Gulshen grew up nominally Muslim with her family in Azerbaijan. She had no real faith as a young woman, but one day her sister told Gulshen she had heard about Jesus. Gulshen did not think much about it at the time, but a little while later she had a vision of a man in white outside her window bringing her a cup of water to drink. She did not understand, but the man was so kind and lovely that she felt he must be Jesus.

Gulshen went to Baku Engineering University to study chemical engineering. She qualified, began to work and was married. Before long her sister became ill and Gulshen cared for her and her children, while still working and caring for her own family. It was a very hard time for her. She began to feel overwhelmed and wondered if she could ever cope.

Then one day her brother came home and told the family that he had started to follow Jesus, which surprised and confused them. Gulshen wondered what it would be like to follow Him and as she was walking home with her daughter, she had another vision of Jesus. This time He was in the clouds standing above one of the apartment blocks. She was shocked and wondered if it was real, but her daughter also saw the vision and spoke to Gulshen about it. From then on, Gulshen believed and she immediately prayed for her sister. That same day her sister got up after spending weeks in bed. She was healed and began to care for her family, much to their astonishment.

Gulshen’s faith began to grow. Her brother became a pastor and her interest in literature grew. She began to translate Christian books into Azeri from English and Russian. She translated for Billy Graham meetings in Europe and by 1994 she had formed Kitab Shirketi (The Book Company) for the translation of the Bible and other Christian literature into Azerbaijani and the minority languages of Azerbaijan. She assembled a team of translators and other experts and worked with international translation agencies to produce the Azeri Bible. 

By 2009 her team had translated the Azerbaijani Bible into modern Azerbaijani, one of the fastest translations of any Turkic language, taking just 15 years. Since then, her team has finished many other translations and language projects, including written and media translations.

Gulshen and her team are now working to finish the Talysh Bible translation, the language of one of our supported unreached people groups. Kitab Shirketi has finished the New Testament and hope to finish the Old Testament by the end of 2026 with sufficient funding of $17,500 per year. Our 2024 Thanksgiving gift will go toward meeting some of that need so that the Talysh people will have their first Bible.

When Gulshen first saw Jesus all those years ago she had no idea how much the Lord would use her and her team to translate the languages of Azerbaijan. We give thanks to God for such faithful sisters and brothers as Gulshen and her team among the Azeri people.

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Chris Jones is the Global Outreach Director at New Hope Church. He longs for the unreached people of the world to experience the life-changing love of God and for people at New Hope Church to find fullness of joy by obeying the Great Commission.