Persecution Blog

Bob Fu Interviewed by Glenn Beck (Part 1)

VOM friend and coworker Bob Fu, president of China Aid Association, with which VOM partners to help persecuted Christians in China, was interviewed earlier this week by Glenn Beck. The interview occurred just days after Bob spoke at the VOM Regional Conference in Atlanta.

We will share two segments of the interview here on the Persecution Blog. In this first segment Bob shares a little of his personal story of coming to Christ—and then being persecuted—in China, and also talks about the forced abortion policy that continues in that nation and how that policy motivated him and his wife to flee their homeland.

 

You can read Bob’s complete story, and the amazing way he worked for the gospel right under the noses of communist authorities in China, in his new book, God’s Double Agent. Order your copy online at www.VOMBooks.com.

Come back to the Persecution Blog tomorrow for another segment of the interview.

After Stephen

Each month VOM produces "The Jesus Freaks Minute," a daily radio-PSA that shares the stories of the persecuted church with Christian radio listeners all over the United States and around the world. Here's the script for one of the spots that will air next month, a spot entitled After Stephen:

[SOURCE:] Acts 7 & 8

[LYRICS:]  What will people think when they hear that I’m a Jesus Freak.  What will people do when they find that it’s true?

[MICHAEL TAIT:]  Hey, this is Michael Tait with truth every Jesus Freak should hear from The Voice of the Martyrs.

[TODD:]  Acts, chapter seven, records the Stoning of Stephen and his final words, “Lord, do no hold this sin against them.”  What happened then?  Did the first martyrdom of a believer cause the new church to collapse?

Persecution swept through Jerusalem.  The apostles witnessed Saul dragging Christians off to jail while most of the other godly men scattered across Judea and Samaria.

But they didn’t hide.  They spoke boldly.  Preaching the word wherever they went. Proving once again that what man intends for evil, God intends for good.  

[YOUR TURN:] Is there a time in your life where God took something that seemed bad and turned it into something that was for your good and for the good of His Kingdom? Share your experience in the comments section to this post.

Vietnam: Trusting Christ for Healing

“Chinh” and “Anh” are a young couple with three small children. The family is just one of 140 families living in a Hmong village in rural Vietnam. In 2012, none in the village were Christians though some of Chinh’s Christians relatives from a nearby village hadshared the gospel with his family. Even though he had heard about Jesus many times, Chinh never accepted him.

Chinh’s hardness of heart changed in February, 2013 when his wife suddenly lost vision in both of her eyes. Although she could make out shapes and get around the house to take care of her family, it was a frightening experience. Chinh explained to VOM field workers that he and his wife accepted Christ knowing that Jesus was the only hope that she might be healed.

Even though Anh’s vision was not restored, the couple remained faithful to Christ and they shared the message of hope that they had received with other families in their village. As a result, two more families also accepted Christ.

Little did they know that Chinh would suffer for their newly adopted faith. In July, 2013, both Chinh and Anh were baptized in a nearby village. News of their baptism quickly spread to the village leader.  The leader summoned both Chinh and Anh to his office just five days after they had been baptized.

As Chinh walked into the office on July 16, police officers began beating him. No questions were asked. No words were spoken. Officers just started striking him in anger. One of the police officers attached cables to a car battery and shocked Chinh’s eyes. After beating him, they put Chinh in prison. Thankfully, Chinh was released two days later, and though bruised and battered, he was alive.

After the attack, Chinh continued to suffer from blurry vision, especially in his left eye. When VOM workers met with Chinh four weeks later, his eye was still red and swollen, and the area just below his brow line was sore to the touch. He told them that he often suffered from headaches and severe ringing in his ears as a result of the beating.

VOM workers took Chinh and Anh to a doctor for treatment. The most recent report is that Chinh’s eye is healing.

As I learned this story of Chinh and Anh, I thought about their trials and struggles. It must be very difficult to accept Christ, especially when living among 140 other families who do not believe in Christ.

