Special Guest: James Babani

So I got here probably about a year ago.

Somebody gave me a book to read and it was about

this little girl growing up in Iraq.

Is that the right pronunciation? I don't know.

So I read the book and here just about 10 days ago,

I had an opportunity to meet her dad.

So him and I sat down and we visited a little bit and I said,

"James, you got to come tell your story to our body."

So I'm going to ask James and Madeline Babani.

I think it's an Assyrian name,

but he says, "Just say it like it's Italian."

Babani. So if James and Madeline would come up, please welcome them.

So these guys are Assyrian Christians and they speak Aramaic.

So I'd asked them to maybe do a prayer in Aramaic because I had James pray with me.

I says, "James, pray with me and I'm going to pray and then you pray in Aramaic."

Because I just wanted to hear it.

First, I wanted to ask him because here about two years,

three years ago, I'd asked a guy who was Muslim and he spoke Aramaic.

I said, "Could you tell me Jesus is Lord in Aramaic?"

He couldn't do it. He wouldn't do it.

So that's the first thing I asked James and obviously he just rattled it off.

I didn't understand it,

but I thought it was cool.

So I'm going to give her the mic and these guys are going to bless us.

Thank you, Pastor. God bless you.

When I woke up, I say,

"Daddy, good morning," for Jesus.

So good morning guys.

God bless you church.

We are here by the grace of God.

We came from Colorado.

We have our daughter, the writer,

the book that she put there and we have our daughter,

Sona and Steve and Charles and Ramina.

They are here and two grandkids, Misty and Adley.

We are so blessed to have believer in this darkness area.

Praise the Lord for each one of us.

Let's pray in Jesus language.

I'll interpret.

So sorry.

Yeah, James will interpret.

[FOREIGN]

Our Father in heaven.

[FOREIGN]

Our God that's holy.

[FOREIGN]

We bless your name for this day.

[FOREIGN]

For those brothers and sisters that are here.

[FOREIGN]

You let us meet your family here.

[FOREIGN]

We thank you for all this time.

[FOREIGN]

We surrender this time in your hands.

[FOREIGN]

We're asking you to hide us behind the cross and you be the speaker.

[FOREIGN]

And especially James.

[FOREIGN]

In your holy name we ask.

[FOREIGN]

To bless this church.

[FOREIGN]

And give them the services that you want them to do.

[FOREIGN]

We thank you for the Holy Spirit that's here already.

[FOREIGN]

And we also thank you for this beautiful team that was worshipping here.

[FOREIGN]

Glory and honor to your name.

[FOREIGN]

In the name of Jesus Christ, the living God.

Amen.

Amen.

[FOREIGN]

[APPLAUSE]

Just to introduce myself, my name is James Babani.

And don't wonder why is it James in Iraq.

So that was my dad's thought that he loved Jesse James.

[LAUGHTER]

So he was hoping that I will have a boy so he will call him Jesse.

So there's Jesse James, but God said no.

[LAUGHTER]

He gave us three beautiful, wonderful girls.

So sometimes we wish for things, don't get mad at God.

He has other plan.

So to start with my life, I was born in a Christian family.

But I never knew Christ because I was living in the world.

And my family were Christians, but the old-fashioned Christians.

They don't know the Bible.

They know the Bible, but they don't use it.

They don't read it.

So my grandmother, she was only one in the family, she was evangelical.

The others, they were not.

So she asked my dad if she can take me to church when I was five years.

And he said, yeah, take him, he's a little kid.

And for five years, I kept going with her.

I fell in love with the Bible.

I fell in love with them.

And God gave me a voice that I was--

I used to sing in a band when I grow up.

So I start worshiping in the church for five years

until my grandmother went to Australia.

And the day she left to Australia, I left the church.

I was like, that's it.

And I grew up.

I became a math teacher, graduated from science college.

So I was a teacher, and I played volleyball for the Iraqi national team

under the age of 18.

So I was a coach of volleyball later.

And then I was a singer in a band, a vocalist.

So I did have everything.

And I was like, why do I need God?

That was one of the reasons I walked away from him.

And I walked for a long time.

In this period of time, six or seven times, I faced death.

And every time I faced it, I was out of it so simply, but with a miracle.

And one of them, I'll mention it, is I was eight.

I was visiting my grandmother and grandfather.

They lived in Iran.

My mom is Iranian.

My dad is Iraqi.

So they are mixed.

And they have on a river a tree.

They land it on the river, and they flatten it a little

to cross over that river.

And that river has fast water.

And I used to cross it every day until one day,

I forgot my slippers were muddy.

I got in the middle.

I slipped, fall in the river, went all the way to the bottom.

At that moment, I see the fish going and coming.

And you can do nothing.

I'm a child.

I don't swim.

I start crawling until I got to the edge.

I climbed to some weeds.

I got up.

And I'm hanging there until some people passed, and they saw me.

When I remember that, I used to say, I'm the luckiest man

on the surface of this earth.

That's how I used to think.

I got blind in the army when a bullet passed right, touched my nose.

So I was blind for 10 minutes.

Then my eyes came back.

And again, I said, I'm lucky.

I didn't know that there was somebody beside me.

All this time, I thought, I am lucky.

It's me.

It's me.

Until God said, it's enough.

Now it's your time to join my army.

And this is how it started.

During the war, the Gulf War, all of you

know that war with 32 countries led by United States.

And I was in Baghdad at that time.

I took my family to the north of Iraq, where north of Iraq

was protected by the US Army.

So I took the family.

I had to go back to my house.

So otherwise, they're going to rob everything and take the house.

And then I lose it.

So there was the bomb.

There was everything.

The houses shakes.

The ground shakes.

