him. A Christian man, observing the screaming Muslim mob in the courtroom, told me: Maybe your wife, Dr. Rebekka, is too extreme. Since she had to evangelize, she got into this trouble. I replied to him, If we as Christians are not extreme in our faith, then we d be ice cream. In the prison, sometimes if it is possible for us to pray in the lobby, Rebekka and I will pray together. I bring her Christian magazines, newsletters and other books. Every time I want to visit her in prison, I must pay 20,000 rupiahs ($2.36 CDN). And if I want to visit the other two women, I must pay 20,000 rupiahs to visit each of these women. I have told my children that this is the price they have to pay for following Jesus. The Bible first says, Take the cross and follow Jesus. And when you take the cross and follow Jesus, the burden is light. Rebekka emphasized: We Christians have to trust God completely. Words are just words. The Word of God on paper Lukas with his two daughters challenges Christians to share their faith in the heat of opposition, or they will simply melt away. His wife, Dr. Rebekka, manifests the same spirit in prison. is just the Word of God. You ll never experience it if you are never willing to do it. The last thing that Rebecca said before she was sent to prison was, Let s see the problem from God s point of view, as she studied Scripture with other believers. A Christian co-worker who visits Rebekka daily shares: Rebekka tells a Muslim woman named Mina about Jesus. Mina was trained to make bombs for an Islamic terrorist organization. Mina is very interested in hearing more about Jesus love. Every time she hears Rebekka praying, asking forgiveness for those who have sent her to prison, this Muslim woman becomes very angry. The other day she said to Rebekka: Why do Christians like to pray for their enemies? Christians are supposed to let their enemies die for making them face difficult times and having a difficult life. But Rebekka told her, We have to forgive and pray for others who hurt us. Every day when Mina is able to get out of her isolated cell, she likes to go to Rebekka and ask her more about Jesus love toward her. Still learning, Mina says, Christians are weird because they pray for their enemies. As a medical doctor, Rebekka is also writing prescriptions for people in the prison so they can get some medicine. The prison administration is grateful for this. Some of the prisoners skin diseases and sinus problems are lessening. The three husbands have a moment of fellowship and prayer at church before going to visit their wives in the prison. Left to right Sutrisno (Eti), Lukas (Dr. Rebekka) and S. Sembiring (Ratna). Pastor Y: Tidak Masalah! (No Problem!) Pastor Y lives on Java, one of the largest Indonesian islands, with a population of 100 million people. With increasing Islamic fundamentalism on this island, Pastor Y wastes no time extending the rule of Jesus Kingdom. I shared the gospel everywhere, sometimes in a parking lot. Most of the Minang people are Muslim, and they are very fanatic, so I had to be very careful. I started evangelizing by making friends with them first, and they would start asking me questions. My parents are Muslim. They were angry. They expelled me from the house. I was 22 at the time (and) in college. It was not a problem to me because I was a Christian; and as long as Jesus was with me, it s okay. There were times I was very frustrated and asked God why. I had no one, no family to help me any more. Then I read some verses in the Bible. They were in Hebrews 13:5,6: I will not forsake you and abandon you. I will not fear. What can man do to me? The Lord will help me. These verses strengthened me, and I had more courage to spread the gospel. I had a chance to attend YWAM training school. At the end of 1998, we had a problem that finally sent me and two other A mob of Warriors of Islam outside the court proclaims: Arrest and imprison the apostasisors! 4
The Levites helped the people to understand the Law, while the people remained in their places. They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading. (Nehemiah 8:7-8) In 2003, The Voice of the Martyrs began a Bible training program called the Levites Bible Training Institute in northern Ethiopia geared to train church leadership who were unable to take formal Bible training. Most believers in this region are extremely poor and frequently persecuted by their community (including their own families). Rather than asking the students to leave their homes and places of ministry and family responsibilities, qualified teachers took the classroom to the students in five different locations. Courses like Old and New Testament, Foundations of Christianity, Christian Ministry, Hermeneutics, End-times, Doctrine of God are some of the courses topics offered in the two-year Levites Bible Training Institute program. In August, over one hundred students celebrated their successful completion of the program. Amoung the students was Brother Berihanu, an elder in the congregation he attends. Reflecting on his study, he said, I am been encouraged and lifted up in my commitment to serve our God I realize just how little I understood of the Bible before. I have