In the current episode of VOM Radio, our guest is Dale Rhoton, one of the co-founders, along with George Verwer, of Operation Mobilization. One of the stories Dale shared is about meeting VOM’s founder, Richard Wurmbrand, inside Romania shortly after Richard’s release from prison.

As a young man, Dale Rhoton was invited to join a prayer meeting to ask God to move across the nations. The young man that invited him was George Verwer; later the two would help send thousands of young people into gospel work around the world through Operation Mobilization (OM), the ministry they founded.

In Richard Wurmbrand’s time (and in many communist countries still), persecutors did all they could to hide their persecution of Christ’s followers. Communists even gave Richard a different name in prison in an effort to hide him from the world and from Christians trying to find and help him. Communists in China have told us for years that there is no persecution of Christians there, that raids on house churches aren’t about faith but about government policy and Christians’ refusal to register their meetings. Hide, deny, obfuscate: the old-school persecutor’s playbook.

VOM's Todd Nettleton was a guest yesterday on The Eric Metaxas Show, which airs nationally on Salem Radio. The two discussed the history of VOM and the life and impact of VOM's founders, Pastor Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand. Metaxas identified Richard Wurmbrand's book, Tortured For Christ, as one of the books that had most impacted his spiritual life.

I often wonder about our persecuted brothers and sisters: do they struggle with things westerners usually struggle with? Do they struggle with drugs or lust or depression or alcoholism or laziness like we might? They’re humans too, the temptations are evident everywhere in the world, why wouldn’t they struggle with it too? Working at VOM, I’ve heard powerful stories of people in cultures that are also saturated in drugs, alcohol and promiscuity who turn their lives to Christ and are then persecuted. But their eyes are focused completely on Christ, it’s as if their past struggles with these addictive things are completely gone. How is that?

IT SEEMED A very small cough, and so much was waiting to be done. But in a week I was in bed with bronchitis. Hunger, shortages, and the Budapest adventure brought me down with a thump. So I was on my back, feeling exhausted and ethereal, when an uninvited visitor called. A Russian woman doctor. Her face was a mask of tragedy.

Pastor Richard Wurmbrand—the founder of The Voice of the Martyrs—had a way with words. In several countries around the world, I’ve met people who, usually with a gleam in their eye, have shared their experience of meeting Richard or Sabina. Many times, they remember a specific quote from a talk that Richard gave. He was a powerful, and profound, communicator.

You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Matthew 5:43-44