Who Is Sayed Mossa?

Sayed Mossa was scheduled for trial yesterday in Kabul, Afghanistan. He'd been in jail by then six months without seeing a judge. He was afforded no legal representation. Nor was he allowed advance knowledge of the charges against him. Though he had a fair idea of what those might be, none of them good. Possibly espionage. Treason against the state. Even the farce of trumped-up adultery charges have been bandied about. Definitely apostasy, defined as the leaving of Islam for any other faith. In Sayed's case, Christianity. All capital charges punishable by death according to the laws of Afghan 'democracy'.

I first learned of Sayed's arrest last May when I was finishing the rough draft of Freedom's Stand (coming to a bookstore near you May, 2011) sequel to my last Tyndale House Publishers title, Veiled Freedom, set in Afghanistan. His situation so closely paralleled the story of Freedom's Stand, I might have been reporting on it instead of writing a fiction plot. Not a complete surprise. Conditions on the ground in Afghanistan as I'd been writing were such that I knew it was only a matter of time before my fiction became reality.

What is the story of Freedom's Stand? If Veiled Freedom addressed the question of what is true freedom (which cannot be bestowed on another people through arms or an aid package), the question Freedom's Stand addresses follows inevitably: once you've found that true freedom, how far will you go in sharing it with others? A costly question to be asked in Afghanistan.

As Sayed Mossa has discovered. His arrest came after cell-phone images of Sayed and other Afghans praying in the name of Isa Masih [Jesus Christ] and being baptized were aired by Afghan media. Said images drew a brief flurry of media attention in the West, far more so in Afghanistan where calls immediately went forth for the arrest and execution of Afghanistan's theoretically non-existent Christian minority.

Why non-existent? Sheer, unabashed politics. When the current Afghan regime signed on to its post-Taliban new constitution in 2006, among its provisions was that Afghanistan would abide by the universal bill of human rights, including the right of every human being to freely choose and practice their own religious beliefs. Of course thinking, concerned followers of Afghan issues (including myself) quickly pointed out that the same constitution established Islamic sharia law as trumping all other statutes. And under sharia law, leaving the religious fold of Islam was apostasy, a capital crime.

No real problem, Western governments voiced even as they expressed unqualified support of Afghanistan's new constitution and regime. Since Afghanistan was officially 100% Muslim with no worship place of any other faith permitted to exist, the blatant contradiction would not be an issue. As long as the 'free' governments pouring aid and arms into Afghanistan could keep blinders firmly in place that no Afghan had any desire for freedom to choose their own faith in God, that basic human right like so many others under the Karzai regime could be safely ignored.

Meanwhile, the Afghan mullahs had a different interpretation. Yes, adherents of other religions were free to follow their faith in Afghanistan. But that freedom did not mean Muslims were free to convert to another faith (though followers of any other faith were always welcome to convert to Islam!). Since every Afghan was Muslim by genetic default, the only possible adherents of other religions were members of humanitarian organizations or other foreign residents. Permitting Afghan courts to maintain apostasy from Islam as a capital offense while complying with international law.

Western blinders were rudely ripped away with the surfacing of those cell-phone images. This wasn't actually the first time since Taliban rule a Christian had been put on trial. A similar situation had arisen with the arrest of returning Afghan refugee Ahmed Rahman in 2006. But he was quickly dismissed as a mentally disturbed individual brainwashed into converting to Christianity while working abroad in an infidel nation. Under-the-table negotiations eventually declared him incompetent to stand trial and sent him back into exile, therefore permitting both the Afghan regime and their Western allies to neatly avoid the freedom of faith issue.

Unfortunately, those smuggled-out images of local, ordinary Afghans daring to lift their voices in prayer and praise to a name other than Allah could not be similarly dismissed as a single aberrant returning from exile. No one knows exactly how many Afghan Christians were actually arrested in the witch hunt following the airing of those cell-phone images or remain in prison today. Estimates range from two to twenty-five. But it is now only too evident that plenty of Afghans yearn for the same freedom to choose the recipient of their prayers that we in the West enjoy as our inalienable birthright. Freedom a decade of NATO and USA investment certainly haven't brought to Afghanistan.

So just who is Sayed Mossa?

Here is who he is not! He is not an anti-government agitator. He is not a smuggled-in tool of Western infidels. He is not a zealot trying to get himself killed.

Instead, Sayed is a quiet, ordinary man, forty-five years old, married to one wife with six kids ranging from 8 years of age on down. He is also an amputee, having lost his right leg when he stepped on a landmine. For fifteen years, he had supported his family and served the Afghan people working for the International Committee of the Red Cross as an orthopedic therapist to help other victims of war. What he has undergone since his arrest is too disturbing to repeat here, but I hope you will take time to read it for yourself.

