WWW.PERSECUTION.ORG
APRIL 2016
PERSECU ION
ALIVE!
Remembering Those We’ve Lost ICC marks the anniversaries of some special martyrs
PERSECU ION.org
INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCERN
Your Dollar$ at Work Our Vocational Training Is Changing Lives
I
Save Our Sisters
n Pakistan, Christian women face what we call “double persecution.” Due to both their faith and their gender, Christian women are relegated to the lowest rungs of Pakistan’s society and are considered “soft targets” for abuse, abduction, rape, forced marriage and forced conversion. Over the past three years, ICC has sought to change their situation by empowering Christian women with vocational skills and the tools to open their own small businesses. We aptly named this program the Save Our Sisters Vocational Training Program. Since starting in 2013, ICC has trained, graduated and started small businesses with almost 300 Christian women in Pakistan. “We have taken the most vulnerable women and are changing their lives,” ICC’s project manager recently said. “Our sisters are growing both in the skills we are teaching them, but also spiritually as we take time to disciple them while they are at the center.” Currently, 29 Christian women and girls are enrolled in our training program in Pakistan to be either seamstresses or beauticians. Both skills, along with an initial investment by ICC upon graduation, will allow these Christian women to open small businesses which they can safely run out of their homes. This ability to run a small business from home helps the graduates of the Save Our Sisters Vocational Training Program avoid the abuse that Christian women often face in the workplace or when employed as maids in homes. “I have peace of mind and am happy with the atmosphere at the training center,” one of the current students told ICC. “I hope I will achieve my goals here, but I need your prayers to do so.” Thank you to all those who have supported this truly life-changing project in Pakistan by donating to ICC’s Save Our Sisters fund.
1
PERSECU ION.org
INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCERN
APRIL 2016
Bringing Relief Sustaining the to Persecuted Families of Converts Martyrs
N
Hand of Hope
iger is a country where the Christian Church is always under threat. However, one church in central Niger has been described as one of the most vibrant Christian communities in the country where evangelism and discipleship are exploding! ICC is working with this local church to support their efforts to bring the Gospel to unreached people in the region. ICC has provided food to two Muslim-background believers for three months as they try to get back on their feet, having been rejected and excommunicated from their families for trusting Christ. One of the brothers aspires to become a tailor, so ICC has also provided him with a sewing machine, which he will receive upon graduation from tailoring school. Please pray for God to continue to move in Niger
PERSECU ION.org
INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCERN
W
Suffering Wives & Children
hen Christians are martyred, their families are left devastated emotionally but also financially. Christian workers and pastors are poor already but when they lose their breadwinner they left in an unendurable situation. We recently set up a factory for several families that had lost their breadwinners to persecution in a rural area where the average income is only $3 per day. Your support enabled ICC to purchase machines, inventory, and training to start a clothing factory for the martyrs’ families to own and operate. We spent countless hours meeting with the families in the village, setting up training sessions and preparing the facility so that these families will never again have to worry about finances.
Distributing the Gospel to the People of Laos
T
Bibles to the Persecuted
he Southeast Asian country of Laos has a rich history and culture, but also of a history of human rights abuse. Religious freedom is not tolerated from the Marxist government and any deviation from the benign Buddhist faith is perceived as dangerous. Christians and other religious minorities are thus considered foreigners and a threat to Lao culture. NGOs are heavily regulated since the passage of new laws in 2014, making any inroads into the landlocked country difficult. Despite setbacks, God is powerful and has aided ICC and our partners’ efforts to penetrate into the secluded nation. To date, we have been able to support the transportation of over 8,000 Bibles into Lao villages, spreading the Gospel and giving Christians hope for a better tomorrow. *Photo from previous distribution
2
Your Dollar$ at Work
Pastor Opens New Bookstore
I
Underground Pastors
n 2013, Pastor Moses and his wife were attacked by Hindu radicals in his church. He was stabbed multiple times and it was a miracle that he survived. Following the attack, fear spread among the local Christian community, and many Christians were too afraid to return to his church. Pastor Moses told ICC that he feared he was finished. ICC stepped in through our Underground Pastors fund to help rehabilitate Pastor Moses and his ministry. “It’s been two years since the attack,” Pastor Moses said. “We are so thankful for all the assistance. Beginning with the medication and surgery, then replacing the damaged church roof and now with the help starting a Christian bookstore in our church.” This Christian bookstore will allow Pastor Moses to both spread the Gospel and serve the local Christian community, but also sustain him financially.
