This week we celebrate Valentine's Day, a day Americans focus on love and romance. But most of those celebrating don't know that the man for whom this day is named was a Christian persecuted because of his Christian actions.

In spite of Boko Haram attacks, Christian brothers and sisters in Northern Nigeria continue to serve Jesus. This week Ray and Denise Thorne share how God brought them together in ministry—through disappointment and heartbreak—to serve Him and to serve persecuted believers. We’ll hear how they met widows of martyred Christians in Nigeria, encouraged women who'd been kidnapped and abused by Boko Haram fighters and met a faithful Christian miraculously sustained by God even after being shot in the face with an AK-47, and how he encouraged his son to forgive the attackers.

A 15-year-old girl can dream about her future again after a harrowing escape from her abductors. The teenager survived seven weeks in the custody of Islamic terrorists Boko Haram, who kidnapped her in October from her home in northern Nigeria.

Gilbert Hovsepian’s father, Pastor Haik Hovsepian, was a church leader in Iran with an outreach to Muslims and a voice that wouldn’t be silenced. He was threatened many times. Then he disappeared. For 12 days Gilbert and his family searched and worried. Gilbert says those 12 days were the hardest of his life. Then Haik’s body was found, stabbed repeatedly. Listen to VOMRadio this week as Gilbert shares how his family responded, and how the prayers and care of the Body of Christ around the world encouraged and carried them. He’ll also share how God has taken the misery of those days and used it to shape a ministry that still reaches into Iran today, strengthening the church and leading Muslims into fellowship with Jesus.