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Todd Nettleton: Christians Persevering Under Persecution · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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defending biblical Christianity.
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No topic, off limits.
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And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
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Hello, friends, family and Christ.
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Todd Nettleton with Voice of the Martyrs is our guest today.
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Before we get to him, I want to thank India from Louisiana.
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I think it's Matteri, hopefully I said that right.
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And the reason I mentioned she sent a donation in and we're not doing our fundraiser, that's
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all done and we're good to go for this year.
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But I don't remember getting another donation from Louisiana.
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So whenever we hear from a new state, I like to point that out.
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I think we're up to, how many, 30 states, 30 some states and five countries, but don't
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quote me on that, they'll let me know for sure.
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you for you for subscribing to our channel.
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So Todd Nettleton, Voice of the Martyrs, he is also the author of When Faith Is For
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Bidden, 40 Days on the Frontlines with Persecuted Christians.
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We've talked about that on the show, a lot of great stories in there.
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So let's bring him in right now, Todd Nettleton, good to see you brother, thanks so much for
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your time today.
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Oh, it's great to be with you.
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Thanks for having me.
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Yeah, that's always a blessing to catch up with you.
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And for those of us, maybe busy Christians, particularly in America, who, you know,
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we take our freedoms for granted, our religious freedom, well, we have it, it's getting
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closer and closer to being taken away those freedoms, but we enjoy what is really unusual
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in the whole world when it comes to Christians and free speech and freedom of worship.
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And we're thankful that you give us these stories about people who really endure persecution
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and hard times and Voice of the Martyrs supports them, shares their stories, and that's why
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we'd like to have you back on.
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It's really a good for me personally.
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Also, it's a great perspective check when I feel like complaining about my life here
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in the comforts of the USA, you know, I'm sure you hear that a lot, but Todd, where do
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you want to start today?
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This came back from Central Asia, right within the last month, you were on a trip there
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four different countries.
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Just give us an overview and then we'll get into some details.
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Well, one of the things you mentioned when Faith has forbidden the book, one of the stories
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I tell in the book was of a lady whose husband was killed 20 years ago.
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He was a pastor and on this trip, we got to see her again.
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So going back 20 years later and being able to reconnect with her all through the last
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20 years, she has continued to serve the Lord.
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She has continued discipling new believers.
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She's continued outreach ministry and all through those 20 years, VOM has been walking
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with her and helping her, equipping her, encouraging her in fact within the last couple
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of years.
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We helped her move into a new apartment.
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She was on the third floor.
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She is quite elderly now and it was getting hard.
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The stairs were getting hard for her and so we helped her move into a first floor apartment
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where she can be more mobile, she can get around better.
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But one of the things she said, and she said it a couple of times, she said, don't think
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I'm a saint and she said, you know, after my husband was killed, she had to learn how
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to drive because her husband had done all the driving so she had to learn how to drive
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and she said, when I was learning how to drive, I would be holding the steering wheel in front
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of me and I would picture the man who killed my husband coming in front of the car and
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I would picture myself running him over.
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I was like, don't think I'm a saint because I was angry with him.
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I was hurt by this loss but the Lord helped her to be able to forgive and there's really
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an amazing story.
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That young man who killed her husband eventually went to prison.
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Well her husband had been a prisoner before he was a Christian, he was a criminal.
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In fact, he got saved in prison.
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One of the men that her husband led to Christ in prison eventually was able to minister
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to the young man who killed her husband and just an amazing story of God's grace in
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his life.
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God's grace reaching out to him.
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But I'm, I was so pleased to see her again, but also to know how Voice of the Martyrs
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has been helping her all these years.
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I am so thankful for my international ministry colleagues who go and drink tea and sit
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and say, hey, what do you need?
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How can we help you?
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And then Voice of the Martyrs, because we have people who donate and support the ministry,
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we're able to come in and say, yes, we want to help you in that way.
