More than 60 people set fire to a church building used for Sunday school in Puttlam District, National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka, reported.

The irony of this story is very interesting when you really think about it. This story appears on OneNewsNow.com today. The following paragraph explains it all.

Nikolai Khamara was arrested for robbery and imprisoned for ten years. Khamara watched the Christians and wondered what kind of beings they were. They were men, but they would show joy despite their suffering and would sing in very dark hours. When they had a piece of bread, they shared it with someone who had none. Their faces would shine as they spoke to someone whom Khamara could not see.

This is a 48 minute interview about the results of this very important report concerning those who are persecuted for religious reasons.

If you enjoy reading good research and reports about what is happening around the world concerning human rights and religious freedom, then you will be thrilled with the content in this report that was just released from the United States State Department on what the current state of persecution is in the nations around the world.

VOM staff

Today I wanted to offer you a different perspective on how we need to remember the persecuted church. As I was reading an entry written by Glenn Penner over at his blog for The Voice of the Marytrs Canada, I just HAD to tell you about it because I think that we all may be able to identify with the fact that we exalt persecuted believers sometimes too much, and we forget they are human and have struggles. Here's the beginning of Glenn's post:

LOS ANGELES, September 23 (Compass Direct News) – Without international pressure there is little to stop the Iranian government from ratifying a bill that will make “apostasy,” or leaving Islam, a capital crime, say human rights groups and experts. On Sept. 9 the Iranian parliament approved a new penal code by a vote of 196-7 calling for a mandatory death sentence for apostates, or those who leave Islam. The Christian and Baha’i communities of Iran are most likely to be affected by this decision. “Unless there is a coordinated and very strong effort from the international community to place pressure on Iran for this, I don’t think there will be anything stopping the Iranian government from passing this legislation,” Joseph Grieboski, founder of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, told Compass.

Sometimes I find truth stranger than fiction. Take this recent story found on CNSNEWS.com...

Today we have a poll over at our main Voice of the Martyrs site asking if your church is going to participate in the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.