Yet, something inside Chinh and Anh gave them hope. There are several occasions in Scripture when Jesus heals the blind. Perhaps he and his wife had heard of the blind man from Bethsaida who was healed. Jesus led that man out of town, spit on his eyes and touched him, but the man could not clearly see at first. In Mark 8:24, the man looked up and said, “I see men like trees, walking.”

Jesus put his hands on the eyes of the man and then, “And he was restored and saw everyone clearly” (Mark 8:25).

Sometimes, it is not simply the vision of the eyes, but the vision of the heart. Chinh and Anh saw that Jesus could heal. They were faithful even though they did not experience immediate healing. They shared Jesus with other families who became believers.

Healing comes in unexpected ways and it doesn’t seem that God ever does it the same way twice. With some, it’s mud. With others, it was spit. With still others, first their sin was forgiven before they were healed. For Chinh and Anh, they received spiritual healing and didn’t have physical healing until their brothers and sisters in Christ helped get them medical care. Even so, they knew that God was faithfully caring for them every step of the way.

YOUR TURN: What do you need to trust God for healing for? What happens to your faith in God if things don’t work the way you expect?

 

“Ann Kay” is a writer for VOM. She learned about VOM five years ago when she read Tortured for Christ and began receiving the newsletter. She is passionate about reaching the world for Christ and sharing stories of the persecuted church.

Negative Successes

One writer has suggested that we use the buffeting and temptations we encounter in the world as a way for toning-up the muscles of our faith (see Andree Seu, “What is the Victory?” World, June 7, 2003, 43). Toning-up the muscles of our faith is the theme of Hebrews 12:1-12. The “struggle against sin” in verse 4 has been taken by many to mean a struggle against one’s personal sins; however, if you take verse 3 into account (the opposition from sinful men), then verse 4 points more toward the meaning of overcoming the sins of the world or the sinful actions of men that seek to harm us, which press upon us as heavy weights. We can allow these weights to cause us to “grow weary and lose heart” (v. 3); or, we can use them as a means to tone-up our faith.

Some may think of God’s “discipline” as some form of punishment when, in reality, the writer of Hebrews is referring to the external problems or hardships (v. 7) which are particularly heavy, rather than the hardship of suffering under one’s own sin. God allows these hardships to come to us for our good just as a father would allow a child to go through hardship as a discipline to prepare them for life, which has its hardships. The bottom line of this argument is found in verse 12—“Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.” Use what comes your way as a way to strengthen your faith.

Richard Wurmbrand calls going through hardships and God’s discipline as “negative successes.” He observes:

“My brothers and sisters, you also must believe your lives are clay in the hands of a wonderful sculptor. He never makes a mistake. If He is sometimes hard on you it is because He sometimes has what we would call negative successes. He loses a pawn in order to win the chess game. He loses a battle in order to win a war. He causes His Son to endure suffering in order to save the world” (If Prison Walls could Speak, 18).

The idea of “negative successes” seems strange to our minds immersed as we are in the “success syndrome” of our society. It means that we may suffer temporal losses to gain a heavenly crown. The world comes close to the idea of “negative successes” by saying that we should “choose our battles.” There are some battles (hardships, pain, and persecution) that we won’t resist because we are preparing to win the final one. We will suffer the momentary pain or hurt to win the spiritual war through Christ over pain and death.

Losing a battle is not something we can easily accept in our minds. Mindy Belz, in an article titled “Wins and Losses,” observes that “Christianity after all, is the only religion that doesn’t play to win” (World, April 21, 2012, 34)—at least, not yet. She quotes G. K. Chesterton about the Christian faith: “It is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all conquerors.”

We can tone up our muscles by allowing God to discipline us through negative successes. It will be painful but it is not in vain. We win, although in the meantime we may take a beating or suffer persecution. We can use these negative successes to tone-up the muscles of our faith.

Roy Stults, PhD, is the Online Workshop Coordinator and Educational Services Coordinator for The Voice of the Martyrs. He graduated from Olivet Nazarene University (BA and MA), Nazarene Theological Seminary (M.Div.), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Doctor of Missiology), and The University of Manchester (England) with a PhD (theology). A Vietnam veteran, Dr. Stults served as a missionary for 19 years and pastored U.S. churches for eight years. Prior to joining VOM, he was a Professor of Religion at Oklahoma Wesleyan University.