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So her husband was a pastor.
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He was killed 20 years ago and you met this woman four months after she lost her husband,
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right?
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Yeah, I'll never forget it.
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We went, we went to their home.
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They were in a city called Isfara and in Isfara before they got there, there were 126
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mosques and zero Christian churches.
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And so they went to the city to really plant the very first gospel work in the city a
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few weeks before her husband was killed.
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The local paper printed a story about this new church that was growing up in their community.
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And the headline of the article was, what's going to be done about Sergei Bessarov?
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That was her husband's name, Sergei Bessarov.
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What's going to be done about Sergei Bessarov?
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Just a few weeks later, he was in the front room of their home.
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It was in the evening.
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He was having his devotions.
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He was strumming his guitar.
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He was singing worship songs.
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He was studying the Bible and shots rang out and he was shot and killed in the room where
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their church met the front room of their home.
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And like you said, I was there about four months later.
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In fact, the thing I remember about it is there were still bullet holes in the front
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windows.
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They had put kind of clear tape over them, but you could still see the bullet holes in
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the windows of that room.
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And as we sat in that room, we actually went to Sergei's grave with his widow.
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I remember her weeping at the grave.
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But one of the things she said, she said, for so many months and years, we prayed for
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this city.
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And now there are people all over the world who are praying for this city.
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People who never would have heard of this city before, but because my husband was killed,
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now there are people all over the world that are praying for the city of Isfara.
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And so even in her grief, she saw how God was using that sacrifice.
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She saw that God was going to multiply this.
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God was going to use this.
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And I asked her, I said to you, so how is the church in Isfara?
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There is still a church there.
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There is still Christian people who are meeting in that same room.
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All these 20 years later, they are still having gospel meetings in that room.
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And so God's hand has been on that church and God's hand has been on tomorrow through
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the last 20 years.
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And like I say, what a blessing for me to be able to go back and see her all these years
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later.
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Yeah.
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And what's amazing, she's elderly.
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She's still doing ministry and man, God works through us, sometimes through our pain.
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And I want to mention just the thought of your worshiping God, your strumming your guitar.
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I don't play guitar, but just, you know, your worshiping God and that's how you die.
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You know, just the thought of that is like, oh my goodness.
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So one of my favorite stories about Sergei, when we went there 20 years ago, Sergei, this
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is amazing to me.
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So he would do that for two hours in the morning time and he would do it for two hours in the
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evening.
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So he was spending four hours a day in the Lord's presence, studying the Lord's Word, worshiping
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the Lord, but he was praying and asking God to open up two more hours in the middle of
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the day.
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He didn't feel like four hours a day was enough, which I find incredibly convicting.
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Wow.
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He was praying for two more hours in the middle of the day and she told us this.
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And I just, you know, I picture Sergei getting to heaven and God saying, hey, you were asking
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me for two more hours a day, how about eternity?
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How about we spend all our time in each other's presence, worshiping and being with me two
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more hours a day would be great, but let's do eternity instead.
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I just think of that being one of the ways that God answers Sergei's prayer.
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You know, kind of on the verge of tears, just thinking about that.
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And, you know, I don't want to beat up anybody or myself, but what's our excuse, you know,
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for skipping a quiet time, for not spending, you know, 20 minutes or maybe a half hour
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or maybe an hour in the Word of God and worship every day.
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What's our excuse in North America, friends?
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All right.
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Todd, before we move on, persecution.com is the website, but there's a page where you
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can sign up to get the free magazine subscription.
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I just want to point people to that right now.
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You want to hear about these stories.
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You want to keep up with people that are persecuted around the world.
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Go to persecution.com and click on receive the free magazine.
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It says subscribe free magazine subscription.
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It's right on the homepage.
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Click on that.
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Do you want to add anything to that, Todd?
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Let's move on to the next story.
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Yeah.
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Let me share one more link that you'll see on persecution.com.
