must go to hurt your finger through the stove," something like this. These are Catholic ideas to hurt yourself, to chastise yourself.

So in that sense, I have learned the fear of God, not in a proper way maybe, but I feared him always and I knew in his existence. So surely I don't want to be negative about other denominations. So these are good things where come from the as a Catholic background.

But at the same time, there was no any relational thing between God and me. So this is a little bit about my religious background. And as I told you, we have a family. And unfortunately, there were some also disagreements in my family and sometimes hard times.

And yes, one of the family members of mine had mentally unstable. So there was a lot of also a lot of difficulties at home where I grew up. So it was a very difficult time. And so I went through that. And yes, that in combination with fear of God, I sometimes was watching to know God more. And I prayed to God, to Jesus, to Mary, to every possible saint, and just to know to have more some kind of relationship. So yeah.

And at that time, we also I was born in '91, so I opened my eyes to the world. And there was a war between Iraq and Iraq. And in '91, we had also a war with almost all the world. So some fear was also soaked in me.

And yes, I want to love to have more peace and to have true in my life and my family. And in 1979, we moved from Iraq because of the dangers of the maybe future war or the government at that time. So from there, we moved to the as a reflect from Iraq to the Netherlands as a refugee.

And with my two sisters, I was the age of 15 years old. So it was a very difficult age because my background, fear of war, fear of unstable in my family life, it brought me to many difficult positions and seeking for my identity, who I am, and where I'm going to, and what does it sense to be to live. And yeah, it was a little bit difficult time at the age of 15 years old. So I tried to flee from the life I've lived and just to enjoy life, to seeking ways to enjoy life.

And yeah, before I fled, I started to drink alcohol. It was lawful for me to drink alcohol, unfortunately. So at a very young age, I started to drink. And so I was used to drink almost daily at my 14, 15-year age.

And I kept drinking alcohol all my life since 15 years old, 14, 15 years old. And in particular, when I came to the Netherlands, I went to the parties with a lot of friends just to enjoy and to but at the same time, inside me, it was not any joy. It was just going seeking to be happy outside my actually to flee from myself.

In 2001, I met an evangelist. He became my friend. So he invited me to go to an evangelical conference just to share with me the gospel because he knew about my situation and the difficulties. So I went. And again, I met Jesus in a better way.

The preaching was in particular the personal salvation. So Jesus came to die for your sins. So many things were new for me as to be born again. It was a very new term. I never heard to be born again. You're raised up as a Catholic. You're a Christian. You must do good. That's all.

So to have a sinful life, I recognize I'm sinful. I made many wrong things. And there was good preaching about to repent and to have a new life, to have a personal relationship. So I was emotionally very moved in that conference, and I decided to follow. And it was really a battle between following Jesus and to forsake the life I lived to drink alcohol, to discovering sinful things. And finally, I decided in that conference to follow. And I prayed. And I thought, "Okay, if I follow, then I must forsake everything." And I think I was busy with the Christian religion following for maybe a few months.

So because of the struggling, I prayed to God. I said, "I can't keep going. So I want to go to the world to see what's outside of the world. And I come back. Would you keep me there?" So I did that. And unfortunately, nine years after, I came to faith.

So in these nine years, many things happened. So yeah, I kept on going, drinking alcohol. And I went I smoked a lot of cigarettes, maybe two packs a day.

I tried drugs, gambling, just because, yeah, I wanted to live a luxury life and to be something. So I discovered gambling, you can win a lot of money in a few times.

So unfortunately, I have suffered a lot of addiction. It was so powerful that I went voluntarily to, I do say it, Alcohol Rehab. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Alcohol Rehab. Yeah. Alcohol Rehab for six weeks because I really wanted to be free from alcohol because I had really a lot of troubles in my work and my sleeping and my emotion, everything. So I recognized my problem. And while I knew about the kingdom, about Jesus, I tried to solve my problem in this way.

So yes.

Yes. It was in 2008 when I went to that trial. It was a very low point in my life. I'm being depressed. I used also antidepressant medicines and also another medicine to keep me from having a desire to gamble.

So it was very strong because I wake up in the 3:00 in the morning, sweaty hands because I really wanted to gamble. So I started the PC to go to the platform where you can gamble your money. So this was the situation and a lot of drinking and alcohol.

