By Donnie Stultz –
Of course Dan Bauman was terrified that he would be executed in such a strict Muslim nation, but when the presiding judge asked him in front of 150 onlookers why he came to Iran, Dan started preaching Jesus to the courtroom.
“A scripture pops into my mind Matthew 10:19 Do not be afraid when you’re called before the authorities for at that time I’ll give you the words to say,” Dan recounts on Delafe video. “All of a sudden I looked at that man and I said, Sir I came here to tell you about Jesus Christ.”
After nine weeks in jail in Iran, Dan Bauman was released, thanks to God and thanks to negotiations by the Swiss ambassador (Dan’s father was Swiss) 26 years ago. Today he has an international organization spreading the Gospel, but all it derives from when he was 16 and didn’t understand salvation.
He was at a Christian youth camp in the mountains outside of Los Angeles, and the speaker challenged kids to find intimacy with God. Dan didn’t understand what intimacy with God meant. So he went to a river to ask God. As he prayed, he was throwing rocks in the river.
“Hey, Dan, can I throw rocks with you?” popped into his mind.
At first, he thought it was random, but when the question popped into his head two or three more times, he realized it was Jesus talking to him.
Throwing rocks into the river was a kind of play for the 16 year old. Jesus, showing him what intimacy with God meant, wanted to play with him.
It was that same throwing rocks incident that led him to go to Afghanistan. The revelation that Jesus was more than just transcendent, he was personal, loving, friendly, has motivated Dan to serve to the point of persecution.
Dan got a business degree and applied to work in a Kabul hospital before 9/11. As he was flying in, he wondered if it really was God’s will for him to go to Afghanistan. On the flight, he got a vision of Jesus at the Kabul airport.
Jesus was talking to someone about how he was waiting for his friend Dan. Jesus was excited. “Dan is coming to see me,” Jesus told the man.
Whatever you do for these little ones, you do to me, the scripture flashed through Dan’s man. The basis of his extraordinary faith and extraordinary risk was simply friendship with Jesus.
After serving for some time in Afghanistan, Dan and a Christian buddy from South Africa got the idea, the calling, to visit Iran. They would tour and evangelize for two weeks. It was a wonderful and fruitful trip.
But at the border (they traveled by bus), immigration officers confiscated their passports and sent them back to Tehran. When they reported to pick up their passports, they were both arrested and beaten for six hours.
Dan was never told what the charges were, but the Iranians had found out that they were evangelizing, something strictly forbidden in the Sharia-governed extremist nation. Dan was separated from his buddy.
Jesus told him he would be there for nine weeks.
He was thrown into a 15”x18” cell in isolation with the light left on 24/7 with a blanket and a steel door with a peak hole. He paced back and forth and prayed.
With his food, he was given three sugar cubes for tea. But Dan figured he didn’t need the sugar cubes for the tea. Instead, he saved them and accumulated them for every meal – up to 200. He used them as play building blocks like legos.
“There is so much fun to have with sugar cubes,” he says. “Every day, I would make buildings. I would build every day for hours and hours and hours.”
There’s not much to do in isolation.
When he wasn’t doing his sugar cube hobby, he battled despair. Four times he contemplated committed suicide with his towel tied to the sink. He even tried it.
“I fell to the ground. Something inside me broke, I never felt so much shame in my life. Dan, what are you doing? Why are you trying to take your life?” he recalls. “The room started to shake. I thought it was an earthquake. I lifted my head. The room had turned into a glorious white light. I saw Jesus’ face. He had a big smile, his face was filled with kindness and love and acceptance and love.”
Then Jesus spoke: “I still like you, Dan. I still love you. I saw what happened, but I still like you, I still want you. I love you, and if you let me I’ll take care of you.”
He requested his Bible. At first, the guards scoffed. But the next day, they brought him his Bible.
One day he randomly opened his Bible to Daniel 10:12-13: Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia.
It didn’t escape him that his name was Daniel and he was in Iran, which used to be Persia. He was wonderfully consoled.
On another day he heard guards talking outside his cell (Dan spoke the language). The one said to another: “Why do these foreigners come here to Iran?”
“Yeah, that’s a good question,” his friend responded. “They know what we do to Christians. They know we kill Christians. Why would they want to come to a place where talking about Jesus is forbidden?”
The discussion continued for three days. It turns out that one guard had learned about the teachings of Jesus since a previous prisoner had shared the gospel with him. The other was curious, so he explained it to him.
“You know, every time you mention the name Jesus, I feel peace in my soul, I find hope in my heart,” one guard ventured. “I don’t know, but I’m just wondering: These foreigners have purpose. I don’t have purpose. I don’t know why I’m living.”
The other responded: “Today I’m deciding to follow Jesus because I want purpose too.”
In all, the three guards received Christ, as Dan was listening. The testimony of his life in the cell had convicted the guards unto salvation.
Two charges were laid against Dan, spying for the U.S. and evangelizing, both of which carried the death penalty.
One day, the guards blindfolded Dan, shoved him in a van and took him to court. There were 150 people in the room. The judge solemnly asked him in 20 minutes to defend himself and explain why he came to Iran. The stakes were high.
“Something woke up inside of me and all of a sudden the truth of who I really was, the truth of what I really believe, started to grow inside of me,” he recalls. “This fear that had been this big wall in my life started to crack and the truth started to come out.
“I was able to share about Jesus for over 20 minutes,” he adds. “That was amazing days as I stood there, I’m just like, Jesus loves you and he loves you and he loves you. II’m looking around that room, and I’m feeling the love of God and began to share with them. Every time I shared the love of Jesus, fear fell to the side.”
They didn’t execute Dan.
Instead, they beat him back at prison, sometimes daily.
As he was being beaten, Dan felt Jesus speak: “Dan, I want to teach you to love your enemies.”
It wasn’t easy to listen to. As all the injustice came back to memory. But also, he felt love for the man because God loved him.
“Change my heart,” Dan prayed. “I started to love this man. The beatings continued, but my heart shifted.”
One day, in the blood-stained room, Dan addressed his torturer: “Sir, if I’m going to see you everyday, let’s become friends.” He extended his hand for a handshake.
The torturer was incredulous. It could not be, he muttered. But reluctantly, he clasped Dan’s hand in a shake.
Tears streamed down his face. He wouldn’t release Dan’s hand for the longest time.
“There is no heart too hard for Jesus,” Dan remarks.
That night, Dan was moved to a bigger cell, and he no longer got tortured.
The Swiss ambassador arranged for Dan to be released – exactly nine weeks after he entered, just like Jesus had told him when he got into jail.
Today, Dan is a speaker on behalf of martyrs. He continued to evangelize in America and all around the Middle East – everywhere except Iran. He’s telling people about the Savior who wants to throw stones with you into the river.
“Not five minutes go by in my life that I’m not thankful,” he says.