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There's a link to PrisonerAlert.com.
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And this ties into a story from our trip to Central Asia because we met a pastor who
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spent three years in prison who was listed on PrisonerAlert.com.
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And he testified with tears in his eyes, what a difference it made, PrisonerAlert.com
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is a site where you go and you write letters to Christians who are in prison.
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And this pastor told us what a difference it made when those letters started showing
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up at the prison.
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He said when the letters started showing up at the prison, every single week, the warden,
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the leader of the whole prison would invite him into his office and would say, Hey, are
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you okay?
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Are we taking good care?
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Are you getting enough to eat?
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Are you sick?
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Do you need to see a doctor?
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Is everything okay with you?
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And he said at one of those conversations after that, he, as he left the warden's office,
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he heard the warden on the phone, apparently with his boss in the capital city saying,
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listen, he's fine.
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I just talked to him.
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He was just in my office.
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He's fine.
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And so those letters were creating pressure on the warden of the prison to take care of
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this pastor, to make sure he got enough to eat, to make sure he survived those months
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in prison.
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So when you write those letters, when you pray for those in prison Christians, it's not
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just a matter of, Hey, that's going to bless them.
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It really makes a practical difference in how they are treated.
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And he shared that with us.
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His wife also got mail.
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In fact, she said, the first day after their name, their address was published, they got
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a big bag of mail and the, the postman brought it up the stairs to their apartment.
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He lays it on the porch.
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He says, here, you got all this mail.
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She said, after that first day, though, he would just call and he would say, listen, it's
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too heavy.
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There's too much mail.
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I'm not going to carry it up the stairs.
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If you want it, you're going to have to come down to the post office and get it.
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But they got hundreds of letters from Christians around the world who were saying, hey, we're
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praying for you.
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We are with you in this time of suffering.
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And both of them, again, with tears in their eyes, they told me, make sure you say thank
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you to the believers who wrote those letters.
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That made a huge difference for us.
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So I would just point that out again, prisoner, alert.com.
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There's a link on persecution.com.
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But please write letters.
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It really does make a difference.
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Amen.
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It is a link right to the voice of the martyr's website.
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It's God's separate site, prisoner, alert.com.
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What a great thing.
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We can minister to people around the world from our own home.
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And here's one way to do that.
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So Todd, you also talked about, there's another one that governments are worried about radical
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Islam.
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They're often more worried about radical Islam than about Christianity.
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Share with us this next story about pastors dealing with a government that says, any
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religious instruction to kids under 18 is a crime.
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Well, I think what you just said is really important for people to understand.
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So we're talking about Central Asia.
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One of their neighbors is Afghanistan.
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So they know about the Taliban.
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They know what radical Islam can do to a country.
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And they're nervous about that.
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They're worried about that.
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And so in one of these countries, any child under 18 is not allowed at any kind of a religious
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gathering.
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So church service, no, go to the mosque, no, that is illegal.
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And the law is written that the government can actually take that child away from their
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parents if they are found to be at a religious gathering.
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So imagine you're a pastor in that country and you're thinking about youth ministry or
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children's ministry.
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And it's like, wait a minute, my own children could get taken out of my home if I have them
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at church.
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We were at one church where they literally built a completely separate building for all
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of the children's activities to happen.
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And it is not the church building.
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They don't have any kind of church service in that building so that if the government comes
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in, they can say, no, no, no, that's not our church building.
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That's just for children, that's just for child care, nothing, you know, no church activities
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happen in that building.
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Now, yes, it's the church children's program, but it is not considered a religious service.
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And so that's the way that they have responded to this law, but every pastor in this country
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is looking at this law and saying, okay, well, what does this mean for our church?
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What does it mean for my own children?
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How am I going to raise them up in the fear and the admonition of the Lord in a place
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where the government says, if you have them at a religious gathering, we can take them
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away from you.
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We can take them out of your home.
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Wow.