And nothing happened to us.

So we decided.

And when I say we decided, me and my wife, we didn't ask God.

That's the reason I want you to know that.

We were making our own choices, our own plans.

So we never asked him.

We just said, let's leave Iraq.

Because at that day, the United Nations

forced our country and Saddam as a president

to let the Iraqi people free so they can travel.

Because until then, you had no right to leave Iraq.

So we left.

We left to Jordan.

Eight months in Jordan, we applied for some embassies

just to get anywhere away from Iraq.

But all the embassies rejected us.

So we decided to move to Turkey.

We tried to get away, not close to Iraq.

But Turkey is still on the border with Iraq.

We went to Turkey.

And we stayed there.

It's a long story.

But I'm just telling you the short of it.

It didn't work there, too.

Until our-- oh, in Turkey, the only embassy

that accepted to have a meeting with us

was the Australian embassy.

And in that embassy, as long as you speak English,

they will take you.

And I speak it.

My wife speak it.

My oldest daughter, she spoke it at that time, too.

So we're like, that's it.

It's done.

We're going.

Two days before the interview, the Australian embassy

were closed.

At that time, I was mad at God.

See, I never asked him.

I never told him what should I do.

But when these things happen, I was mad at him.

That human being.

So they caught us.

They call them Jandarma in Turkish.

That means the secret police.

They caught us.

They put us on a bus.

And they took all our clothes, all our bags,

every document we have, passport, whatever we have,

they took it away from us.

They took us to the border.

And they dropped us at the border like that.

They said, go back to your country.

For us, that was like the end.

We found somebody helped us to get into the city, which

is called Dihok.

And in that city, there's a guy, his brother

is married to my wife's sister.

He took us to his house.

And we stayed with him for 15 years.

And I still remember, because when we went there,

I have one shirt, one jeans.

That's it.

Madeline has one shirt and one skirt.

And one of the little ones, she's not here with us today,

she was only in her underwear and T-shirt

because it was too hot.

So she was like that when they took us.

They didn't care like those are kids.

So we went and stayed with this guy for 15 days.

And in these 15 days, the only thing they missed,

I did have in my pocket $150.

They didn't find it when they were searching me.

So those $150, in Iraq, it means a lot.

It will keep you survive for three months.

So we went find a room.

And in Iraq, you find those rooms

because there's four or five families

will live in the same house.

Each one has one room.

But you have one bathroom shared between all the four families.

So you imagine the situation.

But that's when God worked.

In that room, all we have as a furniture was five blankets

and a cooler box.

That's it.

And we are five people.

So imagine, put yourself in that picture and think about it.

And we both, as I told you, we were angry at God,

and especially my wife, she was worse than me.

At least I have some.

But she was like, "I don't wanna hear about him.

"Don't ever talk about him, don't ever."

So, and really, we stopped talking about God.

And because I was a teacher, I love reading.

I'm crazy reading.

So I went to my neighbor and I'm like,

"Do you have a book I can read?"

And they're Assyrian too, like us.

And by the way, Assyrian and the Bible,

they don't read the Bible,

but they put it under the pillow.

Because some of them, not all of them,

mostly because they believe if you keep the Bible

close to you, you are saved.

You don't need to read it.

So when I asked him, I said, "Do you have a book?"

He said, "I have only one book if you want it."

I said, "I don't care, just give me."

Guess what?

It was the Bible wrapped still in the plastic,

not even opened.

So I was like, "Can I open it?"

And he was like, "Yeah, yeah, you can."

I took it home, opened the plastic, but I didn't read it.

I just tossed it on the blanket.

At night, when the girl slept, me and my wife,

and she was mad at me, why did I bring this book here?

So I said, "I just want to read something."

So she took it, she opened it, I didn't touch it.

And she opened it not to read it,

she opened it to find a mistake in the Bible.

That was her goal.

And the way she opened it,

it was on the book of Acts, chapter 17.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

She just opened it like that,

and she start reading until she got to verse 26.

Where it says, "And he created every nation from one blood.

And he decided the time and the place."

Those two.

"He decided the time and the place where you're gonna be

so we can reach him and he's not far from us."

When she read that verse, immediately something happened.

I stopped her, I said, "Can you read that verse again?"

She read that verse again.

You know, God says, "My word is like a hammer

that smashes the rock."

That word was the hammer that crushed my heart

because my heart was made of stone.

On that night, for the first time I prayed.

Sorry, and every time I remember this, I can't hold it.

On that night, I prayed with tears.

And because I didn't know how to pray,

God gave me the prayer.

He gave me the prayer of the tax collector

when he went to pray.

I said the same word, which I didn't know

that they exist in the Bible, because I've never read it.

That's all what I said.

I said, "Lord, have mercy on me.

I'm a sinner."

I slept that night in peace.

And by the way, the two days before that, we had no food.

And when we used to get any kind of food

from people help us or have mercy on us,

we used to give it to the girls

because they were little.

The youngest one, she was three years old.

So we used to give them the food and we say,

"Hey, we can survive, I mean, but let them eat."

In the morning, five in the morning,

there was knocking on the door.

I wanna show you how God works.

And before I say that, let me tell you one thing.

If you're going through hard times,

don't complain.

Rejoice.

Be happy.

Because you know after the thunderstorm comes peace.

We learned that the hard way.

On that morning, five in the morning,

there was knocking on the door.

And in Iraq, if somebody knock your door

at five in the morning, don't open it.

It's not safe.

But for me, it was, what is gonna take?

Our blankets?

There are only five.

He can take them, I'm not worried.

I opened the door and there's a kid,

he was between six to eight, he's this high.

And he's carrying five Iraqi bread.

And let me describe this bread.