While I knew of Sayed's arrest, was kept abreast of his situation, had even written the ICRS on his behalf, I like others had been asked not to pass on information on his case. Until his story hit international media this last week with the publication of Sayed Mossa's own plea smuggled out of a Kabul prison. Now it is time to speak up!

Sayed's day in court scheduled for Sunday, November 21, has once again been postponed, not such a relief since it means returning to the horrific environment of an Afghan prison. Meanwhile with those blinders ripped away, what are the forces that claim to stand for freedom on this planet going to do about Sayed Mossa? In Freedom's Stand (coming from Tyndale House Publishers in May), one of the main characters makes a forceful point when addressing a similar, if fictional situation: "What won’t happen is that the ‘free West’ can keep enjoying forever their own freedoms while tacitly conceding those are now considered optional for the rest of this planet."

A statement I certainly hope remains fictional. But like Sayed Mossa's arrest, I have little doubt that if the current situation does not change, it is only a matter of time before my fiction once again becomes reality. Because I consider myself privileged to be an American, I would like to see my own government speak out unequivocally on abuses of religious freedom in countries receiving our arms and aid. I would like to see accountability attached to such handouts instead of the unrelenting compromise we've witnessed to date.

But there are at least ways we as individuals can make our voices heard. We can write our congressional representatives, demanding action. We can write the White House. We can speak out on blogs and through local media. Through letters of encouragement and support to those imprisoned for their faith. We can keep ourselves informed on the situation. Mindy Belz, editor of World Magazine, several of whose articles are linked in this blog post, has been offering excellent coverage of the situation. And we can pray.

Whatever we do--for the sake of Sayed Mossa and others like him, for the sake of our own children's future as free citizens--let us not remain silent!

Good, Bad, or Ugly?

Good won a battle this past month in India.

For those who haven't been keeping close tabs on national elections in the planet's most populous democracy, that's understandable. I didn't see much on American cable news, though I would hazard that the BBC did a more thorough job. Suffice it say, over seven hundred million citizens qualified to cast a vote made India's recent elections the largest in human history. Much was at stake. Some would say India's very claim to be called a democracy.

Battling it out for supremacy were the subcontinent's two most powerful political parties. The 'UPA' or Congress party ran on a platform of a secular, democratic India with guaranteed freedom and protection for religious minorities. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s platform's has been simple, unwavering and distressingly popular. 'Hindutva', or a forced return to Hinduism and caste rule.

Orissa area village

A decade ago, the BJP dominated India's federal government. In 2004 the UPA knocked them out of national power. But their control of states like Orissa led to the violence this past year that left hundreds of Orissa Christians dead, upwards of 100,000 burned out of homes, and virtually every Christian institution from churches to schools and orphanages razed to the ground (see Orissa Burning). So concerned Christians inside and outside of Orissa have been watchfully monitoring Indian elections.

And praying.

But even those with great faith and hope were stunned by this last week's announcement of election results. In parliamentary elections, the UPA won 2-1 over BJP, giving the moderate secular party a sweeping majority. Meanwhile in Orissa itself, not a single BJP candidate won a seat at either state or national level! What is significant is that neither India's Christian community nor its sizeable Muslim minority combined has a voting bloc large enough to determine the outcome of the elections. BJP's sweeping defeat was only possible because India's 80% Hindu majority voted overwhelmingly against 'Hindutva' extremism and for a secular state.

Orissa area church service

So today Christians--and Muslims--are breathing a little easier in India. Which doesn't mean all concerns for continued violence are gone. Just in the last two weeks, Hindu extremists have attacked Christians within Orissa's remaining refugee camp. Two days ago in Nepal, a Hindu monarchy declared a democratic republic just last May, a church bombing killed two and injured dozens more. Still, the decision of India's voters at the ballot box has been a huge step forward for true democracy and freedom for all its 1.2 billion citizens.

Orissa pastor's wife, husband arrested by Hindu extremist authorities

About the same time, another incident received a whole lot more North American media attention. Whether good, bad, or ugly won, you'll have to decide. It was a book burning. Not just any books. A collection of Bibles. No, the bonfire was no action of Hindu or Muslim extremists. It was carried out by orders of U. S. government personnel. You may have followed the case. An American church, unaware it was against military regulations, raised funds for Bibles in Dari and Pashto, Afghanistan's most common languages. The Bibles were shipped to a church member serving on Baghram Air Force Base north of Kabul, command center for U. S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan.