So yes, I finally became very depressed. I couldn't make it in this life, and I lost my job. And that time, that evangelist, a friend of mine, he called me. Actually, in my experience, he was irritating me with messages and calling. So again, it was another conference. So he asked me to join that conference again.

So yeah, because of him, I went there again. It was five-day conferences. So I went there again, and I couldn't bear it. I was very angry about it because I couldn't use alcohol. I couldn't gamble. I couldn't even smoke. No, I could smoke, I think. Yeah. But without alcohol, it was very, very, very difficult. So I was very angry and also angry with God, angry with everybody. So two days later, at the same time, I must tell you, at the same time, I was enjoying the it was a very nice weather. And some people impressed me, really, because they had such a peace. I thought, "Okay, this is a real confrontation between peace and unrest life and addiction."

So I saw something in some people there. And I was again touched. So I was two days there, and I was thinking to go back. So I finally said to my friend, "I must go back. So I can't bear it." So my whole body was suffering because I must drink something and gamble.

So I was also very angry, became very angry because I went back to home. And I had a plan to go to my father to manipulate him to get some money to gamble again. So yeah, I planted a ticket to fly to him. He lived in that moment in Sweden.

Yes.

My father passed away three years ago. But at that time, I wanted to go to him for that reason. And that's why I couldn't stay there in that conference. So after taking a shower, I don't know. I believe it was God's voice and a vision.

He was telling me, "Do you want my way or your way?" It's not a literal vision. I didn't see anything with my eyes. But it was something from the Holy Spirit, I believe, that God was trying to show me. "I know what your desire is, but you are seeing me outside me."

So as I was thinking about going to my father, at the same time, I was thinking also about this thought or vision, whatever you want to call it. So I sat down on the bank, and I thought to myself, "Let me pray." So early, I prayed a lot of times seeking God, but nothing happened. And this time, I thought, "Let me pray." And I prayed maybe in five or six seconds, very simple prayer. "Please, Lord, help me. I'm just a slave.

I became a slave for gambling, for everything. I messed my life." So I thought, "Okay, nothing happened." So I wanted to go to the coffee machine. And suddenly, I knew at that moment, I never need to gamble again. So it was I physically felt the healing from the gambling.

Amazing. Yes. And a few seconds later, I thought I began to shout, "I know what is to be born again." So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have got a new life. So that was in 7 August 2009. I know exactly the date.

So I started to—You said what was the date? September, you said? 7 August 2009. Gotcha. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. 789. So yeah.

So I was very happy. I knew I was a new man. I knew because I have heard a lot of things about the gospel to repent. So yeah. So I sent a message to that friend of mine, and I told him all the story, what was happening. I went after to Sweden to tell my father and my parents, actually. I planned the flight to come here for another reason, but this is what was happening, what's happened in my life.

So they couldn't believe it. And finally, they believed me. But at that moment, they didn't believe what was going on because they knew about my struggles and my addiction. So this is how I started to in my journey to be a believer.

Yes.

That's a beautiful testimony. It's touching. And I can just imagine the distress of an addiction. I can't imagine. Actually, I know what that is like, an addiction to something that it's hard to break free of. And that's a beautiful testimony. Maybe before we kind of get in then to you kind of telling about from 2009 on, maybe we'll just go back a couple of questions I had. Let's go back to Iraq.

And you left there in 1997, right? You left Iraq.

And it's very interesting. And you said as refugees, you would have fled. Can you tell a little bit of why? I'm always just fascinated by the Middle East and all the dynamics there that have been going on for, obviously, thousands of years. But in the last 40 years, what always happened there, or even 75 years, ever since kind of Israel became a nation there and some of those dynamics there in the Middle East. But

yeah, so what was the persecution or the pressure that your parents were facing? Because I was thinking it would take a lot. It would take a lot to leave. You're Iraqis. You're in Baghdad. You're kind of right in the middle of your culture and who you are. Yeah.

Yeah. To be honest, we didn't be persecuted directly from the government. We just wanted to avoid the war and possible persecution. I think many people have been persecuted from the government there. And the situation was becoming worse and worse. So many people like us wanted to avoid the persecution and to join the possible wars which were coming.

And yeah, we didn't have directly persecution. Yeah. Now, I recently read that since 2003, Iraq went from a million and a half Christians to just like 150,000 Christians in Iraq. And so can you—is that true? Yes. Yes. If you look only in the states, in the state of, for example, I have a lot of families in Michigan, in Detroit in particular.

