When Pastor Arjun, a Christian convert from Hinduism, proposed to his wife, Radha, he made sure she knew what to expect. “I am a minister and have been attacked many times,” he told her. “In the future, you may be attacked. I may go to jail. Sometimes we will have food, sometimes we will not. This will be the life.” Radha accepted his proposal without flinching. “Live or die,” she replied, “I will live for Christ.” Since then, they have been forced to move three times. Arjun has been beaten numerous times and accused of forced conversions, while Radha has been personally threatened and watched Hindu radicals invade their church. When Radha’s parents began arranging a marriage for her when she was in the 12th grade, she made it clear that she wanted to marry a pastor. “I will not marry any other,” she told them. “Otherwise, I will not get married.” Radha wanted to be actively involved in ministry, and she knew marrying a pastor would be the best way to do that. “I had that burden,” she said. Because Arjun had been attacked so many times, Radha’s parents were initially hesitant to approve the marriage. But despite their
Read MoreBiman was preaching the gospel in five villages near his home, intending to plant churches. In one village, he was tutoring poor children, hoping to also lead their parents to Christ.
Read MoreWhy a former Islamic scholar is now providing a safe place for ex-Muslims to grow in their relationship with Christ When the first rock struck his back, Waleed turned and shouted, “Who did this?” Groups of young men loitering along the street stared blankly back at him, while shopkeepers avoided eye contact. Then, as Waleed turned and continued on his way, a barrage of stones began to rain down on him. “I was so scared,” he recalled, “so afraid.” Waleed ran for his life. Later, while assessing his cuts and bruises, he realized that his brothers at the mosque were no longer his brothers. He had pointed out too many contradictions in the Quran and had asked too many questions about Jesus that they couldn’t answer. Who was this Jesus mentioned 187 times, more than anyone else in the Quran? Becoming an Islamic Scholar An uncle in Waleed’s deeply Islamic family selected him at a young age to become an Islamic scholar. He grew so fluent in Arabic, the language of the Quran, that he received a four-year scholarship to an Islamic university in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, where he was expected to immerse himself in Islam before returning to his
Read MoreTwo Christian families were recently kicked out of their village due to their faith in Jesus Christ. Twice, the families were brought before the village council where, in the presence of police officers, government authorities and radical Hindu leaders, they were pushed to reconvert to Hinduism.
Read MorePastor Kuriachan; his wife, Selin; and their assistant pastor, Manikanta, were beaten and arrested the evening of May 17. The attack occurred after they had visited another Christian’s house in a nearby Hindu village.
Read MoreIf all had gone according to John Allen Chau’s plan, we would never have known his name. He intended to remain invisible to the world whether he lived or died, caring only to be seen by the one who told His followers to “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” But instead, in November 2018, news outlets around the world were running the story of a 26-year-old American man who had been killed trying to make contact with a remote tribe on North Sentinel Island, a tiny speck in the Bay of Bengal between India and Southeast Asia. Many news reports and opinion pieces implied that John had been foolish to contact a people group known to be violent toward outsiders. What they didn’t know was that John had prepared for years to reach the Sentinelese with the Good News of Jesus Christ. John chau’s Life of Preparation John spent almost a decade preparing to take the gospel to the Sentinelese, one of the last uncontacted people groups. His journey began in 2008, the year he turned 17, when he became what he described as “an apprentice to Jesus.” After taking his first missions
Read MoreAround 7:40 p.m. on March 17, as Pastor Yallam Shankar spent time with his family, five masked men came to his house, calling his name. As he exited his home, the men shot him in the chest and slit his throat.
Read MoreHindu radicals in the area had warned him to leave. Pastor Gideon Periyaswamy and his church were attracting a lower caste of people to the area, and that was unacceptable to the high-caste villagers living nearby. “Leave this village, or else we will make life difficult for you,” they had told him. But Periyaswamy knew the risks of serving the Lord in his homeland of India. “If the Lord permits it, I would die as a martyr for Christ,” he had told a fellow pastor. Periyaswamy had left Hinduism for Christ when he was a young man and had served in ministry for most of his life. In 2015, he planted a church in a high-caste Hindu area near the city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu state, India. Unsurprisingly, he was not welcomed by local Hindu activists. Radical Hindus harassed him nearly every Sunday, and in 2017 they even beat him. Still, Periyaswamy urged his congregation to try to live peacefully with their neighbors. Then, on the morning of January 20, 2018, members of Periyaswamy’s congregation discovered his body hanging from the ceiling of hishome. Upon closer investigation, it was apparent that the unmarriedpastor had been murdered and then hanged
Read MoreOn Dec. 6, a mob of Hindu nationalists vandalized a Christian school in Madhya Pradesh state. The attackers destroyed the school with stones and iron rods as students tried to complete their exams. The school had received advance warning of the attack and had requested police support, but according to school officials, the police advised the school to expect the crowd only to shout slogans and then leave.
Read MoreOn Oct. 3, 2021, Hindu fanatics barged into Pastor Arjun’s church building, threatened the pastor and chased members of the congregation away. The police arrived, but instead of controlling the situation, they began beating the pastor and his wife, Nara.
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