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Wow.
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They can take the kids away.
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So how do they define gathering?
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They're not just talking about a church.
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They're talking about any environment where kids are instructed in religion.
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You know, that is one of the questions that is still kind of being fleshed out.
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And all of the churches are trying to figure out, okay, what does this mean?
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Like, like, what can we do?
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What can we get away with?
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One of the pastors we talked to, their church has traditionally done a children's camp
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in the summertime.
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And they take the kids to camp, you know, they have lots of fun.
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They have lots of activities, but they also talk about the Bible.
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This year they actually canceled that children's camp because they looked at this law and
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they're like, okay, how much risk is this?
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How far do we want to push?
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Do we want to see, you know, when is the government going to crack down on us?
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And so for this summer, at least, they canceled the children's camp because of this law
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and because of that potential of, hey, we don't want to get children taken out of their
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parents' homes by having them at camp.
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So friends, we've got so much more to talk about with Todd Nettleton, Voice of the Martyrs,
15:17
we'll be right back on World View Matters.
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So back with Todd Nettleton, this is the next story Todd I wanted to ask you about.
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It's a fascinating story where I guess the husband is a pastor and he's treating his wife
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very well and she's still a Muslim, but she doesn't want him to be a Muslim because he's
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treating her better because he's a Christian.
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Go ahead and share details on that.
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Yeah, this is another of the stories we heard on our trip to Central Asia and both of
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them were Muslims.
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The guy who is now a pastor had really a radical, almost Paul on the road to Damascus kind
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of encounter with Christ and said, I'm going to follow him.
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He's the way the truth in the life.
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I'm going to follow him.
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Well, the first line of pressure, typically in that context, is your own family.
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And so pretty soon his family figures out, hey, he's not a Muslim anymore.
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They start to crack down on him.
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They start to push against him.
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Then his wife family figures out, hey, your son-in-law, he's not a Muslim anymore.
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He's dishonoring your family.
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He's dishonoring your daughter.
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You need to tell her.
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And so they did.
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They told the wife to divorce him.
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Hey, you shouldn't be married to an infidel.
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You need to divorce your husband.
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You need to come back home with us and we'll try to find you another good Muslim husband.
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Now his wife was still a Muslim, but she saw a difference in him and certainly saw
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a difference in how he treated her.
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In fact, he told us very ashamedly and kind of with tears.
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He said, I used to beat my wife when I was a Muslim.
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I was so terrible to her.
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But he started to treat her differently after this encounter with Christ.
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And so she actually defended him to her family and to his family.
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And said, listen, I know he's not a Muslim anymore.
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I know that's a bad thing.
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He's an infidel now.
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But let's give him some room to do this because he is so much nicer to me now.
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He is so much easier to live with now.
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Just leave him alone.
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You know, I know we don't like this, but just leave him alone.
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Let's let him be a Christian because I like him a lot better now.
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I want to be with him now.
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And so it was interesting.
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And subsequently she came to faith in Christ herself after seeing the radical transformation
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of her husband.
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She wanted to follow Jesus as well.
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And today we're now decades later.
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They have been in pastoral ministry for years and years and years.
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They have ministered to so many other people in that context.
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But it started out with her still a Muslim defending him against persecution.
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Yeah.
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That's very interesting.
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As you said, the family can come against someone really hard.
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And yeah, we've heard some really hard, you know, awful stories about how families
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treated someone a new convert to Christian.
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And God bless them.
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Pray for them.
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Before we run out of time, Todd, I just really wanted to get to the story over in Malaysia.
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Several years ago, well, we've been talking a little bit about Raymond Koeh and who
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was abducted.
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And there's video footage of his abduction.
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And yet no one knew really what happened and they didn't really investigate.
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Tell us any update on that and where his wife Susanna is, how she's doing.
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Yeah, this is a really amazing story.