Last Words

Each month VOM produces "The Jesus Freaks Minute," a daily radio-PSA that shares the stories of the persecuted church with Christian radio listeners all over the United States and around the world. Here's the script for one of the spots that will air next month, a spot entitled Last Words:

[SOURCE:] Jesus Freaks, the book.  Page 135, 245, 306

[OPENING MUSIC:]  What will people think when they hear that I’m a Jesus Freak.  What will people do when they find that it’s true?   (:09)

[TOBY MAC:]  Hey, this is TobyMac with truth every Jesus Freak should hear from the Voice of the Martyrs. 

[TODD:]  The book, Jesus Freaks, holds quite a few thought-provoking quotations from martyrs spoken in court, found in journals, or remembered as their last words.

Maurice Blanc, martyred in France in 1547 prayed, “Lord, these men take away my life full of misery, but You will give me life everlasting.”

Justin Martyr, beheaded in second century Rome said, “You can kill us, but you cannot do us any real harm.”

And Geleazium, martyred in St. Angelo, Italy in the Middle Ages said "Death is much sweeter to me with the testimony of truth than life with the least denial."

[YOUR TURN:] Tune in to your Christian radio station to hear "The Jesus Freaks Minute" when it airs. What is your favorite quote from a martyr or persecuted Christian? Share it in the comments section for this post.

 

Appeal Granted; Christian in Iran Released from Prison

After serving ten months in Iran’s Evin prison for Christian activities, we rejoice that Mostafa Mohammad Bordbar was released on Nov. 3, 2013 and acquitted of all charges. We celebrate and

Set free!

are so thankful for the consistent prayers of our members and the many letters sent. Prisoner Alert recorded that government officials were emailed 108 times and 855 encouraging letters were written. Mostafa was arrested on Dec. 27, 2012 for “attending an illegal gathering and participating in a house church.” He was sentenced to ten years imprisonment in July. Mostafa’s lawyer appealed and in a scheduled hearing on Oct. 30, the court decided to withdraw all charges.

Praise the Lord for this answer to prayer. Feel free to go to Mostafa's profile on PrisonerAlert and write an email of thanks to Iran's President or Supreme Leader (click on the link to "Petition Official").

There are still more than 40 Christians in prison in Iran, with several more on PrisonerAlert that you can write letters of encouragement to.

New Web Site encourages prayer for persecuted Christians

A new web site is live this week in conjunction with the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP), which churches around the world will commemorate this Sunday, November 3.

The site, www.iCommitToPray.com, invites Christians around the world to commit to pray for those persecuted because of their faith in Christ and to share their prayers with other believers.

“The first request of our persecuted family, when we go and visit them, is that we pray for them,” said Todd Nettleton, spokesperson for The Voice of the Martyrs, which developed and launched the new site. “iCommitToPray.com grew out of our desire to fulfill their request.”

The site will be updated with current prayer needs from hostile and restricted nations weekly so that Christians can remember to pray for the persecuted every week, not just one week in November.

“The idea for this site really grew out of activity we already saw on the VOM Facebook page,” Nettleton said. “We often post prayer requests, and we began to see people comment on the post and type in their prayers for those currently being persecuted. And others would be encouraged by that, and add their own prayer in the next comment, and so on. At times we could even print out those prayers and show them to the Christians in hostile and restricted nations, and they were incredibly blessed to see very tangibly that Christians around the world hadn’t forgotten them and were lifting them up in prayer. We want iCommitToPray.com to be a site dedicated to that kind of prayer and encouragement.”

Users who register on the site can post their written prayers, then invite friends to join with them in prayer through social media.

“What we envision for iCommitToPray.com is a great prayer meeting for persecuted Christians. But instead of gathering in a church, or someone’s living room, Christians will gather online to pray for the persecuted church,” said Nettleton.