By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Amid rising global tensions, millions of Christians are believed to have been participating in Sunday’s International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP) to pray for Christians “who are persecuted for their faith in Christ.”
On November 3 and November 10, Christians pray while armed conflicts in the Middle East following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel “have inflamed Islamic extremist sentiment against Christ”, IDOP supporters said.
“Since October 7, 2023,” when Hamas killed some 1,200 people in Israel, “the whole Middle East is on intense fire and might explode any time,” they added.
“It seems that all political, social, and human rights achievements in the direction of a possible reconciliation between major foes — Saudi-Iran or the Israel-Arab world — are now very far away. This, of course, has direct implications for our persecuted brothers and sisters as they are the most vulnerable and often blamed as being enemies of [the] state,” Christians said.
That has become clear in Palestinian areas, including in the West Bank, also known as Judaea and Samaria, according to Christians familiar with the situation.
The West Bank leader of a group of Christians who abandoned Islam came from a prominent Muslim family. His sister’s husband, a member of the extremist Salafi branch of Islam, recently discovered he had become a follower of Christ and reported him as an “unbeliever” to relatives.
Due to the pressure, “He then had to flee and hide with his wife and son in a secret place for his security as the whole situation around the October 7 attack against Israel got heated up, and people became more radical,” a Christian aid worker said who declined to be identified due to security concerns. “With the funds we received, we helped him to rent a hide-out apartment and provided some living expenses for his family.”
REMEMBER HER
An essential theme of the IDOP was also Christian women and girls facing kidnappings, abuse, and forceful conversions to Islam or other religions.
Organizers told Worthy News that the IDOP on Sunday, November 3, was themed “Remember Her.”
“While all followers of Jesus can suffer for their faith, the various forms of persecution that Christian women encounter often look different than the ones Christian men face,” explained Voice Of the Martyrs Canada (VOMC), an advocacy group involved in the IDOP.
“For women and girls, persecution is complex, hidden, and violent. It is characterized by sexual violence and forced marriage, as well as by insidious, invisible abuse behind closed doors,” VOMC told Worthy News in a statement.
It said it had invited Christians “to set some time aside on November 3rd to prayerfully remember our Christian brothers and sisters around the world who share our faith but not our freedom.”
Women are among the 365 million Christians subject to “high levels of persecution and discrimination,” according to Christian researchers, compared to 340 million in 2021.
Among them are women in Africa and the Middle East, including Sara, whose name was changed for security reasons. She reportedly asked her husband and some Islamic experts about Islam, but they couldn’t give her satisfying answers.
READING BOOKS
“It is considered as blasphemy to ask certain questions, and so her husband and other people around her reacted alertly,” an aid agency official said. “However, Sara felt a strong urge to find the truth and continued asking questions.”
She reportedly began reading Christian books until she concluded she wanted to follow Christ.
“Her husband discovered a change in her and argued with her until he found out she became a Christian,” a Christian aid worker recalled. “Sara was pregnant at that time. Her husband beat her so badly that she had to be hospitalized and lost her baby.”
When she was able to return home, her husband reported her to police, Christians recalled. Sara was imprisoned for years on what her supporters regarded as false charges. She was eventually brought to a safe location, found work, and remained a devoted Christian, Worthy News learned.
One in 7 Christians are persecuted worldwide, including 1 in 5 in Africa and 1 in 7 in Asia, according to investigators, compared to 1 in 8 worldwide in 2021. Nearly 5,000 Christians were known to have been killed for faith-related reasons, most of them in Nigeria, where attacks on Christians have become more common since 2020, according to the Open Doors advocacy group.
Open Doors estimates “the number of Christians killed for faith-related reasons worldwide was 5,621 in 2023, 5,898 in 2022, and 4,761 in 2021.” Some 14,766 Churches and Christian properties were reportedly attacked in recent years.
North Korea, Somalia, Libya, Eritrea, and Yemen had the highest rates of reported persecution against Christians.
LAOS CHALLENGES
However, Christians in other nations say they suffer as well, including in Asia, where prayer and aid that persecuted Christians receive often require sustained commitment.
In Laos, village authorities opposed 10 families leaving their ancestral religion for Christ recently drove them out of the community into the wilderness, Christians said.
They were about 8 miles (12.8 kilometers) away, without homes, farmland, food, and schooling for their children.
“We worked closely with the local church to help them find land for these ten families to build a simple house to live in, and our team helped them to build the well for them to have water to drink and a tile roof for their house,” a Christian aid official said.
“We continue to work with the local church to have worship every Sunday in their house church, and we provide continuous support for their livelihood development.”
Despite these hardships, Christians like Sara don’t abandon their faith in Christ. “God has given me the biggest gift of my life,” she reportedly told aid workers.
“He removed me from darkness to light, from nobody to becoming somebody.”
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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