Alpha for ESOL

I was born in Tehran in Iran. I have two brothers and three sisters as well as three much older half brothers from my father’s first marriage.

I loved growing up in Tehran, it’s a big city and very beautiful but tragedy hit us when I was eleven – my mum died of lung cancer aged 32. Then a year later my dad died of a heart attack aged 64.  At that point I had to leave school to look after my brothers and sisters. At 12 I started to work, I did many jobs, working as a mechanic or in construction, any job to make money as there was no one else to look out for us, we had aunts and uncles, but everyone was busy with their own lives, so I had to leave school to work.

One of my sisters was older than me, but she stayed in school as in my culture it is the man’s responsibility to work for the family. My youngest brother Hassan was three when my parents died. He can’t remember my mum or my dad properly.
I was working so hard, sometimes two jobs, just to get enough money to look after my family and myself. At that age I believed there was a God, I just didn’t know who He was. I was never angry with Him for my parent’s death – I knew it was part of life. It was nobody’s fault so I couldn’t sit down and complain. I had to carry on with life.

Martial Arts Champion

A few years later I got involved in martial arts, my stepbrother said it would be a good way to get fit, so he took me to the classes. I had a special talent for it and became the martial arts champion for my country four times. I studied four types of martial art, including Taekwondo and Karate.

I started training at 15 years old and after a few years I went in for the champion league. I never went to international competitions, as I didn’t have a passport. As I progressed I started to teach martial arts to the army and was running two gyms at the same time.

I was trying to save a lot of money for my family, as when I was nineteen I would have to go into National Service. It was the 1980’s when I entered the army, and a very bad time to be in the army because the Iran/Iraq war was happening.

I was in the parachute regiment, sometimes fighting from the sky, sometimes fighting in Iraq. It was during the fighting that I lost most of my hearing in both ears from the blast of an explosion. One time I was on the front line, it was night time and pitch black, we were trying to sneak over into the Iraqi camp close by to see how many men were there. As we were waiting in the dark one of the men made a noise as he moved, and notified the Iraqi’s to our position.

They came with knives to kill us – no one used guns at night. I suddenly felt something brush against me and jumped up, as I did I was stabbed in the leg. If I had not jumped up he would have stabbed me in the chest.  I didn’t realise I had been stabbed at the time, but quickly got my knife and stabbed my attacker. The fighting went on for about forty minutes, and by the time I made it back to the base my clothes were covered with blood. Someone told me to change my clothes, and when I did I saw the stab wound in my upper thigh.

My leg had felt numb, but it hadn’t stopped me fighting. They quickly took me to the military hospital and I had fifteen stitches.  About sixteen months into my time with the army I was sent on a mission with ninety-four other men. I was with three of them on a motorbike, and we carried RPGs (rocket propelled grenades). Our aim was to go across the border, blow up any tanks or jeeps we found, and quickly get back into Iran. It was supposed to be very quick, but we were caught.

An Iraqi helicopter came flying over and starting shooting at us with machine guns. We were hit, and I went flying into the air, falling and smashed my head on the ground. I passed out, and when I woke up there was pain all over my body. Our commanders thought everyone was dead, but they sent a jeep to pick up the bodies. They found me and one other guy alive out of everyone. The other guy died on the way to the military hospital.

When I got to the hospital I couldn’t move my body, my nerves were all damaged and I had 42 pieces of shrapnel from a rocket still in the left side of my body.

I was in the hospital for 16 days, but then the hospital got bombed. Nurses and doctors were screaming and running, before I had not been able to move, but suddenly I could move my body. A nurse saw me and was so shocked; she took me to the lift and out of the building. I was covered in bandages and was eventually taken to a hospital in Tehran were I stayed for three more months.

I ended up only doing 16 months of military service, as after my injuries I couldn’t go back. The doctors couldn’t believe I had lived and was able to walk. They told me how people with far less injuries than me were already dead.

Leaving the Army

For one year after leaving the army I couldn’t work, my body was weak and I developed depression that stayed with me.  Eventually I began work as a shopkeeper, and then as a technician in the hospital. I carried on with martial arts, altogether I was doing it for 15 years, but then because of my injuries I stopped when I was 29.

My brain felt weighed down, the war had damaged me, and I was having nightmares and flashbacks from what I had seen and experienced. I became the manager of two factories in Tehran, and also worked for the government as a secret policeman – I would go and interview the prisoners, and find out who was in prison for a good reason, and who should be released.

I had to go to every prison and check how things were, it was a good job and I did well. My family were doing ok, my sisters got married, and I decided to take some time out and go and visit my half brother in Austria, and then my younger brother in Liverpool. I was in Austria for two months to see my half brother and then I planned to stay with my brother in Liverpool for six months.

Coming to England

I arrived in the UK twenty years ago in 1991. I just came for a holiday, but then a friend of my brother’s said, ‘Oh, do you like it, come and stay here, you don’t need to go’.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, and so I stayed.
I thought it might be a nice chance to start a new life. After I had been in Liverpool for four years I met a lady called Michelle in a pub.  She had two sons from two previous relationships, we started going out, and she asked me to marry her. I got married at 34, and was married for nine years. I was self-employed at the time, living in Liverpool.
I had rented two pizza shops, they were doing well and I ended up living in Liverpool for eighteen years. We had two children. Devon, my son is fifteen and my daughter Rose is thirteen.