I don't know the number, but maybe a few million Iraqis who live there. So I have heard indeed that many Christians left Iraq because of, yeah, uncomfortable situation and persecution/possible persecution. So we knew it would not be easy to us to stay there.

So we decided to move because there was no perspective for us. And yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I find that interesting, Sahir. George Bush was backed by many, many Christians here in the West, in the United States in particular. Conservative Christians were behind him to go and free the Iraqis to bring democracy there and make Iraq a safe place for Christians. You mean in 2003? In '03 when you kicked that war off there.

But that just wasn't the case.

Iraq has not become safer. It probably actually made it worse for Christians. Yeah. Yes. Sure. As you know, I recently went back to Iraq, I think, two months ago. And I was very curious about how people felt about the situation now, in particular what's happened after Saddam Hussein and IS, Islamic State.

They told me almost all of them, they dreamed to get Saddam back, Saddam Hussein. They are just comparing worse and less worse. So yeah, because it was stable, more stable. It was not very safe with Saddam Hussein and persecution and wars and everything. But it became worse, more worse.

Yeah. It's not going to be better. No.

Yeah. Almost everyone I've met have lost one of their family members. Yeah.

Yeah. Now, Chaldean Christianity or the Chaldean, you call it Catholic Church there. And it sounded like your father was a good man. Would you consider them a Christian, your parents? Or do you believe there are some Christians there in the Chaldean Catholic Churches? Or how do you feel about that? How I see them personally? You mean? Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a very good question you ask. Yeah. I don't know. Today, I see Christianity. I always want to go back to the history and about teachings of Jesus. But most of them are just religious.

For example, the villages where the Chaldean Christians live north of Iraq, they have almost all of them crossed above their homes.

But to talk about religion and Christianity, it's not the case. Yeah. They practice some things. They go to the church.

But it's only religion and worldliness. And yeah, I don't feel they are walking even with their own religion, even though I don't agree with Catholicism.

They are becoming less and less Christians. I feel they are more nationalistic than Christian. So when you ask someone, "Are you a Christian?" Then they generally say, "I am Assyrian or Chaldean." They mean by that Christian, but actually, their nationality.

Interesting. So I don't feel they are, yeah, Kingdom Christians. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I understand very well. Okay. So let's pick back up with your story. Tell them. I talked to my family, to my mother. She's very honest, and she prays every night, and she calls upon God.

But her view of Christianity is very different. Sure.

And is your mother still in Sweden or? Yes. Yeah. Later, I fled with my two sisters to the Netherlands. And I think five years after, I fled with another brother and two sisters. And my parents moved, I think, five years after, six years.

Yeah. Okay. I'm going to say, Sahir, I just know nothing about being a refugee.

And I wonder how that influences your understanding of being a Christian in our world, kind of a sojourner or like, "This isn't my home," right? "I'm a citizen of heaven. I'm an ambassador here," right? "I'm bringing a piece of the home turf to foreign soil." Those ideas, I've never had to flee. I know nothing about how that would be. But I'm sure it has to impact the way you think and the way you look at the world.

And I'm saying for good too.

I'm maybe jealous to kind of have that, "You know what? I might have to flee tomorrow to somewhere else, and it'll be okay. God will take care of me." I've never seen that happen in my life. So you're talking to a group of people here who, for the most part, just know nothing about what you're talking about.

Yeah. Yeah. It's also hard to explain to forsake your culture and the family and join another culture. In particular, we have also, to be honest, we have also family difficulties. So my life was very shakable at home. I mean, my family loved me a lot, but at the same time, there were some difficulties inside our home. So it was a really crisis at home. So I also want to give emphasis for this and also the lack of stability in the country like Iraq. So that makes my life very difficult to discover who I am and where I come from, where I'm going, in particular, in the age of 15. So it was a very difficult age for me.

Sometimes, if I speak humanly, I wish I'd never been something between 15 and 25 like this. So it was a tremendous crisis for me to—I think this is the reason why I fled to gambling, to addictions, just to forget, just to join another world, which is unrealistic. And I knew it was unrealistic, but it was only a small solution for that moment.

