A mighty river flows through the Albanian Alps, fed by innumerable streams of melted snow. Over time, the streams assert their will upon the mountain, carving gorges into the faces like wrinkles on a patriarch. Trickle by trickle, the river takes form, rising, rumbling, rushing into three dams anchored in the Tropoja range of High Albania.

In these Tropoja mountains—physically harsh and spiritually hard—streams of living water are now flowing from melted hearts made white as snow, exerting their patient force upon this wilderness. Trickle by trickle, a river is rising against the ancient dams of animism, anarchy, and Islam.

I remember Tropoja when the mountains were still dry: no Christians, no churches, no chance for anyone to get a Drink. Then, in 1994, a young, leggy shepherd boy emerged from his village bright enough to attend high school in the big city of Shkodra—where I had been sent. We met, I preached, he objected, the Holy Spirit drew, and young Arben became the first splash upon the drought, the first fruit of a still-unfinished harvest, the first link in a chain of mouth-to-mouth evangelism.

“Come to Tropoja,” he said, “my family must hear the Gospel. Do you like mountains?” I was young and fit (at sea level), but Arben was a Sherpa! Seven hours into the trek, he reached the peak of Betoshë, looked down at me, and shouted, “Take heart! Almost there!” When I finally summited, wheezing like an emphysemic, he pointed out a dot below, allegedly his house. I squinted incredulously, discovering the relativity of the word “almost.” Now rested and dying to arrive home with the Good News, Arben sprang to his hooves and launched our downward zigzag. My quadriceps burned like lava, but every step paid off in the joy of watching Arben preach Christ to his family.

A week later, back in Shkodra, Arben brought his roommate Fredi to Jesus, then to my apartment. Fredi said, “My family must hear the Gospel too. Will you come to my village?” Unwittingly, I rubbed my thighs, asking “And where might your village be?”—another mountain to climb for Jesus. On that one, half the village received Christ (there were only two houses). Over a plate of sheep brains and pickled cabbage, we preached and Fredi’s older brother Astrit became the third link, receiving the Word with a twinkle of joy in his eye which has never gone out.

Like a lonely mountain flower, Astrit sank his roots into the Rock and bloomed color upon the crags. Two or three more joined, and Christ began building His Church. There are now two—one in Fierzë and another in Bajram-Curri, that mountain ‘metropolis’ branded by the US State Department as “exceedingly dangerous.” There new believers (and the Savior within them) are set upon smashing the gates of Hell.

Recently, I watched some of them get baptized in the icy Valbona River. With joy, they gave testimony of who had led them to Christ, and, all in one place, I traced a line of faithful witness, one-on-one, mouth-to-mouth—six spiritual generations including me, Astrit, Spartak, Gëzim, Jetmir, and Sabah. As they multiply, the mountains will become a garden for God instead of a citadel of Satan.

Tropoja has not yet had its Pentecost. Satan’s dams are still holding. But there is a rumble upstream.

In the last issue we looked at the growing persecution of Christians in our day. In our comfortable Christianity, we usually forget the reality of persecution in much of the world and the fact that more Christians died for their faith in the 20th century than in all previous centuries combined. This is a call to our churches to action—this is our call to prayer.

An unexpected knock interrupted the house church meeting. The believers inside, still grieving over the death of one of their leaders, had been on their knees into the night praying for the release from prison of another one of their pastors. A knock at the door in the dead of night—was it the police or just a stranger who had lost his way and saw a light in the window? “And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, named Rhoda. When she knew Peter’s voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in, and told how Peter stood before the gate. And they said unto her, Thou art mad. But she constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, It is his angel. But Peter continued knocking: and when they had opened the door, and saw him, they were astonished.” (Acts 12:13-16)

Isn’t it ironic that when the Lord delivered Peter out of prison that night that every door opened up before him—except the church door? This wonderful passage provides a kind of comic relief in the midst of Herod’s persecution. A prayer meeting interrupted by the very answer to those prayers, and if we are very honest with ourselves, these first-century Christians seem strangely familiar—like the 21st-century variety. We pray, yes; but we usually keep our expectations low so that we won’t be disappointed with the results—and we rarely are.

