Persecution Blog

Danjuma: A Scar and a Smile

His face is marked with a vicious scar…and a brilliant smile.

Thirteen–year–old Danjuma Shakaru was critically injured during an attack on his village in northern Nigeria. Muslim militants struck Danjuma on the head, arm and body with their machetes. Thinking he was dead, the villagers who found him dug his grave.

But Danjuma’s grave is empty. He is alive in part because of the care he received through VOM’s medical program. Violence against Christians in Nigeria continues to rise, and VOM helped more than 500 believers with serious medical injuries during the past year. VOM pays for travel costs, hospital bills, prostheses, tests and medicines for severely injured Christians. Will you help us serve others like Danjuma?

As Bound With Them

She’s my age.

This thought was just starting to register in my mind as I read about a girl who was tortured by her own father for her faith in Christ.

I was reading a field report from Uganda that had an update on Susan Ithungu and it included recent pictures of her.

When I first saw the pictures, I thought: She must be about 15 now. She looks very young and it never occurred to me that she could be my age until I read a previous VOM article about her:

“Susan was just 13 when an evangelist spoke at her school in Uganda and she turned to Christ for salvation,” the article began. “That year, 2009, marked the beginning of the troubles with her father.”

That was the year she started getting beaten by her father for her conversion. The next year, he locked her in a room for six months without feeding her.

Wait a second. I was around that age in 2009. That means Susan is around my age now. My heart lurched at the thought of what Susan was enduring then. What was I worried about in 2009? School, friends and boys probably sums it up well. What was Susan worried about in 2009? Dying of starvation at the hands of her father for her faith in Christ.

I stared at her glowing face on the screen as I suddenly felt so many different emotions running through me. I felt grieved for Susan. I felt sad for what she had to go through, for what she had to lose to profess her faith in Christ. Yet I felt happy that she counted the costs in the beginning and didn’t give up her faith after facing physical torment for it. It was as if I had seen my own sister go through that.

But Susan is my sister. We are family through Christ. I found myself stopping what I was doing to pray.

I honestly didn’t feel connected to Susan before I had the realization about her age. Why is that? Why does it take little things like that for us to connect emotionally with our persecuted family? I hear it often regarding things like age or other parallels we see in a particular person we read about: we don’t feel connected until we can relate to someone. But these people are Christians. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ, shouldn’t that be enough to make us feel connected?

This is what VOM does that I didn’t fully understand until I started working here as an intern this summer. One of the goals of VOM is to inform and inspire American Christians to act. That’s why there’s a newsletter and a website and a blog and tons of other resources that VOM produces: to get us to act! It’s so easy with all the distractions in our own culture to forget about our persecuted family in other countries, let alone feel a connection or burden for them. But to connect motivates us to act and to act starts with prayer.

As believers we are called to “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body” (Hebrews 13:3).

As bound with them. As if I were with them in prison, as if I were with them starving, as if I were beaten with them. Although Susan is free from her father now, she still bears the scars of what he did to her. She bears those scars every day and is probably reminded of it every time she tries to walk. I am to remember Susan as if I am bound with her, as if I am trying to walk with her. To walk with Susan daily is to pray for her daily, to pray for her emotional freedom and freedom from the need to walk with crutches.

As we are reminded of our persecuted family, we need to pray for them like they are our own brother or sister.

Because, well, they are. 

Valerie O. is a summer intern at The Voice of the Martyrs. This fall she will be a junior at California State University, Long Beach studying journalism. She first heard of VOM through a Bible study when someone handed her a VOM newsletter. Since then, she has felt drawn to VOM and its primary goal and has desired for God to use her skillset to help in reaching that goal. 

Video: The Gathering Storm of Persecution in Kenya

The focus for VOM's free monthly newsletter in June is Christians facing persecution in Africa, with stories from Niger, Uganda and Kenya.

Recently, VOM's sister mission in the UK, Release International, produced this video about the rise of persecution in Kenya. Please pray for our persecuted family in Africa.

 

Not Too Much To Give

“If they want all three of our kids,” said Tawadros’ widow, Malaka, “it isn’t too much [to give] for Christ.”

Malaka and her three children are among the families who are grieving the loss of the 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians killed by Islamic State terrorists in Libya in February. Malaka lost her husband, Tawadro Yusuf Tawadros.

When a VOM partner visited the families recently, several of them shared their pride in their family members who gave their lives for Christ. Those who, like Malaka, would give all that they have for Christ.

The mother of martyr Gaber Munir Adly said, “I’m so happy that he remained true to his faith in Christ. This is so much better than what could have happened.”

The young man’s mother was asked if she thought it might have been better if he had outwardly denied his faith but repented when he returned.“If he had left his Christ, he would have been useless to us. His dying for the faith is a blessing we don’t deserve.All I know is The Lord’s Prayer, but I feel the peace of God in my heart.” 

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Nigeria: Escape from Boko Haram

A 15-year-old girl can dream about her future again after a harrowing escape from her abductors. The teenager survived seven weeks in the custody of Islamic terrorists Boko Haram, who kidnapped her in October from her home in northern Nigeria.

Near noon on Oct. 29, 2014, Boko Haram militants ambushed Mubi, the city where Abigail lived with her family. The teenager’s mother, Rebecca John, was away visiting her sister when her daughter and a group of others were captured by Boko Haram militants. Abigail’s brother, Lucky, was also abducted. Their mother would spend the next two months wondering if either of her children was alive. As Abigail was dragged away from her home, she “saw so many corpses of men.”