So yeah, yeah, it's hard to explain. Yeah. At the same time, I don't have the—I am today a Christian, and I'm trying to be a Kingdom Christian. And I have seen many Christians have also their own religious background and culture and traditions. And I've seen that tradition has been tremendously powerful for their Christian life. So I'm nothing better than them, but I don't have this experience. So it is, for me, much easier to forsake many things and, yeah, to read the Bible objectively and to see the things objectively.

But maybe I'm wrong, but this is what I feel. Yeah. Very good. Okay. Well, let's continue with your story, Sahir, and from 2009 on then as God worked in your life and kind of what that looked like up to the present day.

Yeah. Sure. And Sahir is going to share also a vision or a dream that he has or a deep desire that he has here towards the end for his part of the world. But yeah, Sahir, go ahead. Yeah. Thank you. So after I came to faith, so I was very hungry to the word. So I started to read the Bible daily and listen to the audio Bible to know more, in particular, the Gospels and the Epistles.

And yeah, as a hungry baby, I wanted to eat the word of God, but I also wanted fellowship. So I think in a few weeks, I have contact with other people. There are

parents-in-law of the evangelists, very kind people. They received me also in all these years. So I went back to them to get advice for a church. So they told me about one church which was nearby my home. And so I went to that church, but it was another—yeah, I don't know.

It was 10 months I went to that church, and they just were very different from what I read in the Bible, things about doctrines, baptism, discipleship. So everything to what I read in the Bible, I wanted to practice and to say, "I'm in for it." So it was very struggling in that church to stay there. So I was missing something.

For me, it was just, yeah, that denomination. So I couldn't get anything from it. Also, I couldn't share any burden. So I was very frustrated. So I prayed for a brother, for people who could help me on the way.

And I met a friend, a brother in that church.

And he also disagreed with their teaching. He recognized the baptism according to your faith and your belief and many things about discipleship. So we both left the church at that time.

And he spent time with me to read the Bible. And we did that almost, yeah, weekly, sometimes two times a week. And through him, I met also another Christians, another group of people who were studying the Bible from different religious backgrounds.

Almost all of them from Reformed Theology, traditional churches. So they went back from their churches to have more fellowship, more discipling. So I joined them for also maybe 10 months, almost a year, studying the Bible. And that group became, yeah, a small home church, I think two families, something like this.

And I didn't feel very well to stay there. So in that time, I met another brother who also started a home church, which is just focusing on strong discipleship and strong to obey Jesus and everything. So I've met him. I fellowship with him, with his family. And finally, he started a home church. So I joined him.

And I think two years later, my wife, Avian, came in that church. So I met my wife in that small church, which is very, yeah, precious for me to meet her. It's a wonderful wife I have now. Praise the Lord. Yeah. Yeah.

So we stayed in that church, I think, in three years. I don't remember exactly. We have very close fellowship. We fellowship five days a week. So Saturday morning, 5 o'clock in the morning, we started to pray 6 o'clock. And during the week, we had meetings to study the Bible and to fellowship and to reach out to people, etc., etc.

Yeah. So it was very good to have them, to fellowship them. But unfortunately, it was one-man's leadership. Let me be positive about his intentions. He started very well. He was very zealous for the word of God. He loved truth. But I found it a little bit difficult to share the authority, to share the leadership, to share.

He was an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist. He was everything and everybody must follow. So it was a very difficult time. So we talked about this, and we shared about our worries. But unfortunately, it didn't help. So there was suddenly disagreement, and we just dropped out from the church.

So that was the time that Avian, my wife, and I had more than brother and sister contact. And yes, we were just to drop out the community, the church. So from there, we were seeking for another church. And the home church, which started as a group, was growing until maybe 15, 16 members.

And so we went there to look whether this is a good church to be there. So we finally decided to join their church. And that church became bigger.

Yeah.

It was also a good fellowship. You could share your burden. There were also many disagreements about doctrines because most of them come from Reformed Theology, very hyper-Calvinistic theology. And they come out from their traditional churches, and they started to be, yeah, to have more opportunities to meet God because in the predestination theology, it's very hard to meet with God because he must choose you, pick you up from thousands of people to be a child of his. So many people struggled with that doctrine, and they joined this church. And yeah, but yet their thinking was also Calvinistic, basically moved from Calvinistic theology. So we had disagreements with their theology and with their teaching.

And later, another kind of people joined the church from dispensationalists to evangelicals.

