Modern Witnesses: Norbu’s Journey

*If you’d like to read the first post in the Modern Witnesses series, click here.

This morning in Sunday School, our teacher told us about the country of Bhutan. There are very few Christians living in Bhutan. We need to pray that God will help many people there hear about Him and learn about how much He loves them. I’m going to pray that there will be many strong modern witnesses who will take God’s love to every mountain and valley in Bhutan. Will you pray with me?

Our teacher also gave us a story to read so we could learn more about Bhutan. It’s not a true story, like the ones we’ve read about Christians who live in other countries, but it is a story about what life might be like for one boy whose father gets hurt while they are on a journey. I put a copy of it here so you could read it to! I hope you enjoy it!

Norbu’s Journey

“Dear God, please help all the people in Bhutan to hear how much You love them. Help them love You and share Your love with everyone around them. Thank You that You love every person and sent Jesus to pay for every wrong choice we make. Thank You. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”

Modern Witnesses: Mother Tongue Pastors

*If you’d like to read the first post in the Modern Witnesses series, click here.

This week, our Sunday School teacher taught us about a church in Iran that needs our prayers. But first, she said she needed to tell us what the term “mother tongue” meant. What do you think the words “mother tongue” mean?

I wasn’t really sure until she explained it. It’s the language you know the best. When a thought comes into your heart, what language is it in? When you pray or talk to someone you love, what language do you use? That’s your heart language or your mother tongue. Lots of times it’s the language your parents speak that they learned when they were young.

Many people know some words in another language—or even a couple of different languages. Even if your mother tongue is English, you’ve probably heard words like “buenos dias” and “bonjour.” But that’s not the language you know the best, the one you really understand. So for people to truly understand the stories in the Bible, to hear and understand that God loves them and sent Jesus to die for them, they need to be able to hear those stories in their mother tongue, in their heart language.

In Iran, many of the people speak Farsi, which is a dialect of Persian, the mother tongue of the majority of Iran’s people. But the Iranian government doesn’t want churches to preach in Farsi. They want them to only preach in a language that is understood by a smaller number of people. The Assemblies of God church in Tehran, the capital of Iran, doesn’t want to stop preaching in Farsi. They know that all the people in Iran need to hear about Jesus’ love for them. So they kept preaching in Farsi even after the government ordered them to stop.

On May 21, one of the churches leaders, Pastor Robert Asseriyan was arrested and sent to Evin prison, one of the worst prisons in Iran. Someone hung a sign on the door of the church that said the church was closed due to “major repairs” and told the people not to come back.

Pastor Asseriyan misses his family, and he doesn’t know what will happen to him next. The church misses their pastor. The government has said that if the church stops preaching in Farsi, they will consider releasing the pastor.

Now the church in Tehran, and the other churches across Iran that preach in Farsi, have to make a very difficult and dangerous decision. Do they keep trying to preach in Farsi, so that all the people of Iran can hear about Jesus? Or do they stop? Do they stay open or do they close? What do you think you would do?

“Dear God, the churches in Iran are facing a really hard and scary decision. Please help each one to do whatever You want them to do. Help them be wise and brave. Please help Pastor Asseriyan, his family, and his church to trust You and love You no matter what. Comfort them and help them when they hurt. Please help everyone in Iran, no matter what language they speak, to hear about Jesus’ love and understand. Help them each to believe in You. Thank You. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”

The facts of this story are based on World Watch Monitor news articles published on May 30, 2013. For more information, please see my Parents and Educators page.

If you’d like a printable version of today’s story, click here.

Modern Witnesses: Laos

*If you’d like to read the first post in the Modern Witnesses series, click here.

Our teacher gave us a story to read this morning about a boy in Laos.  She said it’s not a story that actually happened, like you see on the news.  But, she said it would help us find out what life is like for Christian kids in Laos because it was written based on things that have happened.  I really liked Part One–it’s about a boy named Thao, a buried treasure (that wasn’t such a treasure), a hidden Bible, and strangers finding his village.