Small Business Supporting Widow & Family Suffering Wives & Children
I
ndonesia is the largest Muslim nation in the world according to population. Christianity boasts a minority population of around 25 million, garnering an estimated 10 percent of the population. ICC has worked to support an Indonesian widow in setting up a small business to provide for her young family. Her husband, a Christian convert from Islam, recently died of cancer, after years of persecution from radical Muslims leaving her with no means of support. However, his faith in Christ was so strong that nothing could convince them to turn from Jesus. Before passing, he told his wife, “No matter what happens, remember that Jesus is the only one. He is the way, the truth and the life. Bring up our boy in God’s way, and I pray that one day he too will be the fisher of men.”
3
PERSECU ION.org
INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCERN
APRIL 2016
Your Dollar$ at Work
Advocating for India’s Persecuted
I
New Speaker for Attacked Kenyan Church
P
Advocacy
n December 2015, ICC’s advocacy department conducted their third advocacy tour of 2015 by presenting the cases of Christian persecution in the heart of India. Over 50 villages in central India have illegally passed an ordinance that bans any non-Hindu faith, subsequently barring religious minorities from openly practicing their faith.
Those who keep worshiping are threatened with violent assaults, their food supplies are cut off, and they suffer financial hardships. The Modi-led government is part and parcel of the problem and hasn’t curbed the attacks as Hindu nationalism gains strength. ICC and other NGOs have been working behind the scenes in Congress and have had amazing success which we will reveal in next month’s issue.
Underground Pastors
astor “Warren” is fearless. He preaches the Word boldly each Sunday in a section of Mombasa, Kenya, dominated by Muslims and experiencing increasing radicalism and influence from the terrorist group al-Shabaab. In the summer of 2014, al-Shabaab gunmen raided Warren’s church during the Sunday school hour, murdering six church members, including the associate pastor, and left Warren’s wife traumatized. Warren escaped unscathed because he had not yet arrived at church to preach the main worship service. “After your church gets shot up, what do you have to fear?” Warren boldly declared. ICC stepped in to empower Warren’s ministry as he continues to serve faithfully. Even though fear has shrunk his congregation from 120 to 19 nearly two years later, Warren still preaches every Sunday in a church sanctuary riddled with bullet holes and blood stains from the attack. ICC provided a new loud speaker for worship and street evangelism, since his old speaker had been pierced through by bullets.
PERSECU ION.org
INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCERN
Legal Assistance for the Persecuted
W
Legal Assistance
ho could imagine that widespread religious persecution would be taking place in Mexico? Evangelical Christians have been victims of harassment, expulsion from their villages, blocked access to basic food stuffs and imprisonment at the hands of local village authorities. ICC has been at the forefront in advocating and supporting those
affected by the illegal actions of government officials in Mexico. As ICC works tirelessly on Capitol Hill, we are also underwriting a legal suit against the governement to provide protection for vicitms as the Mexican government continues to ignore the situation. Our hope and prayer is that the persecuted receive the basic rights granted to them by the Mexican Constitution and that their voices will be heard loud and clear.
4
Alive! Observing the Anniversaries of the Faithful Fallen
F
By Jeff King, President, International Christian Concern
ourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.