It's like a pizza, it's a circle.

But it's as thin as if you put three papers

on top of each other.

So that's the thickness.

But it's equal to two or two and a half large pizza sides.

So it's a big one, thin, and he's carrying five.

And because he's short, he was holding them like this

so they won't touch the ground.

And I'm looking at him, I'm like, who are you?

I didn't look at the bread, I was looking at him.

Because he's young to be outside this morning.

And he said, oh, my mom was making some bread.

And she said, take it to that family.

See, we are families, many, but she picked the family.

We took the bread and I thanked him,

just waved to his mom, she was waiting there.

I went to my wife and I said, honey, God send us food.

I've never said God sent.

On that day, I knew who sent the bread.

I just prayed with him.

But I got it, it's him who's sending this.

I give the bread to that day.

On that day, we ate only bread and water.

And I always say it, I can't say this

without saying the other part.

That bread tasted like chicken, it wasn't bread.

I don't know, because we were hungry,

but God made it that way, it's something he did it.

We ate that bread and we rejoiced the whole day.

For us, it's a festival, bread and water.

At night, we wanna go to sleep,

my wife said to me, what about tomorrow?

And of course, I don't know the Bible.

So I was like, but this is what came to mind.

See, I didn't know even the Holy Spirit, who is he?

But he was talking while I was just listening.

And I answered immediately, I said,

if he gave us today, he's gonna give us tomorrow too.

I don't know where that came from,

but it came out of my mouth.

We slept, five in the morning,

somebody's knocking at the door.

I jumped, this time, I'm thinking, the little kid is back.

I went, no, there's a gentleman.

He's 16, 17 years old.

And I'm looking at his hands, not at his face,

because I'm expecting something.

And he had a big plastic bag, like a tube.

It was filled with whatever you want for breakfast.

There was apple, there was juice,

there was cheese, there was bread,

there was, I can't tell you, but it was filled.

And he said the same thing, my mom sent this to you.

This time, I know where is it coming.

I didn't ask.

That food lasted three days for us.

It was enough for us to eat for three days.

And by the way, in those three days,

God didn't send anything else.

And I didn't understand it.

I was asking, because now I'm praying every night.

So I was asking, Lord, how come you stopped?

And I didn't know it until I start reading the Bible.

When the manna was coming,

he was telling them to take enough for what's for that day.

That's when I went, oh, so that's why he stopped there.

We had food for three days, so he said,

they don't need more, let them finish it.

And when it finished, God started again.

And this time, he was more generous.

Because my kids, they got sick,

so we had to take them to the doctor.

And there, what was left with me was only 50 Iraqi dinner.

No, the dollars are gone.

There's only 50, and 50, it's enough for maybe one day

that you can live with.

We went to the doctor, and for three kids,

the charge is 15 for each.

So I gave the 50, they're sick, I need to heal them.

Give the 50, take a number, sit until we get to the doctor,

and that's again, God's plan.

The doctor was a Christian, his name was Philip.

And he looked at me when we talked, he said,

your language, your slang language, it's not from this area.

Because in that city, Dohuk, they speak Arabic and Kurdish,

and because it's mixed, so they have their own slang language.

I said, yeah, I'm from Baghdad.

And immediately said, oh, you're the family

that was deported.

He knew that.

And I was like, yeah, we are.

He said, okay, don't worry.

He checked the girls, he gave me medicine,

even the medicine he gave it from his pharmacy behind him,

so he said, you don't need to buy it.

Here's the medicine.

And wrote a paper, put it in my hand, he said,

on your way out, give it to the secretary.

I went to the secretary, gave her the paper,

and she opened it, she was like, wait,

pull the 45 I paid, he says, give him back his money.

And tell me that's not God.

But still, he didn't stop there.

I'm looking for a job now, I have a family,

I need to feed them, they need to be secured.

I went out looking for a job,

the whole day, couldn't find anything.

In the evening, I came back,

and I see my wife waiting for me,

and there was four families.

One of the family left that day,

so there's now an empty room.

He was God preparing that place.

And when I went in, she said, let me show you, come, come.

She took me to that room.

And it's a storage filled with whatever you,

as a family, want.

And it wasn't a little, no,

there's a bag of potato, 50 kilograms.

That's what we deal there with.

There's 50 kilograms of sugar, 50 of rice, 50 of this.

It's, I mean, you can live for a year on that supply.

And I was like, where did this come from?

I know it's God, but this way?

And she said, remember that doctor, Dr. Philip?

He came to the house, he asked for us,

and she went out to talk to him.

He opened the trunk, he start unloading.

And the first thing he ask her,

do you have room to put these things?

He filled that room for us, and then not only that,

he pulled 500 Iraqi dinar, put it in her hands,

and he said, I'm your brother.

You need more, let me know.

That, for us, I can't describe it.

But the only thing we said, thank you, Lord.

We used to read the Bible together at night.

The kids will go to sleep.

Now we have a mattress, by the way.

It was better than the blanket.

But we lay on it, and there was no electricity,

because we spent six years without electricity.

And I noticed here, if you lose the electricity

for five minutes, people will kill themselves.

(audience laughing)

Don't get mad at me.

I've seen my neighbor.

Yeah, he was, I'm missing the football game.

And I'm like, I don't care.

So we sit on the Bible, she has her Bible,

I have my Bible, and we're laying on our face,

just reading like that, there's one candle between us.

And one day she asked me, she was like,

James, I'm reading a Romans, this verse.

I don't understand it.

I looked at her, and I was like, honey,

I just started reading the Bible.

Don't expect me to give you an answer.

Because I don't know the Bible yet.

But we were reading like crazy.

