By Samantha Kamman, Christian Post Reporter

An Iranian-born Christian whose family left Iran after receiving a call from God is now overseeing the launch of an artificial intelligence tool that provides biblical truths to Iranians and others living in nations that persecute Christians.

Lana Silk left Iran with her family when she was about 10 years old and understands firsthand what it means to love Christ while having to keep that faith hidden.

Now serving as president and CEO of Transform Iran, a Christian ministry and humanitarian organization that has spread the Gospel and provided aid to the persecuted for more than 30 years, she is overseeing the launch of Kairos, an AI chat tool that uses the Bible and apologetics to answer questions about Christianity.

“My mom says there was one time when I was about 7 years old that she was in the house, and she heard me preaching, and she thought I was preaching to my dolls,” Silk, who has led Transform Iran for four years after volunteering for three decades, told The Christian Post.

“And then she realized the sound was coming from somewhere else, and she followed me, and I was on the balcony, preaching to the people in the street,” the ministry leader recalled.

She pulled me out pretty quick. She was like, ‘You cannot do that here.’

Silk had grown up in a Christian household, and, too young to understand the dangers, she wanted others to know the God she loved.

“You know, there’s such an innocence,” the Iranian-born Christian stated. “I figured out who God was, and I wanted to follow Him. I was excited. And [my mother] was like, ‘Yeah, you cannot do that here.'”

“It takes a while for children to understand this,” she added.

Silk was born in September 1978 on what has become known as “Black Friday,” when security forces killed large numbers of protesters during demonstrations that preceded the fall of Iran’s Pahlavi monarchy and the establishment of the Islamic Republic.

She remembered how Islamic ideology filled her daily routine at school. Islam was present in every aspect of her education, according to Silk, including in subjects like math and science, which she said also had an Islamic undertone. 

“I remember that they would make us line up in the schoolyard before the school day would begin and have us shout ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’ before the start of the school day,” she said. 

Silk also recalled wearing a hijab as part of her school uniform and witnessing strict enforcement of dress codes. She remembered a girl who wore jeans to school one day had her pants cut up with a pair of scissors along the inseam while she was still wearing them. 

The girl was then instructed to go home and change, as jeans and fitted clothes were not considered proper attire. They had to wear loose and covering clothing, Silk explained, and jeans were also seen as “very Western” in terms of style. 

In 1988, as the Iran-Iraq War drew to a close and persecution intensified, Silk said both of her parents separately sensed God calling them to leave Iran.

Initially uncertain whether they had heard correctly, they fasted, prayed and eventually shared their experiences with their pastor, who first believed they were mistaken.

That changed after the pastor received a confirming dream.

“We didn’t know why we were leaving. We didn’t know what God was calling [us] to,” Silk said. “We just knew that God had made it very clear that there was an urgency that we needed to leave the country. So we did.”

Traveling throughout Europe, the family connected with other Iranian Christians who had fled growing persecution. They gathered believers, prayed together and encouraged one another, eventually laying the foundation for what became Transform Iran. 

As Transform Iran’s president and CEO, Silk also oversees the Kairos chat system. 

According to a statement provided to CP by Transform Iran: “Kairos is the product of meticulous content extrapolation and revision by a dedicated team of software developers, theologians, apologists, data analysts and researchers. Transform Iran’s team developed the platform’s foundation on the Scriptures and nearly 7,000 research articles published in the Porpasokh Apologetics Center, creating a critically curated list of 5,286 data points for Kairos’ launch.”

Kairos is available in 256 languages, and Transform Iran also has plans to provide Christian counseling and discipleship through the platform.

The Transform Iran CEO acknowledged that some Christians remain wary of artificial intelligence, viewing it as a secular technology that could mislead those seeking biblical truth.

Everything has the potential to be used for harm, and we can’t let fear guide us.

Silk continued: “We need to make sure that we are educating ourselves and training ourselves and upskilling where we need to so that we can have the creativity and the ingenuity to take what’s available and make it submit to God’s plans and make it serve God’s purposes.”

One of the stories that has encouraged her involved a man in Iran during nationwide protests earlier this year.

“He found the tool. He had a conversation,” Silk said. “He said, ‘I’ve had Jesus on my mind for a year. I haven’t had the courage to do anything about it. And now I’m thinking, I’ve got to explore. I don’t know who to talk to. Who is He? What’s the deal?'”

After an extended apologetics-focused discussion with Kairos, Silk said the conversation ended with the man declaring, “‘I’ve chosen to follow Jesus.’ It’s just remarkable.”

Read his full salvation testimony

Read more about Kairos and why it matters

Header image: Lana Silk, president and CEO of Transform Iran, uses Kairos. 

Originally published on: The Christian Post