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MARCH 2016
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India Infiltrated ICC Explores India’s Bastar District where Christianity is Banned
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Supporting Pastors in Iran
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Underground Pastors
n January, Iran jumped back into media headlines as Pastor Saeed Abedini and three other Americans were released from prison as the nuclear agreement and sanctions relief came into full effect. On the ground within Iran, the government continues to try to stamp out the growth of the Church. ICC partners with an underground network of churches that, despite intense opposition, is seeing tremendous growth across the country. In over 400 house groups, more than 4,000 people across the country are meeting weekly to grow in what it means to follow Christ. These grow naturally out of conversations with people who are simply looking for meaning and truth in life and are not finding it in the religion forced on them. Your partnership enables us to stand with these brothers and sisters in support of the growth of the Gospel.
A Joyful Christmas for India’s Orphans
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Kids Care
s a result of the anti-Christian violence that swept across India’s Odisha state (previously known as Orissa) in 2008, over 100 Christians were murdered and another 50,000 were forced to flee their homes. Among the most vulnerable victims of this terrible violence were Christian children whose parents were killed. As part of ICC’s continued commitment to caring for Christian children orphaned by persecution, ICC adopted 14 who were orphaned by the 2008 violence. On Christmas, ICC provided each of the orphans with a traditional Christmas gift to continue to show the love and care these Christian children deserve. ICC also funded a Christmas celebration at the children’s home, as well as a Christmas feast open to the local community. In addition to reciting the story of Jesus’ birth, the orphans showed off their dancing skills (right). It truly was a great Christmas for the orphans in India.
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MARCH 2016
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Medical Assistance for Swapna
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Feeding the Persecuted
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hen Swapna and her husband decided to hold a prayer meeting at their house, they couldn’t have imagined the violence that would be unleashed on them by local Hindu radicals. During the prayer meeting, radicals broke into their home in India and began beating the Christians who had come for prayer. At the time, Swapna was four months pregnant. Despite this, she was severely beaten
by the radicals for hosting a Christian prayer meeting. “I begged the attackers not to hurt me, but they pushed me against a wall and beat me,” Swapna told ICC. Swapna lost the baby. When ICC heard, a representative rushed to the village and provided Swapna with funds to support the medical treatment she required. “Thank you, ICC, for helping cover my medical treatment,” Swapna said. “Please continue to pray for healing.”
Hand of Hope
hristians in Mali face a rising tide of Islamic extremism, including threats from al-Qaeda and its franchises that torment the country’s north. Islamist rebels have effectively taken over northern Mali over the past three years, controlling the major cities of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal, imposing strict Sharia (Islamic) law and waging brutal terrorist attacks. In this dangerous climate, Christians face the worst of persecution. If threats to life and safety weren’t enough for Christian Tuaregs from the north, choosing to flee places like Timbuktu doesn’t mean they’re returning to the garden of Eden. Thousands of Christian migrants continue to flood Mali’s capital seeking security. However, Mali still carries an overwhelming Muslim majority that treats Christians with contempt and mistrust. Hundreds of internally displaced Christians are left without jobs, facing discrimination and social exclusion because of their faith in Christ. ICC stepped into this mix just before Christmas to provide simple rice staples for 21 persecuted and displaced Christian families.
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Providing Bibles to Those in Need
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Bibles to the Persecuted
ran’s persecution of Christians has driven thousands out of the country. These Christians are gathered in churches where they are not only worshipping together, but reaching out to other Persian speakers who visit as tourists or are refugees themselves. Over Christmas, ICC partnered with churches in four cities across Turkey to sup-
ply more than 700 New Testaments and evangelistic pieces of literature through these Persian-speaking churches. At Christmas banquets, more than 150 nonChristians heard the Gospel clearly presented and received New Testaments and evangelistic materials. During these meetings, 14 people became followers of Jesus, and many more continue to ask questions to learn more about what it means to be a Christian.
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Bringing Warmth to Displaced Believers Two Christian Villages in Iraq Receive Heaters
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s winter bore down on northern Iraq, church leaders came to ICC and told us of an urgent situation in northern Iraq. Several hundred families that had fled ISIS were without heat and nightly temperatures were at the freezing point. Just after that, another request for heaters came to us from refugees that had fled ISIS’ advance into Mosul. In total, nearly 1,300 people were without heat, when temperatures were near freezing.
