Resources for supporting the persecuted church

Hello all! I am closing out the week of remembering the persecuted church with the following suggestions to encourage you to remember the church year round. :-) Again, like the devotionals, the following information was not created by me, but by another family in our church. There are some excellent ideas in here! I'd encourage you to do a couple. (and maybe one of these days I will get to read and review some of the books they suggest :-) )

Hope you enjoyed the week off from book reviews! I hope to get at least one done this week.

Have a great day!

RESOURCES FOR SUPPORTING THE PERSECUTED CHURCH

There are prayer guides available from many ministries. Or you can just get out the map and a copy of “Operation World.” This book’s goal is to get you to pray by listing specific and detailed information about every country and region in the world. It is available from www.OperationWorld.org.

Here are some additional ways you can support the persecuted church. Please prayerfully consider what you and your family can do today.

1. Log on to these ministry websites to take advantage of free newsletters and magazines:

Voice of the Martyrs – www.Persecution.com
Open Doors – www.OpenDoorsUSA.org
Christian Freedom International – www.ChristianFreedom.org

2. Christmas is coming. Consider purchasing a handcrafted product (from handbags to home décor) made by persecuted Christians in Burma, Bangladesh, Laos, Vietnam and Indonesia. The money goes to support their families. Receive a catalog from www.ChristianFreedom.org.

3. Smuggle a Bible into a restricted country by donating to the Bible League. Contact them at www.BibleLeague.org for more information and a collection box for your children – in the shape of a Bible!

4. Display a prayer map in your home with the persecuted countries highlighted. Accompanying country summaries can be used to lead your children in a brief devotional about a specific country, including the religion, governmental leaders and state of Christianity there. This will help you pray more effectively and intelligently and teach your children to do likewise. You can get these items free from Voice of the Martyrs at www.Perscution.com.

5. Send a letter to a Christian prisoner! You can log on to www.PrisonerAlert.com and read biographies to learn more about our brothers and sisters in chains. The site allows you to write a letter in English and it will be translated into the prisoner’s native tongue, you can print it out and mail it to him/her. Every year, Christian prisoners testify to improved treatment and reduced sentences due largely to the fact that they receive letters from around the world from caring Christians.

6. Send an action pack to Christians suffering in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Iraq. For $5.00, you will receive a preprinted vacuum bag and instructions on what you can include (clothing, toys, sheets, etc.) to donate to our family in these countries. Once full, you can mail it back to Voice of the Martyrs and they will hand deliver it for you. Including your family picture is an added bonus! www.Persecution.com/ActionPacks

7. Sponsor a Burmese child who has become orphaned due to the military junta killing his/her parents. These children have escaped through the jungles into neighboring Thailand and are living in refugee camps on the Burmese/Thai border. Our family is sponsoring our third child now. Your $25.00 per month will go far in changing a life. You can find out more at www.ChristianFreedom.org.

8. Another Bible option – join Bibles Unbound (www.BiblesUnbound.com). Each month, you will receive the names and addresses of five Christians in countries such as Egypt, North Korea, Colombia and China. You will also receive Bibles in their languages. You will personally package and mail the Bibles to these Christians. This program has been hugely successful because mailed items are individually addressed and are not large suspicious-looking boxes. As of today, over 730,000 Bibles have been sent and more than 64,000 Christians are still waiting. Perhaps your family could send a Bible.

9. Select a country for your family to focus on in the upcoming year or month. Make it a unit study if you homeschool, or even if you don’t. Pray for that country. Get to know its leaders and how the church is being persecuted. Consider visiting or going on a mission trip. Consider supporting a Christian cause within your selected country. Find out all you can. For instance, how many Christians are dying there each day? Each hour? Each minute? For instance, in China, a Christian is martyred every 15 seconds. Praise God, a new Christian joins God’s family in China every three seconds! These are the kinds of things we should speak to our children.

10. If you enjoy sewing, obtain a parachute pattern from Voice of the Martyrs
(www.Persecution.com). These patterns come with complete instructions and parachutes made by you will be used to drop Bibles and radios from airplanes into the jungles of Colombia to the FARC guerillas there.

11. Wear a bracelet. Many are available including ones that remind us of countries or individuals or the global persecuted church.

12. Do you enjoy watching film? Watch a movie or documentary about the persecuted church, a specific country or a specific person together as a family and discuss it afterwards. Each year, the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival (www.IndependentChristianFilms.com) awards many film-makers in several categories. Last year’s winner was “A Cry from Iran” about martyr Brother Haik (www.ACryFromIran.com). We collect these films for our family. Other ministries that produce movies and documentaries that are quite excellent include Open Doors (www.OpenDoorsUSA.org) and Voice of the Martyrs (www.Persecution.com).

13. Choose to read a book – fiction or non-fiction – about the persecuted church each year. Perhaps you will choose to read one aloud to your family. Several great books will be on display to give you some ideas of what we have read as a family. Although we know there are many others, this may be a good starting point for you. Some are devotional readings that take less than five minutes a day.

Here are some recommendations from our personal library:

The Battle for the Chinese Bible – Nora Lam
any book by Watchman Nee
any book by Richard Wurmbrand, including Tortured for Christ
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs – John Foxe
Extreme Devotion – devotional book
Jesus Freaks – devotional book by D.C. Talk
Christians in the Shadow of the Kremlin – Anita Deyneka
any book by Corrie Ten Boom
Hidden Sorrow, Lasting Joy – Anneke Companjen
Sister Freaks – devotional book by Rebecca St. James
The 100 Most Important Events in Christian History – Kenneth Curtis
The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan
Bold as a Lamb – Ken Anderson
Safely Home – Randy Alcorn
Called To Die – Steve Estes
God’s Smuggler – Brother Andrew