Catholic parishes in the Lower Mainland have a lot of evangelization ministries and Alpha programs that are run by converts. Less common is for these organizers to be ex-Muslims, or for the Alpha program to be run in Farsi. Kent Danesh managed to tick off both boxes when he started a Farsi-language Alpha course at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in North Vancouver.
His conversion to Catholicism, and his cultural and religious background as an Iranian Muslim, gave him all the inspiration he needed, he told The B.C. Catholic. The Iranian community in North Vancouver is booming, and he wanted to find a way to reach people who would never ordinarily enter a Catholic church.
Alpha is a free course offered in many local churches that presents attendees with questions about life, meaning, and Christianity. The goal is not necessarily religious conversion but an offer of community and conversation in a friendly environment.
“We need [a program] for non-Christians. Can we do it?” he asked Holy Trinity pastor Father Lucio Choi. “I told him, ‘We can do anything through the power of God!’”
Father Lucio gave him full authority to run the program. “Father Lucio told me, ‘I will back you up, just do it,’” Danesh recalled.
The first run of the Alpha program officially began February 28, 2026, and concluded May 30. A second series started earlier this fall.
Danesh’s journey began with his conversion nearly a decade ago. His story is dramatic, and his path to the Catholic Church ran through Pentecostalism, dreams and family drama.
Originally from Iran, he lived the first decades of his life as a devout Muslim. He has made the Hajj (the term for a Muslim’s pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam’s central holy site) numerous times during his life, and his conversion story begins shortly after his final Hajj, taken with his two brothers. Shortly after their return, his younger brother encountered the Holy Spirit while flipping through channels on T.V.
The 700 Club, a Christian news program, flashed across the screen just as someone posed a simple question: “How about if Jesus is real?”
“He [Danesh’s brother] said he felt from the top of the house an energy, and he began to tremble,” said Danesh. “[My brother] called the Pentecostal church across the street [from his house]. He was shaking. ‘I want to be a Christian, I want to be a Christian,’ he told the pastor.”
After his brother was received into the Pentecostal church, he invited Danesh to attend with him. Danesh was furious.
“I said, ‘What the hell are you doing? We are Muslim,’” he recalled. “’You bring disrespect to our family. What about our mother, our relatives?’ I was so angry with him.”
Ultimately, he couldn’t sway his brother’s newfound faith in Christ. But a few weeks later, in a dream, Danesh had an encounter with the Holy Spirit all his own.
He was standing on the roof of a 10-storey building and was about to fall. A voice behind him asked, “Are you going to deny me?”
“I couldn’t see,” he said. “I tried to turn around – ‘No. I am not going to deny you, but I don’t know who you are!’ I said.”
He began to fall. Halfway to the ground he froze midair, and again the voice asked, “Are you going to deny me?”
“No!” he cried. “I am not going to deny you!”
He continued to plummet. Stopping inches from the ground, the voice again asked, “Are you going to deny me?”
“I can still see the gravel stones,” he said. “‘No Jesus, I am not going to deny you!’ This was the first time I said Jesus.”
Two hands came into view and grasped his arms. Oil, like olive oil, began to drip from the hands. He still couldn’t look directly at the man.
“I want to see who is this Jesus,” he said. “I cannot turn my head very well. I can only see out of the corner of my eye. He has curly hair; a white gown. I cannot see his feet. I see myself, I am also wearing a white gown, and I know it is Jesus.”
Suddenly, he was flying. He could see the roof of his own house and the garden. Soon he could see the entirety of the Earth.
“Suddenly, I am facing him, face to face,” he said. “We land on a firm cloud – a small cloud. Jesus tied something to my arm, and we continued to fly.”
“I asked him, ‘Jesus, did I pass my final exam?’” Danesh meant to ask if he was going to heaven.
“The answer was clearly ‘yes.’ It was too much,” he said, close to tears.
“When [Jesus] left, I opened my hand and saw he gave me a white rock. I thought it was a precious stone or a diamond, but it was just a white rock.”
He woke up and turned to his wife, Edna.
“I want to be a Christian. It was Jesus, I saw him. He told me I would go to heaven,” he told her.
He called his brother and said, “‘You will not believe what happened.’ I told him I was with Jesus.”
His brother arranged a meeting with his Pentecostal pastor.