What does this have to do with our church’s response to the rise in Christian persecution in our day? It is interesting that one of the first recorded prayer meetings following Pentecost finds the church on their knees on behalf of a persecuted believer. Even though their faith was small, their God was not. Hebrews 13:3 commands us “to remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.”

The purpose of such praying is not just for deliverance for suffering Christians, but also for boldness (Acts 4:29; Ephesians 6:19-20) and for the further glory of Christ, something accomplished both by life and by death, from the pulpit and from the prison cell. For sometimes God’s purpose is accomplished through suffering. A courageous Christian journalist in Turkey once told me that if human rights organizations had been active in Joseph’s day, they would have sought his immediate release after being unjustly jailed; but God had a higher purpose than just delivering Joseph. Through the prison experience combined with God’s timing, He would not only deliver Joseph but also deliver nations.

Still though, we are to pray and to help and encourage persecuted believers, because as the writer of Hebrews explains, they and we are “also in the body.” All born-again believers worldwide are brothers and sisters through faith in Christ and are part of His Body. Just as the Lord identifies with His people in their suffering (Exodus 3:7; Acts 9:4,5), so we are to identify with them as well. If we truly embrace this truth, how can we remain indifferent to a family member’s pain?

Besides prayer, another way we can demonstrate our love and concern for our brothers and sisters in Christ is by writing to government officials. Writing can make a difference and is also good stewardship. As the apostle Paul used his Roman citizenship on several occasions to further the Gospel cause or to protect believers from persecution so we should use the privileges of our citizenship to further the Lord’s work and speak up for those in other lands who cannot speak for themselves. You can find helpful guidelines about how and what to write at HYPERLINK “http://www.frontlinemissions.info/action.php” www.frontlinemissions.info/action.php

Let me encourage you to set aside time in your church to pray for persecuted Christians—perhaps having a special Sunday for the Persecuted Church with a message in the morning and a prayer time in the evening. For more focus, some churches pray for a specific persecuted believer each month, dedicating time at their weekly prayer meeting. If there are specific or high-profile cases that would be helped by letters to officials, then organize your “troops” in a letter-writing campaign, following the guidelines. Remember, though, that most persecution goes unreported. CNN usually doesn’t cover it, and it won’t make headlines in Time or Newsweek. So prayer should also be directed on behalf of Christians in particular countries where persecution is the hottest.

I have the privilege of serving alongside Christians from China to central Asia to the Middle East and north Africa. I find that their suffering is often profound—but so is their faith. I will never forget one young man I met in Pakistan following a major attack by Muslims. Christian homes and churches had been looted and burned, men were beaten and some tortured, girls from Christian families were hidden in the fields at night for fear of rape. Here was this tall teenager—we will call him Wasim—who stayed with me that day. Christians there could be excused for retreating to the shadows while the ashes of their homes and churches hung in the air and the imams were screaming from the mosques for more blood; yet my young friend had found a picture of Christ in some old Sunday School material and had stuck it on the front pocket of his shirt. He wore his Saviour’s image like an ID badge. Was he afraid? Would a lamb among wolves be afraid? But live or die, Wasim with his quiet courage and no-nonsense faith would trust the Good Shepherd whose image he bore. Wasim and hundreds of thousands like him remind us of our 1st century heritage. Even though most of us are a comfortable distance from the frontlines, we can get into the fight by getting on our knees! Pray for grace. Pray for protection and peace. Pray for boldness in the Gospel so that Christ, Who first suffered for us, would be magnified in and through the suffering of His people. Will you pray?

Burma (also called Myanmar by its illegitimate military government) is systematically driving Christians out of this Buddhist country. Its military regime has killed half a million Christians in the last 30 years. Over 3,300 villages of Christians have been torched, causing over 1 million refugees to flee to squalid camps in neighboring Thailand. A government official stated, “Soon there will be no Christians in this nation.” But the Lord is working in the midst of the persecution. One believer remarked, “Without this genocide, people would not be coming to Christ.” Pray for God’s grace for these persecuted believers who shine for Christ!