been sharing what God has been teaching me with my family and we have been encouraged to pray more together. Brother Tiruku told us how his education had helped him to understand how to raise up godly leaders from within the church who would serve without abusing their power. He said, I have learned to avoid a self-centred lifestyle, to keep unity, and to share the Lord s blessings with fellow evangelical churches. Brother Fikre confessed that prior to his taking these studies, he had difficulties working together with other 8 believers. After joining the Levites Bible training, he says, I learned to appreciate what other believers do. I learned that humbleness and humility pave the way to successful ministry and unity amoung believers. Brother Takele expressed his deep gratitude for how his training helped him to grasp a deeper understanding of who God is and how to read, understand and apply the Bible. As a result, I can serve my Lord in a better way than in the previous days. Glory to our God. We can only say, Amen! and thank each of our supporters who are making this vital ministry possible through your gifts to the Equipping the Saints Fund. The Levites Bible Training Institute is continuing and expanding its ministry throughout Ethiopia. The demand for this training far outstrips our ability to provide it. Please remember our Ethiopian staff in your prayers. These children are in a Sunday school class at Dr. Rebekka s church. Some of them were on the Happy Sunday Excursion, for which the women were imprisoned. Merpati, the high school witness, spends a moment looking at Scripture with her pastor. Christian men to jail for fourand-a-half years. When I was engaged, I told my Chinese fiancée that I wanted to go to Sumatra, and she said I could die or go to jail. Then she said, If God sends you to Sumatra, why not so tidak masalah (no problem). She just prayed and encouraged me while I witnessed for three years. Six months after we brought a 16-year-old Muslim girl to Christ, we were arrested. The meeting was attended by religious leaders and government leaders. The new leader of the police wanted to please the Minang people. To get more support for his new position, he said there s no place for Christianizing. The judge asked why I became a Christian and why I evangelize. I told the truth about the gospel. I started to share. It was a good time to preach the gospel because many people came to the court. Muslim leaders send buses full of Muslim mobs to every trial. This gave me the opportunity to share about Jesus, about the Messiah. So actually they had no reason to put me in jail for that. But because of the pressure from the Muslim people there, they used another law of kidnapping to put us in jail. My mom visited me in jail. Every time she came, she would cry: Why do you embarrass the family? If you become a Christian, then, yes, you go to prison. Don t make other people become Christians. I shared in the evenings because there weren t as many guards around. Sometimes I could visit the isolated cells so it was easier to share the gospel with them. It was a good thing, you know, that God sent me to prison. In prison, I received thousands of letters, about three big boxes full of letters. I collected them every week about one hundred. Almost all the letters were written in English, some in Dutch. Sometimes the 3- or 4-year-old kids would send a Sunday school picture they drew for me. All these kindnesses really encouraged me. All the prisoners, even the guards, thought we were important people. They really respected us because every week we were receiving letters from everywhere. Every week my wife visited, I would give them to her. Even the prisoners would sometimes ask for the cards, the postcards, because the pictures are beautiful, nice, you know, so I just give to them sometimes. After four years in prison, I was thankful to be released early. I thank all of those who prayed for me. Now I am studying Bible on Java. Someday we can go back again. Today we usually work underground, although West Sumatra is ready for Jesus. They re very curious. They ask us about our faith, especially about Jesus. We just tell them our testimony. If they re already committed to Jesus, we will give them a Bible. They will see our life, our lifestyle and the way we talk, the way we react; this is interesting for them. Stand firm in your faith, and repeat the Word, preach the Word. Because God, He protects you, and the Holy Spirit will give you wisdom when you spread the Word. Merpati : The High School Freedom Fighter The petite girl looked like a typical North American high school student with her youthful face, dark hair and eyes. As Merpati s (not her real name) story unfolded, however, it became clear the price she pays for following Jesus is higher than that of many North American students. Before I believed in Jesus, my father took me to my aunt s house. My aunt was a Christian already. And there in my aunt s house, I read some Christian books. Christian magazines were laying on her table. I read these magazines and learned about Jesus. A month later I watched a baptism in my aunt s bathtub and decided to become a Christian. I was 13 years old. I would read the Bible after my parents had fallen asleep. When one of my parents woke up, I would close the Bible quickly. My parents never knew it was a Bible because it looked like a dictionary. I wrapped my Bible with yellow birthday present paper. For three years I hid my Bible at the bottom of my bookcase The Voice of the Martyrs October 2005 5
