Danger and risk for a family member sharing the gospel would be troubling, but that is what is happening to the persecuted church.
“These are our brothers and sisters in Christ,” Trent Young, director of missions for Gasconade Valley Baptist Association in Gasconade County, Missouri, said. “They are our family, and they are risking their lives every day sharing the gospel of Jesus with others in their community.”
Young and his wife, Dana, organized a group from the Gasconade Valley Baptist Association to volunteer at The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. VOM was founded in 1967 by Richard Wurmbrand and his wife, Sabina, who endured 14 years of Communist imprisonment and torture in their homeland of Romania for sharing their faith.
“Now, the organization ministers to all countries where believers are persecuted for their faith,” Trent explained. “VOM supports families of believers killed for proclaiming Christ for as long as they need.”
Need for Scripture
Dana Young described the work of the volunteers. “VOM sends out millions of pieces of mail each month. Books, Bibles and other resources are sent out to people. VOM believes every believer needs a Bible and sometimes those must be smuggled into the country.”
Gloria Green, WMU director at FBC Gasconade, translated volunteer hours into Bibles. “For every hour donated by a volunteer,” she said, “it equals three Bibles sent to hostile and restricted countries. They talked to us about the unusual ways they were transported into different countries. Persecuted believers are forced to bury their Bible and dig it up to read it.”
Cathy Lehnhoff, member of FBC Belle, has supported VOM since about 2014. “My husband and I went to a conference in Kansas City several years ago. We heard a young man who was a student at the time of the Tiananmen Square incident in Beijing, China. Many of his friends were killed and although he wasn’t at that demonstration, the Chinese identified him through facial recognition and tortured him.”
Green said they heard stories about others in hostile and restricted countries, and it made her appreciate her freedom to worship. “We don’t have to hide our faith in this country. This experience made the suffering of others more real, and I realized the need to support the persecuted church.”
Valuing our freedoms
“Despite my support of the organization,” Lehnhoff said, “I didn’t know the extent of the program. VOM doesn’t have the funds to hire staff to do the tasks that they use volunteers to do. It is important for Americans to not take our freedom for granted. We must know what is happening to Christians worldwide and to get a better global picture. We can get up and go to church or not go while Christians in other countries must risk their life and hide for 20 minutes with fellow believers.”
Trent Young shared ways other churches could get involved. “This is an easy trip for Missouri churches,” he said. “VOM has a large campus with apartments for volunteers staying three days. Everything they do is well done.”
“It was important for us to go and to meet others,” Lehnhoff continued, “By staying in the apartments, we were able to go to dinner with others and learn about other churches.”
Dana Young agreed, “Their work with volunteers is top-notch. Because they offer housing, groups must reserve the volunteer trip one year in advance. We’ve gone three other times, but this was the first time that we took a group.”
“This trip reignited a passion in me to pray for the persecuted church,” she continued, ‘They are family. They are just not people over there; we need to pray and care for them.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Vicki Stamps and originally published by The Pathway.
