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It was a chilly evening when Zaid* was kicked out of his parents' house.
"I spent that night on the street," he recalls. "I had nowhere to go."
But in the middle of the chaos, a clear thought broke through the emotional and physical devastation: Knowing Jesus is worth everything I'm going through.
"We want Jesus to reign over Yemen."
Zaid*, Yemeni believer
Zaid's walk with the Lord has not been easy—or safe. But listening to this bold Yemeni brother is a reminder of what God does in the lives of millions of people who risk everything for their faith.
And it all started with a dream.
Zaid grew up in a conservative Muslim home in Yemen. "I witnessed my parents and family pray and worship since I was young," he says. "You have to pray, and if you don't pray, God will not love you, and you will end up in the fire, being burned like a chicken on a roaster."
Zaid did everything he could to try to prevent God from rejecting him. "I followed all the teachings and rituals, trying to 'please' God," he says.
But Zaid started having doubts. He remembers one night, after finishing his nighttime prayers, thinking, Will I go to paradise? Is it guaranteed? As Zaid sat with his thoughts, more doubts flooded his mind: Why did this vengeful God create me? He wanted me here to pray and do these rituals continuously and then one day die?
He searched online, looking for the truth and somewhere to belong, speaking with agnostics and atheists. But after six months, he was emptier than ever, and he tried to fill the void with drugs.
"I had no sense of purpose," Zaid says. "I used bad words, kept bad company, and the void only grew."
Then, as civil war tore through Yemen, Zaid's best friend died, and Zaid was more alone than ever, with no one to turn to.
That's when Jesus found him.
As he grieved the loss of his best friend, Zaid continued his quest for meaning, and as he read about other religions online, he realized he knew very little about Jesus and knew nothing about the Christian faith.
"My idea of Christians was very distorted," he explains. "To me, Christians were infidels."
He argued with Christians online, and when he couldn't win the argument, he would curse the Christians. But he was shocked when they responded with kindness.
"The idea that God loved us, that He created us in His image and that He sent his son to die for us were all new thoughts and truths for me," he says.
Eventually, desperate for truth, inspired by his interactions with Christians online, Zaid cried out to God: "God, if you exist in Christianity, tell me, and I will come to you. If you exist, tell me: Where are you? Save me."
That night, and for several consecutive nights after, Zaid dreamed the same dream.
"I was in a lush, green garden, and I saw a strong light shining. This light was approaching me, and then a voice said, 'I left the 99, and I came for you.' I woke up, startled," Zaid shares. He opened his phone and found the same image online immediately, along with the same verse. "In that moment, I felt like the world stopped."
Zaid was desperate to learn more about Jesus. "I downloaded a Bible app and started reading," he says.
For a year and a half, Zaid was only connected with Christians online because there are no public churches in Yemen. Instead, he texted with Alaa*, an Open Doors partner, and grew in his faith privately. He decided he wanted to be baptized and obey the Word he was devouring, and Alaa sent a nearby Christian to baptize Zaid.
"God freed me from my addiction, he cleansed me, helped me fight my bad thoughts, and my mental health became much better," he shares. "The more time I spent with Him, the more He changed me."
But in Yemen, that meant the danger had only just begun.
Zaid didn't tell his family that he had left Islam, but they saw a change in him. "I became sober and much more mature, and those around me noticed that," he explains.
When Zaid's father discovered Zaid's Bible, Zaid revealed that he had become a Christian. The brave disclosure cost Zaid everything.
"[My father] beat me badly," he says. "My father is a kind and sweet man, but his reaction was the opposite. I was beaten once, twice and three times [when] he imprisoned me at home for two days. Eventually, my oldest brother interceded. That was when I was kicked out."
Zaid managed to contact two friends from university whom he had told about Christ, and they decided to rent an apartment together in another town. There, God provided a job for Zaid, and he got connected to a local church. "He gave me everything I needed," Zaid recalls.
And after a time of active ministry, Zaid felt that God wanted him to do something new and different among Yemenis. "My vision is to live like Paul," Zaid explains. "By the grace of God, I strive to deliver the Word of God to all the people around me."
Through the help of Open Doors local partners, Zaid is starting a local discipleship house where new believers can meet, live together and be discipled day after day—a place to equip believers to lead house churches across the country.
"We want Jesus to reign over Yemen," Zaid shares. "Someday, the police might take me, or someone might kill me, but God will be with me."
Zaid and other Yemeni believers know they need the global Body of Christ to strengthen what remains in Yemen—and to grow the people of God.
As Zaid says, asking for prayers, "May God open the eyes of the people to see Him."
*Names changed for security reasons.
