VOM Radio

We left off last week as Richard and Jeanette’s apartment was raided by 25 Chinese policemen. The couple knew that their time in China was over after 10 years of ministry, but they didn’t know how long it might be before they were allowed to leave. Listen now as Jeanette recalls exactly what happened when she returned to their apartment to find police searching through their bookshelves and closets and questioning her husband. Despite the chaos of the raid, Jeanette continued relying on the sovereignty and goodness of God, reminding herself often that He is trustworthy no matter our circumstances. She prayed fervently for Richard as he was taken away by the police. Richard experienced God’s sovereignty and the Holy Spirit at work as he sat in the police station interrogation room, living in the truth of Luke 12:11-12. In spite of police threats, Richard relied on scripture God brought to his mind and four things he knew he had to stand firm in as he tried to answer the police accusations. Listen also for how Chinese Christians supported Richard and Jeanette during their ordeal, including a local church pastor who knocked on their door and offered a bold prayer for Richard. Their local Christian community brought Jeanette great comfort, providing practical proof that the Lord was with them. Pray persecuted Chinese Christians will stand firm in faith and be encouraged by the Body of Christ. One group of Chinese Christians, the Mayflower Church, made the decision as a congregation to flee their homeland. Pastor Pan, leader of the group, was our guest on VOM Radio last month. Listen this week for a praise update on this group of believers and their immigration case. Never miss an episode of VOM Radio! Subscribe to the podcast. Or listen each week in the VOM App for your smartphone or tablet.

Richard and Jeanette had served in China for several years when—around 2018—they began hearing stories of foreign Christians forced to leave the country. “Everyone knows it happens, but no one thinks it’s going to happen to them,” Richard says. The couple decided to stay in China as long as God kept the door open—even when Covid put the entire country under lockdown. They were prepared to be kicked out; they’d even begun to think about when it would happen instead of if it would happen. The threat gave them a sense of urgency in their ministry as they continued shepherding and teaching God’s Word to Chinese people. Richard and Jeannette felt the Lord work in their hearts during their college years, and both knew that overseas gospel work was God’s call for them. They met after Jeanette returned from two years working in China, married, and then received an invitation to serve in China. Listen as Richard and Jeanette share how they thought about risk and danger of serving in a Communist country, and the joys and challenges of their first years of missions service, including learning Chinese. You’ll also hear about the day Richard opened the door of their apartment to find 25 uniformed Chinese national police and knew their time of serving the Lord in China was coming to an end. Richard and Jeanette will return to VOM Radio next week to continue their story. Never miss an episode of VOM Radio! Subscribe to the podcast. Or listen each week in the new VOM App for your smartphone or tablet.

One million to one. One million lost people for every one gospel worker. When Brother David heard the million-to-one ratio of population to gospel workers in the Arab world, he and his wife knew that was where God needed them to serve in missions. Today, Muslims in North Africa and the Middle East are more open to asking questions and seeking information about Jesus, the Bible and Christianity—especially through the internet. Brother David leads Operation Mobilization’s North African and Middle Eastern work and emphasizes the need to have more workers reaching Muslims for Christ. David’s leads OM workers across 20 countries as they reach out to Muslims and disciple new believers. His teams also work to train Muslim background believers to reach, disciple and lead their own people and churches. He knows there will be Christian persecution as the church grows; he’s seen persecution directly on members of his team and his own family. But, from his own experience, he’s also seen how God uses persecution of His followers for His glory and purpose. David will advise listeners who want to reach out to Muslim friends and coworkers with gospel conversations. He has seen the insecurity many Christians have engaging with Muslims, but encourages us to jump into conversations about faith and beliefs. He says stories from the Bible and our witness to God’s hand in our own experiences are powerful ways to plant gospel seeds with our Muslim friends. He’ll also help us know how to pray for gospel work in the Middle East and North Africa. Never miss an episode of VOM Radio! Subscribe to the podcast. Or you can listen each week in the new VOM App for your smartphone or tablet.