Like, you know, you're starving,

and somebody put a plate in front of you,

you don't go taking like a piece.

No, you go like that, and you're shoving your mouth.

That's while we were reading our Bible.

We slept, in the morning we woke up,

and immediately she said to me,

James, you know that verse I asked you?

And I was like, yeah.

And she was like, this is the answer.

She gave me the whole explanation.

Honestly, I told her, have you seen somebody at night

while I was sleeping?

And she was like, no, but somebody was talking to me.

See, at that time, I didn't know about the Holy Spirit yet.

I'm just reading the Old Testament and going down.

But later, we got him.

Actually, he got us.

So I start looking for a job, and here's my story now.

I found a job.

And guess where?

In the liquor store.

I'm not joking.

And the first thing I did when that guy said,

yeah, you're hired, I looked up,

and I told God, really?

Like, you just saved me.

You're putting me in liquor store?

That doesn't make sense.

See, this is human being thinking.

I told you, whatever happened in your life,

don't judge, don't complain.

But ask God, why is this happening?

He has a plan that we don't understand,

and I'll show it to you.

In that liquor store, I start at nine

till 10 in the evening.

But I noticed one thing.

From nine to six or 6.30, no customers.

I'm sitting there just like, there's nothing.

I was like, okay, that doesn't make any sense.

So I said, okay, since I have no customers,

I brought the Bible, and from nine till six,

I was reading my Bible.

I didn't know that God chose that job to give me time

so I can read his word.

He was paying me to read his word.

And he didn't stop there.

I went outside on my way home,

and there's a library, open new.

It's a Christian library, and all the books

in that Christian library were in Arabic.

And it was built by a missionary.

His name was William Brown.

He was from Texas.

We became friends, me and him later.

So I went there.

I love reading.

I went into that library.

I'm like, how do I get one of these books?

Of course, I can't afford to buy.

No, forget that.

And he was like, oh, you leave your ID with us,

and you take the book you wanna read it.

When you finish, bring it back.

We give you your ID.

Oh boy, for me, that was heaven.

I took a book first.

I went through the books, and God touched me

with the name or the title of the book.

It was "Peace with God," because that's what I wanted.

And it was by Billy Graham, if you have read it.

I took the book.

I take it home.

I finished it.

That's how fast I read.

But I get what I read.

Like, it's not like, oh, he read but doesn't understand.

I finished it.

Next day in the morning at nine, when I go to work,

before I go to work, I went back to them,

give them the book, and they wanna give me back the ID.

I said, no, no, no, keep it.

I'm taking more.

I took two books.

It depends on the size, so I know I can finish them.

I read those two books, third day, the same.

Make it short, they have 250 books.

I finished them in three months.

When I went last time there, and they were like,

you read every book.

So I was like, okay, I'll start from the beginning.

So again, and went and took peace with God.

But now my brain is a library filled about God,

about Jesus, about the Holy Spirit.

Now I know all three of them.

That's when God start his new plan.

See, I say it this way.

Sometimes God doesn't work in our life.

I learned that through my life.

He doesn't work in our life

because we're holding too many things.

We don't wanna let it go.

And God is looking at us, he's like, let it go.

He wanna empty us from what we have

because somebody asked me once, he said,

if you choose a title for your story,

what's the title you gonna choose?

I said, oh, he chose it for me from the beginning.

And then what is that?

I said, he took everything from me to give me everything.

It might be like a puzzle.

He took everything from me

because whatever I did have was from the world.

Everything I had, it was from the world.

My money, my car, my house, my family, it's from the world.

He took that all, he said, you don't need it.

Let me fill you now with what I have.

And he filled me with his spiritual.

That's what I say, let go.

If something is standing between you and God, let it go.

Because he won't work until you say, I don't want it.

Our God doesn't force us, he loves us.

He opened our eyes, he showed us.

That's what he did with me.

So when I finished all these book

that he was preparing it for me,

a missionary came, at that time my wife

used to work with that missionary.

He came to me and his name was Tawfik from Lebanon.

And he said, and he refused to go into the liquor store.

He stood at the door outside.

And he said to me, James, that's not your place.

And I know what he's saying now.

And I told him, I was like, but you know,

this is the only job God gave me.

And I said it, God gave me.

And he said, nope, you have to leave.

So I said, okay, if I leave, where can I find another job?

He said, you're gonna work with me.

When he said that, I was like, okay, God, now I got it.

I went to the owner and I told him that I found another job

and this is the story.

And he was like, you can go, but we need to check

the accounts and everything.

When we checked, that's when Satan jumped in.

There was $100 missing.

And I can't leave until I get that

and I don't have that money.

But remember how Daniel and Shadrach

and when they went to the king of Nebuchadnezzar,

it says he gave them favor in his eyes.

That's what God did at that moment.

He gave me favor in the eyes of the owner.

He looked and he said, James, I know you're not a thief,

but it's my cousin who comes sometimes here, so go.

That's how you feel God.

Sometimes we complain because we're going through hard time.

Trust me, it's in the hard times when you can see God.

You won't see him in the peaceful time

because your eyes won't look at him.

And that's why I say, you're having a problem, rejoice.

Tell him, Lord, I know you're planning something.

I might not find it today, but tomorrow I will see it.

That's how it will work.

So when I went with him, I was asking him,

so what I'm gonna do for you?

And he said to me, I have a small library.

And you know, when he said the word library,

for me, it was bells ringing around me.

And I was like, yes, I will come.

And I went, he has 150 books in the library,

and his first thing was, I want you to read them,

so when people come, like somebody comes and tell you,

oh, I have anxiety, I have this, this,

you know which book to give him.

And I was like, yes.

I finished those 150, maybe another three months.

