By the time I leave for work, I’ve used nearly 20 gallons of water between a shower, brushing my teeth, and preparing breakfast and coffee. Last week began with World Water Day (Sunday, March 22), and I invite you to consider the ways you depend on water each day and how this unites you with others around the world who depend on Jesus Christ as our living water.

“If they want all three of our kids,” said Tawadros’ widow, Malaka, “it isn’t too much [to give] for Christ.”

With the rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) in 2014, and many terrorist killings already this year, it can be easy to focus on the negative. Instead, several Iranian Christian leaders worked together to share eight reasons why Muslims, particularly in Iran, are being drawn to Christianity more than ever before.

On the last Sunday in January, Christians in the ancient Syrian village of Tel Hormizd removed a cross from their church, but not by choice. They were forced to abandon their Christian identity by Islamic State (IS) militants, who had also kidnapped and killed hundreds of Christians.

As I recently watched and listened to the news of the attack and subsequent slaying of those in the office of French magazine Charlie Hebdo, I found my thoughts immediately drawn to a comparable, yet very different story. Both stories share the similarity of bloodshed at the hands of adherents to radical Islam. Each story is painfully tragic. I wondered if any of those slain in France had met their attackers before that fateful day. I thought of the life and deaths of Necati Aydin, Ugur Yuksel and Tilmann Geske, who were murdered in their office at Zirve Publishing in Malatya, Turkey on April 18, 2007.

A conference for VOM front-line ministry workers in northern Nigeria was relocated last week amid concerns for the safety of the workers and their families. Violence by Islamic extremists, including several suicide bombs set off in nearby cities and a massive attack in Baga, Nigeria where nearly 2,000 were reported to have been killed, raised security concerns.

A Ho Chi Minh City Bible school that has often been the target of police activity in recent years was attacked and destroyed for the seventh time on Wednesday, Nov. 12 by hired thugs accompanied by the police. The thugs used hammers and metal cutters to destroy doors, walls, and furniture. Police then raided the college and arrested nine Christians who did not have proper paperwork — documents that had been confiscated by police in earlier raids. The Bible school leader, Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang, said this was the seventh attack on the college since June 2014.