The Persecuted Church and Prayer

Randy Alcorn:

This Sunday, November 13, is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, a global day of intercession for persecuted Christians worldwide. It’s a day to remember and pray for the hundreds of men, women, and children killed for Christ each day, ignored by the world but watched by the eyes of heaven—those of whom the world is not worthy. (You can listen to my 49-minute message on the persecuted church, “Those of Whom the World Is Not Worthy.”)

In If God Is Good, I tell the story of Graham Staines, who left his home in Australia to minister to lepers in India for thirty-four years. He and his wife, Gladys, served Christ by serving the poorest of the poor.

At midnight on January 23, 1999—a year and a half before my wife, daughters, and I met Gladys and her daughter, Esther—a mob of militant Hindus murdered Graham and his two sons, Phillip, age eleven, and Timothy, age six. The killers invaded a Christian camp in the jungle, where Graham had ministered, and set fire to the Jeep in which Graham and his sons slept. When the fire finally cooled, believers found the charred body of Graham Staines with his arms around the bodies of his sons.

In the most appalling way, Gladys and Esther found themselves alone. Their response to the tragedy appeared on the front page of every newspaper in India.

Read the rest.