So now my brain was like, how do you say it?

Whatever word.

So that's when he said to me,

James, next Sunday you're preaching.

And honestly, this is what I said,

I was like, me, preaching, yeah.

And he was like, no, no, no, you're preaching.

Prepare.

He didn't say more than that.

I went, and I start remembering what I read in those books,

what I read in the Bible.

Oh, by the way, at that time, I have finished the Bible.

Now I'm reading the second time.

So my first sermon was five people.

That's the audience.

My wife, two missionaries,

and two workers, employees there.

And I preached, and I finished, and I went back,

and he came to me and he said,

and you say you don't know how to preach.

And that's my question, why, what did I say?

I didn't know what I was saying.

He smiled, I said, I know it wasn't you,

but who is in you?

Next Sunday, he said, next Sunday,

prepare, you're gonna preach again.

Now this time I have carriage, it's not the first one,

but there was a problem.

On the next Sunday in Iraq,

they have a festival for one of the saints.

They celebrate those.

So all of them, they go to the mountains,

so the city is kind of empty.

And they celebrate by dancing, drinking,

whatever you wanna say.

So I told him immediately, I said,

Tawfiq, just to mention to you,

next Sunday, nobody will be in the city.

And he's like, why?

So I told him the reason.

He said to me, let's pray.

We prayed.

And after we prayed, we went home,

and I'm waiting for the next Sunday.

I prepared something, but I still saying nobody will come.

We went on Sunday, there was 40 people,

they decided not to go, but to come to the church.

When we say it's impossible, God says, it's possible.

When we say I can't do it, he says, I'll help you.

That's what we're missing in our life.

That's when we started our ministry there.

My wife started with 10 kids as a Sunday school.

Those 10 kids grow up to be 150 in our house.

Oh, by the way, let me tell you about the house.

Remember, we were living in one room.

Another lady came to us, she was from America,

and she lives in Colorado, she's with the Lord now.

She came to us and she said,

you guys have to leave this room.

And we were looking at her like, how?

She said, don't worry, I'll solve that.

She went, she came back, she said,

I rented a house with two bedrooms,

with two living rooms, with a kitchen,

with this, this, this, and we're looking at her like,

for us?

She said, yeah, it's even furnished.

We moved there and God used that house.

See, God don't give you something, let me tell you,

he won't give you something if you don't use it.

Don't think he's gonna give you health

and you don't use it for him,

someday you're gonna lose it.

He gave us that house and we hold all 150 kids

in that house.

Imagine in your house, you have two bedrooms,

two living rooms, a kitchen.

Oh, and stairs going to the roof,

because in Iraq, the roofs are flat.

You can go there, sleep there.

So those 150 were everywhere in that house.

Especially when we say it's rest time,

oh boy, you have to leave the house to have some clarity.

And they were working, we start praying,

now we have 150, we have only two sofas, one chair,

and where are we gonna put them?

So we start praying, Lord, help us.

And while we were praying, in few days,

somebody at the door, I opened the door,

it's an old lady, but I can tell she's not Iraqi,

she's a foreigner, and she was in 70s.

And she said to me, I heard there's Sunday school

in this house.

And I'm looking at her like, I don't know you.

So I was like, yeah, we have.

And she's like, can I see them?

I was like, yes.

I took her inside and it was their period

when they can play and they were everywhere.

She just looked like that, she said,

that's all I wanted to see.

She went out and she pulled an envelope from her pocket

and she said, this is for you.

I said, like specifically for me?

And she said, yeah, the guy who gave it to me,

he said, don't give it only to a Sunday school.

So that's yours.

We opened it, there was money enough to build stools

for all the children.

Enough, exactly, like when I cashed it,

the money, I went to a carpenter,

I told him what I want.

He said, it's gonna cost you this much.

I'm looking, that's what God sent.

I'm like, here's the money, do it.

That is our God.

We stayed like that, then the villages around us,

they start calling us.

They're like, we want you to come to our village

and do the same.

So now we have to bring people, teach them, train them,

because we're only two people.

So God gave us three girls and one young boy.

We train them, we teach them, we start using them.

In one of those villages, and you know,

when you go to the villages, you need room to do that.

In one of those villages, we went there,

we paid money for the house, but that's all.

I mean, this is what we have.

So now we have the house, we have nothing in it.

A man came with two of his daughters,

and he said to us, I wanna register my kids

in your Sunday school.

And I was like, yeah, sure.

But he said, I wanna see inside.

I'm like, come on.

He went, they're sitting all on the floor.

And by the way, on the floor, there's no carpet.

So think about it.

At summer, it's boiling.

At winter, it's freezing.

And he looked at me, he said, no, no, no,

you can't teach the children here.

I'm like, that's what we have.

That's what God gave us.

And he said, no, I'm a principal of a school.

How about you come there and do it?

And you know, the schools in Iraq are owned

by the government.

And the government, it's not a Christian government.

So I was like, I don't think so.

He was like, don't worry, I'll take whatever they say.

I mean, the blame, he said, I'll take it.

You don't worry.

We left that house, we went to the school.

Now we have classes with desks, with blackboards,

with everything we need.

And no one opened his mouth from the government

to tell us what are you doing there.

That's God's favor.

That's when we say, no way.

God says, no, there is way.

Just trust and I will do it.

And to go to the second part, we stayed like that

for more than three years, four years.

And that's when they start sending people

to our house to kill us.

One of them was sent by the government,

but God still protected us by one of the friends

that I know there in that city, he knows him.

So when he saw him, he asked him, what are you doing here?

He know this is an assassin, that's his job.

And he said, oh, I'm looking for a friend of mine.

His name is James and I miss him so I wanna find him.