Moving to a new place can be difficult, especially if you don’t know anyone in your new community. Muslims from across the world have moved to America for work or school yet they are often ignored by those around them—even Christians. Fouad Masri, president of the Crescent Project, says our job as believers is not to convert anyone, but to shine the light of Jesus and rely on him to draw our Muslim friends to himself. Masri is the author of a new book, Sharing Jesus with Muslims: A Step-By-Step Guide (affiliate link). Listen in as he talks about conversational apologetics, thought-provoking questions to ask a Muslim friend, and myths still circulating within the Muslim world about the Christian faith. You’ll also hear Fouad’s joy as he shares about his ministry and stories of Muslims coming to Christ. With over 30 years of sharing the gospel with Muslims, Fouad reminds us we are not called to bring anything new, but to pray for sincere hearts ready to receive the gospel. He emphasizes that we should pray for the leading of the Holy Spirit to help answer Muslims who are seeking spiritual truth, and to ask questions that provoke self-examination. Jesus is building his church among former Muslims—including inside hostile and restricted nations where Christian persecution is common and among Muslims living in the United States and other nations with more religious freedom. To learn more about how to witness and build bridges cross culturally with Muslims, sign up for the Sahara Challenge in Nashville, TN from May 1-3, or join online from May 23-25. Listen to the first half of this conversation here. Never miss an episode of VOM Radio! Subscribe to the podcast. Or listen each week in the new VOM App for your smartphone or tablet.

How can I share Christ with Muslims when I don’t know more about Islam? What if I can’t answer all their questions? What can I do to overcome my fear of sharing the gospel? Fouad Masri, founder and president of Crescent Project, answers these questions and more in his new book Sharing Jesus with Muslims: A Step-By-Step Guide (affiliate link). For more than 30 years, Masri has been training Christians how to share Jesus with Muslims. He says Muslims are more open today than ever to hearing the gospel, and many are actively searching for Christian books or information online. Yet many Christians are still fearful to reach out to Muslims. Fouad says his goal is to move believers from fear and fascination to compassion, and it is that passion that led to this new book. Fouad encourages us to pray for God to open the door for friendships and conversation with the Muslims we meet in our work, school or community. He says one of the first challenges is to learn to listen. Listen to what our Muslim friends are telling us and listen for God to open the door for a spiritual conversation. Listen as Fouad shares an example from his own life when he really didn’t want to have a deep conversation but realized the Lord had already been at work preparing his new friend to hear the gospel. He will also discuss Christian persecution of Muslim-background believers in the context of western nations. Do MBB’s face pressure and persecution in the United States as they do in Middle Eastern nations like Egypt, Saudi Arabia or Yemen? Pray the openness of Muslims right now will result in a great harvest of people coming to know Christ in a personal way. If you want to learn more about sharing your faith with Muslims, Crescent Project’s Sahara Challenge provides an in-depth training on how to serve unreached Muslims locally and globally. The event is offered in-person from May 1st-3rd in Nashville or online from May 23rd-25th. Would you like to hear more about how God is working in the Muslim world? You’ll be encouraged as you listen to more stories of Muslims who came to faith, like Rachid from Morocco, Al Fadi in Saudi Arabia, and Benesh in Iran. Never miss an episode of VOM Radio! Subscribe to the podcast. Or listen each week in the new VOM App for your smartphone or tablet.

