The news this morning reported the death toll from the most recent attack in Baghdad has risen to 292 people. On July 2, ISIS targeted a Shia Muslim area during the Islamic month of Ramadan. An explosive-laden truck blew up outside a crowded shopping center.

“Be careful! Slow down!” I call to the young Syrian refugee girl as she dashes after her friend, stumbling over rocks and trash as she goes. Not that she could understand my English; they all spoke only Arabic.

As the director of Voice Ministries at VOM, I have the privilege of helping connect believers in the United States with their persecuted family. In my conversations with believers, I have seen some common misconceptions about persecuted Christians.

Hope is birthed out of some of the most surprising of places.

The age old question of “Why suffering?” cannot be adequately answered for anyone facing pain. However, the Bible and the Christian faith are full of the testament that as believers we can do more than just get through suffering, we can actually exploit evil for our benefit. Romans 8:28 says that “We are MORE than conquerors through him who loved us.” This is not an exhaustive list, but below are five ways that you can exploit evil in your own life:

As the Youth and Young Adult Coordinator for The Voice of the Martyrs, I have spent a good amount of time researching the trends and values among young adults. As a Millennial (people born from 1980 to 2000) myself, it is easy for me to see how I fit smack dab into the stereotypes and statistics about this generation. Thanks to technology, the Millennial generation is more aware of need than any before it; we get a Twitter update on our smartphones the moment something happens. This is part of the reason why social justice issues have exploded with Millennial involvement.

Sometimes it’s easy to get our battles twisted. What are we really fighting for? What are we really fighting against? Christians in Nepal reminded me of the answer.

On a recent trip to Nepal, I met Pastor “Gyan”, who VOM supports. Pastor Gyan was honored by all of the pastors in the area as a grandfather and hero in the faith. Nepal is made up almost entirely of first generation Christians, so a man of his age is seen as one of the first builders of the church in Nepal. We asked them how he built up the church. They told us that Pastor Gyan built his own well.

Today we repost one of the most-read posts of the first half of 2014, a post on the truth behind the growth of Islam:

In order to answer that question, let’s look at the definition. Merriam Webster dictionary defines social justice as: “A social philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among people.”