September 2015 Persecution Magazine (2 of 4)

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SEPTEMBER 2015

PERSECU

ION.OR

Supreme Surrender Responding to the Supreme Court’s Ruling on Gay Marriage Indonesia

Protest Palace

China

Crosses on China’s Horizon?

Middle East

A Flood of Refugees

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Your Dollar$ at Work Trauma Counseling for Children of All Saints Church Kids Care

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n September 22, 2013, the Christian community of Peshawar, Pakistan, was devastated when two suicide bombers attacked All Saints Church outside Kohati gate in Peshawar. Members of the church were just exiting following the Sunday morning service when the bombers attacked, exposing around 600 Christians to the deadly blast. When the dust settled, over 100 Christians were killed and scores more were seriously injured.

In response to this crisis, ICC designed and implemented a schooling program for the Christian children affected by the church bombing. In total, 30 Christian students from All Saints Church were taken into the program and supported throughout the 2014-15 and 2015-16 academic year.

As ICC’s staff interacted with the students in the program, they observed that the students remained traumatized despite almost 2 years having passed since the incident. Many of the students kept silent at home and in the school, refused to take part in co-curriculum activities in school, no longer enjoyed playing with their friends and had limited themselves to interaction with their families. ICC’s staff later discovered that many of the students feared going to gatherings and had not attended church since September 2013 due to fear.

In June, during the summer holidays, ICC designed and supported a trauma counseling program for these students still affected by the All Saints Church bombing. Over the course of four days, a professional trauma counselor worked with both the children and parents enrolled in ICC’s schooling program. For most, this was the first time they had received counseling from a mental health professional.

Thank you to all who have supported these children and others like them across the world.

Reclaiming the futures of Christian children whose lives have been devastated by persecution is truly amazing and humbling work.

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SEPTEMBER 2015

Relief from the Food for Heat for Iraqi Pastors and Christians Their Families Hand of Hope

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degrees, again. The heat in Iraq during the summer months is brutal.

For many of the more than 150,000 Christians, and more than 3 million total Iraqis, there is almost no escape from the sun.

The only shade to be found is a tarp outside a church hall, or a corner inside an unfinished concrete block building, that begins to resemble a bread oven in the brutal summer heat. For those who were able to rent an apartment, they are most often filled with two or three families — 10 to 15 people living on top of each other.

To bring relief to more than 150 of these families, ICC has provided air coolers that make the elements more survivable for now.

Working together with local church partners, we are reminding Iraq’s Christian community that they are not alone.

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Community Rebuild

hristians all over Niger continue to suffer from the ongoing effects of Muslim riots in January after the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published a cartoon depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Pastors and churches were some of the hardest hit when rioters burned and looted dozens of church buildings and many pastors’ homes.

In June, ICC stepped in to deliver three months of food for five pastors and their families. Their churches also received replacement chairs for worship services.

“We appreciate this assistance and we pray that God will remember you as you remember us during our time of trial and sorrow,” Pastor George told ICC’s Niger representative.

Please continue to pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Niger.

Microbusiness for Families

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Suffering Wives & Children

n 2013, ICC received a list of 63 Christians imprisoned throughout Vietnam -- primarily church elders, leaders or pastors who were given harsh, 15 to 18 year sentences based on vague charges such as “disturbing public order.” Most of the prisoners are married, and many have children. Their families face extreme financial hardship without their husbands or fathers. As these families typically already lived on minimal incomes, unexpected expenses can be devastating.

ICC has already provided baby pigs to 10 families of these imprisoned church leaders in critical need, and has started aid to 10 more families. ICC provides food for the pigs for an initial 8 months, the livestock reproduce four to six offspring, and the business becomes self-sustaining. This program provides the family a modest income during their loved one’s imprisonment, alleviating much of the financial suffering.

