Wednesday, December 11, 2013


I am part of a ladies' Bible study at my church, The Bridge Bible Church here in Bakersfield, California. We meet at Table 10. It is a round table like all the others in the church auditorium. It is a tight squeeze when all twelve of us show up on Wednesday mornings! Naomi is our table leader. She is also the leader of our Abide women's prayer group.
Marj is the hospitality leader for the ladies of Table 10. She also happens to host the Abide women’s prayer group Monday mornings (every Monday morning) in her lovely home. She delights in doing special things for her friends and today she treated us, whom she calls “His Girls of Table 10”, to a gourmet luncheon at The Guild House[1] in Bakersfield, the beautifully refurbished historic Barlow House. Shortly after we moved to Bakersfield last year I read about the Guild House and have driven by it several times and thought it would be nice to someday visit it, and today I got to. I love old houses and architecture.

Naomi and Janna, our table co-leader, went out early this morning to get all the little items needed to make up 12 gift bags, one for each lady at the luncheon. It was to feature a cookie from Sweet Surrender, Bakersfield's iconic confectionery. I'm talking gourmet cookies here.

Nothing worked out right. Everything Naomi attempted in her pursuit of assembling the perfect gift for the ladies, to be presented at the luncheon hosted by Marj at The Guild House, fell flat. All the while Naomi kept hearing a little voice in the back of her head to do this other thing.

So Naomi, telling us all this as we sat around our table at The Guild House feasting on Chicken Dijon and wild and white rice, got up and reaching to pick up something from the table behind her, said that instead of gourmet cookies for us, she wanted to use that money so some little girl might have a life. She turned back and surprised me by reaching across the table and handing me an envelope. "She Is Safe"[2] was written on the front.

Of course, I immediately got choked up, knowing that inside that envelope was the money that instead of buying gourmet cookies for us well-fed ladies, would now go to buy a goat for a family in Nepal. I praised God through my tears. In fact, we all praised God that Naomi listened to that little voice in her head, as she proceeded to tell us about the little girls in Nepal who are sold into sex slavery by the time they are 12 years old because their families are too poor to feed them, and how a goat can be the means to rescue them through the ministry of She Is Safe as they partner with a Nepalese ministry to rescue these girls.

Naomi believes that goat is needed more than we need gourmet cookies. She's so right.

When I got home from the luncheon I put She Is Safe’s address on the envelope, stamped it and the mailman picked it up on his rounds.

Happy birthday, Jesus. May You have one more jewel added to your crown.

(The names have not been changed. These are real people and I am privileged to call them my sisters—and my friends.)



[1] The Guild House serves gourmet lunches at the historic Barlow House to raise funds to support the Henrietta Weill Memorial Child Guidance Clinic. (Taken from the Guild House website.)

Monday, December 9, 2013


I realized this morning a mistake I made in my blog posting of yesterday. Pastor Saeed Abedini is in an Iranian prison, not in Iraq. Sorry for that slip. Those doggone “I” words. You can learn about and follow his plight, and have opportunity to do more at http://aclj.org/
I had said Randy and I found several means to learn about needs of our brothers and sisters around the world suffering for their faith so I thought I’d send a few links to websites which we use for informing ourselves about the persecuted church. I’m sure you have others.

Randy recently posted an article on facebook from the Compass Direct group and here is their website: http://www.worldwatchmonitor.org
I recently signed up to receive prayer alerts from Voice of the Martyrs at iCommitToPray  Their web address is https://www.persecution.com/ Voice of the Martyrs has been around for a long time.

Another which is not so much a persecution watch organization but a partnering ministry with believers ministering in “the hard places” reaching women and girls especially, and from whom we learn of great needs for which to pray and a means to get involved: She Is Safe, ‎ http://sheissafe.org/
I pray we will be blessings to others in many different ways this year and always. You have encouraged me. Thank you.

Sunday, December 8, 2013


Several years ago we began the tradition of lighting a candle on December first and praying every day in December for the persecuted church. We find there is plenty of information available to us to pray both in general for believers in different places in the world who are being ill-treated for their faith, as well as quite specific prayers for individuals, interceding for them by name. 
“Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.” (Hebrews 13:3)

How I have failed in this area of “remembering the prisoners as though in prison with them” and the “ill-treated”. And what does it mean to remember them? What are the implications of the word remember?
First, I notice Paul says to remember them as though I was with them in prison. And he adds to that, “since you yourselves also are in the body.” Since I would not like to suffer incarceration, I must consider that they don’t either. Since I wouldn’t like being treated badly, are they any different than me? No. No one likes being treated unjustly. It also may point to the idea that the readers could have the same things happen to them. You and I are as vulnerable to ill-treatment as others.