My friend got it immediately.

He came to my house, he said, James, leave the house.

Because he's gonna find you anyway.

We left, I took my wife, my three kids.

We went to Syria, which is the country beside us.

Sorry, I'm missing some details

just to have time to finish.

So to get to Syria, you have to cross a river.

It's a wide one, a little.

It's Khabur, that's the name.

So we arranged everything.

Actually, the person who was taking us,

he arranged everything, that you're gonna cross

that river in a canoe.

It's a long one, tiny one, and it's me, my wife,

three girls, and two big bags.

And I'll tell you the story of one bag.

So when we put it in the canoe,

there's one guy with us with a long stick.

That's how he's leading that canoe.

As soon as I get to the canoe, as soon as we moved,

that's when Satan came.

That's what he start talking to me and he's telling me,

wait a minute, you're the only one who can swim.

You have a wife and three girls.

What if this canoe fled?

Who you gonna save?

Honestly, at that minute, I lost it.

I stopped looking at their faces.

Who I'm gonna save?

That's how I was.

But when I looked at my wife's face,

and by the way, my wife, she's scared of one foot of water.

She won't go into it.

I have to drag her.

Now we're over a river with a speed water

and I'm looking at her and she has a piece

I never have seen it in her face.

She was just sitting like this enjoying her time.

And my wisdom came or it was God maybe told me,

he was like, shut your mouth.

(congregation laughing)

So I didn't say anything until we got to the shore,

the other side.

As soon as we got out of the cliff, I couldn't wait.

I rushed to her, I said to her, you are not afraid.

And she was like, why?

I said, we were on top of the water.

And she said, oh, you didn't see it?

When she said you didn't see it, I was like,

I looked everywhere, there was nothing encouraging.

And she said, no, there was a giant hand

holding the canoe and leading it.

(congregation applauding)

Honestly, fear keeps you from seeing God's hand.

It's always there.

When we fear, we don't see it.

When we trust, we see it.

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday here

in Idaho Falls, I told him fear is a magnifier

that Satan use to put it in front of your eyes

when he wanna scare you.

So if your problem is this much,

he brings that magnifier, it looks like giant.

Don't give him chance to scare you.

Now going back, now we're in Syria.

One of the bags where you have those pictures,

I don't know the name in English, but you're gonna get it.

It's made of cotton or it's the whole Bible story pictures.

Then you have a white piece, you hang it on the wall

and stick the pictures when you're telling the story.

Thank you, sister.

That one, some machinery brought it to us

when we were in Iraq.

When we were leaving, God talked to my wife.

He said, "You don't leave without that bag."

Because we wanna run away, so we want only our clothes.

But God said, "No, you have another bag, pick it up."

And she told me, I was like, "Okay."

When we got there, immediately they arrested us

because it looks like the guy who brought us there,

he did it illegally.

So now we were trespassing in another country.

They took us to their office,

they called the intelligence office.

And they called me alone and they said to me,

"You know you're going to prison,

"you just crossed the border.

"And I can't talk to those people, we know who they are.

"They'll kill you right there and they don't care."

So I didn't open my mouth.

That's again when God put his favor.

The same one who arrested us said to him,

"But sir, he has three children, he has a wife.

"I mean, he can put him in the jail, but what about those?"

And that colonel, he was a colonel,

he start thinking he didn't have an answer.

And then the same officer said to him,

"How about I take them to my house?

"I have an empty room, they can stay there."

And he turned to me and he said,

"But you promise me you don't gonna do anything crazy.

"And I wanna protect my family,

"I'm not gonna do anything crazy."

I said, "No, I promise you."

He took us to his house, they have a big room empty.

And by the way, that room was a stable for animals.

But they have put carpets, so when you sit there,

the chicken will come in, the ducks will come in,

sometimes the goat will come in and you can do nothing.

You just, "Okay, God, thank you."

(audience laughing)

And we stayed for a few days.

And of course, at all this time,

we never stopped reading the Bible, praying,

reading, praying, we never stopped.

And one day I was reading,

I was reading about King Hezekiah,

when he got sick, close to death.

And Isaiah said to him,

"In three days, you're gonna enter the temple of God."

When I read this, I stopped, I looked at my wife,

I said, "Honey, in three days,

"we're gonna enter the temple of God."

And she was like, "How did you know that?"

I said, "Here."

She said, "How do you know it's for us?"

I said, "God told me, that's for you."

You can tell it's God talking, it's not you reading.

And we waited, we prayed for that,

we waited, on the third day, that officer came to me,

because he's in the house, his house,

and he said, "James, I feel sorry for you and your family.

"I need to take you back, and I will talk to my colonel,

"that either he set you free, so you can live,

"you have children, or we send you back to Iraq.

"And I know, sending back to Iraq means death."

But still, I said to him, "Okay."

Because now I have a word from God,

I wanna see that word that I've read.

So we went, he talked to the colonel,

and he said, "Sir, he has a family."

And he said the same thing he said to me,

and the colonel looked at me, he was like,

"Do you know anybody here in Syria?"

I was like, "No."

"Do you know any place, if I let you go, that you can go?"

I said, "No."

And that's when God put it in my head,

I said to him, "Wait, do you have a church here?"

And he was like, "Oh, we have a lot."

"Which one?"

Two days before we left Iraq, a visitor we have from Lebanon,

he used to work from the United Nation,

and he was a missionary at the same time.

He came and spent the whole night with me and Madeline

till morning, we didn't sleep the whole night

talking about the Bible.

And he was from a church that calls the Brethren Church.

That's when my mouth opened, I said,

"Do you have a Brethren Church here?"

And he was like, "Oh, it's close, right beside us."

I was like, "I'll take that."

