India

When Poonam quietly left Hinduism in 2012, the Bible she obtained instantly became her most prized possession. The young Indian wife and mother of three secretly read God’s Word in her home each day, growing in her understanding of God’s love for her. But she feared that her husband would find out about her new faith, and he soon did. After overhearing her praying a Christian prayer one day, he found her Bible and angrily tore it to pieces. “From today on you stop reading the Bible, and as long as you live in this house you better not pray!” he scolded. Poonam’s husband then beat her, eventually kicking her out of the house and refusing to let her see their young sons and daughter. Her Christian faith cost her everything. In India, where a rise in persecution of Christians has paralleled the rise in Hindu nationalism, Bibles are a precious resource that help new believers continue to grow in faith amid persecution. After losing her Bible and her family, Poonam stayed with relatives and prayed for the return of everything she had lost. A pastor and another believer who lived near her relatives visited Poonam regularly to pray with

After a pastor was killed for sharing the gospel with his Hindu neighbors, his brother stepped in to carry on the ministry. Pastor Harman was filled with dread as he answered a late-night knock at his door on Aug. 15, 2015. When he opened the door, he was confronted by three armed Naxalites, guerrillas associated with the Communist Party of India. And standing farther back, surrounding his house, were another 20 armed militants. During their four previous visits, the guerrillas had calmly warned the pastor to stop sharing the gospel with Hindus in the village. But this visit was different. Surrounded by men armed with AK-47s, the pastor was escorted away from his simple home and into the night. Fearing for her husband’s life, Harman’s wife, Ashna, followed them, leaving their two young children with Harman’s mother. The guerrillas took Harman to the village leader’s home and, after a brief meeting, walked him toward a nearby forest. One of Harman’s younger brothers, Vihaan, who had learned of the abduction from their mother, arrived just before the group entered the woods. He pleaded with the group to release his brother, but the guerrilla leader simply pushed him away and kept walking.

At 9 p.m. on Feb. 7, 2016, Pastor Kabir finished leading a prayer service at Savior’s Church in the heart of one of India’s slums. He then left his congregation of 40 believers and boarded a bus to travel home to his wife, Ishita, and their two daughters, just as he did every other Sunday evening. This time, however, four men followed the 37-year-old pastor home. The men, all members of a youth militia called Hindu Yuva Vahini, stopped the bus three miles from Kabir’s home, dragged him off the bus and kidnapped him. They took him to an old, empty building, where they planned to force him to deny Jesus on video. Like other Hindu nationalist groups, such as the prominent Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Hindu Yuva Vahini seeks to forcibly reconvert those who leave Hinduism. The men surrounded the pastor, brutally kicking and punching him for 15 minutes. One of them repeatedly hit him on the head with the handle of a knife, and with each blow Kabir pleaded with God to spare his life. He pledged to serve Him more zealously if he survived. As the pastor lay on the floor bleeding and writhing in pain, one

Just 10 days after Narendra Modi became India’s prime minister, Pratik and his family were targeted by Hindu nationalists. Reaching Pratik’s house requires a bumpy drive down a narrow dirt road through a forest of sunlit coffee trees. Winding through the 10-acre coffee plantation, the road suddenly takes a sharp right turn before dropping down a steep hill. At the bottom of the hill — away from everyone else — sits his family’s small home. In another part of the world, the house might feel like a peaceful hideaway. In southern India, however, Pratik and his family feel trapped. They’ve felt this way since June 4, 2014, when about 30 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) members stormed into their house, forced Pratik, his wife, Dharmi, and their elder of two teenage daughters into SUVs and drove them to the nearest Hindu temple to be “reconverted” to Hinduism. Their younger daughter managed to escape the Hindu nationalists, who are working to return India’s population to its Hindu roots. Life as Christians surrounded by 400 Hindu families had never been easy for Pratik’s family, and it has become even more difficult since Narendra Modi became India’s prime minister. Modi is a long-time RSS

A year after facing persecution for the eighth time, 90-year-old Jatya is prepared to suffer yet again. Jatya is eager to share the evidence of his faithful evangelism with visitors. The frail yet energetic man lives in southern India, in a village heavily populated with paid informants for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The RSS, a national volunteer organization with more than 5 million members, intimidates and even forces Christians to return to their nation’s “Hindu roots.” One of Jatya’s most prized possessions is a manila packet stuffed with photos and newspaper articles recounting the eight times he has been beaten for sharing the gospel in his village. It all started in 1992, when Jatya refused to sign a document promising to stop evangelizing. Police officers responded to Jatya’s stubbornness by breaking all of his fingers. Three years later, Hindu radicals beat him and dragged him to the police station, where he spent a week in jail. And the scars on Jatya’s left arm and hand are constant reminders of the third time he was persecuted for his faith; a Hindu neighbor whipped him with a bicycle chain, causing severe lacerations. After each brutal beating, however, Jatya returns home from

