As we think this Sunday about the suffering of our Christian brothers and sisters around the world, it seems appropriate to share some of their stories. (These reports featured in the December edition of Evangelicals Now).
In Sudan, two Lutheran churches were destroyed in two separate incidents in October. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sudan in Omdurman was demolished with only 72 hours’ notice, citing development reasons. In Gadaref, in East Sudan, another Lutheran church building was burned down.
In Pakistan, two Muslim men who raped two Christian sisters were acquitted in October after Islamists bribed a key witness not to testify against them and a prosecutor failed to appear in court. The girls had been abducted at gunpoint, with one of them beaten for protesting, then taken to a house and raped. The court hearing collapsed.
In Burma, in Hpa-An the capital of the Karen state in eastern Burma, Buddhist structures have been erected in a Baptist church compound, where the church has been functioning since 1919, despite the protests of the Christian community, and apparently even without the support of the Buddhist community there.