The Chain of Fellowship

July 27, 2010
Posted by
VOM Newsletter
Categories
encouragement
Colombia Bible
The “fellowship of believers” is a term that we often use for our work with the persecuted church. I have seen this fellowship when I visit the people that we serve, and many of them say they feel strengthened by the prayers of people around the world. Last week during a visit to Colombia, I saw this fellowship again in a new way: as a chain linking the heart of a VOM reader here in the U.S. with the heart of a Christian living deep in the Colombia’s jungles.  

The reader in the U.S. will probably never know that Christian in the jungle, yet the chain is there. In order to share this fellowship, the important thing is not that they know each other, but that each link in the chain shares fellowship with the links on either side of them.  

Let me show you what I mean, using the example of our work in Colombia. A couple in America reads The Voice of the Martyrs newsletter and feel the prompt of the Holy Spirit to donate some funds. They decide to donate monthly to VOM and start praying regularly for the persecuted church. Meanwhile, their money comes to VOM and is assigned to meet needs in Colombia.  

A VOM worker for Colombia, let’s call him Charlie, determines the best use of the funds. Charlie takes the funds to Colombia and charges VOM’s local workers with distributing the funds. The local workers use the funds to buy several boxes of Bibles in Spanish and a motor for a motorboat. They then give the bibles and the motor to an evangelist who is a former guerrilla member. He can go into areas of the jungle that are restricted to outsiders.  

Our evangelist, who we’ll call Andres, loads the Bibles into a wooden boat and uses the motor to carry him deep into the jungle into a “red zone” controlled by the guerrillas. There Andres meets with pastors he has been mentoring who live in the “hot” zones, where FARC guerrillas control the people and persecute the church. He spends time encouraging them, answering their questions and praying with them. He gives each pastor a stack of Bibles to distribute. These pastors will give the Bibles to Christians in their villages who they are mentoring, along with people they meet who are curious about Christianity. The pastors reach even deeper into the jungle than Andres can.  

So from the hearts of a couple in America, the chain of fellowship is formed that reaches remote regions of Colombia. Charlie tells the Colombian workers about the love and support the believers in America have for Colombia Christians. Our workers tell Andres. Andres tells the jungle pastors, and the pastors tell the Christians they work with. Each link in the chain is influenced only by the links on either side of it, but each link is crucial in carrying the bond of fellowship on to the others.  

The bond is further strengthened when Christians living in the red zones tell their testimonies of faith living under hardship, and the stories travel back up their chain until they are told in the VOM newsletter and encourage even more Christians to become a link in the chain.