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Your Dollar$ at Work

Distributing Biblical Training Materials

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Bibles to the Persecuted

he rapid growth of Christian churches throughout Southeast Asia means many new believers need Biblically-based teaching materials, especially in areas where there are no trained pastors. ICC is partnering with an experienced organization to produce and distribute roughly 300 teaching albums, each containing 97 DVDs of training materials developed by indigenous pastors. The teachings include up to four years’ worth of information on issues such as avoiding cults, developing a healthy marriage and family and a series for new believers. In addition, the DVDs include a multilingual Jesus Film, Christian praise and worship songs, local language Bible and study notes, as well as popular devotional materials.

The DVD albums are certainly meeting a need, but a lack of funding prevents the organization from fulfilling all the requests they have received for the albums. One contact told them he could distribute “1000 albums now,” and another contact knows hundreds of church leaders who oversee many groups — they have also asked for more than 1000 albums.

ICC intends to help bridge that funding gap.

ICC Provides Struggling Family with Flock of Goats Suffering Wives & Children

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n August 26, 2014, on our way to Egypt by a microbus, a group of masked gunmen wearing Libyan military clothes in a checkpoint in Sirte stopped our microbus,” Mustafa Mahmoud told ICC. “They asked all the 27 passengers in the microbus to show them their passports, and when they read the

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name of Mina in his passport they said to him, ‘You are Christian.’ Mina answered, ‘Yes, I’m Christian.’ They then ordered Mina to get out of the microbus, and asked the driver to take the rest of the passengers and leave.”

“Mina is my best friend,” he told ICC. Mahmoud and Mina had traveled from Egypt to Libya to find jobs. When they tried to return, Mahmoud was let go because he was Muslim, but Mina, a Christian, was taken. His family has not heard from him since he was taken. ICC worked with his family to share his story and to press the Egyptian Foreign Ministry to try to find Mina, along with other Christians who have been abducted by Islamic extremists in Libya.

Through our Suffering Wives and Children fund, we provided Mina’s wife, Mariam, and their one-year-old son, Stephen, with a flock

SEPTEMBER 2015

Your Dollar$ at Work

Small Business Assistance

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Suffering Wives & Children

n March 15, suicide bombers from the Pakistani Taliban attacked two churches in Lahore’s predominantly Christian neighborhood of Youhanabad. As a result of the attack, 19 Christians were killed and over 70 others were injured.

Following the bombings, ICC’s Regional Manager for South Asia visited Youhanabad and met with many of the families most affected by the bombings, especially those families who lost their breadwinner. It was

discovered that there were 28 Christian families that lost their breadwinner to death or injury in Youhanabad. This has left these families unable to support themselves and dependent on the aid pouring into Youhanabad, which will dry up in time.

In June, ICC provided the first five families with sustainable assistance in the form of micro-finance projects. Over the coming months, ICC will continue to work with the other Christian families affected by the church bombings.

of goats. The goats provide Mariam and Stephen with milk and cheese to eat and to sell to earn an income.

“I thank you ICC for the great charitable work you do. May God be with you, strengthen you, develop your service more and more,” Mariam said. “We need your earnest prayers very much for all the Christian captives, for their release and for their safe return.”

Sewing Shop for Christian Widow

‘We need your earnest prayers very much for all the Christian captives, for their release and for their safe return.’

eba, a young mother with another child on the way, became a widow in January, when her husband was shot and killed in a village in Upper Egypt. Eighteen months earlier, her husband’s cousin and three others were beaten to death and the family was pressing charges against those guilty of the murders.

When they refused to drop the cases, the

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Suffering Wives & Children

accused made good on their threats against the family.

As ICC met with Heba and learned her situation, she wanted a way to be able to care for her family. She had experience working as a seamstress in an upholstery factory. From ICC’s Suffering Wives and Children fund, we are able to provide the investment for Heba to open a business to care for her young family.