under all of my school books. When I was in senior high school, my family found out I had been baptized. One day after I returned from church, my parents stopped me. Where have you been? I told them I had been to my friend s house. (Jesus is my friend.) My parents said: You re lying. I heard from your friend that you are now a Christian. They dragged me into the house. Other family members were already waiting for me from my mother s side, like uncles, aunts. I told them, Yes, I believe in Jesus because I know it s Jesus who can save me. They said: Why did you do this? Do you not love your family anymore because you became a Christian? Then you have to go out because you do not love us anymore. After visiting my Christian aunt, I went back home where some religious leaders were already waiting for me. They handed me a glass of water, mixed with flowers. In our Muslim culture, they say a spell. I had to drink this glass of water with their spell on it. But while I was drinking the water, I prayed in my heart, Lord, Your Spirit in me is bigger. Nothing happened. They asked me, Do you have any wizard, like a man with magic? I told them, It s just Jesus. Now I am staying with my pastor s family. I have two new friends that go to church with me. Here on the island of Java, there are one thousand students in my school only three are Christians. After I became a Christian, I dared to bring my Bible to school. During the required religion class on Islam, the teacher allowed me to read my Bible silently. Every time I bring my Bible to school, all my friends, Muslim friends, are curious about the book. They also want to read my Bible, so I let them. I would like to tell students in North America: Do not believe in other gods, but believe in Jesus, because Jesus is the only way. He s the only one who can save us. Liana : Do Not Neglect the Call of God Liana, is a 27-year-old mother. She and her husband have a ministry on an island next to Java. While her baby boy pulls at his socks, she passionately gives her testimony. When I was 24 years old, I was in a car accident. The car fell into a very deep valley and rolled over several times. After this accident, my Christian life deepened, and I decided to be baptized. We have two children. The first one is a girl who is now 2 years old, the second one is this boy who is 6 months old. My husband sells food in the market. Every time someone is buying our food, he begins talking with them; and if it s possible, he shares the gospel. Last year I felt a bit afraid because the people are rough, and sometimes they are angry and willing to kill. My neighbor hates me more than my husband because I come from Manado, in North Sulawesi, where more Christians live. My neighbours do not like Christians. For me and my husband, family is important. But it doesn t mean we have to neglect God s call for our life to evangelize, Angelic composure Although the crowd in court screams, Kill them! at the women, they rest in Jesus. One man covers his ears. to preach the gospel, to reach other people to believe in Jesus. In the New Testament, there is a verse saying that if we leave our mother, father and family, God will replace all of them one hundred times. Once my husband was surrounded by a mob, but he escaped. This kind of situation is quite frightening because anything could happen at any time. We hope we can have a better relationship with our neighbors so it would be easy to tell them about Jesus. So far those neighbors only have heard about God s Trinity, which they like to argue about, but they have not heard about the love and forgiveness of Jesus. Even though physically these people, with their violent character, are very rough and dangerous, I try to look beyond their physical appearance. I believe that if we can get closer to them and have a better relationship, then these people will accept us. Once three men came to my husband saying if we Christianize this place, then they will kill us. My husband replied that we don t try to Christianize the people. He also said he s not afraid of those men who want to kill him. We remember Nehemiah going to build the wall. He saw the destruction and was surrounded by enemies but knew what could be done. So we share about Jesus the Messiah and let the Holy Spirit work. The Face of an Angel The three women (photo above) are facing a screaming crowd in the courtroom. Look at their faces. In Acts 6:14-15, Stephen faced angry, ignorant accusers, who claimed that he wished to change their customs. And all saw his face as the face of an angel. There are many Stephens today, willing to risk all to proclaim the gospel. Dr. Rebeckka (sitting on the right) shares: Tell our family not to be afraid. God is number one. It is only the plan of Him that must be done. Wherever you lift up Christ, you are a freedom fighter for Jesus, too! 6