Please Pray for Your Persecuted Brothers in Christ

October 31

We associate Halloween with the fun of children dressing up like ghosts and monsters and their favorite storybook characters as they go around the neighborhood seeking treats from kindly neighbors who don’t want to be tricked by the little goblins.

But in our world today, there is a growing entity of evil that, if they could, would terrorize all mankind into bowing before their god. They allow no latitude in their belief system. Anyone who does not subscribe to it is ruthlessly expedited to their eternal reward.

I received the following information from a friend who is a nun. She just got a message from her brother who is a priest, asking her to shower him and his mission team to Iraq in prayer. ISIS has taken over the town where they have been ministering and their presence there is bringing fear and death to the populace.

He said ISIS is systematically going house to house to all the Christians and requiring the children to denounce Jesus. He said so far not one child has, and so far all have consequently been killed. But their parents have not been killed.

The UN has withdrawn and the missionaries are on their own. They are determined to stick it out for the sake of the families they are supporting, even if it means their own deaths.

He has no idea how to even begin ministering to these families who have seen their children martyred. Yet he says he knows God has called him for some reason to be His voice and His hands in this place at this time. Even so, he is begging prayers for courage to live out his vocation in such dire circumstances, and as the children have done, to accept martyrdom if he is called to do so.

My friend was able to talk to her brother briefly by phone. She didn't say it but I believe she thinks it will be their last conversation. Pray for her, too. She said he just kept asking her to help him know what to do and to be brave enough to do it. She told him to tell the families we ARE praying for them and they are not alone or forgotten—no matter what happens.

The following message is from a man who leads Crisis Relief International:

"We lost the city of Queragosh (Qaraqosh). It fell to ISIS and they are beheading children systematically. This is the city we have been smuggling food too. ISIS has pushed back Peshmerga (Kurdish forces) and is within 10 minutes of where our CRI team is working.

“Thousands fled into the city of Erbil last night. The UN has evacuated its staff from Erbil. Our team will stay. Prayer cover needed!"

Please pray sincerely for the deliverance of the people of Northern Iraq from the terrible advancement of ISIS and its extreme Islamic goals for mass conversion or death for Christians across this region.

May I plead with you to be among those who stand in the gap for our fellow Christians who are being persecuted because of their faith in Christ and for others who are suffering because they do not subscribe to the ISIS philosophy.

We are oblivious to the suffering some have endured because of their faith in Christ. May He forgive us for our proclivity to focus on the nothingness of our comfortable little lives and help us to cry out for our brothers and sisters in the faith who are giving their all for the Christ who died to set us free from sin.