“There was energy in my body. I was warm, I was energetic,” said Danesh. “I gave him all the details.”
The pastor told him that he had been anointed, just as Jesus would anoint his disciples with oil and give them a stone before telling them to go and preach in his name, so too had Danesh been given a mission.
When he was baptized into the Pentecostal church, 6,700 people were present, but he still felt like something was lacking. His wife is Filipina – Danesh lived and worked in the Philippines for almost two decades – and he told her he wanted to go to Mass.
When newly-minted Pentecostal Kent Danesh first walked into Holy Trinity Church in North Vancouver, he was confused when the priest denied him the Eucharist during Communion.
He remembers approaching then-pastor Father Augustine Obiwumma, full of faith and zeal. When the priest offered him the host and said the words every Catholic knows — “the Body of Christ” — Danesh simply said, “Thank you!”
Father Augustine didn’t let go of the host, and neither did Danesh.
“Everyone is watching,” he recalled. “[Father Augustine] is telling me to release it, but I said, ‘No, I want it! I have seen Jesus, I have been baptized a Pentecostal, why are you denying me?’”
Father Augustine composed himself and spoke gently. “Kent,” he said, “I promise I will give it to you, but you have to let it go. I will tell you why after.”
Embarrassed, Danesh relinquished the host, but that moment was the beginning of his five-year journey into the Catholic Church.
“I had to relearn everything,” he said. “For five years I studied the Bible – God bless Father Augustine, he is the hero of my life.”
His description of his baptism into the Catholic Church is beautiful in its comparative simplicity to the rest of his story. “I was baptized. It was the most beautiful! He gave me Communion – I said, ‘I believe, Amen!’”
Danesh was baptized and confirmed as a Catholic at Holy Trinity Parish on March 31, 2018. Initially he was an active member of the parish’s Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). Eventually, that same faith and zeal that had brought him into the Catholic Church led him to Alpha.
Danesh knew that reaching Iranians would require a different approach. “Muslims are the most difficult people to get to come to the church,” he said. “No Muslim can step into the territory of Christianity.”
If an invitation says it is a church program, he said, people can become afraid. “Unless they have a direct encounter with Jesus, they will not come in.”
Danesh found a team of advertisers and went to stores to distribute Alpha pamphlets. Some people responded with a familiar answer: “Oh, we know, Kent, we know about Jesus.”
“That is not the same Jesus,” Danesh would tell them.
His familiarity with Iranian culture and Islam helped him explain what the program was – and what it wasn’t. He made sure to explain this wasn’t a conversion class. This approach put a lot of people at ease, and the first gathering drew between 45 and 60 people.
His team focused on making sure each person felt welcome. “Go meet them in the parking lot,” he told them. “Treat them like a VIP. Walk them to their seat. Treat them like a member of the family. That shows how a Christian is supposed to be – we love you no matter what.”
Some people were extremely opposed to Christianity, and there were loud disagreements. Others kept coming back. “They told us, ‘We see Jesus through your people.’”
Danesh credits his pastor, Father Lucio, as well as his team – Nicole, Louise, Jane and his brother (among others) – with helping create that atmosphere.
“I believe we were all touched by the Holy Spirit,” he said. “The people are showing enthusiasm for learning about Jesus.”
The first run of the program saw around 70 people attend. The goal was not simply to convince people to become Catholic. It was to create a place where Muslims could encounter Jesus, ask questions and experience Christian community.
Soon, some of the people who had initially shown up to challenge Christianity began asking how they could become Christians.
Two women who had attended Alpha eventually approached him with a request. “Kent, can you bring us into the Church?” they asked. Danesh said he was suspicious that they might have wrong intentions, so he made sure they understood what they were asking. “We want to see the tabernacle. We want to see the church,” they insisted.
He brought them inside, blessed them with holy water, showed them the tabernacle, and prayed with them before the Eucharist. Their response was explosive.
“They were crying so loudly. They sounded like they were hit by a truck. They were crying so much,” he said.
Another participant asked the Alpha group to pray for a nephew who was being held as a political prisoner in their home country. They prayed together and the sister called the next day to say that he had been released from prison.
Danesh and his wife, Edna, are currently coordinating with Father Lucio on strategies to help participants continue exploring Christianity through mentorship, parish integration and discipleship, but the second run of the Alpha course is underway, and along with many returning participants, the group includes many new faces.