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Because of the support of ICC’s donors, we were able to quickly respond and provide the funds to purchase and distribute heaters within just a few days of learning of the need. This kind of targeted, strategic response to the needs of church leaders and their communities is at the heart of what ICC does. While there are many needs we’re unable to meet, our heart is to stand in the gap and support the Church in places where they are not getting help and remind our brothers and sisters in need that they are not alone. In Iraq and Syria, the Church is facing a crucial threat to its existence. They have not only been driven from their homes, churches,
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and the lands where they’ve worshipped for 2,000 years, but because of a lack of support in the places where they have fled, they are now leaving the Middle East altogether. While ISIS has not been able to drive the Christians from Iraq, the lack of basic necessities, education, and employment may accomplish their ultimate goal. As families are unable to find any sort of new life to rebuild again, they are looking for a place of protection, opportunity, and respite for the next generation. We are striving to meet those needs and slow the wave of Christians leaving Iraq.
MARCH 2016
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Sweaters for Displaced Children
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Kids Care
he New Testament teaches us that “true religion” means visiting orphans and widows in their affliction and keeping ourselves unstained from the world. By God’s grace, He has opened the opportunity for ICC to follow Christ in this way by serving some of the most vulnerable among us. Militant Islamic terrorists with Boko Haram have displaced more than two million people from their homes in northern Nigeria to the south because of the bloody devastation they have inflicted upon the Christian community,
in particular. This number includes more than one million children. Nearly 300 children live in a temporary shelter in a schoolyard in Jos, Nigeria, where they have to sleep outside in the chilling temperatures of the Nigerian highland winter. Lacking adequate seasonal clothing, these children often suffer, having to grin and bear the cold at night. Thanks to our faithful donors and partners, ICC provided full warm outfits for 298 children living in this displacement camp, including sweaters, trousers and caps. Please continue to pray for our persecuted family in Nigeria.
Developing Sustainable Businesses to Support Pastors Underground Pastors
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eading a small body of persecuted believers can truly be a challenge in India. With 80 percent of India’s Christians from low caste backgrounds, resources to support church leaders are hard to come by. For some leaders, especially those leading churches that face regular persecution, making ends meet is nearly impossible. “Before, everything looked impossible and dim,” Pastor Y, a leader of a small, persecuted congregation, told ICC. That’s where ICC comes in. To support leaders like Pastor John, ICC helps in the development and opening of small businesses. The church leaders who receive this assistance are then able to run a small business that both supports their ministry and allows them enough free time to continue to lead their congregations effectively.
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Feature Article
I WILL NEVER
LEAVE JESUS ICC’s Trip to India’s Most Persecuted Area By Ryan Morgan
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n late 2015, an ICC team infiltrated India’s most anti-Christian area, the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh state. Incredibly, Christianity has been banned there in over 50 villages since 2014. Believers have suffered boycotts, forced conversion ceremonies and physical assaults. ICC’s team met with pastors, church leaders and victims on the ground to get the real story and bring much needed aid to the bruised body of Christ.
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The room was almost completely dark. A single lightbulb illuminated the silhouettes of a half-dozen believers, all talking in hushed voices. A moment later, the room grew deathly still as a young man, his skin baked a hard bronze from countless days of working in the fields nearby, told us his story. “A group of them came and found me on the street. They told me I was filthy, that I didn’t deserve to live in their village. One of them hit me in the face, the others shoved me around. They told me they would have a ceremony on
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Friday and that I had better be there to perform the rituals and reconvert (to Hinduism). They said if I didn’t show up, they’d beat me and kick my family out of the village.” “What do you plan to do?” we asked. “I will never leave Jesus, no matter what. Even if I have to die for it, I will never go back.” It was the incredible refrain we heard time and again over the course of our trip. Threatened with shame, humiliation, rejection, violence and even death, the believers MARCH 2016
An Indian believer tells ICC his incredible testimony of being beaten for his faith. of central India stood resolute in their faith in Christ. In fact, to hear them speak of Jesus, you would think that they had just finished talking to Him the moment before, so intimate and close and real seemed their relationship.
Rise of the Hindu Taliban
India is in the grip of tectonic social and religious shifts unlike anything in the past 10 years. In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power as anger with the corruption
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and inefficiency of the previous party paved the way for a new government. Elected on promises of economic reform and growth, most of India cheered while others, including India’s more than 30 million Christians, held their breath at what was to come. Few around the world remembered that the BJP had its roots in the ultra-radical Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or “National Volunteer Organization.” Few also seemed to remember that only 12 years prior, Modi, then governor of Gujarat
‘I will never leave Jesus, no matter what. Even if I have to die for it, I will never go back.’ — A former Hindu threatened with assault if he refused to forsake Christ
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Hindu radicals attacked and destroyed this church in Chhattisgarh, India, leaving only piles of rubble behind.
