I met him in a jungle camp seminar in central Sri Lanka. His English name was Samuel and he was a seasoned church planter. From Samuel I learned that church planting in a Buddhist country is no easier than anywhere else religious intolerance raises its head. I always thought Buddhism was a pacifist religion and philosophically it is. But try and plant a church in a dominant Buddhist community and...
Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. Hebrews 13:3 Russian Christian prisoner, Aleksandr Ogorodnikov, shares, “One night I was thrown into a cell with a broken window. The KGB was determined to do an experiment and freeze me. Later they would say, ‘He broke the window in his...
Brother Andrew loves to tell this parable from the Middle East: A certain man had two sons. One was rich and the other was poor. The rich son had no children while the poor son was blessed with many sons and many daughters. In time, the father fell ill. He was sure he would not live through the week, so on Saturday he called his sons to his side and gave each of them half of his land for their...
A Methodist circuit rider rode up to the Texas ranch where Reuben “Bud” Robinson worked. Bud’s master was a Universalist–one who taught that all men would be saved no matter how badly they behaved in this world. Bud adopted Universalism and bad behavior. The Methodist said he was staying for the night, ordered Bud to take care of his horse, and took command of the dinner...
In China, a Christian woman was in charge of security at a coal mine. The woman suddenly felt the Holy Spirit urging her to pull the alarm lever, even though there was no apparent reason to do so. Although everything seemed quiet and normal, she obeyed the prompting within her. The whole mine was evacuated as a result of the alarm sounding, but when all the men had assembled on the surface, it...
Jesse Owens is know for his long-jump record. When Jesse won the gold medal in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, his direct opponent was German LUTZ LONG. The crowd wanted to see them face off; after all, Jesse was black and Lutz was a white German. The two athletes talked and discovered that they had a lot in common; both were Christians and loved the same God. That was the birth of an unbreakable...
DEFEATING THE ENEMY’S ATTACKS You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 1 John 4:4 Ung Sophal established eight house churches in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and the surrounding provinces. He and his wife lost their third and youngest child during the Pol Pot genocide. After many close calls, he was separated...
Colleague Ron Boyd-MacMillan recounts an interesting experience in China: There’s a house church in Beijing I like to take my friends to visit. The members are all young professionals, about twenty of them, and they meet in a huge, darkened, open-plan office at midnight once a week. It’s totally illegal. Some of them are quite high ranking members of the communist party. If their faith is...
A co-worker once asked a Christian in Vietnam how he introduces the gospel in the villages where people have never heard about God. Without hesitating he answered “Oh very easily. I simply say, ‘I have good news for you but it might cost you your life, would you like me to continue?’ People want to hear good news and most of the time they eagerly ask me to tell them. But the introduction is...
Here’s a reported story worth re-telling. The year was 1930. Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin was one of the most powerful leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution. He stood before a large crowd in Kiev with a commanding air of absolute confidence. He had just finished addressing the huge assembly on the subject of Atheism. A Russian intellectual, Bukharin was the editor of the Soviet newspaper Pravda...