Keep on Praying for the Suffering Church
Urges Terry Madison, Open Doors USA President, Following the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church
He also talks about his recent visit to the killing fields of Colombia where the church is growing at an “unprecedented” rate despite the on-going violence
By Dan Wooding
SANTA ANA, CA (November 13, 2000) — Terry Madison, President and CEO of Open Doors With Brother Andrew, USA, has urged the thousands of Christians throughout the United States who prayed for persecuted believers on the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church on Sunday, November 12, to “keep on praying daily for our suffering brothers and sisters around the world that are persecuted for their faith.”
Madison, who has traveled widely around the world to meet with and report on the Christians in the Suffering Church, said that he was delighted to hear that more than 300,000 churches in 130 countries took part in praying for their brothers and sisters in Christ who suffer for their faith. However, he stated that we need to continue to pray “without ceasing” for the 200 million believers in 60 countries who daily face persecution.
“Our brothers and sisters around the world in the Persecuted Church don’t just get persecuted on November 12, but they face this every day of the year,” he said. “They are challenged every morning, when they wake up, to stand firm for Jesus one more time. For them, persecution is a day-by-day event. They don’t know if they will be arrested, have their house burned down or be put in jail. They may even face the ultimate, to die for their faith.
“Persecution is a constant factor each day of the year for these people. So while we value the special emphasis on November 12, we need to continue the battle for them before the Throne of Grace every day in our personal devotions, our family devotions and in our church life. We need to remember in prayer those who have remained faithful to Christ and for whom He died and for whom they are willing to die with that kind of identification.”
“ONE OF THE MOST HEART-WRENCHING AND HEART-EXHILARATING TRIPS OF MY LIFE”
Madison then revealed that he has just returned from “one of the most heart-wrenching and heart-exhilarating trips of my life in more than 30 years of traveling the world in Christian work.”
He went on, “I went to Colombia to see the church at work. Yet to sit with and talk with godly men and women who put their lives on the line every day and who do not know whether they will be alive tomorrow… or next week…or next month, is such a sobering feeling.
“Colombia is in the midst of a revival that is unprecedented in its Christian history. The troubles in that land are so pervasive that, for many, the only hope is to find a way out… and many are finding that escape through Christ. And they are staying there as Christ’s soldiers, not as members of the para-militaries, or guerillas or narco-traffickers. This is what makes them so susceptible to kidnapping and assassination, because they are being so wonderfully effective.”
FORCED TO BE A KILLER AT THE AGE OF EIGHT
He shared the story of one 12-year-old boy he met that he has called Roberto. “At the age of eight, this little boy was kidnapped by one of the armed groups in Colombia and turned into a boy solider,” said Madison. “He was taught in the ways of armed conflict and guerilla activities and was forced to prove his loyalty to the cause by killing someone. He was forced, on penalty of his own death if he did not, to kill a man who had been kidnapped and who was unable to pay the ransom.
“This then eight-year-old boy suffered nightmares for months thereafter. He was full of grief and recrimination for what he had done, and yet he had no choice unless he wanted to die himself. Out of that mess, this young boy was able to get away from this influence and he ended up in a center that Open Doors has set up for children between the ages of eight and 12. Here they live in a Christian community with caring adults working with them, providing education and healthcare and helping them get over the trauma.
“A number of the children in this center are orphaned because their parents were killed as part of the violence of that land. Others were brought to the center by their parents who said, ‘If you don’t take them from us, the armed forces will recruit them from us and they will turn them into killers; our only way of saving them is to turn them over to you.’ Others are also from families where their parents are alive but they cannot afford to feed them, and also they fear that an insurgency group will recruit them.
“While we were there we were told that the word on the street is that the armed forces of the various groups, of which there are many – both leftists and rightists, are going to start recruiting children as young as age six. To hear that and then to meet sweet freckled-face Roberto, now age 12, with a baseball cap was something else. He showed us some of his drawings. His artwork was filled with pictures of violence, soldiers and guns. I saw his prized model 747 airplane that someone had given him on his shelf in the dorm room where he lives; one of his few possessions. He’s like a boy who lives next door to us or could be our own son. It was very moving and we need to pray for children like this that are caught up in this violence.
“These children aren’t necessarily Christians at the time, but they come to know the Lord when they get to our center and this one of many outreaches that Open Doors has throughout Colombia.”
A FARM TO TRAIN COLOMBIAN CHRISTIAN LEADERS
Madison says that he visited a farm that Open Doors has set up where Colombian Christian leaders learn the Bible in a structured way and also are taught the techniques of farming. “It is very intensive, and we teach them how to be self-supporting, so that when they go off into these wild regions, they can care for themselves and their families.
“This particular farm is only about an hour-and-a-half from one of the key armed forces areas and these lines of troops regularly make raids into some of the nearby towns and sometimes come perilously close to the property. The Christians there have prayed that the Lord would preserve them by placing angels every three meters around the perimeter of the property and their testimony to me was that they have never had any of these armed forces enter that piece of property. But the intensity of the warfare is accelerating and they said that they are now praying that the Lord will station an angel every meter around the perimeter of the property, that they might be spared the kidnapping and the rape and the murder that goes on.”
Madison shared that on one day he was able to visit a refugee camp for displaced Christians, and then he visited some of the widows of men killed by the various armed groups, then the graves of Christian martyrs and placed flowers on them. Finally he met with a number of key Christian leaders.
“As we sat around the table and talked with these very brave men, I realized that within a few days they would be going into the remote areas of the country with their Bibles to teach. As I was eating with them and we were laughing and praying and sharing stories, I said to myself, ‘Some of these brothers will not be here this time next year. They may even lose their lives next week or next month.’
“It’s that violent and challenging. But in the midst of this — and this is the wonder of it all — the church is growing and brothers in Christ there have declared themselves ‘dead unto the world and dead men unto Christ’ and so they are incredibly fearless and bold. And having considered themselves already dead, then they don’t fear that anymore and they just get on with their lives.
“That’s why I think that the follow-up to the International Day of Prayer is so important. It’s wonderful to pray on a given date in November around the world, but these brothers and sisters face the challenge of death every day and the challenge of trying to provide for tens of thousands of Christian refugees who are being driven off their land by the insurgency that goes on and by the narco-traffickers. They are showing up in larger and larger numbers in different areas all over Colombia.
“We visited one of the refugee centers, which are very primitive. So many of the children there are sick with all kinds of diseases and are living on the edge; again Open Doors is there, trying to address some of their needs.
“In the midst of all of this horror and violence and death and mayhem and rape, we see the church which is strong and getting stronger.”