When the soldier showed the Bibles to a chaplain, he was informed of regulations against U.S. military personnel handing out Bibles or any other action that could be construed as proselytizing of Muslims. The soldier turned them over to the chaplain, the chaplain to his own commanding officer. Which would likely have been the end of it except someone in the vicinity was filming the whole thing on the camera phone. It got out to the Islamic news service, Al-Jazeera. At which point the U. S. military quickly assured the world the confiscated Bibles had been safely converted to ash.

So why burn the Bibles instead of simply returning them to their donors? Two reasons were given:

1) Regulations require all discarded trash on U. S. military bases to be burned (I.E: brand-new Bibles are trash).

2) If the Bibles were returned to the donors, they might be given away to some other Dari or Pashto readers (Now I am wondering, back when the CIA was arming Afghan mujahedeen to bring down the Soviet empire, wasn't part of their justification that the Soviets were denying basic human rights like praying, worshipping, reading as you choose to its citizens? Why was it okay to encourage those under communist rule to defy a totalitarian regime, but Americans are now actually helping Islamic regimes deny those freedoms to their own people?).

What is more interesting was the official basis for confiscating and burning said volumes at all, something called a 'force protection measure'. Put briefly, if Muslims even suspected Western coalition soldiers of giving away a Christian holy book, they might be provoked to kill more American soldiers. So let's not only burn the Bibles, but make sure the Islamic world knows, so we're not accused of recycling them. Ironically, in Western news coverage, I saw far more outrage at a U.S. church daring to send Christian literature to Afghanistan than over U.S. military forces aiding and abetting a totalitarian regime in controlling what its citizens can or can't read.

Left unspoken, perhaps because it's a no-brainer, is that no one in all of this has expressed any worries that millions of outraged Christians around the world might resort to rioting, looting, and murder to avenge the burning of their Sacred Scriptures. Imagine instead a Muslim mosque, say, in Egypt, sending a few Korans over to one of its military personnel enrolled in any one of the many Allied Officers exchange programs run on U. S. military bases. I've met plenty of these Muslim-bloc officers, and they have no problem discussing their own faith freely, so this is hardly a far-fetched image. In fact, Saudi Arabia has paid for the building of mosques and dispersal of millions of Korans all over the world.

Now imagine those Korans being seized and burned so as not to offend American Christians. Imagine those responsible announcing this to the entire planet so that no one will get the erroneous idea that a single Koran has survived.

Imagine the world-wide chaos that would ensue!

If that's a hard stretch for the imagination, it's because it just wouldn't happen. Meanwhile, has burning Bibles and then carefully announcing that burning across the entire Muslim world really made our own troops safer? I don't think so--and here's why! In so doing, the American military has sent the entire world--and especially the Muslim bloc--two disastrous messages:

1) Western leadership will bend over backwards to show respect for Islam's holy book, but has none at all for the Book considered sacred by a majority of its own citizens.

2) The greatest military power on earth, that won with such ease in Afghanistan and Iraq, is so petrified of Muslim aggression, it will burn its people's own 'holy book' to appease it. Which in local culture is not interpreted as a conciliatory gesture, but weakness and lack of moral fortitude.

Now personally, while I regret the Bible burning, my outrage is moderate. Why? God's Word cannot be destroyed by burning paper and ink. Totalitarian regimes of all stripes have been burning Bibles clear back to King Jehoiakim torching the prophet Jeremiah's scrolls (Jeremiah chapter 36). The Bible is still here. More Dari and Pashto copies will be printed, regardless of U.S. or Islamic government objections.

Which is precisely why you don't see Christians rioting around the world. I believe with all my heart that such capitulation places our military in more danger in the long term, because Muslim extremists have been encouraged once again that Americans have no moral strength. But I can see why military personnel might feel it was the easiest way out at the time.

Orissa Bible conference, February, 2009

Which in itself is the point. There was an 'easier' way to handle the Orissa situation as well. The BJP, after all, offered Orissa Christians a peaceful solution to their crisis. All they had to do was renounce their faith, reconvert to Hinduism, and promise never to speak of or worship Jesus Christ again, and they would be free to return to their villages and lives.

They chose instead to endure the loss of homes, churches, jobs, lives. They did so without resorting to retaliatory violence. They did so without knowing their steadfast faith and resolve in the face of persecution would send a watching nation to the ballot box to demand an end to extremism.

One has to wonder, judging by recent decisions, if current Western leadership had to trade places with the Orissa Christians, what kind of choice would they make?

Still Sleeping?

The juxtaposition of two news events this past week caused no media ripple, but sends a chill up my own spine as I consider the implications. Receiving greater global attention was the U.N. Conference on Racism, dubbed Dublin II. The U.S. and a number of other Western nations boycotted the conference, and for ample reason. Iran and Libya's presence on the organizing committee certainly offered a clue. Not to mention the invitation of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as keynote speaker (his anti-Israel and American diatribe was vicious enough for a number of other European leaders to walk out).