He sent two of his police with me, we went to the church,

the pastor wasn't there, he has a trip to Lebanon,

so his assistant was there, and by the way,

his name was Paul.

And that name encouraged me when I heard it.

So we went in, and Paul was busy doing something,

it's a big church, and around that church,

the inside, it's all tiny rooms, like for tennis,

for sewing, for teaching, it's all around like that.

And he went to them, and actually they came to him,

and he knew who they are, you can tell those people

by their face.

And he said, "How can I help you?"

They said, "We have this Iraqi family

"that they're seeking refuge, and we don't have a place

"to put them."

He smiled, and by the way, don't smile

in front of those people, they will kill you.

But he smiled, and when they were like,

"Why are you smiling?"

He said, "Let me show you, come."

He took us right in those center where those rooms are,

there's a long one sealed with a lock and chain,

that was the only one, it was locked with a chain.

And he said, "Do you see these?"

And they were like, "Yeah."

He said, "Those were ruins, it was destroyed completely."

He said, "Three months ago, God told us,

"build it, fill it, make it ready."

He said, "And in three months, we did."

And he said, "At that time, we start praying,

"okay, God, it's done."

"What?"

"God didn't say anything."

But he said, "When you told me about this guy,

"now I know why God told us to build these rooms."

He opened it, we went in.

You go in, it's a living room with sofas,

chairs, everything.

On your right hand, there's a kitchen, complete kitchen,

and a bathroom on the side.

On the left side, there's a big, giant bedroom.

He said, "We were preparing it for this family."

I went back to my wife, I said,

"Honey, we're going to the temple of God."

And she was happy, I was happy.

We stayed there for three months, three or something, close.

And when we got there, we start, oh,

they were praying, I remember that back,

they were praying all that time for this.

They want that material.

And that's, we were like, oh, so that's why God said,

"Don't leave without it."

We gave the bag for them, they said, "It's yours."

And then she start having woman meetings,

I start teaching them the worship team,

I start teaching them, because they were doing some mistakes,

so I start training them,

and we spent a beautiful time there.

Now, here's the last thing, I'm gonna close with it.

How much time I have?

Sorry.

Okay.

I love it when they say, "Keep going."

No, by the way, in Iraq, this is the way.

In our house, we used to have a church.

Not only Sunday school, we started a church in the house.

And when here, in America, they ask me,

so did you have a specific time for the church?

I'm like, yeah, we always start at three afternoon.

And they're like, and the end?

I'm like, that's when God say, "Okay, stop."

(congregation laughing)

We don't have nobody to say, "Hey, you passed."

No, it's when God says, "I'm done,"

then we say, "Okay, you can go."

So I'll go back to the story again.

After three months or two months, something,

I mean, it was that much, it was a lot.

We were listening to the radio at night.

That's what we do after we read, we pray.

We'd listen to the news, and the news was coming

from a radio station, was called Monte Carlo.

And Monte Carlo, it's in France.

But this one teaches in Arabic.

I mean, not teach, but talk about news.

So on the news, they mentioned that

America is planning to take some of the people

who worked with Americans.

And we were working with Americans in the hub,

because all the missionaries we worked,

they were from America.

But we said, "No, that's the devil.

"He wanna stop us from continue our mission."

So we ignored it.

Next day, the same advertisement.

And again, we said, "No, it's from the devil.

"We're not gonna move."

Because we were serving them.

Now we have a mission, we're doing, reaching people.

I don't wanna lose that.

Again, now this time we got a phone call

from one of those missionaries who she was,

I mean, she used to come and support us.

She called and she said, "Guys, what are you waiting?

"Go back because on the 5th of December,

"you have to be at the border."

We prayed about it, and we thought,

we was like, "Okay, we'll see."

But before that happened, guess what happened?

I forgot to say that one should have been before, the radio.

Suddenly, the same officers, they put us in the church,

they came to us and they said, "You're going back."

And for us, that was like suicide.

And when we were asking like, "Why?"

And they're like, "That's what the colonel said.

"You're going back."

Immediately, and please just look at it.

Immediately, the pastor or Paul

called every member in the church.

And it wasn't a big church,

but there was maybe 30, 40, that number.

He called all of them.

He said, "I want you in the church now."

They were there in less than half an hour.

And he said, "We need to pray for James and Madeline."

They prayed the whole night, past midnight.

None of them went home,

till early in the morning, and they're still there praying.

At six or seven, they send the bus to take us.

Those people inside came out.

They put us in the bus and two of them,

Pastor Paul and another guy came with us.

And while we were leaving the church,

I noticed everybody was on their knees

in the middle of that place.

We left.

We got to the place where the office is.

And one soldier came out.

And he looked inside from the driver window.

He looked at us, looked at the people with us.

And then he turned to the driver.

He said, "Take them back."

We were everybody in that car jumping in the car.

We couldn't believe our ears.

The orders was to take them back.

And this guy take them back to the church.

When we made it to the church,

those people were still on their knees

until we went in and that church turned into fire

from praising and giving joy to God and rejoicing.

I just wanna show you how God is.

When you are there, he's with you.

My wife, she does that every time

because once a war started in the area we were living,

not America or those, no.

In the north of Iraq, there's three parties

like you have here, Democrat, Republican.

One of them is Republican.

The other one is Democrat.

And the third one was the Islamic Party.

Suddenly, the Democrat and Republican

started a war between them.

So they got busy.

Now they're killing each other.

Guess who set free?

The third party, the Islamic Party.

They took advantage.

They start killing any missionary, any Christian

because the others are busy

so they can do whatever they want.

That's when my wife contacted some, sorry,

some friends that we know them, they're strong Christians.

This is after we went back.

