A few days after the Iran war began on February 28, a Christian convert and her family fled Tehran for their villa near the Caspian Sea. She hoped to avoid the airstrikes hitting the capital, but soon realized she faced a new danger.
“I’m terrified to death,” she told Nahid Sepehri, executive director of the Iranian Bible Society, on a voice call made using Starlink. The Christian mother explained that a mosque next door to her villa was housing members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). She feared US forces would identify their location and bomb her neighborhood.
Sepehri and her husband, Mansour Khajehpour, prayed with her from the Seattle suburb where they live. The couple serves a large network of Iranian house churches through their church, Crossroads at Lake Stevens.
The following day, the mother called again to say she was no longer afraid because if she died, she would be in the presence of Christ. If she lived, she had a mission to accomplish: She had started praying over her neighborhood, anointing each door with oil and even knocking on neighbors’ doors, encouraging them not to worry because the Lord would protect the neighborhood.
“Their trust in God is amazing,” Sepehri said of their house church members who have faced myriad challenges yet regularly join their daily virtual prayer calls. To this day, the woman’s neighborhood has not been bombed.
As the United States and Iran sign a deal to end the war, some Iranians have expressed disappointment that the agreement leaves Tehran’s repression apparatus intact with no visible improvement in human rights and religious freedom. The regime killed an estimated tens of thousands of people during widespread protests in January, and many Iranians looked to the US and Israel for rescue. Days after the massacre, President Donald Trump posted on social media that help was on its way.
“The external hope in the governments—such as the United States—is gone,” Khajehpour said. “We cannot trust the foreigners.”
Khajehpour said that while his house church members celebrated the partial restoration of internet access on May 26 after an 88-day blackout, many of the 34 Christians on his ministry call last week had concerns about the negotiations and what they might mean for the future of Iran. On a separate call, two Iranian Christians shared their worries that by signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU), Trump failed to understand what they described as the “tricky” nature of the Islamic regime.
The agreement with Iran aims to return shipping in the Strait of Hormuz to its prewar levels, halt airstrikes, and create terms for future talks on Iran’s nuclear program. Critics of the deal argue that it gives Iran sanctions relief, allows Tehran to immediately begin selling oil, and doesn’t address many of the key concerns the Trump administration outlined before the war began, including Iran’s funding of proxy groups and its expansive ballistic missile program.
Some analysts say the deal favors Iran and is worse than the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that was signed by former President Barack Obama and criticized widely by Trump.
Over the weekend, US and Iranian negotiators began working through the deal’s implementation during talks in Switzerland and drafted a 60-day roadmap for ending the war. Vice President JD Vance said Iran had agreed to reinstate inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The US and Iranian delegates briefly delayed the talks—originally scheduled for last Friday—after Iran signaled it may not participate due to renewed fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israelis have voiced particular concern over the memorandum’s stipulation that Israel halt its military campaign against Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy that has continued firing missiles and drones into northern Israel from its base in Lebanon.
“An Iranian regime with more resources is a catastrophe for Israel because that regime will double down on everything they’ve already done, but do it better,” said Alberto Fernandez, a former US ambassador and vice president of the Middle East Media Research Institute. In 2025, Iran faced serious economic challenges yet funneled around a billion dollars to Hezbollah, he added.
Fernandez, who also serves on the board of advisors for the advocacy group In Defense of Christians, said he is concerned about the fate of Iran’s Christian community in the weeks and months ahead. When political Islam runs into trouble—as Tehran did during the US-Israeli military operations in 2025 and 2026—it often amps up persecution against ethnic and religious minorities, he noted.
“In Iran, Christians are heavily persecuted, but they’re generally not executed for the crime of apostasy,” he said. “So it can get better for them, but it can also get worse.”
Fernandez is taking a “wait and see” approach to the deal, noting that little is known about the current regime. US and Israeli strikes have killed key leaders in its political and military sectors, and he believes shifts in the country’s leadership dynamics could play out over time.
One possible scenario Farsi-speaking Iran experts have suggested involves the IRGC wresting power from the clerical establishment and remaining a military dictatorship while allying with the urban elite who are demanding reform, Fernandez said.
“I am hopeful—and we do have to pray about it—that internally there are things happening that we’re not aware of,” Fernandez said. “Only the Lord knows, because on the surface, it doesn’t look great, but we don’t have all the facts.”
David Yeghnazar, executive director of the UK-based Elam Ministries, talked to more than 40 Iranian Christians over the past week or so. He said Christians, like the majority of Iranians, had been hoping for accountability for the January massacres.
“As there may be disappointment that it might not happen soon, they are prepared to trust God and believe that he will continue to be with his church inside the country in the midst of their pain and suffering,” he said.
Yeghnazar, a native of Iran, said living conditions in his homeland have worsened since the war began: He has heard stories about people running out of money and food and struggling to pay their bills. Many have shifted their focus toward survival and would welcome the economic relief included in the deal yet are concerned about the money reaching the people.
During a June 18 press conference, Vance said Tehran won’t receive any of the $300 billion outlined in the MOU for reconstruction and economic development “unless they totally transform themselves as a country.”
Khajehpour said those who have experienced the regime’s brutality have little faith in its ability to moderate. “We have been in prison two times in Iran. We have had friends killed,” he said. “The Iranian government, in my opinion, is going to gather momentum in becoming more dictatorial and brutal.” Tehran has accelerated executions of dissidents in recent months, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Khajehpour believes Iran will also intensify its bullying in the region by increasing its proxy activity. “I was very hopeful that the US intervention—with the support of Israeli forces—would [do] the unimaginable for us in a short time [frame],” he said. “I started thinking of a ‘fast food’ style of change.”
The circumstances of the past five months have taught Khajehpour to trust in God who, unlike leaders and governments, doesn’t disappoint, he noted. He has observed God’s hand at work in the suffering, slowly preparing a feast in the wilderness for the people of Iran and growing the church.
One example: Khajehpour was the first Muslim convert to Christianity in both his family and in his neighborhood. Now he believes the city where he professed faith in 1981—one of the most religious cities in Iran—has more house churches than mosques.
“God is using all the ingredients of human atrocities throughout history to fulfill his mighty will,” Khajehpour said. “Something good is cooking in the kitchen, and we have started smelling a good aroma.”
