By Dan Wooding, Founder of the ASSIST News Service
NASHVILLE, TN. (ANS – September 6, 2015)
- Forty Egyptian churches burned to the ground. House church leaders
sentenced to Iran's infamous Evin prison. Eighty Christians murdered in
North Korea for merely owning a Bible. Believers nailed to crosses in
Syria. And that was the news for just one month in 2014. The terror has
continued into 2015 to unimaginable heights.Widespread persecution can't stop the faithful who spread Jesus' love in the face of grave danger. Check out the news, and note the places where war, poverty, racism, seething religious violence, and killing seem to own the day. Right in the middle of it all, Jesus' church is thriving.
In Killing Christians: Living the Faith Where It's Not Safe to Believe (W Publishing Group, ISBN 9780718030681), Middle East director for e3 Partners Tom Doyle (with the help of Greg Webster, shares the personal stories of persecuted Christians, many of whom pay the ultimate price for their faith. From secret meetings to torture rooms, Doyle brings readers eight unique stories from the front lines with never-before-heard testimony of those Christians being targeted.
According to a news release sent to the ASSIST News Service, Christians are being persecuted, but this book is about hope. The people in these stories are real and the depth of their faith is unfathomable and inspiring as they live it out in the midst of overwhelming odds and the evil that surrounds them.
“There is remarkable freedom in having no expectations, no plans for tomorrow,” says Farid Assad of Syria. “The question I and many others start every day with is this: ‘Jesus, what do You have planned for me and my family?’ Only today matters. Only how I live for Jesus counts. Everything else is superficial. When I hand over my life to my Lord, knowing each day may be my last one on this earth, I am more at peace than ever before.”
Tom
Doyle pastored churches in Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico for twenty
years before becoming a missionary in the Middle East. His passion for
Israel was fed through guiding tours there, eventually becoming a tour
guide for the State of Israel. Tom also serves as the Middle East
director of e3 Partners (http://e3partners.org), a global church planting ministry. He is the author of three books, Breakthrough, Two Nations Under God, and Dreams and Visions. He and his wife, JoAnn, have six children and two grandchildren.Note: Thomas Nelson, part of HarperColiins Christian Publishing, is a world-leading provider of Christian content and has been providing readers with quality inspirational product for more than 200 years. The publishing group provides multiple formats of award-winning Bibles, books, gift books, coolbooks, curriculum and digital content, with distribution of its products in more than 100 countries. Thomas Nelson is headquartered in Nashville, TN. For additional information, please visit: www.thomasnelson.com .
Media Contact: Stephanie Newton, Director of Publicity, (615) 902-2320, Stephanie.Newton@HarperCollins.com
Photo captions: 1) Book cover. 2) Tom Doyle. 3) Dan Wooding reporting from Tiananmen Square, China, for ANS.
About
the writer: Dan Wooding, 74, is an award-winning author, broadcaster
and journalist who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents,
and is now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he
has been married for more than 52 years. They have two sons, Andrew and
Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. Dan is the founder
and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in
Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS). He is also the
author of some 45 books.** You may republish this or any of our ANS stories with attribution to the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net)
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