When Jesus Came to Laos-Part One

I wonder why Thao’s mom would hide the Bible.  And who could be coming up the mountain?  What do you think?

When Jesus Came to Laos-Week Two

I can’t imagine how I would feel if it was illegal to have a Bible!  What would I do?  Would I still read God’s Word?  Would you?

When Jesus Came to Laos-Week Three

Now Thao he has to escape from a leopard! What do you think?  Does Jesus know where Thao is?  How will Thao escape?

When Jesus Came to Laos-Week Four

When we got to read the end of Thao’s story, it made me think about when Jesus appeared to His friends after He rose from the dead.  Even though they were scared and sad, He went looking for them.  He found them and helped them understand and believe.

Thao and the Christians in his village were so happy to finally have a Bible of their very own!  Even though having a Bible is illegal in Laos, there aren’t enough Bibles for the Christians who want one.  There are approximately 198,000 Christians in Laos.  Some of the people don’t even have a Bible translated into a language they can read and really understand yet.

But, think about this: There are over 6 million people living in Laos right now.  How many of them don’t understand that Jesus loves them and paid for their mistakes so that they can know God and live forever with Him?

There are many things we can pray and ask God to do to help the people of Laos.  Will you please pray that:

1) Each and every person in Laos will hear about Jesus and His love, and ask Him to be their Savior

2) That every language in Laos will have God’s Word translated into a language they can read and understand

3) That God will bring Bibles to every Christian in Laos, and that He will keep them safe as they read it and learn more about Him

Modern Witnesses: Christians in Kazakhstan

*If you’d like to read the first post in the Modern Witnesses series, click here.

This week, our Sunday School teacher taught us about Christians who live in the country of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is a country in Central Asia that borders Russia, the Caspian Sea, China, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. There are over 17 million people living in Kazakhstan today; most of them do not believe in Jesus yet.

Life for Christians in Kazakhstan can be very difficult. It can be hard to find a place to hold church services. Two churches used to meet in a conference room at a university over the weekend, when the school didn’t need the room. But the government stepped in and ordered the school not to allow the Christians to meet there anymore, even though the university wanted to allow them to.

Pastors can get in trouble just for praying for someone who is sick. Sometimes the government even insists that pastors get a special license from the government before they can pray for someone to get well. They are often charged huge amounts of money and threatened. Their computers, Christian books, Christian DVDs, and other things are sometimes taken.

The government has tried very hard to control and limit Christian activity in the country. Why do you think some governments don’t want their people to know about Jesus?

Please pray that God would help the Christians in Kazakhstan to be brave and keep loving Him and serving Him. Pray that He would help them to love the people who are persecuting them and that He would help every person in Kazakhstan hear about His love for them and follow Him.

“Dear God, please help Christians in Kazakhstan to trust You no matter what happens. Please help the government to allow them to meet and pray for others. Please help those who don’t know You yet to learn and understand how much You love them. Thank You. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”

 

You can find out more ways to pray for Kazakhstan here.

If you’d like a printable version of today’s story, click here.

Modern Witnesses: Jesus

Do you remember a few months ago when our Sunday School teacher first started telling us about the Christians in other countries who follow Jesus and love Him, even though it is very hard? Today, she asked us a question—why do they keep loving Jesus when so many people try to make them stop?

Do you know the answer? I wasn’t sure at first, but when I came home from church and read my Bible, I asked God to help me understand, and He did. I found a verse that says, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us.” (I John 4:18-19)*

Maybe that is the reason. The Christians who are suffering know that Jesus loved them enough to suffer for them when He lived on earth. He didn’t just give them a bunch of rules, He gave up Himself in order to make things right with God. He knew we could never keep all of God’s rules and live a perfect life. So He lived a perfect life for us and died to pay the price that was owed because of God’s judgment.