Our relationship was good at first, but Michelle didn’t want to let go of her old life, and I didn’t like the type of people she was spending time with.  In the end we knew it would be better to get a divorce, so I moved out to a flat. I was in the first floor flat in a block, it wasn’t in a very nice area and a lot of my neighbours were drug addicts.  I continued working with the pizza shops and I was always cooking in my home.

Crack cocaine smells like toast...

I’d make  Iranian food, and all of my neighbours would say, ‘Oh it smells gorgeous,’ So I decided to make more food and give it away. The guys would say ‘Oh thanks mate,’ I knew they were on the drugs, but I felt sorry for them.
Nearly every day I was cooking and giving food to my neighbours but after a while somebody came to me and said ‘Why are you giving food to the smack heads?’

I said ‘I feel sorry for them as always they’re having toast’ he says ‘How do you know?’  I said ‘I smell the toast all the time’, he said ‘It’s not the smell of toast, that’s the smell of crack cocaine’.  Apparently it smells like toast, but I didn’t know, I was just giving food to them. After I found that out I realised the smell was coming into my flat so I put tape all around my door.  Not long after that they robbed me.

I had bought a car, it was silver, and they smashed the window and mirror and scratched the body of the car. I think it was just because I was a foreigner but I started feeling that I didn’t want to have anything to do with what was going on, I wanted to get away.

One day two policemen came to my door. They asked me if I was missing anything, any post. I said no, but that I was expecting a cheque in the post and it hadn’t arrived yet. The policemen then showed me a letter they had taken from one of my neighbours - he had stolen my letter with the cheque in.

They asked me to be a witness, I said yes, of course, and I also told them about what happened with the car, but sadly they never did anything about that. The first time I turned up for the court case my drug addict neighbour never turned up, the second time the police had to go and get him to come. I was a witness, but then they only gave him community service as a punishment, so there was no prison sentence.

A few days later this guy who had stolen from me turned up in my building. He said he was going to attack me for being a witness, and get his friends to kill me.  He was very drunk, but then another guy came along and told him to not talk to me like that. I just said ‘It’s not my business, it should be just you and the police, it’s not my business.

I was really affected by what happened, it just made me depressed and I wanted to get away from it all. I knew if I was attacked I could kill someone and I didn’t want to end up in prison. By this time my ex wife and children had moved to Perth in Australia.

I was still suffering from depression and flashbacks from the war and wasn’t sleeping well. I decided to just give everything I owned to charity, my car, everything, because I knew there was no point bringing a car where I was planning to go.

I wanted to go to London, as it was far from Liverpool, but I didn’t have a clue about what I was going to do or where I was going to live. The fear of being attacked brought back the bad memories from being in the war – it all came flooding back, and I just felt I had to get away.

I was in fear for my life in Liverpool, so I sold up everything and moved to London. I got rid of everything I owned, everything, all my furniture. My precious  things, photographs and stuff I took with me in a bag, there wasn’t much, a few albums and clothes.
I went to Milton Keynes first, as my other brother had moved there and was living with his girlfriend. I couldn’t stay because the house was small, so I took a train and arrived in Hammersmith. When I got to Hammersmith I started sleeping rough as I had nowhere else to go. I just lay down to sleep in the shopping centre.

Homeless in London

The first night I started talking to God. I told him I needed help, I had no idea what I was going to do. The next day I was told by some homeless people about St Paul’s Onslow Square drop in.

I went a along and it was amazing, people were so friendly and welcoming. They were praying and talking about Jesus. I knew Jesus, I used to have a picture of him with an Iranian cross that I liked on my wall, but I had no idea who he was.
I thought he was maybe a prophet, but not the son of God. That night I decided to pray to Jesus. I said ‘ I want to talk to you, I need help, I haven’t a clue about how to live in London, please help me and guide me to the right way.’ I then went to sleep and had the best sleep I’d had in a long time.

I started meeting good people at St Paul’s, lovely people who I would never dream to meet. In all my years in Liverpool I had no friends, I never met good people. I couldn’t believe how welcoming the people at St Paul’s were, they’re so friendly, like family, it was strange for me at first but after a few times I said ‘No, no, this is not strange, these are real people, these are the people I have been looking for all these years.

Alpha

They told me about The Trust, and I started doing a computer course there at the World’s End. I did an English course too and then they invited me on an Alpha Course on a Tuesday morning with Dana in September 2010.  She told me who Jesus is, and read the Bible with me, explaining everything. I found out about HTB as well, so I was doing Alpha on Tuesday morning with Dana at The Trust, and then on a Wednesday evening I went to Alpha at HTB.

I met Robin and Kay who led my group and were like angels. All of them are like family to me now, our friendship is so strong, I had never met these type of people before. I now believe in Jesus so strong, and I pray every second, every day, whether I’m in my room, or walking the street or on a bus or in the home before going to sleep, and when I wake up.
Before I used to say ‘I’m on the run’, but now I feel I’m not on the run.  I’ve got somebody to talk to, I can talk to God, talk to Jesus, in happy times, in sad times, I am always talking to Him, always praying.