A young Christian boy looks over during a time of prayer in a small village church in Chhattisgarh.
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MARCH 2016
state, sat by passively as hundreds of Muslims were massacred by Hindu radicals under his watch. Fast forward to early 2015, just 10 months into Modi’s rule as prime minister, and human rights groups have documented over 600 attacks on religious minorities. While the BJP never publicly supports these attacks, neither do they condemn them. This is due in large part to the ideology of “Hinduvta,” upon which the RSS and the BJP were founded. In its most basic form, Hinduvta ideology sees all of the Indian subcontinent as the homeland of Hindus and Hindus alone. Through this lens, Christians are seen as invaders whose influence must be “reversed” in order to clear the way for the rise of the “Hindu Rasthra,” or Hindu nation. Many Indians who ascribe closely to this ideology say violence against Christians is really only self-defense. This “Hindu Taliban,” as some have described it, is gaining prominence across India. Tens of thousands of RSS members hold military-like exercises every morning, practicing marches and hand-to-hand combat. As one well respected Christian leader told ICC during our visit, “There is a militarization of Hinduism happening in this country that hasn’t been seen for 1,000 years.”
A Cause for Hope
The consequences of this wave of Hindu radicalization for India’s Christians are both simple and terrible. Mob attacks on churches, forced conversions to Hinduism and social boycotts that leave Christians unable to find work, buy food or even use the local water well are becoming routine. In a nation that theoretically provides complete religious freedom to all of its citizens, ICC’s team had to move from one village to the next in secrecy, meeting with believers who couldn’t sing above a whisper or spend more than 20 minutes with us for fear of attracting an attack. Yet even as a great darkness tries to secure its grip on the world’s second largest nation, there is cause for hope. The Christians who ICC’s team interviewed had faced countless trials, yet their faith remained astonishingly intact. When I left that small dark room in rural India, I looked into the smiling eyes of the young Christian man who had just finished telling us of the beating he took for his faith, and I saw nothing but joy. Truly, I thought, the world was not worthy of these beautiful people.
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INDIA’S UNTOUCHABLES It’s almost impossible to talk at length about the persecution of Christians in India without touching on the caste system. Although technically banned in modern India, this ancient Hindu system of dividing all of society into strict classes based on birth continues to permeate every part of life for hundreds of millions of Indians. At the top of this oppressive system sit Brahmins, or priests, while at the very bottom, so low that they are sub-human, are the Dalits, or untouchables. A large majority of India’s Christians come from this untouchable class. One member of ICC’s team, a believer and former untouchable, explained to ICC what this means: “When I was a young boy growing up in my village, I was literally untouchable. If I wanted to buy food at the shop, I had to set my money down on the counter, not put it into the shopkeeper’s hand, lest I touch them. They would then drop my food in front of me, never handing it to me. If I asked for water, I would have to cup my hands down low near the floor as they poured it from up high, just to make sure we didn’t come into contact. I often felt so ashamed.” The effects of being an untouchable go even further than social discrimination. Members of various castes are told they must work in the professions associated with their caste. For the untouchables, this means the most menial forms of labor, from digging ditches and cleaning sewers to sweeping the streets. Worse still, untouchables are told that the only way to improve their future is to dedicate themselves completely to their position in life, and then, after death, they may
be reincarnated into a better position. This belief system has trapped millions into lives of poverty and persecution for more than 2,000 years. For many untouchables, the introduction of the Gospel into their lives is like the breaking of a new dawn. Suddenly they are told that there is no distinction between people, that God views all equally, and that He sent His son to die on their behalf. This revelation leads many to follow Christ while at the same time radically upsets the social order that many Hindus, especially fundamentalist Hindus, have a vested interest, both economically and politically, in keeping in place. This means that Christians in India face persecution for both their place in the caste system and their faith in Christ. As strains of radical Hinduism increasingly grow in influence, the world can expect to witness an especially fearsome repression of formerly untouchable believers who have the courage to defend their faith and reject their classification by society.
‘When I was a young boy ... I was literally untouchable. I had to set my money down on the counter, not put it into the shopkeeper’s hand, lest I touch them.’
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