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And like you say, a long time going on story, 2017, he was abducted off the streets of
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Kuala Lumpur if they hadn't caught this security camera footage.
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And in fact, his family is the one who discovered that it existed, not the police.
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But if they hadn't found this security camera footage, it would be as if he fell off the
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face of the earth.
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He's never been seen or heard from since his car has never been found.
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It is just like the earth opened up and swallowed him, except we know it was 13 men in five vehicles
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in a military style operation that took less than 40 seconds.
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And he was dragged out of his car.
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He was put in another car.
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He was driven away and he's never been seen or heard from since.
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We're now seven plus years later, Susanna, his wife is actually suing the Malaysian government.
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She said, Hey, I'm going to go to court to try to make the government tell me what happened
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to my husband.
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And she told me this.
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I had her on Voice of the Martyr radio.
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She said, every morning I wake up and I wonder, where is my husband?
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Is he alive?
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Is he dead?
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Are they torturing him?
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Are they treating him well?
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Are they taking care of him?
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What is going on with my husband?
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She said, every single morning, I wake up wondering those things.
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And so she sued the Malaysian government.
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She sued some of the police who allegedly are part of this abduction.
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And last week the judge ordered the government to release a confidential report that they
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had done on this force disappearance.
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Now the judge said, you have to do this within three days.
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The three days are up.
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The government is still fighting against this.
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They'll still trying to, oh, it's going to take more than three days.
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Oh, we got a lot of work to do to get this all together to give to you.
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So they are already stalling and trying to avoid acting on that judge's order.
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But this is a huge answer to prayer and a huge step forward for Susanna, that the hope
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is this report says what happened?
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Like is he alive?
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Is he dead?
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Maybe we get answers if the government actually releases the report.
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If it is the true and genuine report, maybe we finally get some answers that Susanna's
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been praying for for more than seven years.
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Wow.
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And seven years of not knowing, no closure.
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It's got to be hard too.
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I can't imagine what she has been through, what their children have been through.
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And I just pray and I encourage our listeners to pray with us that this will lead to answers.
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When Susanna went to a lawyer and said, hey, I want to sue the government.
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The lawyer looked at her and said, hey, this is the government that made your husband disappear.
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Like are you sure?
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You're painting a big target on yourself.
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And she said, no, I want to know the truth.
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I need these answers.
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And so I just pray that the Lord will sustain her through this process.
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And we pray for justice.
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We pray for the truth to be revealed.
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Amen.
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Yes, friends, pray for Susanna, co-KOH.
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So Todd, let's go over to India.
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And this is very interesting that they have updated their quote, anti-conversion laws.
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And go ahead, just share that.
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I find that to be very interesting.
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I found it to be interesting too.
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This is the state of Uttar Pradesh in India and they already had an anti-conversion
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law.
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So this is not like, hey, we don't have this and we need to put one in place.
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What they have done though is made it even more harsh.
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So under the old law, you could go to prison for 20 years if you convent someone to change
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their faith.
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Under the new law, you can go to prison for the rest of your life.
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So 20 years wasn't a harsh enough penalty.
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Now it's life in prison.
22:58
Also under the old law, in order to report a violation of this, you had to be somehow
23:03
connected to the situation.
23:05
You had to be a friend or a family member of the person who changed their faith.
23:10
Under this new law, anybody can report it.
23:13
Like you or I could walk it off the street and file a report.
23:16
Well, that obviously is ripe for false reporting of conversions.
23:21
Under the old law, while the case was going forward, you could be out on bail.
23:25
So you would get arrested.
23:26
You could be bailed out while the court was deciding.
23:29
Under the new law, there is no bail.
23:31
So even if you're completely innocent and even if the court finds you completely innocent,
23:36
while they're going through that process, you're going to be in prison.
23:39
You will not be allowed to be out on bail.
23:41
So again, they already had a law and when they talk about these laws, you know, it sounds
23:47
good.
23:48
You know, we don't want someone to be bribed into changing their faith.