The Alpha weekend away in November was fantastic. I told Kay my group leader ‘I can’t sleep, because I get a flashbacks from the war still.’ Kay prayed for me and that night after praying in my room, I fell asleep.  I had the best sleep ever in twenty years at the Alpha weekend away.  I went to see a psychologist just last week, to explain how I am feeling. They told me to give a number between one and ten  - if things were really bad it is zero, and if it is really good, a ten. She asked: ‘How’s your sleep?’ and straightaway I said ‘10’.

I explained to them what happened and she said ‘Just keep going to church it is good!’ I believe that God helped me because for many, many years I’ve waited for this time, I’m not going to swap it for anything else.
On the Alpha week about healing my group prayed for me because I’d had a bad back with pain from my sciatic nerve. I’d had it for about fifteen years but after I was prayed for the pain left and has not come back.

Sister healed

A few months ago my younger sister Shedi was very ill, she had a stroke.  My family were calling me from Iran saying ‘Hossein, she’s not well, she’s going to die, you have to come and see her before she dies’. It made me depressed; I couldn’t do anything being so far away, so I told my family, ‘I can’t do anything, just pray for her’.  All I could do was pray, so I started praying for Jesus to heal her. I knew the Bible tells us that He heals people so I prayed He would heal my sister. That night I went to my Alpha group and they all prayed with me for my sister. A few days later my family called and told me my sister was ok, she had come out of the coma and opened her eyes.  She was saying ‘Is Hossein here? He called me.’  She thought I was by her hospital bed. They told her I wasn’t there but I told her I’d gone to church and prayed for her. I asked her if she believed in Jesus, because it was Him who healed her.  She said ‘Yes’.

My sister is very special, everyone calls her Mother Theresa as she is so kind, a very good person. Now I talk to her before I go to church and she says tell everyone that she loves them! Health wise she’s so good and the doctor said ‘I don’t know what’s going on, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t medicine.’ Her doctor said ‘I believe in God now’.

My sister told him about me praying and the church praying and he said ‘Tell him pray for me, I believe in Jesus’.  Before we prayed the doctor had said my sister was dying because she’d been in a coma and she can’t do anything. Because of the blood in her brain, they couldn’t operate, but then after prayer she opened her eyes, she woke up, the blood was moving, and she didn’t need an operation.

All this happened a few months ago. The doctor said when she went home she wouldn’t be able to do any housework, but straight away she was cooking, cleaning and she’s a normal person. And all the family said ‘What happened? That’s amazing for me, really good news to me. God is so powerful. I can’t read or write English, so I haven’t been able to read the Bible yet, only listen to other’s read it however I have just been given a New Testament in my language which I cannot wait to read.

My life is so different after asking Jesus into my life. I saw Jesus’ power, I felt it, and it has made a big difference. I am no longer sleeping rough but am in temporary accommodation - the Chelsea Methodist Church helped me to find it. I am a different person to who I was before Alpha.  I had bad depression, was feeling down 24 hours a day. The change in me, and then my sister’s healing has been amazing.  Now I am always talking to Jesus, saying thank you for everything. He gives me answers to everything that is why I believe. I love going to church.

On Sunday I go to St Paul’s then St Augustine’s and then HTB. I know it’s all the same talk, but I love being with people praying and worshipping. I’ve got the answer now, and I can’t stop.  My life has changed and my health is much better, before it was not good, but now everyone who sees me says it’s very good. I know a few people who went to drugs or alcohol to cope, they said to me ‘How are you managing?’ I say ‘I’m not managing, somebody else is managing, God is managing, it’s Jesus’ I believe so much, Jesus saw me and helped me.  

I’m working for the warehouse at HTB now as a driver, sometimes I’m cooking for different churches. We make Iranian food, which is popular with the homeless. Always my children are saying: ‘Dad, where have you been?’  ‘I’ve been to church’ I say. And they are so happy, they say, ‘Oh, Dad that’s good, amazing’.  I tell them ‘I’m always going to church’ and they’re happy, I’m happy.

I haven’t been back to Iran since I left twenty years ago. I want to go back, especially to see my sister; I hope in the next couple of months I will see my sister. I would say the hardest part of my life was when I was in Liverpool, I was divorced and lonely, and then in fear of my life from the drug addicts in my building.  I have been so lucky in London, after a few weeks I made really good friends, who are still my friends. Before I had no friends at all and now many, I’ll not call them friends; they are more like family, so close. 

I close the eyes and I trust all of them, I never found anyone I could trust before, but I have done here. They know everything of me, they want to help with anything. I came to London and I found family, I found my important people now.  I really believe in these people, they helped me find the right way. HTB opened the door for me saying ‘You’re welcome’ now my job is to welcome others, to say ‘You’re welcome here’ that’s it, that’s Jesus saying it. He welcomed me and I have to deliver the same message to others. I have made a community be here so all I can say is thank you God!