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Carelinks | Georgia
B
ro Steve Gretton went to Georgia to
baptize an Iranian couple and he reports:
“Georgia is a small country sandwiched be-
tween Russia and Turkey. To the west is the
Black Sea and to the east is the Caspian Sea.
There are the spectacular Caucasus mountains
to the north, significant to Bible readers as
the location of Mount Ararat - the resting
place of Noah’s ark
(pictured right).
It is a country
which is very wel-
coming to visitors
and tolerant of
differentreligions.
Georgians are
basically Christian
(Orthodox), but in
the capital Tbilisi,
one street houses
a church, amosque
and a synagogue
peacefully! It is
only one hour
flightfrom Tehran.
Visitors from Iran
can come here
easily and there is no requirement for a visa.
This is how I met a couple in their early 30’s
who have been seeking baptism for some time.
B is an expert welder and his wife M works at
a pharmaceutical factory as she studies for a
higher degree. M is a friend of Sis M and her
husband, Bro M, who are asylum seekers in
Germany and it is they who have been teach-
ing them and encouraging them to come for
baptism, making the suggestion that we meet
in Tbilisi. M told me that she had read parts
from the Bible as a teenager, although it did
not make a deep impression on her at the
time. However the desire to know more had
led her and her husband to find the Lord.
Using a relatively secure internet App, they
have been talking with Bro M and they
decided to take the risk of coming to a safe
place to be baptised. Meetings with people
like this always take my breath away by their
sheer enthusiasm for our God and for His
promises, and their determination to defy the
rules of man to follow their Lord. Within min-
utes of meeting they were telling me about
the wonders of the love of God, about the joy
of having sins forgiven, and about the oppor-
tunity to have a new life – eternal life. They
know that Jesus is in heaven, but that his
return is imminent and that they will meet
him. He will rule in the kingdoms of men and
bring love and
peace to this
world. All this
came from them
before we had had
a cup of coffee!
During the previ-
ous week I had
been sending them
a few pages from
Luke’s gospel by
email – encoded
for a degree of
security, and they
have been reading
it with great en-
thusiasm in their
own language.
This is always a
risky thing to do because all internet activity
can be intercepted in Iran and the punishment
is severe. This couple are certain they are not
on the government’s list of suspects and so
are very determined to continue learning
from us. However, rather than risk taking a
Bible with them into Iran, we spent time
downloading the App YouVersion onto their
phones and then the Farsi translation of the
Bible so they can take the Bible with them
electronically without it being noticed. To
download this in Iran would be asking for
trouble.
In the hours we talked together we covered
many subjects. I was able to quickly deter-
mine their understanding about the humanity
of Jesus. I warned them that others had other
ideas about the nature of Jesus, but they
found the concept of the Trinity quite aston-
ishing and irrational! I found that all that I
was teaching them was fully in line with the
ideas that they had already developed by
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