Open Doors International
Please don’t sit in silence, while our fellow believers face discrimination.
One rule for me, one rule for you: "Loudspeaker discrimination"
No visitor to a majority Muslim country can escape the dramatic broadcast of the call to prayer from the vantage of the towering minaret.
Five times a day – from dawn to dusk – the towns and landscape echo the distinctive and unmissable broadcast voice.
To the new visitor it may seem a remarkable, new, - if intrusive – experience. To the Muslim faithful it is a welcome and reassuring reminder.
So what’s the problem?
Just this—that sometimes Christians are not allowed the same right to "broadcast." In Pakistan this year, nine pastors were arrested for using loudspeakers to broadcast prayers and sermons from their churches on Easter Sunday.
The law limits the use of loudspeakers in Christian services to specific times. But few such restrictions are placed on mosques.
The double standard follows a tradition in Islam in which church bells were not allowed to ring in areas under Islamic rule.
To find out more about unequal treatment of Christians visit www.opendoors.org and www.secretbelievers.org.
We just cannot stand by while our fellow believers are made homeless and tortured.
One rule for you, one rule for me: "Medieval torture"
Everyone in a village in Laos usually gets to attend the village meetings. It is their right. All adult members are usually invited.
But this was not in the case of a recent meeting in Boukham village in Laos, because the Christians were excluded. Worse, the main agenda item was how to expel the Christians from the village!
The meeting concluded with plans to expel all 55 Christians.
At the same time, believers from the village have been held in handcuffs and wooden foot stocks, causing numbness and infection in their legs and feet due to lack of blood circulation.
The Laos constitution supposedly “guarantees” freedom of religion. But the need for registration and the strict restrictions which go with it in effect mean that there is one rule for most, and another rule for (law abiding and productive) Christians.
For more stories such as this, visit www.compassdirect.org
How can we turn a blind eye when our fellow believers have to face terror and even death.
How forgiveness changes the equation
Sister Niche is a gentle lady with a thoughtful face which expresses a world of emotions.
And she has every reason to be emotional. One fateful day in her homeland of Poso, Indonesia, a gang of violent men killed her precious daughter in a vicious ambush.
They were supposedly “celebrating the end of Ramadan." Alfita was in the prime of her life. Niche had to come to terms not just with the death of her daughter, but also the horrific manner in which she was beheaded.
But, remarkably, Niche found comfort and inspiration in the example of Christ on the cross, forgiving his executioners. She resolved to follow his example, however difficult it might be, and forgive.
Open Doors' feature DVD "A Journey of Forgiveness" tells the story of how Niche and other mothers affected by the attack, found a way “to do the impossible” and forgive.
Visit www.opendoors.org to book to see this remarkable film.
