In Matthew 10, Jesus tells his followers not to worry when they are called before authorities to explain their faith. Bassam, a believer living in the Arabian Peninsula, has heeded this admonition many times when confronted by bosses, judges and angry family members. The year 2013 was a turning point in Bassam’s faith. Though he had come to know Jesus Christ eight years earlier, he had kept quiet about it, meeting privately with the man who had led him to Christ and worshiping at the only Christian fellowship in the area when he was able. “He was like most Muslim background believers in our area,” said Surur, a front-line worker. “[They] keep to themselves and do not share their faith.” Then, one day, Bassam came to Surur with an announcement. “I’ve been spiritually sleeping all these years,” he told his mentor, “and I can no longer keep my faith in Christ to myself. I feel strongly compelled to tell everyone about the only true God, Jesus.” That is when Bassam’s walk of suffering began. First, his wife rejected him, telling everyone in her family that she was married to an unclean man. And since Bassam worked for the police, she
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Insights From Cole Richards, VOM President, On Hinduism’s Impact in India The following reflection is written by Cole Richards, President of The Voice of the Martyrs. In this insightful passage, he reflects on the dangers of Hinduism and how it affects our brothers and sisters in India Hinduism is misunderstood in the United States. I am often asked how the same religion that is viewed as a source of positivity in our popular culture can produce such violent persecutors of Christians. The answer is that the seemingly peaceful and tolerant ideas that have been extracted from Hindu belief and popularized in the U.S. since the 1960s do not reflect the religion as practiced by approximately 1 billion people on the Indian subcontinent, the place of its origin and historic majority. At Hinduism’s core is the caste system, which is easily among the most oppressive and restrictive social constructs ever devised. In the West, many admire the concept of karma as the belief that if one does good, one will receive good. And reincarnation is viewed as an attractive idea of unending life. But those concepts are foreign to Hinduism as practiced in India, where the caste system traps each individual at
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Bindi met her future husband in 2017, when her father brought a young coworker named Kande to their home in India’s Jharkhand state. Among their earliest conversations was a discussion about someone named Jesus, whom Kande was eager for Bindi to know. “He told me about his life-changing experience with Jesus and the peace he had been experiencing,” Bindi recalled. “He helped lead me to accept Jesus as my Savior.” Although Bindi’s parents held animist beliefs, they approved of their daughter’s decision to follow Christ as well as her desire to join Kande in marriage. After the wedding, the newlyweds moved into a home Kande had built in a nearby village, where they were the first — and only — Christians in the Hindu community. As they got to know their neighbors, Bindi and Kande often shared the gospel with them and prayed for those who were sick. Soon, however, their Christian faith caught the attention of village leaders. And some in the community started calling them names, eventually leading to threats of violence against the couple. “With prayer and our trust in God, we continued our journey with Jesus,” Bindi said. An Unthinkable Attack Kande served at his church
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Insights From Cole Richards, VOM President, On Sharing the gospel among Islamists in Africa The following reflection is written by Cole Richards, President of The Voice of the Martyrs. In this insightful passage, he discusses the rise of violent Muslim extremism across Africa and how God is still working across the continent. The rapid spread of Islamist ideology, oppression and violence in Africa has become one of the most important stories of our time. Millions of our Christian brothers and sisters in Africa have suffered greatly, including tens of thousands who have been driven from their homes while watching their possessions and livelihoods disappear amid the Islamist dream of a global caliphate. The Fulani, an African people group composed largely of migrant herdsmen, have come to be viewed as infamous villains within this larger story. Islamists among them have carried out an extended campaign of kidnapping and butchery across several nations with significant Christian populations. Armed extremists among the Fulani are indistinguishably mixed with other tribesmen who travel widely, freely and unpredictably across West and Central Africa. While Islamist regimes and more organized terrorist groups have identifiable features (leaders, armies, police, courts, councils, etc.) that help us watch, track and respond
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Insights From Cole Richards, VOM President, On Training Young Believers The following reflection is written by Cole Richards, President of The Voice of the Martyrs. In this insightful passage, he offers insight on raising up a new generation of believers in our nation. Years ago, I was standing with the elders in a remote village near the border of Syria and Turkey as their Islamic festival began. My wife was across the square with other young mothers, and our two children, ages 3 and 2 at the time, were playing happily with a large group of toddlers. My wife, wearing the head-to-toes traditional clothing required for women, did not draw attention, but our children’s bright blond hair made them immediately noticeable to all. With the exception of us four, everyone in the village was devoutly Muslim. We knew that some were Islamists, people who sought to make their country entirely Muslim, by force if necessary. As a frontier missionary family, it had taken more than a year for us to gain enough respect to be invited to visit such an entirely unreached village. And they were still resistant to everything we shared about Christ. We were there to communicate eternal truth
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