COMING FEB 02, 2027

21 Years of Leadership. One Message for the Next Generation.

After more than 21 years of leadership experience, IUHC founder Joshua Ehm is preparing to publish NO CROWN, NO APPLAUSE: The Hidden Cost of True Leadership—a leadership book shaped by real experiences, difficult decisions, sacrifice, perseverance, and the responsibility of developing others.

Since 2020, the material behind the book has been used within IUHC as a leadership-training resource for underground leaders in Iran. According to IUHC’s internal reports, more than 700 leaders have studied and taught its principles through pastoral training and next-generation leadership courses, while more than 80,000 IUHC members have read the material and regarded it as one of the organization’s most influential leadership resources.

Now, Joshua is preparing to bring this leadership message to a much wider audience.

Written especially for young leaders ages 18–40, as well as business leaders, entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, educators, pastors, parents, and emerging leaders, NO CROWN, NO APPLAUSE challenges the conventional idea that leadership is about titles, followers, recognition, or public success.

Instead, it asks a deeper question:

What does leadership cost—and what remains after the leader is gone?

Through personal experiences and practical leadership lessons, Joshua explores responsibility, character, service, sacrifice, failure, difficult decisions, criticism, pressure, perseverance, and the responsibility to develop future leaders.

The message is simple:

True leadership is not about being seen, praised, or followed. It is about carrying responsibility when nobody is watching, serving when nobody says thank you, and helping people become stronger because you chose to lead.

In 2027, NO CROWN, NO APPLAUSE: The Hidden Cost of True Leadership will be prepared for the United States and beyond.

NO CROWN. NO APPLAUSE. JUST TRUE LEADERSHIP.

COMING April 21, 2027

She Packed Her Things. I Carried the Rest.

A Cross-Cultural True Story of Love, Heartbreak, and Finding Yourself Again 

A cross-cultural love story becomes a powerful journey of heartbreak, healing, and rediscovery. Suitcase or Blame follows an Iranian man and an American woman as two different cultures and two different lives become one— 

COMING April 21, 2027

A TRUE STORY — BUILT FROM HUNDREDS OF HOURS OF INTERVIEWS, Every effort is being made to preserve the voices, details, and experiences of the real people behind the story.

A TRUE STORY — BUILT FROM HUNDREDS OF HOURS OF INTERVIEWS, Every effort is being made to preserve the voices, details, and experiences of the real people behind the story.

One Day, Three Goodbyes

From Drug Addiction to Redemption, Motherhood, and Unimaginable Loss

One Day, Three Goodbyes is the heartbreaking true story of an Iranian woman who journeyed from drug addiction to redemption, from brokenness to faith, and from loneliness to marriage and motherhood. After finding Jesus, she built a new life, married, and became the mother of two children.

Then, in a single devastating day, everything changed.

During the protests against the Islamic government in Tehran, Iran, she lost her husband and both of her children in one day.

Through overwhelming grief, unanswered questions, persecution, and unimaginable pain, her story asks one haunting question: What remains when everything you love is suddenly taken away?

This is the powerful testimony of a mother and Christian leader whose heart was shattered, but whose journey did not end. From the darkness of addiction to the hope she found in Jesus, from the joy of building a family to the horror of losing them all, her extraordinary story is one of love, loss, faith, survival, and the search for hope in life’s darkest moments.

Three lives. Three goodbyes. One day that changed everything.

A TRUE STORY — BUILT FROM HUNDREDS OF HOURS OF INTERVIEWS, Every effort is being made to preserve the voices, details, and experiences of the real people behind the story.

The Child of the Streets is the powerful story of an eight-year-old boy in Tehran who had no parents or stable home. Growing up under the care of an uncle addicted to heroin, the boy was exposed to a world no child should ever have to face. His uncle used him to help sell drugs while he spent his days on the streets, cleaning car windows at red lights just to survive.

Everything began to change when members of IUHC (Iranian Underground House Churches) found him. They spoke with his uncle and became involved in caring for the boy, eventually helping place him with a Christian family in Tehran who had converted from Islam to Christianity. For the first time, he experienced the safety of a home, the love of a family, and the opportunity to learn about Jesus.

With the support of his new family and the IUHC community, the boy went to school, continued his education, and graduated. IUHC later supported him as he pursued medical school. The child who once stood at traffic lights cleaning car windows and was used to sell drugs eventually achieved what once seemed impossible: he became a doctor.

But his journey did not end there. Today, the boy who was once forgotten on the streets of Tehran has become one of the leaders serving Iran’s Underground House Churches, using his life, experience, education, faith, and leadership to help bring hope to others.

The Child of the Streets is a story of rescue, faith, education, transformation, and purpose—a reminder that a child’s beginning does not have to determine his future. From the streets of Tehran to medical school, and from a vulnerable child to a doctor and leader in the Underground House Churches, his journey is a testimony that hope can change the direction of a life.

From surviving the streets to healing others.

From a forgotten child to a doctor with a purpose.

From a child in need of hope to a leader helping bring hope to others.

A TRUE STORY — BUILT FROM HUNDREDS OF HOURS OF INTERVIEWS, Every effort is being made to preserve the voices, details, and experiences of the real people behind the story.

A True Story of Family, Faith, Loss, and Hope in Iran

ALL WE WANTED WAS CHRISTMAS is a deeply moving true story of a young woman whose life was shaped by poverty, disability, hardship—and an unimaginable loss that changed everything.

Born with a disability, she grew up in a family struggling simply to survive. Her father was imprisoned and later suffered severe paralysis. Her mother worked long, exhausting days picking apples in the fields, doing everything she could to provide for her children. Together with her 17-year-old sister and 8-year-old brother, they lived in a small rented home with very little—but they still had one another. Then, in the middle of their struggles, something changed. The family encountered Jesus Christ and embraced the Christian faith. In a life filled with uncertainty, they found hope. In the middle of hardship, they found a reason to believe that their story could be different.

But in January 2026, everything changed.

Her mother, sister, and younger brother were caught in violence during protests in Tehran and were killed while returning home. They Never Came Home, In a single day, the voices that filled their small home were gone.

Her mother. Her sister. Her little brother.

She was only 24 years old. The home they had struggled so hard to keep was suddenly silent. The family she loved was gone, and she was left to face a future she never imagined. But this is not only a story about what she lost.

It is a story about what she refused to lose. Her will to survive. Her courage to keep going. And the hope that can still appear when life seems to have taken everything away.

ALL WE WANTED WAS CHRISTMAS is a powerful story of family, devastating loss, extraordinary survival, faith, and the strength to take one more step when you do not know how to continue.

Sometimes, we do not need a perfect life. Sometimes, we only want the people we love beside us. They did not ask for much. They only wanted to be together.