GROWTH IN PERSECUTION
I remember feeling torn and confused when Simon Guillebaud in Burundi, Central Africa reported violence against him and Christians there. In his email he said we are not asking for protection. We know that violence and threats will come. What we ask for is boldness to preach the name of the Lord Jesus.
Did you know that in 1959 there were 1 million Roman Catholics and 600,000 Protestants in China? That may sound a lot but compared to a population that was approaching 1 billion; it was tiny seed. Then in 1959 China closed its doors to the outside world. Many people began to wrap a burial shroud around the Christian church in China. They said it would never survive. Then in 1979 China again opened its doors to the West and to the rest of the world. And a strange thing had happened. That tiny seed 20 years earlier had taken root.
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