February 9, at 3:00 pm, the deputy government leader of Ta-Oyl district, visited the field where the Laotian Christians are forced to live. The deputy, Mr. Khamnun, ordered them to cease building temporary shelters and directed them to sleep on the ground. They have so far refused to comply with the order. On January 10, 2010, around 10:00 am, a group of approximately 100 officials raided a Sunday morning worship service in the Katin village of Ta-Oyl district, Saravan, Laos. With guns drawn, officials forced the 48 Christians to a nearby open field. Officials seized all personal belongings of the Christians, and later destroyed 6 of their houses. The officials put guns to the Christian’s heads and stated that the Christians cannot return to the village until they admit they no longer believe in lies. Laotian officials have set up police at the entrance of village to keep out the Christians. Unable to return to their homes, all 48, including women and children, have been sleeping on the ground in the woods with no provided food or shelter.
Second year high school student Chen Le has been expelled from school for his Christian faith. He had been found by the Bazhou Public Security Agency to have engaged in Christian gatherings, and the school was notified to educate him and persuade him to “mend his ways,” according to the Notice of Expulsion. Chen Le stated emphatically “I would rather be forced out of school than deny my faith,” prompting the school to advise him to transfer Notice of Expulsion document and refusing to renounce his faith, his expulsion has come at a great price for his future. The situation has effectively deprived him of his future education, as he has now been barred from taking the mandatory college entrance exam.
Pray that Chen would continue to serve God and not man. Pray that Chen will stand firm no matter what persecution comes.
Islamic extremists shot the leader of an underground church to death outside the capital city of Somalia this month and have threatened to kill his wife, his tearful widow told Compass. Having learned that he had left Islam to become a Christian, Somali militants from the Islamic extremist al Shabaab murderd 41-year-old Mohammed Ahmed Ali. Ali’s wife Hassan said she received threatening calls from members of al Shabaab on Jan. 3 saying, “We know your home and that you are a follower of the Christians, and we are going to kill you the way we killed your husband.” Hassan fled for Kenya early the next morning by bus with her only child, 2-year-old son Abdi Asis Mohammed Ahmed, arriving at Nairobi on Jan. 20.
Pray for Hassan and her 2-year-old son, and for the underground church in Somalia.
Six Christian hostages, among them three children, in Yemen are alive. More than six months ago a German Christian family of five and a British engineer were abducted in the North of the country. Deputy Prime Minister Rashad al-Alaimi has confirmed reports that the German family of five and a British engineer are in the hands of Shiite Houthi rebels. The Germans were forced to care for wounded fighters, he said in the capital Sanaa. Johannes and Sabine Hentschel (both 37) and their children Lydia (5), Anna (3) and Simon (1) as well as a British engineer were kidnapped in mid-June during an outing near Saada. Yemen is one of the strictest Islamic countries. 99 percent of the 21 million inhabitants are Muslims. Small groups of Christians gather in secret.
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Members of Wanbang Missionary Church in Shanghai China had to meet outdoors for worship on Sunday November 22nd after having been forcibly evicted from their church building earlier that month. On Thursday November 12th Chinese Public Security officials sealed off the doors and locked the church.
On the morning of November 22nd, three pastors of Wanbang church were summoned to a Shanghai police station for interrogation on suspicion of “engaging in illegal organisation and activities”. They were held until the afternoon. Despite intimidation from local authorities and the detention of the pastors, more than 500 dedicated church members gathered outdoors to continue the scheduled worship services.
Since the building’s closure, the authorities have been unsuccessful in preventing meetings of the church. On November 15th ten police officers attempted to obstruct Pastor Cui from attending church. Members also received threatening text messages defaming the church and saying that the service had been cancelled. In spite of this, over 700 people turned up to the outdoor prayer meeting that day.