We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot consecrate we cannot hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Lincoln’s Address at Gettysburg, 11/19/1863
5
One hundred fifty three years ago, in mid-November, one of America’s most revered presidents uttered 272 words that I suspect will live outlive this republic. Epic in scope yet masterfully brief, few orators in history have had the ability to pack so much pathos into so few words. His speech had been prepared for the dedication ceremony for the National Cemetery of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Gettysburg, which was the site of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. Almost 8,000 men were killed in that battle alone. I couldn’t help but think the message was a fitting opening as we remember our spiritual countrymen that have fallen in battle. Lincoln noted that those who gave their lives did so to protect the United States.
PERSECU ION.org
INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCERN
APRIL 2016
The war we find ourselves in is of course a spiritual one: a worldwide battlefield with its bloodiest battles occurring in places with names like Mosul, or Borno, or Sirte. Like the fallen at Gettysburg, their deaths further their cause as the martyr’s blood drops as seed into the ground causing the Church to grow. Our “soldiers” didn’t have to die but being especially loyal to their cause and Commander, they couldn’t summon the frailty to denounce Christ even to save their lives. They each consecrated their graves far above our ability to add or detract even if most of their names will remain forever unknown to the masses. As humans, we can’t help but mourn the earthly passing of loved ones whether the martyr or loved ones around us. Two nights ago, my family visited an old friend at his home. At one end of the living room, his wife lay in a hospital bed, sedated and frail, with yellowed skin, breathing her last breaths. Cancer had taken its toll on her body—her exterior shell, once vibrant in health now ravaged by sickness. We gathered around her, taking turns to stroke her head and hands while we said our last goodbyes. Before leaving, we stopped to pray and sing a hymn, and I was struck, once again, by the difference between Christians and the world when it comes to facing death. Whether the dying is lost to cancer or martyred in a brutal and inhumane way, the Christian dying with hope, courage, and after a life well-lived stands out in this world.
PERSECU ION.org
INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCERN
I’ve often spoken to my children about death and how, although our shells (our bodies) will wear out and break, I remind them that their souls—“what makes you, YOU”—will live on, and that in dying, you will live like you never have lived before. In the first few months after Christ found me and took me in, I was so bathed in His presence that I felt I would break into a million pieces, crushed by His joy and love. It is one of my most powerful memories I possess and I often refer to it as I speak to others about death. The Lord tells us that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those that love Him. (1 Cor 2:9). Whatever life you and I have lived is a pale imitation of what is coming. That “crushing” joy and love I experienced will soon be experienced unveiled by flesh and we will not break but bloom. With that in mind, we mourn the passing of our persecuted brethren, remembering that they have been given the Crown of Martyrdom and have found true life. The loved ones left behind are suffering, but the dead are Alive! So let us resolve that our “dead” shall not have died in vain—that the body of Christ shall have a new birth of revival from the example of the faithful martyr. Let us live with the unrelenting faith God desires for us to possess. May we remember to pray for the persecutors of this world, that they would be overcome by the inexplicable and hope of the martyr in the face of death, and would long to find the hope they witnessed and will long to find the reason for it.
6
You Can Help Today!
PERSECU ION.org
INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCERN
SEND DONATIONS TO: ICC PO BOX 8056 SILVER SPRING, MD 20907 OR ONLINE AT WWW.PERSECUTION.ORG OR BY PHONE 800-ICC-5441
GIVING TO ICC VIA YOUR WILL Provide now for a future gift to ICC by including a bequest provision in your will or revocable trust. If you would like more information on giving to ICC in this way, please give us a call at 1-800-ICC-5441.
© Copyright 2016 ICC, Washington, D.C., USA. All rights reserved. Permission to reproduce all or part of this publication is granted provided attribution is given to ICC as the source.
International Christian Concern (ICC) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) (all donations tax-deductible). ICC makes every effort to honor donor wishes in regards to gifts. Occasionally, situations arise where a project is no longer viable. ICC will then redirect those donated funds to the fund most similar to the donor’s original wishes. ICC uses 7.5 percent of each restricted donation to carry out the mission of its segregated funds. facebook.com/persecuted
@persecutionnews