I received an email from a friend in Izmir, Turkey tonight, with an update about their church. It is a mixed fellowship included Russians (and other people from the former USSR) as well as Turks who have converted from Islam. The emails I have received from these friends have been very sad lately. Earlier this year an Armenian-Christian editor with a controversial resume was killed (Dink). Next, just after Easter I received an email from my friends about some Christian men who were killed in Malatya, and soon after that came the full report of their murders and funeral arrangements. They were "workers" in a publishing house that printed the Bible in Turkish. The young men who killed them had pretended to be students interested in Jesus so that they could gain the trust of the workers. And then they killed them. Isn't it in just this way that people have betrayed our Family even since Jesus was betrayed by one of his closest companions?
But the email i received from Sergei tonight told the testimonies of five people who were baptized in their church way up high in an office building, sitting in a tub of water, five new Christians were baptized. And I'm sure they weren't the only ones who have accepted Christ's justification recently. You see?
Fred Markert (possibly quoting an unknown author) said, "the fastest way to grow a church is to persecute it". Turkey is proof. China is proof. Mongolia is proof. Papua New Guinea is proof. Cuba is proof.
Four were lost to the world, but five were gained to the Kingdom.
Light gained 5. Darkness lost 9. We're still ahead.
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