And she told them that we need to pray nonstop.

So we established what we call it a chain prayer.

Like I will take from six to seven.

My brother will take seven to eight.

My sister will take eight to nine.

So when I'm praying for one hour,

I know when I'm done, somebody else is starting.

We didn't want the devil to have a gap to go in.

And we did that for three days, nonstop.

Guess what?

On the third day, those two parties

that they were killing each other, they stopped.

They have peace, they joined each other.

They turned against the third party.

They vanished them completely.

That's our God.

We don't need to do it.

He will do it.

He said, "I will fight your fight.

"It's not you."

And he proved it to us.

So we went back to Iraq.

And it's a long story.

I don't wanna, I wanna make it short.

But we went back to Iraq.

God has prepared all the transportation

from the river to the city.

One of them, he took us.

He said, "I'm going to the city.

"I'll take you with me."

He took us.

So we made it to the city.

We found a family, but we had to hide in their basement.

Because if they knew we are back,

they're gonna come after us.

So for two, three days, we stayed in that basement.

And on the 5th of December, as our lady said,

we have a bus take us to the border.

And at the border, they have our names already.

It was the US Army has built a big camp.

They saw our IDs, they checked our faces.

They were like, "Get in."

That moment we had peace when we get into it.

They took us to Turkey.

In Turkey, my wife's dream came true

because my wife always used to pray,

"Lord, I wanna be me and you in a tent."

"And I wanna pray there for you, with you."

And guess what?

After they got us there, they have an interview with us.

And with the interview, and I always love to say it

just to show you how our God is amazing.

People used to ask me, they're like,

"James, you work with Americans.

"Why don't you ask them to take you?"

And I would always say, "No, God is using me here.

"Why would I leave this?"

Then they didn't stop, so I put a rule.

I said, "Okay, I'll go on one condition.

"If I go there without a visa."

And you know that's impossible.

I made it impossible, but nothing is impossible for Him.

When we went in for the interview,

they met one family at a time.

They asked us, they did everything.

They checked that we are the right people.

He called me alone.

He said, "Come."

He had in his hand five cardboards,

the one you can buy it from Dollar Tree,

but cut into pieces.

And on the one face, there's with a marker,

a thick marker, red, number one.

And he said, "These are yours, don't lose it.

"That's your visa."

And I'm looking at them like, "I can make those."

(audience laughing)

Honestly, but when he said that,

I was like, "Okay, I just turned them back."

There's a seal of United States on each one of them.

So we went to the, after the interview,

they take us to an area, it's all tents.

That's her dream.

We went into a tent, and by the way,

it was raining crazy.

It was mud everywhere.

But still, you sit in that tent,

the tent is going right and left

as if it's gonna blow.

She was having the best time of her life.

(audience laughing)

We slept, and in the morning, four in the morning,

they were like, "Whoever has card number one,

"step out, your airplane,

"we're gonna take you to your airplane."

And we had number one.

We got into the airplane, take us four hours driving

to the airport, American airport base,

and it was empty.

And we're sitting in the buses looking like,

okay, now what?

It took us like an hour, something, waiting in the bus,

then when we saw a big, giant Air France airplane landing.

Took us, took us to Guam.

In Guam, we stayed three months,

and I'll just finish with this,

and why did we go to Colorado?

In Guam, after they investigate,

do our papers and everything,

they were meeting with some of the families,

because we were like 3,000 family members.

Imagine how many families.

They all worked with Americans.

So they were asking the people,

when they go in, the family,

"Give us three states you wanna go to,

"and you can give, like, let's say, Texas,

"California, whatever you want."

So me and my wife, we don't do nothing if we don't pray.

We prayed and said, "God, which one should we pick?"

Because she had two sisters in California,

and she has a brother in Texas.

I have an uncle in Chicago.

So now we are like, okay, which one?

We prayed, and we said, "Lord,

"if they ask us for one instead of three,"

see, every family was asked for three,

"we're gonna give Colorado.

"That means you don't want us to go to the others.

"But if they give three,

"then we're gonna pick California and Texas."

We went inside, and this guy, after he talked to us,

he said, "Give me one state that you wanna go to."

And we looked at each other, we're like, "Colorado?"

And he looked at his papers,

because he has all our documents.

He's like, "You don't have nobody in Colorado."

And we're like, "No, we have the machineries that helped us.

"They were all from Colorado."

Her sisters got mad.

My uncle got mad.

Like, "Why do you go there?"

I said, "God picked it for us,

"and God blessed us in Colorado."

I'll stop here, and Pastor, if you...

- Well, let's pray.

And if you don't believe that the Lord

has a plan for your life, very specifically,

obviously, hearing James and Madeline's story

is pretty incredible.

He's a God who moves in a big way.

So the prayer team's gonna be over here to the right.

We're just gonna close with a word of prayer.

And please come and be prayed for.

If you need Jesus to direct your steps,

let's seek him together.

Father, we thank you so much for your sovereignty, Lord,

that our life and our very breath that's in your hand, Lord,

and how you direct our steps,

and you open and close doors, Lord,

that we could never even imagine, Lord.

And I just praise you for James and his family,

and as you continue to lead them.

And Lord, I just pray that we would have that same faith,

Lord, to just grow in the grace and the knowledge, Lord,

knowing that you know the end from the beginning,

and everything in between, and all the details, Lord,

you have penned out in your own notebook,

Lord, of our lives.

And so, Lord, would you just remind us of that, Lord,

that every single day is an adventure

with the one who created us, Lord.

And so we love you, we praise you,

and again, pray your blessing upon this family.

Thank you for letting them share their lives with us today.

In Jesus' holy name, amen.

God bless you guys.