So it was, yeah, very broad in their teaching. So there was not very solid and clear foundation and doctrine. So we struggled with many things. We talked about many things, and we were in that church for almost six years. And we finally, yeah, after many struggles and conversations and sharing our desire, those of our worries, we finally decided to leave the church.

So yeah, we left the church. But I want also to talk before we left the church, we met also people who came in, two families. They moved right now to Ireland, to Mennonite church.

So they were connected with Mennonite people from the US. I don't know how the contact was there, but they told me about Mennonites. I never heard about Mennonites and about the Baptist teaching, Kingdom teaching. So many things were very exciting for me to hear, but I couldn't understand everything.

But there started my journey to listen to them more. And in that time also, we were listening to a lot of sermons from Godly Homes here, from Brother Dennis Kineston.

So there was a lot of Anabaptist thinking and ideas coming inside my journey. So it was not only thinking about Godly Home and to be a good parent and good holy children, but also I saw something in their teaching, something in their attitude, something in their practice, which is very different. Sometimes very similar words with the evangelicals.

But at the same time, I saw many different things. So these kinds of ideas were coming in, and I wanted to be very, yeah, close to them. And finally, when we left that church, I started to seek about this kind of Kingdom thinking, to obey Jesus literally and to focus on his teachings. So this was my start point to join the Baptism. Yeah.

And what year was this? It started, I think, four years ago. And in 2020, we left the church. I think March 2020, we left the church. We actually also looked to another local churches around us here. And I think we visited six, seven churches, sometimes online, sometimes physically.

But our heart stuck in the Anabaptist thinking, and the teaching of Anabaptist view of looking to the Bible was very powerful. So we couldn't forsake it. We kept looking for internet and Google, Mennonites, Anabaptists, and any possible thing to see. But unfortunately, we didn't find anything in Holland.

So finally, I found a teaching from David Perso about—I don't remember which topic it was, but anyway, what the early Christian thought about. I thought, "Wait a minute, what the early Christians?" I always asked myself this question: what the early Christians had believed without being very conscious about it. So I always thought, "How did he start the church?" And he taught a lot about what the early Christian thought, in particular, the first 300 years. So I was very interested. So I thought, "Yes, let's figure out if he's a good teacher or I don't know." So I kept listening. So it was very encouraging to hear many things, what I actually believed and always believed. And I have learned also many things I never heard about.

Sure. And that was through David Perso, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We started to listen to him more on YouTube. And from there, we discovered the historic faith. So I was very excited. So I told my wife, Avian, "Let's register on this platform because there are many teachings going here about the early Christians."

And we have many struggles and doctrines and predestination teaching, dispensationalism, and this kind of teaching influences our life and our thinking. So we couldn't always put the finger on things in the church. So it was very—we had enough reason to listen to things as what the early Christian thought to have more clearness in our theology.

So I think we are still not registered in the historic faith. So we kept listening for one year, maybe more than one year, one time a week, my wife and I. And it was a tremendous blessing. And from this platform, we discovered also sound faith and later fellows of the way and strength to strength. And yes, I'm sitting here now.

Yeah. Praise the Lord. So I think my wife discovered strength to strength.

So she told me about it. I don't remember who was first. So we have to encourage each other to join, to have a church because we are very desperate. To be without church for two and a half years is very confronting things.

And to question yourself, "I'm the only one to believe this? Am I so critical? Is our way the most biblical way?" So yeah, it was very hard to go through it. So we were very encouraged to meet many people who are, yeah, with a lot of desire to be more Kingdom Christian.

Yeah.

I also want to say it's not black and white. Everyone outside Anabaptism is not Kingdom Christian. So I want to balance my words because I believe there are many upright brothers and sisters also in Holland we meet, and they love the Lord.

And they're walking and trying to walk with Jesus. So I don't make it very—make that this kind of people, they're outside the kingdom. But we don't feel for this moment to join any of the churches here around me. So yeah, I want to only say this because we are not only the upright Christian in this country. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that.

And yes, as we've gotten to know you, Sahar, and I can just see that you really desire to be part of a faithful community.

But the mentality of there are other Christians, other people who are wanting to follow Jesus faithfully as well, and they are in other churches. It's not like we are the only people, the only right church or whatever. That's really important.

