Cairo’s strange summer
September 2020SAT-7 Egypt journalist Mary Joseph reflects on a summer when Cairo’s bustling streets went abnormally quiet. While many Cairenes flocked to beach resorts, those who stayed behind faced a strange new reality. Four months on since the coronavirus made its official appearance in Egypt, the summer heat still soars, while the relentless virus-related WhatsApp messages have cooled off. Summer, a […]
The day Whatsapp caught fire
April 2020SAT-7 Egypt journalist Mary Joseph describes how the arrival of Coronavirus set light to social media and how SAT-7’s voice is being heard above the clamour while the country’s churches are silenced. Coronavirus came and set my WhatsApp on fire. Every few minutes I check it and find a list of messages that could either be text, pictures, videos […]
Youth revival in Tehran
April 2020With the US embassy siege in Tehran still hanging over them and at a time of food shortages and fear, Americans Tat Stewart and his wife set off to lead a major Christian youth conference in the north of the city in the summer of 1980. In the second of two blogs, Revd Tat Stewart recalls the astonishing move of […]
Eyewitness to the Iranian “Great Awakening”
March 2020Five months after the 1979 revolution that a Shia Islamic government, Tat Stewart arrived to pastor a community church in Tehran. What he had never expected to see was the remarkable move of God’s Spirit among Iranian people that began in those days of turmoil and continues still today in a Church that is largely underground. In 1978, over 55,000 […]
Behind the scenes at the SAT-7 PARS studio
September 2019Behind an unremarkable door on a nondescript industrial estate in North London, something amazing is taking place. This is where SAT-7’s Persian-language channel, SAT-7 PARS, films and broadcasts live TV shows, which are making God’s love visible in Iran and beyond. Alison Bird (below, seated centre), a SAT-7 supporter from Maidenhead, recently visited the SAT-7 PARS studio with a group […]
A new heart for Iranian believers
April 2019It is not long since we celebrated the birth of Jesus and now we are fast approaching Easter. I don’t know about you, but I find that unless I take the time to deliberate on Christ’s work on the cross it is possible that the celebration of Easter may become a mere tradition. It is amazing to dwell on […]
Hearing women’s stories
March 2019When I think of women in my country and in the Arab world, and when I examine myself in hindsight, I feel ashamed at how smug and arrogant I have been. I always felt that discrimination against women was something that happened to other people, not to me, and not to “us.” Belonging to a Coptic Christian family, I […]
The Magi: kings, priests or enemy agents?
December 2018Omeed Jouyandé explains why Herod and “all Jerusalem” had good reason to be alarmed by the arrival of a group of Magi from Parthia. But their mission was not as Herod feared – and their faith and identity remains an inspiration for Iranian Christians today. Danial from Iran describes how believers celebrate Christmas in his homeland: “Christmas is very […]