It's Friday, which means it's time to get out your prayer journal and take note of how we can pray for the persecuted church today. Below are three prayer requests from this week. Please take a moment to share them with your family, pastor, church and friends. May the Lord bless you richly as you intercede on behalf of the persecuted church.

The following is a request from our friends at China Aid.

Imagine with me for a minute that you had the words to eternal life that could change a persons eternity. Now imagine with me that you could not keep these words to yourself.

Today Mission Network News is highlighting the story of a man who actually happens to live in my neck of the woods, here in Orange County California.

Have you ever wanted to invite a guest to your church or event to share about the ministry of The Voice of the Martyrs and the persecuted church, but were not sure where to go?

Last week we highlighted prisoner Yang Xuan and asked you to write a letter to encourage Yang. We started at 567 letters written and as of today we show that 586 encouraging letters have been written to Yang. We are grateful for the 19 new letters that were sent to Yang in the last week. Praise God for your faithfulness to encourage the prisoners!

Algeria is one of The Voice of the Martyrs restricted nations, will approximately 97% of the population Muslim and a tiny .29% Christian, so when I see a story like the one mentioned today at The Christian Post, concerning a Christian man being sentenced to five years in prison for sharing his Christian faith, I'm not surprised.

Earlier this year, on April 21st, we posted a story that suggested that Christians would pay the price for voting in Goodluck Jonathan, who is a Christian, as the President of Nigeria.

Hindu extremists continue to target Christians in India with harassment, false accusations, beatings and even murder. The Global Council of Indian Christians believes Hindu extremists are behind two recent murders of Christians in the state of Andhra Pradesh. In the most recent case, 17-year-old Nirupama Pradhan was raped and murdered after school on May 12, 2011. Her father, Sitrian Pradhan, named the possible murderer, but according to Asia News, police have done nothing to find the murderer.