It's an important mentality to have. I think there's a winsomeness about that. But at the same time, though, continuing though with your convictions to be part. You don't want to go down the street and be part of communion with people who aren't following Jesus and are doing it just as a ritual, as a tradition, and be part of that because we know that being part of a body makes you one with them in a spiritual way. And so, yeah, may God bless you and Evian as you pursue this. So tell us a little bit about your vision for the Netherlands and some of the things that you would love to see happen there.

Yeah, sure. Yes. We have really dreams to have a Kingdom church here in this country. So I must tell you, we are very blessed through Strength to Strength. We know you personally. We have known many people out of the world.

We meet every month. We have met people in Iraq also, Anabaptists who are working there. I also met two brothers through you, right, who are in the Netherlands. So they are very excited about—they have another background as well.

And they visit Chamber's Christian Fellowship recently, and they're back, and they visit us in our home. So we are knowing them. We would love to know them more. So I want to say there are also things happening, and I'm very, very grateful for that and thankful.

I would like to see a church starting in the Netherlands. But I don't know how because we need some families, some families to come to the Netherlands for three years to establish a solid church with solid foundations, solid doctrines, and to be a witness for the world, to reach out to people and to—yeah, this is my dream.

Amen. Yes. So as we study the history of powerful Anabaptism started in Europe and moved to Russia and to America, I would like to see it coming back again.

Yeah. I have a sense, Sahar, that God wants to use you in that. And you're called to a place for such a time as this. And it's our desire here at Strength to Strength to encourage you and support you in whatever way that we can and also help you communicate this call to Kingdom people that there's a vision in the Netherlands for Kingdom communities and that you're anticipating or would love to see several families move there, maybe a church. I think you would like to see a church kind of giving you oversight, right? So it's not just you, you and your little group, but there's a connection to another congregation at least or congregations. And so that's a beautiful call.

It's a Macedonian call in many ways. And what is interesting too, Sahar, is that my background comes right out of Europe. A lot of Anabaptists here in North America come right out of Europe a couple hundred years ago. And we're actually coming up on the 500th year anniversary of the start of Anabaptism, 2025.

And it seems like we're in a time and moment where there's many—we have an embarrassing amount of riches, if you will, here in North America with people, lots of Anabaptists piled on top of each other.

Hector's book, you would enjoy reading the new book that we're just putting out on Jesus and the Mennonites and his cries call is that we would spread out, that we would do intentional church division. And so I think we're moving into an interesting time among Kingdom people, really a time that maybe it's our time to step out and to spread out and start more Kingdom communities around the world, particularly in North America and Europe, I think, is a place that we can go and be kind of among, quote, "people," our nationalities, if you will.

So thank you for that call, Sahar. And we'll need to take this seriously. And too, also, if there's any listeners here, either on the call now or listening later, we would love to help connect you to Sahar. As Sahar mentioned, just in the last couple of months, we had the privilege of connecting him with a couple of other Kingdom seekers there. I think one brother was 45 minutes from you.

And that was through Berso and Sound Faith, Chamber of Christian Fellowship, which a couple of the brothers actually are on here this morning. Patrick Matthew's there. You can see him. He's from that congregation. Wes Hirsch was on here. Wes, I see you just turned your camera on. He's from that congregation.

I think maybe one of their elders was on here earlier. So they were the ones who were interacting with these brothers, and we helped kind of connect the dots and get you connected there. So it's exciting to be a small part of this. And hopefully, in the future, we can even be more a part in helping conduit human resources in your direction there, Sahar. So may God raise us up. So a question just came in. Where is Sahar from? And you're from the Netherlands.

So maybe tell us a little bit about it. Tell us a little bit about your geography. And when people say, when you say the Netherlands, what is that?

Yeah. It's a very small country. It's next to Germany. So the right hand, it's Germany and south, Belgium.

Yeah. It's a very small country in Europe.

Okay. Well, does anybody have any questions or encouragement for Sahar here on our call here this morning?

Please speak up. Just jump right in. There's no need to wait if you have something on your mind.

So another question that came in here in the chat is,

maybe let me check here.

What language do you read the Bible?

In Dutch. In Dutch. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I use also English Bible. Sure. Yeah. I think we were just in one of our last calls, Sahar, we were talking about how I'm monolingual, and you have four languages, I think.

Back in Iraq, your wife, which was the first time that you were back just in the last couple of months, you were back there. And we actually were able to connect you with some Anabaptists that are working there, which was like 45 minutes from where you grew up, I believe, or lived.