Our friends at China Aid are reporting the following suffering for followers of Christ Jesus. Please read the blurb below, commit to pray right now while you're reading this, and tell a friend.

Three Christians have been killed in Mosul recently, and community leaders warn that violence will increase leading to the March 7 parliamentary election, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).On Feb. 16, unidentified gunmen shot two Christian students with an automatic weapon. Police told AFP that Zia Toma, a 21-year-old engineering student, was killed in the shooting and Ramsin Shmael, a 22-year-old pharmacy student, was wounded. Both men were Assyrian Christians, according to police.The violence is thought to be related to the upcoming parliamentary election, in which the vote of minority Christians could be a factor between Arab-Kurd rivals. “We don’t want elections, we don’t want representatives, we don’t want our rights, we just want to be alive,” said Baasil Abdul Noor, a priest at Mar Behnam church in Al-Arabi neighborhood, where the shooting occurred. The student’s murder occurred one day after gunmen killed shop owner Fatukhi Munir, an Assyrian Catholic, in his business. On Feb. 14, another shop owner, Rayan Salem Elias, was shot to death outside his home; Elias was a Chaldean Christian.These incidents are the latest in a series of attacks on Iraqi Christians in recent months. The Christian community in Iraq is estimated to be 3 percent of Iraq’s population of 26 million, or about 780,000 people. Islamic extremists have targeted Christian leaders, churches and businesses in Iraq since 2003. As a result, many believers have fled.

In one other report on the two young men arrested in connection with the fires in Texas, Jason Robert Bourque is said to have quoted Neitzsche on his Myspace page, which has now been removed from the internet.

The bible is an amazing book filled with wonderful acts of faith despite persecution. As I read this latest news story from Compass Direct about Riaz Masih, who has been severely beaten because he believes in Jesus and is refusing to convert to Islam, I instantly thought of the apostle Paul who wrote about his hardships as a follower of Christ.

When Stenley got off the boat on the remote Indonesian island, he felt the spiritual darkness. The people practiced a combination of witchcraft and Islam. Stenley was fresh out of Bible school and ready for the work to which God had called him, reaching these island people for Christ.

CHINAAID--"This is nonsense!" Gao's wife Geng He furiously refuted the rumor which first broke out on February 12, 2010. In response to the San Francisco-based think tank Dui Hua Foundation's request for information about Gao Zhisheng, the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. said that Gao Zhisheng was alive, working happily in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, more than 1,800 km from Beijing. Around the same time, a Chinese informant then posted photos of Gao Zhisheng online in a Chinese report, claiming he worked in the same company as Gao Zhisheng. He said that Gao was a talkative, even funny man, who had allegedly become a successful operational manager, talking about his wife and family and even "whistling a happy tune" daily.

It seems like I'm reading daily news stories about churches being on fire these days. A few days ago I read a story about a church school that was even on fire, although reports didn't suggest foul play.

The suspect that has been arrested is a 15 year old and has been arrested for "conspiracy". Detectives will not release any further information at this time. For more on this story see the following links to news covering this breaking news.

2 Timothy 2:9 says that "God's word is not chained" and in the story that follows, we see another situation where the Word of God being distributed has caused an Ethiopian convert from Islam, to be arrested and jailed without charges being brought against him.