Paul told the Colossians to “remember my imprisonment” (Col. 4:18). Certainly he meant for them to pray for him. He also indicated in the book of Philippians (4: 15, 16) that few churches sent material or financial gifts to him to meet his material needs. He wrote that it was a great blessing when those believers sent whatever it was they sent to Paul to meet his needs when he was in bonds in Rome. They, at least, hadn’t forgotten Paul. Their act of remembering him moved them to action and even though they were not wealthy, in fact, were in poverty, they gave to alleviate Paul’s needs.
Certainly to remember those in prison and those being ill-treated/persecuted for their faith in Christ means we need to keep them before our minds, not forgetting about them. Certainly to remember those in prison as though I were with them means praying for them because if I were in prison, I’d be praying for myself and I’d sure hope others were praying for me too.

Remembering those in prison and persecuted starts with prayer for them, but there are times when we have the opportunity to do more, and we need to be ready to seriously consider what we can do.
I recall back around 1979 or 1980 when Randy and I were a young married couple with little children (now we’re an old married couple with grandchildren), my parents became sponsors for a young Ethiopian man, Kiros, to come live in the United States because as a Christian his life was endangered there in Ethiopia. He came and lived with my parents and became a part of our family for the time he was there. That Christmas our family portrait included all four biological children of my parents, our spouses and children, my two adopted Korean brothers, and Kiros, our new brother from Ethiopia. A way to remember those persecuted for their faith.

We only need to remain open, listen and watch for the opportunities to present themselves, and be willing and ready to extend ourselves as need and opportunity and our ability to meet those needs converge.
But what got me thinking and writing this blog was Psalm 138: 7, 8. As I read it, I imagined this as a prayer of someone who is being persecuted, perhaps thrown in prison for their faith in Jesus:

            Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me; You will stretch forth Your      hand against the wrath of my enemies, and Your right hand will save me. The LORD will             accomplish what concerns me; Your lovingkindness, O LORD, is everlasting; do not forsake the works of Your hands.
It just sounded like something someone in such straits might pray. The other day when I read Psalm 142 I thought of persecuted Christians praying the same kind of things:

            I cry aloud with my voice to the LORD; I make my supplication with my voice to the       LORD. I pour out my complaint before Him; I declare my trouble before Him. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, You knew my path. In the way where I walk they have hidden a trap for me. Look to the right and see; for there is no one who regards me; there is no escape for me; no one cares for my soul.
            I cried out to You, O LORD; I said, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the     living. Give heed to my cry, for I am brought very low; deliver me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me. Bring me out of my prison, so that I may give thanks toYour name; the righteous will surround me, for You will deal bountiful with me.

 When I read these Psalms I thought of Saeed Abedini, an American pastor in a prison in Iran. I thought of others imprisoned for their faith and still others who live every day in fear and uncertainty because they are Christian.
We do not see persecution as Christians as God’s will for us, yet the scriptures are full of evidence to the contrary[1]. We tend to think of God’s will as something that will make us secure and safe, happy and fulfilled. Yes, I know the verses that say we should pray for all men, including our government leaders, “so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity” (I Timothy 2:1, 2). This kind of life is certainly to be desired and we need to pursue peace as much as we can at all times. But though we resist the idea of suffering for our faith, Jesus warned of it and the other writers in the New Testament tell us not to be surprised at it. Paul even goes so far as to say to the Philippian believers, “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me” (Philippians 1:29, 30). He told Timothy that “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).

The more I think of it, the more scripture references come to mind! The New Testament was written to churches which were intimately acquainted with persecution. If we open our eyes as we read, these verses jump out at us and we see color and meaning to the words of Holy writ we never saw before. So then keeping before our minds’ eye the suffering believers around the world puts flesh and bone to suffering for the faith we read of in scripture, which from our ivory towers can seem like a far removed theory.
(I am so convicted as I write these things. In fact, usually whenever I write something it is from a sense of God teaching me some aspect of truth. It is very personal and when I write it down on paper—and it takes on a life of its own and sometimes takes me places I didn’t know we were going—I am preaching to myself! You just get to listen in.)

We can be very grateful that our culture has been greatly influenced by the Bible. Many things we take for granted and enjoy as rights in our country slowly permeated the cultures because of the influence of Biblical values which over centuries became ingrained in western European civilization. No country has ever fully expressed God’s kingdom and no human government ever will. Only when Jesus Christ comes and sets foot on earth again we will see God’s kingdom truly and fully lived out.
But it is just because we have had so many benefits that we must guard against the complacency Jesus and the writers of scripture warn against. We have had it easy but we must become alert, be on our guard and learn to stand against the encroaching evil. Jesus said to work the works of God while it is day, because the night comes when no man can work (John 9:4).

Night is coming. Night has fallen in some places in our world. So because we live in these bodies and understand our limitations, we should be able to relate to our brothers and sisters whose lives are made difficult by persecution, and remember those who are now suffering for their faith, both those in prison and those who wake up every day and face every level of abuse, discrimination and persecution because they name the Name of Jesus Christ. We need to embrace their suffering as our own. My own (I’m preaching to myself).
So I light the candle and remember ….



[1] Matthew 24; 25:31-46; Acts; James 1:2-4; I Peter 1: 6-9; 2: 13-25; 3:8-17; 4:12-19; 5:8-11