In preparation for the mid-November visit of President Obama to China, the Shanghai authorities launched a city-wide search for members of Wanbang church, attempting to break up prayer and worship gatherings. All seven pastors were also issued with official notices to stop their “illegal religious activities”, which declared their pastoral status as “self-claimed illegal preachers”. On November 8th, the church website was forcibly shut down by the government’s censorship office to prevent negative reporting prior to Obama’s visit.
Howida Ali a Sudanese woman who fled to Egypt after converting from Islam to Christianity is living in secluded isolation as her angry family members try to track her down. Howida Ali’s Muslim brother and her ex-husband began searching for her in Cairo earlier this year after a relative there reported her whereabouts to them. “I’m afraid of my brother finding us,” said the 38-year-old Ali, who has moved to another area. “Their aim is to take us back to Sudan, and there they will force us to return to the Islamic faith or sentence us to death according to Islamic law.” Ali said she divorced her husband, Esam El deen Ali, because of his drug addiction in 2001, before she converted to Christianity. She was living with her parents in Khartoum when she began seeing visions of Christ. She sought out a Christian friend from southern Sudan, who told her about Jesus Christ and prayed with her. Fearing that relatives might discover she was a Christian, in 2007 she escaped with her then-8-year-old son.
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On December 5 officials of Eritrea arrested 30 Christian women in Asmara, the capital city of the country. The mostly elderly women were praying together at a house when security forces rounded them up and hauled them off to police station one in Asmara. Most of the detainees are members of Faith Mission Church, an Evangelical Church with a Methodist background. The church has been carrying out evangelistic and development activities in Eritrea for over five decades and was forced to go underground in 2002 after Eritrean officials required all religious groups to register. Since 2002, officials of Eritrea have been cracking down on members of both registered and unregistered churches. They have imprisoned more than 3000 Christians keeping them in underground dungeons, metal shipping containers, and military barracks. Several Christians have died inside prisons due to torture and lack of medical attention.
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A recent raid by Muslims on a Christian worship service near the capital city of Kampala, Uganda – where several members were injured and their building was damaged – is prompting concern among missions agencies that a new and more violent form of Islam is taking root in the region. The attack, carried out by a 40-member mob wielding machetes and clubs, surprised many in a nation where conflicts between Christians and Muslims have not reached the level of other nations. Most of Uganda’s Muslims are in the northern part of the country in the Bunyoro province. It’s in those regions where most of the persecution takes place. “When Muslims become a majority even in one part of a country where Christians are the majority, they become very vocal, extremist and radicalized,” said Jonathan Racho of International Christian Concern.
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On August 9 two Christian women appeared before an Iranian judge who asked them to deny their faith and return to Islam. Maryam Rostampour, 27, and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad, 30, have been held in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran since March 5. When both women refused to recant their faith, the judge sent them back to their prison cells “to think about it”. “When they said, ‘Think about it,’ it means you are going back to jail,” said the source, according to Compass. “This is something we say in Iran. It means: ‘Since you’re not sorry, you’ll stay in jail for a long time, and maybe you’ll change your mind.” They share a cell with over 20 other women and both have deteriorating health. Marzieh suffers from spinal pain, an infected tooth and intense headaches and is especially in need of medical attention, which has not been provided.
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February 9, at 3:00 pm, the deputy government leader of Ta-Oyl district, visited the field where the Laotian Christians are forced to live. The deputy, Mr. Khamnun, ordered them to cease building temporary shelters and directed them to sleep on the ground. They have so far refused to comply with the order. On January 10, 2010, around 10:00 am, a group of approximately 100 officials raided a Sunday morning worship service in the Katin village of Ta-Oyl district, Saravan, Laos. With guns drawn, officials forced the 48 Christians to a nearby open field. Officials seized all personal belongings of the Christians, and later destroyed 6 of their houses. The officials put guns to the Christian’s heads and stated that the Christians cannot return to the village until they admit they no longer believe in lies. Laotian officials have set up police at the entrance of village to keep out the Christians. Unable to return to their homes, all 48, including women and children, have been sleeping on the ground in the woods with no provided food or shelter.
