Pedram and Leili Shirmast arrived in Australia from Türkiye in 2019, settled in Doncaster and, being Iranian, chose to begin attending Emmanuel Church, the only Farsi speaking church in Melbourne. The couple had lived in Ankara, the capital of Türkiye, for six years immediately prior to coming to Australia, and ministered together during their time there (Pedram was also ordained in Ankara in 2015). Prior to this they had lived in Iran and had ministered together there for two years.
Even with an extensive experience of ministry life, neither Pedram nor Leili assumed that they would continue with ministry in Australia, and each of them pursued other career paths while they discerned whether God was calling them to minister again in a new country. Leili began pursuing childcare, and worked in the field while she discerned her future path.
As time went on, she discerned that she was being called to ordination here in Australia. Running parallel to this, Pedram began the process of applying to the police force, having been interested in the profession from a young age. Pedram prayed that as he pursued discerning between ministry and the police force, God would firmly open one door and close another. God did not answer this prayer definitively, and Pedram was left with the choice between accepting a position in the Victorian Police Force, or as a candidate for ordination in the Anglican Church. After consulting with Christian mentors, Pedram felt that God was calling him into ordained ministry.
Having been made Deacons in the Anglican Church in February 2023, Pedram and Leili look forward to being ordained as Priests in ten months’ time in November. In the initial stages of their training, they were able to do a placement at their home church in Australia, Emmanuel, and serving the Farsi-speaking community there: “We found ourselves in the middle of God’s mission”. Doncaster and the neighbouring suburb of Templestowe are home to the largest Persian community in Australia. There are 2,500 Persian people in this area, with few attending church or professing Christianity. In 2021, Pedram and Leili began thinking about how to begin a Persian church in their local area.
Coincidentally, there was a church that Pedram and Leili drove past several times a week very near their house in Doncaster. They would look at it and wonder about the services, the congregation, and what church looked like for that community: Deep Creek Anglican Church. It’s this church where the couple now lead a Farsi-speaking plant. Megan Curlis-Gibson, the parish minister at Deep Creek encouraged the couple to pray about a way forward for planting in Doncaster, and to potentially engage with City to City Australia as a means to pursue planting.
Both Pedram and Leili describe engaging with City to City as bringing them ‘huge hope’ for their call to plant, and ‘light’ to the journey. By receiving funding via City to City they are able to work alongside Megan at Deep Creek and minister to the local Persian Community, a small number of whom attend church at Deep Creek. In July of 2022 they started a Farsi-speaking Bible study on a Friday night with just five members. Membership is now at eighteen. They conduct various evangelistic activities in their local community, as well as providing ESL classes for Iranian refugees. (Although Pedram laughs when he says ‘ESL’, saying that English is often class members’ third or fourth language.)
One of Leili’s weekly activities is attending sewing classes for refugees in a neighbouring suburb. During her time attending these classes, Leili provides pastoral care for attendees, often offering assistance with things like language, technology, and navigating bureaucratic processes in Australia.
Recently Leili invited any of the attendees who had come that day to come for prayer. In a neighbouring room many of the women came, some with no faith, some with other faiths, and Leili prayed aloud for them all. She said the response was overwhelming. The women were so grateful, some were crying, and Leili had felt a palpable presence of the Holy Spirit as she prayed, guiding her prayers. Leili and Pedram are praying for more opportunities to witness like this, and to continue in relationship with those who responded favourably to the offer of prayer.
Of City to City, Pedram says that it was such a welcome relief to discover an organisation that could walk with them in planting a ministry to Persian people, which they would like to become independent and truly multicultural. Pedram says that there are many churches which stay true to their culture, whatever that might be, who will minister to other cultures in various ways, but there are very few that attempt to embody more than one culture and be truly multicultural.
Pedram and Leili dream of seeing this happen in Melbourne with the Farsi-speaking community alongside ‘Aussie’ culture. They feel strongly about advocating for refugees, about helping both Persian people and Australian people understand one another better, and about sharing the challenges that Iranians face when they become Christians, both here and in Iran.
With City to City, Pedram and Leili articulate that they are so delighted to have found more than they were looking for. They had sought an organisation which could help them with tools and strategies for planting, but have also gained through the planting cohort “…hope that we are not alone, since we have so much support through the ups and downs of planting”.
