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Every day tens of thousands of women worldwide are abused, tortured, withheld employment and education, and killed because of their Christian beliefs. As we observe the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church this November 13, TCW shines the spotlight on the religious persecution affecting many of our sisters in other countries, highlights Women of the Way, a five-year-old ministry that's doing something about this widespread problem—and reveals ways you can be part of the solution.
—The Editors
Three Indonesian women—Dr. Rebekka Zakaria, Eti Pangesti, and Ratna Bangun—currently sit in Indramayu State Prison in West Java serving a three-year sentence. They're there because of "Happy Sunday," the program they launched for schoolchildren at the invitation of a local public elementary school. The program included Christian songs, games, and Bible study, and students attended with the full consent of their parents. Regardless, when some of the children began to sing the Christian songs they learned at "Happy Sunday" at school and at home, Islamic elders took notice—and filed charges against Rebekka, Eti, and Ratna. In July 2005, at the third of their many court appearances, truckloads of angry Muslim demonstrators showed up at the courthouse to harass and threaten the women.
In Columbia, Angela Ballesteros was forced to watch a death squad murder her husband, Pastor Euclides Ballesteros, who had converted many revolutionaries. Ordered to remain silent, she and her four children left their hometown and moved to another region of the country, where she barely makes a living working occasionally as a seamstress at the shop of Miriam Amador, the widow of another murdered pastor.
"Anna," a young Pakistani girl, assisted her Muslim father in his job as a professor. She converted to Christianity after reading one of his research books that explained Christian beliefs. But when she told her father about her conversion, he beat her. When she went to school and told her teachers she wanted to know more about Jesus, they beat her in front of her classmates. She kept asking—and being punished for her quest for spiritual answers. Eventually, "Anna" had to run away from home.
"In the Bible, God tells us our faith will separate us from our family," says Jane Huckaby, national director for Women of the Way, a division of Open Doors USA that focuses on women in the persecuted church. "Anna—and so many women like her—knows firsthand what that means."
The Female Face of PersecutionThese women are the hidden face of the persecuted church. When most people think of those persecuted for their faith, they think of imprisoned pastors and tortured evangelists. But according to Open Doors International, a ministry launched 50 years ago by evangelist Brother Andrew to provide Bibles and other support for persecuted Christians worldwide, women far outnumber men in the persecuted church today. In many cultures, simply being born a woman means a denial of basic human rights. When one of these women converts to Christianity, it only compounds her problems.
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