Walter was a new Christian, and he was scared. Most people in his village thought anyone who left Hinduism was rejecting Indian culture, so Christians were highly criticized by their neighbors. Although Walter was reluctant to talk about his faith, he admired his pastor’s boldness. Eventually, he decided to visit a neighboring village with Pastor Joseph. When a Hindu family asked them to pray for a sick family member, they gladly entered their home. But when they walked back out, about 50 men were waiting for them. The mob began to beat them and smash their vehicle with sticks. They looted their vehicle and dragged the Christians to the police station, where they were thrown in jail. Pastor Joseph lost four teeth in the beating, and Walter was covered with bruises. But the pastor was undeterred. As he crouched on the dirt floor of the jail cell, still aching from the beating, he couldn’t stop talking about Jesus with other prisoners in the cell. Walter watched as three of his cellmates gave their lives to Christ. Suddenly, something inside him overflowed. He turned to the prisoner slumped beside him. “Do you know that Jesus loves you?” he began. The man

When Pastor Yoshi unlatched the door of his home to see who was pounding on it, he immediately recognized the group of men standing before him. Their saffron-colored headbands along with the sticks and iron bars in their fists clearly identified the 10 men as members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), a militant nationalist Hindu group known for beating and harassing Christians. Yoshi braced himself for the beating that was sure to come. Their visit that evening in late 2009 wasn’t totally unexpected, but the pastor hadn’t expected them so soon. Every Indian village has an informant who reports anti-Hindu activity to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an extremist military group, and the village VHP informant had visited their home in India’s northern Uttar Pradesh state earlier that day looking for Yoshi. Yoshi’s wife, “Aja,” had told the man her husband wasn’t home because he was out preaching. The Hindu activists were upset because a couple of weeks earlier, Yoshi had showed The JESUS Film to about 400 people in a rural village in Uttar Pradesh. Afterward, Hindu leaders accused Yoshi of being “anti-national” and an American agent, serious accusations from groups whose stated goals are to cleanse India

Just before Hadi was beaten for sharing the gospel in India, he witnessed God working in the hearts of his friends. While at a birthday party on April 19, 2015, he began talking to others about Jesus. About 30 people at the party — including the man celebrating his birthday — were eager to learn more about Christ. But 20 minutes into the discussion, a group of Hindu militants showed up at the party and interrupted Hadi. “Are you a Christian?” one asked. “Yes,” Hadi replied. “You are changing these people’s religion,” the militant said. “We should finish [you].” Hadi clutched his Bible to his chest, but they ripped it out of his hands. “You will not see tomorrow’s sun,” another member of the group told him. The militants began beating him in the chest and kicking him in the groin. Hadi’s friend, Sahib, tried to stop the attack, and they asked him if he was a Christian, too. When he told them he was, they hit Sahib in the head with a club and beat him on the chest with a large piece of wood. Another attacker pulled a knife and slashed Hadi on the cheek, shoulder and back.

Chandrashekar stood in a simple home in a small Indian farming village and prayed with a couple who had come to Christ just four months earlier. Brother Bala and Sister Kuskuma were the only Christians in their village, and they were surrounded by 40 families — all devout Hindus. With no church in their village, their only source of fellowship and spiritual nourishment was Chandrashekar, who lived 15 kilometers [a little over nine miles] away. After sharing a message of abiding in Christ from John 15 and Psalm 1, Chandrashekar prayed for the couple. He prayed that they would boldly share the gospel with fellow villagers, and he prayed that their relatives would also come to know Christ. Since Chandrashekar had to visit a family in another village before returning home, he thanked Brother Bala and Sister Kuskuma, packed his Bible and left their home. Chandrashekar hadn’t traveled far down the road when he was confronted by a mob of 40 men, some armed with sticks. “Did you visit Hindu people’s houses to convert them?” they demanded. “I visited their house to pray,” he replied. That was enough evidence for the mob. They grabbed Chandrashekar’s Bible and tore it up,