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Impact Report

where Most Needed

Suffering Wives and Children

Community rebuild

FUND BALANCE:

FUND BALANCE:

FUND BALANCE:

critical

medium

high

critical

medium

high

critical

medium

high

Attack recovery

Rape recovery

Church Rebuilding

India

Pakistan

Kenya

HIGHLIGHT

HIGHLIGHT

HIGHLIGHT

Two years ago, Pastor Moses and his family began facing intense persecution at the hands of Hindu radicals in their village. One night, radicals broke into their house and attempted to end the local church by murdering Pastor Moses and his wife.

Since the attack, ICC has been assisting Pastor Moses in recovering from this incident and other severe incidents of persecution.

Recently, ICC provided Pastor Moses with a new roof for his church. The original roof was damaged in many places when radicals stoned the church multiple times. This allowed rain to leak into the church, which affected the church’s ability to hold regular services.

Through your support, ICC is able to help believers in South Asia like Pastor Moses.

A woman named Shafila was traumatized by the persecution she faced because of both her faith and gender. A Muslim man had noticed Shafila and asked her to have sex with him. When Shafila refused his advances, the Muslim man became angry, abducted Shafila, and kept her hidden in a place where he was able to rape her repeatedly.

By God’s mercy, one day Shafila was able to escape. ICC was able to assist Shafila by providing her with counseling and a single sewing machine. Upon receiving the sewing machine, Shafila immediately began filling orders. Now, Shafila is a co-owner of a sewing operation that fills industrial orders, employing herself and eight others.

July 5 marked the tragic anniversary of alShabaab’s attack on Malamade, a tiny village outside of Hindi, Kenya, where militants murdered Christians who refused to abandon their faith and convert to Islam.

On the night of July 5, 2014, those who managed to escape hid in the bush until morning, only to wake up homeless, their houses, church, and school burned, while many of their friends and neighbors lay dead, murdered because of their faithfulness to Jesus.

ICC is currently working with our local partners to rebuild hope through the reconstruction of homes for 15 families whose houses were burned to the ground during the attack. Please pray for the success of these efforts!

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SEPTEMBER 2015

Impact Report

legal assistance

underground pastors

Bibles

FUND BALANCE:

FUND BALANCE:

FUND BALANCE:

critical

medium

high

Land Recovery

critical

medium

high

Blasphemy victim

critical

medium

high

distributing bibles

Ethiopia Pakistan Pakistan

HIGHLIGHT Despite his family owning their patch of land in outside Deder, Ethiopia, for over 90 years, the Mengistu family has been harassed, threatened and had an angry mob of Muslims try to build a mosque on their farmland. Even though Fikere Mengistu won his court case, a local mob of Muslims continues to harass him and his family with complete disregard to the court rulings. Mosque construction continues and has even been protected by local police and government officials.

ICC provided legal representation for the family, confirming their land title, and is working with the Ethiopian Christian Lawyers Association to bring resolution and attention to the case. Please pray for justice for the Mengistu family!

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HIGHLIGHT

HIGHLIGHT

For the last 14 years, Peter Masih has been preaching the Word of God in Pakistan. When Peter’s Muslim family became aware of his conversion to Christianity, they tortured him physically for more than a year in an attempt to force him to return to Islam.

Since then, Peter has moved from one city to another to avoid detection and persecution by radical Islamists. Peter later married a Christian woman and started a family.

Unfortunately, he and his family were forced to flee their home again after receiving death threats from local extremists.

When ICC heard Peter’s story, assistance was immediately distributed. ICC was able provide food, clothes and a place to secure Peter and his family during this time of trouble.

During the 2015 ICC trip to Pakistan, ICC’s Regional Manager for South Asia met with an ICC-supported pastor based in Lahore. ICC has been supporting this pastor’s ministry since 2013. While visiting with this pastor, ICC’s team provided him with funds to purchase and distribute 50 full Urdu Bibles over the Easter holiday.

On Easter, the Christians who attended the pastor’s services received a free Urdu Bible.

For many, this is something that they would otherwise not be able to afford.

“It was a true blessing for many,” the pastor told ICC. “It really helped show the joy of Easter to many of the Christians that attend my services.”

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You Can Help Today!

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