23:52
We don't want someone to be threatened into changing their faith.
23:55
And I think you and I would say, yeah, we don't want that either.
23:58
But then they start to define, well, what is a bribe?
24:01
What is an enticement to change your faith?
24:04
And they talk about even talking about salvation, talking about the promise of heaven.
24:09
Well, that's an inducement to change your faith.
24:12
That's illegal under this law.
24:14
And so basic Christian evangelism is outlawed.
24:18
And now Christians in that part of India are facing life in prison simply for telling
24:24
someone about Jesus.
24:26
Wow.
24:27
Friends, do you hear that?
24:28
And just to appreciate what we have in America and the freedoms we have, just hearing
24:33
these stories.
24:34
One more, Todd.
24:35
I think we have time for China where a pastor was in prison for seven years, got released
24:40
and still can't join his American wife and family.
24:43
Why?
24:44
Yeah.
24:45
This is a brush.
24:46
This kind of makes my blood boil because as you said, this is Pastor John Sao.
24:52
He spent seven years in prison on the false charge of illegal border crossing.
24:57
He was working along the Burma China border.
25:00
He was working with minority tribal people there.
25:03
And he crossed that border.
25:04
Well, let me tell you, hundreds of people cross that border every day and they don't
25:09
have any problems.
25:10
But this pastor who's doing gospel ministry, he gets arrested for illegal border crossing
25:16
and spends seven years in prison.
25:18
Wow.
25:19
Well, the seven years ended in March and so he was released.
25:22
But they still haven't given him an ID card, which in China, you need that to get on
25:26
a train.
25:27
You need it to make a doctor's appointment.
25:28
You need it for everything.
25:30
And they haven't given him a passport, which he needs to get on a plane and come back to
25:34
America where his wife is from and where she lives, where their children are.
25:39
So the Chinese government let him out of prison, but in so many ways, he's still in prison.
25:45
It's just a much larger prison.
25:46
It doesn't have bars on it, but they will not let him leave.
25:50
And again, we talk about how frustrating this is.
25:53
This is not a guy that the Chinese like.
25:55
It's not a guy that they particularly want to have in China.
25:59
And yet they're still not allowing him to leave.
26:02
And it seems like simply to punish him, simply to punish his family, even after he served
26:08
that seven-year prison sentence.
26:09
Yeah.
26:10
Communist policy, maybe to use him as an example to others, right, or something, whatever
26:16
their reasonings are.
26:17
But Todd, it goes by so fast with you, but we got through a lot.
26:20
Thank you for all you do and for keeping us updated on these stories.
26:24
And again, guys, if you subscribe to the free magazine, voice of the martyrs persecution.com,
26:29
you can hear a lot of these stories and keep updated on some of them, some of the people
26:33
that you can pray for in other countries.
26:36
Todd, God bless you, brother, just a final word to our listeners.
26:40
I would just encourage people, keep on praying for our persecuted brothers and sisters.
26:45
That's the first request that they have for us.
26:48
Please pray for us.
26:49
And so I would just echo that.
26:50
Please pray for persecuted Christians.
26:53
Yes.
26:54
Enough said.
26:55
Well, I think we need to be better and more consistent at doing that.
26:57
They are our family and brothers and sisters in Christ will spend eternity together.
27:02
And Todd, thank you so much for your time.
27:04
God bless you and VOM.
27:06
Well, thanks for having me.
27:07
It's been great to be with you.
27:08
Yeah.
27:09
Always, always.
27:10
It's just such a great perspective check, friends, always.
27:13
And this is real faith.
27:15
This is people living it out under threats.
27:19
But we're so thankful for what we have here in America.
27:22
Let's share the gospel.
27:23
Well, we still can and just stand up for Christ and not be ashamed of the gospel.
27:28
And guys, thank you again for sharing the podcast.
27:31
God bless you.
27:32
And as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.