"And Even Give Their Lives"

In January, 2007, the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, publisher of the political weekly newspaper Agos, was shot to death on the street in Istanbul. The murder was the work of extremist Turkish nationalists. Hrant Dink was no evangelist. For a long time he had lived pretty aloof of the faith of his Christian Armenian people. When he died, it became known that his wife Rachel Dink was a believing Christian and that Hrant Dink had also personally accepted Christ in the last years of his life.

The funeral for Hrant Dink was shown live on many Turkish TV channels, including CNN and NTV. A personal message from the widow Rachel Dink and the sermon of the Armenian-Apostolic Patriarch in Istanbul, Mesrob II Mutafyan, were so permeated with the good news of Jesus Christ that we suddenly noticed that such terrible suffering provided an opportunity for the message of Jesus to be heard. A week later I wrote a letter about this to friends who pray for us:

It seemed to us that a door was opened for many people, because others spoke credibly in great suffering. Many people here long for words that are authentic and trustworthy. Do we and the church of Jesus in Turkey first have to suffer more in order to be more credible witnesses of the mercy of God? How else can people realize that it is not just about an ideological fight over religious ideas but about the message of salvation from eternal death?

Help us by praying for the church in Turkey (including ourselves) to be willing to live sacrificially and even give their lives.

Often I and other Christian coworkers have experienced that the proclamation of the gospel is seen as something political or kind of like a game: “us against them.” Some think, Here come the foreigners who want to push something on us. We must oppose them.

When a Christian woman, however, spoke of forgiveness and love while standing in front of her husband’s casket and proclaimed the message of Jesus, who is also the Savior of Turks, many listeners noticed that the message of hope was also for them.

“Including ourselves” was something I added to the notion of suffering. At the time we had no idea that we would be so directly included only about a month later.

Excerpted from Faithful Until Death: The Story of Necati Aydin, A Turkish Martyr for Christ by Wolfgang Haede. The book tells the story of the life and death of Necati Aydin, who was Wolfgang’s brother-in-law. Order your copy at www.VOMBooks.com. When you order the book this month, you can also receive a FREE documentary about the killing of Necati and two other Christian men in 2007.