I think the Christians know, too, that He knows how they are feeling. He knows what it is like to be mistreated, because people mistreated Him. Look and see what I mean—

• Jesus knows what it feels like to be abandoned and left all alone. Just like Susan Ithungu, whose father locked her up by herself for six months, or Saaed Abedini, who was kept in a prison cell all by himself for a long time, Jesus understands. Part of the punishment that sin brings is that we are separated from God. God is too holy and righteous to allow sin in His presence. But He loves us so much that He didn’t want to live without us. So when Jesus was dying on the cross for our sins, He took all of those sins onto Himself. When He did that, He couldn’t be with God anymore, and God turned away from Him. It broke Jesus’ heart, and “Jesus cried out in a loud voice…My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)
• Like so many of the suffering Christians like the Adivasi Tribal Christians or the Ganda Christians in India, or Nguyen Thi Lan in Vietnam, Jesus was beaten and mistreated very badly. “…took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.” (Matthew 27:30)
• He knew what it felt like to be hungry and thirsty and to not have anywhere to call home where He could rest, like Christians who lose their jobs and their homes because they love Jesus. “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20)
• He knew what it was like to have friends or family turn their backs on Him and even betray Him. One of His closest friends, named Judas, turned Him in to the people who wanted to kill Him. “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” (Luke 22:48)

They know if they meant so much to Jesus that He was willing to suffer all those terrible things in order to save them, then they need to be willing to suffer terrible things in order to help other people hear about His love for them.

“Dear God, thank You that You loved me so much that You sent Jesus to die for my sins. Please help me love other people enough to tell them about You, no matter how hard it is. Thank You. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”

*All Scriptures taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®, Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

For a printable version of today’s post, click here.

Modern Witnesses: Iran

*If you’d like to read the first post in the Modern Witnesses series, click here.

Do you remember a few weeks ago when we learned about Farshid Fathi in Sunday School? He’s a husband and father in Iran who is in prison because of his faith in Jesus. Have you prayed for him and sent him a letter?

Today, our Sunday School teacher taught us more about what life is like for Christians in Iran. This time, she shared a story with us that she wrote about a girl named Yasmin. Yasmin’s family was arrested, and she had to go into hiding because they loved Jesus. Her story isn’t true, it’s not written about someone who really lives in Iran like Farshid Fathi, but it is based on things that have happened to Christians in Iran that have been reported in the news. You can read Yasmin’s Silent Song here.

Let’s keep praying for Christians in Iran, that God would help them be brave and keep them safe.

“Dear God, thank you for the freedom to sing and worship. Please be with and take care of all the Christians who live in places where that is illegal. Encourage them and help them wait patiently for the day when no one will keep them from singing to You. Thank You. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”

Modern Witnesses: Hmong of Laos

A picture embroidered by Christian Hmong living in Laos. Our teacher bought this at http://www.christianfreedom.org.

A friend of our teacher came to visit our class today.  She told us the story of her family.  She and her family are part of a group of people called the Hmong.  She wrote it on the board and spelled it with an “H” at the beginning.  But, she said you don’t say the H-sound.  It is silent.  So, her people are called the “Mong.”

Her family moved to the United States from Laos more than 30 years ago, when she was a little girl, when communism took control of the government in Laos.  Back then, many of the Hmong were Christians, and they had fought against communism because communism says people shouldn’t believe in Jesus.

Her mother and father moved to the United States.  But, her aunts, uncles, and grandparents all stayed behind.  There are still Hmong Christians in Laos, but there are many Hmong who don’t believe in Jesus yet.  She doesn’t know if her grandparents are still alive or if they have asked Jesus into their hearts.  She wants to visit them and tell them everything she has learned about Jesus.

And, she wants to tell her aunts and uncles, too.  But she knows it could be very hard for them to follow Jesus.  Sometimes in Laos, when someone chooses to believe in Jesus, their family makes them move away from home.  They won’t let them live with them anymore.  She doesn’t know what might happen to her family.

“Dear God, please help the Hmong people, living in the United States, Laos, and everywhere else they are living right now.  Please help them every time they have to move to remember that You always know where they are and what they need.  Take care of them.  Please help them trust You to bring lots of good things out of all their moves.  And, please help the Hmong who don’t believe in You yet to understand and accept You as Savior.  In Jesus’ Name.  Amen.”