Just before Covid shut down the Peoples Republic of China, Pastor Pan Yongguang and members of his congregation, known today as the Mayflower Church, made the difficult decision to leave their country. After 16 families from the congregation arrived in South Korea in 2019, relatives and other family members still in China faced increasing pressure from the communist government, especially when members of the church went public about the persecution they’d faced and their decision to leave China. Listen as Pastor Pan shares about his life before he became and believer, how he came to faith in Christ, and how the Lord raised him up to be the pastor of the church he was baptized in. Before Pastor Pan considered personally following Christ, he knew people in China must pay a price for being a Christian. He says, “That’s a special part of Chinese Christians. They know they have to pay a price.” The roots of the decision to leave China trace back to a day in 2018 when Pastor Pan had lunch with Pastor Wang Yi, who is now serving a nine-year sentence as a prisoner for Christ. Christian persecution was rising in China. Wang Yi knew he faced imprisonment for his faith; he challenged Pastor Pan to prepare himself to go to prison as well. Pan will share about the regular visits he received from police after Wang Yi’s arrest. Pastor Pan and his church members had a decision to make. Should they leave China, or should they stay? Many had good jobs in China, but they worried about raising their children in Godly truth amidst communist pressure and indoctrination. After a year of discussions, knowing each Sunday could be their last one together, they felt unified in the decision to leave China. Today, Pastor Pan and the Mayflower church are educating their children to follow Christ as they wait to receive refugee status from the United Nations and resettlement in a free nation. Pray for favor for them in the UN refugee application process. Pray also for family members still in China, who constantly face threats and intimidation. Never miss and episode of VOM Radio! Subscribe to the podcast. Or you can listen each week in the new VOM App for your smartphone or tablet.

“As we commit daily to being Christ’s witnesses to a lost world, we must understand that we will be opposed. In fact, the more faithful we are, the more serious the opposition.” Cole Richards, President of The Voice of the Martyrs, joins VOM Radio this week to talk about helping Christians in free nations, like the United States, discover what it means to follow Christ when it’s unpopular or even costly—something Christians living in restricted nations and hostile areas deal with every day. We’ll also introduce a new resource from The Voice of the Martyrs to inspire believers to learn about and develop a faith worth suffering for. Cole recently wrote a series of editorials in The Voice of the Martyrs free monthly magazine on the topic, “Prepared for Persecution.” The Bible promises opposition (John 16:33) and persecution (II Tim. 3:12) when we live out our faith as biblical disciples of Christ. If Christians in free nations don’t learn these scriptural truths, we will be unprepared to face persecution when it comes. Cole and Todd will also discuss The Sabina Group Study, a new resource from The Voice of the Martyrs offering inspiring examples of Christians who have taken up their crosses and followed Christ in spite of opposition, persecution, suffering and pain. Examples in the study come from the lives of VOM’s founders, Pastor Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, and also from seven “modern-day Sabinas,” women who endured intense persecution as faithful witnesses for Christ in our day. A FREE copy of this brand-new video resource, including the full-length Sabina feature film and six video study sessions, is available right now to anyone who makes a donation to The Voice of the Martyrs. Never miss an episode of VOM Radio! Subscribe to the podcast. Or you can listen each week in the new VOM App for your smartphone or tablet.

The electricity was shut off in the homes of new Christians. Their rice fields were taken away. Some were beaten by local authorities—in front of loved ones who witnessed their suffering. Listen as Carter Gates shares about meeting these faithful believers, the first in their village to follow Christ. Carter leads VOM’s work in Asia/Pacific, overseeing VOM project work to help persecuted Christians in countries like China, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, Myanmar, and North Korea. Carter shares about a unique situation in Laos, where a pastor who was martyred last year. It’s unusual for a Christian to be killed in Laos, where persecution typically occurs at the hands of family members or village authorities. He’ll also tell the story of a pastor accused of putting a curse on a policeman. The policeman suspected a curse following a string of hardships he suffered after confiscating Bibles from the pastor and burning them. Listen as Carter gives an update on Christians in China after “Zero Covid” policies were finally dropped. As the Communist Party continues attempts to control the Chinese people, Party leaders understand that children are one key to maintaining their control. Carter shares the penalties our Christian brothers and sisters endure when they teach Biblical truth to young people—a crime in China. Pray for persecuted Christian family members in prison across the Asia/Pacific region. Pray they know the Lord is with them in their persecution, and that they would be strengthened and encouraged to stand firm despite fear and anxiety. Pray for VOM’s Asia/Pacific team as they creatively work to stand with those furthering the gospel in these hostile and restricted nations. Please send us a note to share how this episode encouraged you. Never miss an episode of VOM Radio! Subscribe to the podcast.