Through this attack, Boko Haram conquered Mubi and established their claim on the city. They renamed the city “Madinatul Islam” or City of Islam, and added the city to several cities the militant group has captured in an effort to establish an Islamic caliphate in northern Nigeria.

In the raid, the men were killed, while women and children were abducted and taken to a large house. That evening, the kidnappers fed their captives and treated them well. After breakfast the next morning, one of the Boko Haram members “started preaching Islam to us,” said Abigail.

PLEASE PRAY FOR NIGERIA in the days leading up to national presidential elections on February 14.

The day’s lesson was suddenly interrupted when a Nigerian military jet dropped a bomb close to the building. A second jet could be heard in the distance, so the terrorists forced Abigail and the others into the main room of the building. Moments later, the house took a direct hit. One of the Boko Haram members was killed, in addition to five women and a child. Many of the hostages were injured by flying shrapnel.

“Those [kidnap victims] who were not affected by the bomb managed to escape,” Abigail said, but she was badly injured. She was taken by her captors to a clinic, where she saw one woman have her leg amputated and she received minor treatment for her broken arm.

After treatment, Boko Haram moved Abigail to a new location. As she recovered, “They did not try to Islamize those of us who were injured, although they kept preaching to us and gave us Muslim names. My name was changed from Abigail to Zainab.”

Read the rest of Abigail's story at Persecution.com.

NIGERIA: 60 Christians Helped, 80 More Waiting

While the assaults by radical Muslims in Nigeria have faded from the news, the attacks on Christians have continued to escalate.

What would you do? Go to church knowing you could be attacked? Avoid sharing your faith? Or even deny your faith to save your earthly body?

These are very hard questions and Christians in Nigeria (predominantly the north) face this dilemma almost daily.

In recent years, Boko Haram has become a predominant Muslim terrorist group. And their mission is to eradicate Christianity—and anything Western—from Nigeria. While burning churches and beheading Christians is common, another tactic is often used, that of severing a limb, usually a leg.

In response to these attacks, The Voice of the Martyrs continues to enlarge its prosthetics clinic in northern Nigeria. With the help of technicians donating their time along with quality materials shipped from the U.S., we are able to assist our persecuted brothers and sisters with new prosthetics.

“We have been able to provide 60 persecuted believers with custom-fitted prosthetics in the last 12 months. We have identified 80 more Christians who need one.”

– Cole Richards, Vice President, International Ministries

Tragically the victims have even been children, like Mary. She will now learn to walk again thanks to VOM’s prosthetics clinic.

When you donate to VOM’s Families of Martyrs Fund, you are also helping those who are living martyrs, even children like Mary who choose to follow Christ no matter the cost.

Please click on the link below and consider a donation to VOM’s Families of Martyrs Fund and help us meet the growing need of providing quality prosthetics to your persecuted family members in Nigeria.

Click here to partner with VOM in providing more prosthetics to our family members like Mary.

Weng Walking (video)

Weng Goodluck Tshua was three weeks old in March 2010 when Fulani Muslims attacked his village of Dogo Nahawa and slaughtered 501 Christians. All nine members of his family, including his father and mother, were killed. He was rescued from his burning house, but not before the fire had consumed his feet. As Weng has grown over the past few years, he has been unable to run around or even walk. But a VOM prosthetics team is helping change that.

After studying his feet, the prosthetics team fashioned special shoes for both of his misshapen limbs. They returned several months later with specially fitted shoes that can be adjusted as three-year-old Weng continues to grow. Each shoe is made of three layers. As Weng grows, the inner layers can be removed as needed, to allow more room in the shoes. The team plans to provide new shoes for Weng before he grows out of the final layer of these shoes.

Recently VOM received new video of Weng, proudly walking around in is new, custom-made shoes. May it bless all who see it and encourage more prayer for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Northern Nigeria.

 

You can give online to support blessings like this one to Weng and help provide for other Christians in need of medical care due to persecution by giving to support VOMedical.

IDOP: Less Than Two Weeks Away

With less than two weeks to go before this year’s International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP) on November 3, is your church planning to “Remember them that are in bonds” (Hebrews 13:3) on this significant Sunday?

The Voice of the Martyrs has created a short film to invite and inspire your church to pray for our persecuted family around the world. This year’s film focuses on Christians in Northern Nigeria, and was shot on location in that nation with help from Christians there.

 

VOM will send you—FREE of charge—a DVD of this powerful film to share with your church congregation or Sunday School class. You can also purchase additional resources to remind your church to pray for persecuted Christians, not only on IDOP Sunday but throughout the year.

Order today in order to insure delivery in time for November 3.

Semse Aydin on Forgiveness

The day after her husband was brutally murdered in the offices of a Christian publishing house in Turkey, Semse Aydin announced on national TV that she had forgiven the men who committed the murder.

In this video interview, Semse talks about forgiveness and how God enabled her to forgive.

 

For more on this amazing story, read 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 Turkey in 2007.

Tanzania: Pastors Targeted

The feature story in VOM’s June newsletter focuses on the rise of Islam in Africa, with stories of recent persecution from Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. Gary Lane contributed to that feature story, and also filed this video report to CBN News:

  

Please PRAY for the church in Tanzania, and all across eastern Africa. Pray Christians will continue to be bold witnesses for Christ in spite of the danger and threats. Pray also for Generosa and her 12 children as they mourn the loss of husband and father.