Map from http://www.mapcruzin.com/free-maps-burma-myanmar/burma_sm_2008.gif

It was Saturday morning in late October. The sun was already burning off the morning mist over a grove of cocoa trees near the coast of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Four teenage girls were on a familiar path through the cocoa plantation—off to Saturday classes at their Christian school. 14-year-old Theresia, 16-year-old Noviana, and 15-year-olds Alfina and Ida wore their neat brown school uniforms, tugging along their book bags and chattering away. They were best friends; they did everything together—now they would die together. In a moment, in a swirling terror of black masks and slashing machetes, six men fell upon the girls. The few details known of the attack are from Noviana who escaped with deep machete wounds to her face. The other three girls were beheaded on the spot. Their Muslim attackers carried their heads away as trophies, tossing two of them at a police station and a third at the door of a church.

The motivation for these murders was not robbery or rape but simply that the girls were Christians. Only a half-hearted show was made at finding the killers, and just two days after the three Christian girls were beheaded, a Muslim police officer described the situation as “everything is normal.”

The men who did this are part of an Islamic terror group called Laskar Jihad or “Holy War Warriors.” Whether it is Laskar Jihad in Indonesia, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Islamic Jihad in Egypt, Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, or the Islamic Courts in the Horn of Africa, their extremism has silenced saner Muslims and attracted others to their ranks. This virus of violence continues to spread, leaving Christians in those countries very vulnerable.

Consequently, outrageous hate is never far beneath the surface. For example, in Pakistan because of a financial dispute, a trumped-up charge of burning pages of the Koran was leveled at a Christian. This little spark of an incident, fanned by Muslim clerics, exploded into a mob scene in which as many as 3000 Muslims looted and burned five churches, a school, and numerous Christians’ homes. Unfortunately, this has been an oft-repeated scenario.

I happened to be in Pakistan three days after this particular attack. Smoke and ash still hung in the air. In my journal that night I wrote:

A full moon rises over the canefields around Sangla Hill, and in the twilight a minaret looks like a stake driven through the heart of this city. 300 Christian families live here, and not one of them feels safe tonight. My mind is swirling with all I’ve seen today—charred crosses, churches and homes gutted by fire, the cries of children and the pleas of their parents for someone to protect them. The only comfort any of us have found today has been from the Scripture. Standing outside the charred remains of the Salvation Army Church, a believer named Gulzar came up to me to talk. His broken English was mended by a winning smile and joyful countenance. Gulzar told me that two promises helped him face the fear—and then he began to quote from John 14, “Let not your heart be troubled . . . in my Father’s house are many mansions . . . I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself: that where I am, there ye may be also.” And then my dear brother lifted my spirits and gave meaning to all I have witnessed today, “Be faithful unto death,” Gulzar said quoting our Lord, “and I will give thee a crown of life.”

The next day I looked into the face of persecution again. A pastor named Masih was lying outside the hospital on a concrete walkway. The pastor had protested to the police in his village after drunken Muslims had assaulted some women in his church. For that, a Muslim gang attacked him, kicking in his skull, severing his ear, and leaving him blind in one eye. The hospital had bandaged over his wounds and thrown him out. It seems that animals get better treatment than Christians do in Pakistan.

Well, not just in Pakistan. In Alexandria, Egypt one person died and 12 were wounded in knife attacks on 3 congregations during Easter services. In Afghanistan, Iran, and much of Arabia, death is the penalty for conversion from Islam to Christianity. Even in Muslim countries that don’t specify such a penalty, a law is not needed because family members carry out the killing on their own. Muslims are not the only persecutors, however. Radical Hindus in India have pushed through sweeping anti-conversion laws in a number of states and have matched them with muscle, assaulting pastors and burning churches. Burmese Buddhists are burning down Christian villages, sowing their fields with landmines, and pulling up crosses out of Christian cemeteries. Under brutal dictatorships in central Asia house church leaders are being arrested and beaten. In Turkmenistan, Christians have even been tortured for possessing a copy of the “Jesus” film.

