As you know Voice of the Martyrs has a weekly prayer alert that they send out to all of those who have signed up for it.  I highly recommend that you do, especially if you love the church and prayer.

This weeks newsletter begins this way...

Tom White shares an interrogation experience in this excerpt from God's Missiles Over Cuba:
I stopped responding to his questions and stared directly into his eyes.... I continued to pray in front of him like this for hours... 

"What are you doing?" he demanded.
"I am praying for you."
His mouth dropped open.... He looked nervously around the room, then started drumming his fingers on the desk. In the next session I was surprised to see him wearing sunglasses. Evidently he didn't want me to see his eyes. God doesn't need eye contact. He deals with the heart. I continued to pray.

Thanks be to our Lord Jesus for giving the kind of love that drives His people to pray for those who persecute them! Thank you for being willing to stand in the gap and to intercede for these dear brothers and sisters in Christ!

VOM Web Team

This follows the opening and is information that comes directly from VOM sources.  Please pray.

INDIA (VOM sources)
Radical Hindus have expelled evangelist Zacariah (24) from his village for spreading the good news. Zacariah has been working among a poor Hindu community for four years. He started his ministry with a JESUS film team and later began a small, challenging ministry among the poor Hindus. Zacariah has a small congregation of 15-20 people in a village in the Chickmaglur district of Karnataka state in southern India, where he continued his prayer meeting despite an expulsion order issued by radical Hindus. They have now threatened a death penalty for his continued refusal to accept the expulsion order. Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) is intervening to protect the life of this bold soldier of Jesus Christ. A political leader has been asked to interact with the police to extend protection.

Praise God for the bold witness of this faithful believer who continues to reach out with the love of his Savior to the poor. Pray God will surround Zacariah with His strong arm of protection. Pray our merciful and omnipotent Father will reveal Himself to the radical Hindus and bring His peace to India.

Talk to you on Monday friends!  And next week we will be sharing with the world all of you who have signed up to blog for the persecuted.  Let your friends know about that and sign them up too.

I want to thank those of you who have written to the prisoners so far.  Yesterday we started around 286 on the Prisoner Alert page and now the number is 325!  That's very good and encouraging, and I know these precious sisters will be encouraged too.

Please remember to tell your friends and let's keep this challenge going!

Go to Prisoner Alert Now

If you heard the interview that Todd did with Janet then you know how easy and how important it is to write prisoners because it really works!

So I want to personally challenge you to set aside one day a week and write prisoners using the Prisoner Alert system.  It is so easy and literally only takes minutes, and yet your letter can help change the lives of those who are suffering unjustly for Christ Jesus.

I'd like to challenge my readers to go to Prisoner Alert and let's see if we can't get the number of letters written to our most recent prisoners past the 1000 mark!  You can do it and I know you will, so let's get active, and do what God has called us to do by making a difference.

Tell all your friends, and direct them to our blog so that more Christians and others can get involved and encourage those in prison.  Let's make a difference today!

Listen today to Janet Parshall's America, in her first hour,(11 A.M. PT & 2:15 P.M. ET) as she speaks to The Voice of the Martyrs Director of News Services, Todd Nettleton!

Todd will be sharing with Janet the latest news from the frontlines dealing with the persecuted church.  You may listen live online through Janet's website located at http://www.jpamerica.com .  If you listen, leave us a comment about what you heard because we always appreciate hearing from you.

If you miss the show you can hear the interview via Janet's archives.  Just go to the date, hour one, after 5 PM ET. 

Twenty-five years ago I became a Christian while I lived in a non-Christian environment.  And it was a very hard situation because my conversion was pretty radical.  Overnight I knew God loved me, I fell in love with reading the bible and my mother opposed everything new that happened to me.  And when I found out I needed to be baptized I was forbidden to be because my mother told me I had been baptized as a Catholic when I was a baby.  I was devastated because I was a Christian and yet here I was banned from following through on that outward commitment so others would know that I had become a new creature in Him.

I thought of this today when I was reading this article called Judgment makes a mockery of religious freedom because it's essentially the same type of situation.  Here we have a person who converted to Christianity from Islam, but a judgment has refused them their wish to remove Islam from their identification.

If you live in America I want to encourage you to thank God for your religious freedom.  Read the story and then let me know your thoughts.

I have something exciting to share with you today,  it's a video of Voice of the Martyrs very own Todd Nettleton giving YOU a persecution update, and it's great news!

Follow this link to see the video yourself.  It runs under a minute.

This is a very interesting testimony that I think you may be interested in reading.  Check it out here.

After you read this, answer this question - Do you take your faith for granted?

The prayers of the faithful availeth much.  Today I am extremely excited and happy to announce that one of the persecuted prisoners we have been praying for and writing letters on his behalf through VOM's Prisoner Alert, has been released after spending two years in a labor camp.

Todd Nettleton, Director of News Services for VOM said, "We praise God for sustaining this faithful servant during two years of difficult labor, and we also thank all those who prayed for him and wrote letters on his behalf.”

Zhang was featured on the Web site www.prisoneralert.com , where more than 2,700 people composed and printed letters of encouragement to send to him in prison. Authorities told Zhang that he should have received a much longer sentence for his “crimes,” but because his case became known internationally he was given only two years in the labor camp.

Read the complete story here.

This is just one example of why you need to write letters on behalf of the prisoners. This month VOM has highlighted the three Indonesian ladies who were sentenced to prison for teaching children the Bible.  Why not set aside some time today and click on over to Prisoner Alert and write a few letters on their behalf.  Please also pray for them too!

Listen this Thursday to Janet Parshall's America, in her second hour,(11 A.M. PT & 2:15 P.M. ET) as she speaks to The Voice of the Martyrs Director of News Services, Todd Nettleton!

Todd will be sharing with Janet the latest news from the frontlines dealing with the persecuted church.  You may listen live online through Janet's website located at http://www.jpamerica.com .  If you listen, leave us a comment about what you heard because we always appreciate hearing from you.

If you miss the show you can hear the interview via Janet's archives.  Just go to the date, hour one, after 5 PM ET. 

Did you know that the Voice of the Martyrs Canada has an online weblog?  Well, I bet you didn't, which is why you come here, so you can learn great things like this!

Glenn Penner, who is the Communications Director for VOM Canada is the main author of the blog and he has some very good thoughts on persecution.

This past week Glenn wrote an entry called Does Letter Writing Really Make a Difference?  The answer is yes, of course, but you have to read why.

Few knew of his plight until last spring, when visitors to Mennonite prisoner Le Thi Hong Lien discovered him after learning that he had kindly given the poor suffering girl a Bible.  His name was Than Van Truong.

After serving in the North Vietnamese army for 17 years, former communist political cadre Than Van Truong became a pastor with the Baptist General Conference of Vietnam, an unregistered church group.  His active Christian witness and house church witness irritated the communist authorities and they arrested him in May 2003, accused of "counterrevolutionary propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam."   After interrogation, Rev. Troung was placed in a cell with criminals who had committed murder, rape, fraud and robbery.

In January 2004 he was released after 239 days in detention. During this time, seventeen criminal prisoners were converted to Christ. On release from prison, he was placed under house arrest until he was detained the second time on June 3, 2004. He was held in police cells until he was forcibly transferred on September 9, 2004, to the forensic medicine ward, in Center II of the Bien Hoa Mental Hospital for treatment for "hysteria and delirium" because “he believes in God”. 

Finish reading...

And after you finish reading Glenn's excellent commentary why not drop him a note of encouragement here on the blog to say hi.  He reads the comments so he'll see them.