The list could go on and on, for as Lord David Alton has observed, “Of the world’s six billion people today, over half live in countries where being a Christian could cost you your life.” In our comfort, freedom, and opportunity, we should remember “the other half” of our Christian family. In the next issue we will consider just what action pastors and churches can take on behalf of persecuted believers.

For Christians in many lands, life is caught somewhere between faith and fear. It brings to mind one of the Gospel’s great missionary passages when the Lord Jesus told the 70 that He was sending them out as “lambs among wolves.” How could He do such a thing—sending His people unarmed into the jaws of death? He could because He did. From Gethsemane to Golgotha the Lamb not only walked among wolves, but even “gave Himself a ransom for all.” And as Christ explained in Matthew 10:24, “The disciple is not above his master; nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master.” For these Christians who live among wolves, they bring Light to dark places by their lives—and sometimes by their deaths—and they find comfort in His company.

A century ago in a work called The Glory of the Impossible, Samuel Zwemer, the leading voice for missions to the unreached Islamic world, wrote of Afghanistan.

Listen to the story of the conversion and martyrdom of Abdul Karim, the Afghan convert: With a real devotion to Christ, he was taken with the intense desire, in the summer of 1907 to enter Afghanistan and preach the Gospel. Crossing the frontier at Chaman, he was seized by Afghan soldiers, brought before the Governor of Kandahar, offered rewards and honors if he would recant, and when he refused, was cast into prison, loaded with chains. He was examined by the Amir, but remained firm in his confession. Then he was marched off for Kabul in chains, with a bit and bridle in his mouth, while every Mohammedan who met him smote him on the cheeks and abused him. Finally, when he was set at liberty, he tried to find his way back to India, was seized by the people in a village, carried to their mosque, and ordered to repeat the Moslem creed. Abdul Karim refused. “A sword was then produced and his right arm cut off, and he was again order to repeat it, but again refused. The left arm was then severed in the same way, and on his refusing the third time, his throat was cut. There is no doubt that whatever the details of his martyrdom may be, Abdul Karim witnessed faithfully to the last for the Saviour Christ, and died because he would not deny Him. There are many secret disciples in Afghanistan who honor Christ as we do, and there is no doubt that at the present time a public acknowledgement of Christianity would mean a cruel death. At the same time, I believe that the Church in Afghanistan will not be established until their have been many such martyrs, who will seal their faith with their blood.”

A century later Afghanistan remains one of the most intractable pieces of the 10/40 puzzle. The latest wave of evangelism has followed the US and NATO fight to free the country of the control of the Taliban and its Al-Qaeda clients, some of whom carried out the September 11th attacks on the US. NATO forces have encountered bitter winters, blistering summers, harsh terrain laced with a patchwork of tribes that are at once divided and united by ancient hatreds. Our troops fight a borderless war with an elusive enemy over a long campaign. Their courage and sacrifice are exemplary, and many have laid down their lives in the cause of freedom. All of this, too, can be said for the first-wave forces of Christians serving in Afghanistan. Their long campaign has also been marked by struggle, suffering, and untimely graves. Yet there have also been victories. Did He not promise this? For Christ said that not even the gates of hell—not even the gates of Islam—would be able to withstand the advance of His Kingdom! The Kingdom outposts are small and scattered and born into the fellowship of His sufferings. Like the six Afghan men I know who meet on a different day and at a different time each week to avoid detection. Or the woman who received a New Testament and after two years invited the missionary to her home and introduced the family members who had received Christ. Holding up the Book, she said, “This is the Truth we have been seeking for years.” There are yet others, even among the Taliban, who need to hear that Christ died for them. So the Kingdom campaign continues.

Any army that’s effective must adapt to the terrain, and so it is in missions. Outreach in a country like Afghanistan cannot be done with traditional missions strategies. Healthcare, literacy, and community development teams will spearhead the work to create opportunities for building relationships and sharing Christ. Will you pray for us and support us as we penetrate one of the last frontiers of the Gospel?

Dispatches from the Front: A Bold Advance, the 2nd episode of the Dispatches DVD series, recently won the Aegis Award in the documentary category! For more information about this DVD and ordering information, go to www.dispatchesfromthefront.org.