At issue in the American boycott were two main obstacles in the proposed resolution. Number One, the equation of Israel's very continued existence with 'racism' (meanwhile countries like Sudan, the Congo, Somalia, etc. received no rebuke at all). Number Two, the proposal that criticism of religion should be dubbed 'hate speech' and made a crime.

Criticism of Islam, that is, since no other religion is making such demands. Meanwhile in the Muslim world, where any critical look at Islam is already a crime that can carry a death penalty, leaders proposing said restriction have no difficulty at all with hate speech against Christians and Jews (just check out their children's programming).

In the end, the boycott accomplished its purpose in the tabling of both resolutions. And since no real issues like actual dictators oppressing currently living human beings were addressed, the U.N. Conference on Racism ended as one more colossal waste of international funds. Which doesn't mean the issues have gone away. Let's not forget a certain politician in a Western democracy called Netherlands currently under 'hate speech ' indictment for just such a challenge to Islamic totalitarianism (see While We Were Sleeping, February blog archive).

Meanwhile, unmentioned by the mainline press, came the second event. Those following international news--and national security--are aware of Pakistan abdicating the Swat Valley region along Afghanistan's border to the Taliban rule under strict sharia law. The stated purpose was to pacify the Taliban so they'd leave the rest of Pakistan alone. A decision that instantly sent a chill up the spine of Pakistan's minority Christian community, where we personally have friends and acquaintances.

Under Pakistani secular law, Christians have some protection, one good carry-over from British colonial rule, though proselytizing and conversion carry stiff criminal penalties or even a Muslim neighbor accusing a Christian of disrespecting a Koran (check Voice of the Martyrs for Pakistani Christians in jail for their faith). Muslims, of course, have total freedom to proselytize and convert other faiths. But that beats Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and other U.S. allies where Christian churches cannot exist at all. Strict sharia law would strip meager remaining legal protection away.

In response to Pakistani peace overtures, the new rulers of Swat Valley and environs have already announced their intentions to extend Taliban rule throughout Pakistan. To make clear they mean it, among their first official acts was an attack on the Christian community. Below is the Asia Evangelical Alliance (AEA) report we received from the area:

"Karachi - April 22, 2009: (PCP) The Talibanization of Karachi City begins with attack of armed Taliban on a Christian colony. The attack was well organized and heavy firearms were used by hundreds of Taliban to threaten unarmed Christian elders, women and children. The Taliban chalked slogans against Christianity and to accept Islam on Church walls in Taseer Town in the night of April 19, 2009, which horrified Christian residents.

On April 21, 2009, the local Christians conducted a peaceful procession in vicinity of Taseer Town to attract attention of local administration for protection of residents, but no action was taken nor police guard provided for protection of Church.

On the night of April 21, 2009, more than one hundred masked Taliban intruded in Taseer Colony and attacked Christians with guns. Fearful, Christians locked themselves in their homes. But the Taliban pulled elders out at gunpoint and dragged women by their hair in the streets. They loudly said, "You infidels have to convert to Islam or die. Why you cleaned our warnings chalked on walls of Church and home doors? How you dare to conduct a procession against Taliban?"

In a two hour long attack on Taseer Town, Taliban killed two Christians and beat dozens. The two Christians were seized for resisting the Taliban and killed in execution style before their families.

Nazir S Bhatti, President of PCC (Pakistan Christian Congress) condemned the attack and killing of Christians in Taseer Town and urged government to provide protection to Christians in Pakistan who are unarmed and peaceful citizens. But no action [has been] taken . . .

“Taliban are planning to expand Sharia law of their choice in Karachi, and the Christian colony has fallen first victim on their target.” Nazir Bhatti adds.

Pray for peace in Pakistan."

Surely I am not alone in finding it of concern that while the United States continues to arm and fund Islamic regimes and Western nations scramble to appease them, hardly a mainline voice is being raised on behalf of the Christian community's rights around the world to worship and live freely. If our children and grandchildren are to know what freedom of speech, worship, association is, we cannot continue to remain silent while such freedoms are being whittled away right under our noses.

Speaking of 'speaking out', my marketing team wouldn't be so happy if I didn't mention Publishers Weekly's review of Veiled Freedom this past week. As the premier industry review, they do not give praise lightly, so their positive coverage definitely made my week. Veiled Freedom hits bookstores June 1st, but is currently available for pre-order. REVIEW EXCERPT BELOW:

J. M. Windle—author of the political/suspense thriller CrossFire—taps into current events with her newest novel, set in Afghanistan. . . . Windle's writing sings when she compares the teachings of Isa Masih (Jesus Christ) with those of Muhammad . . . Readers will be enthralled with this penetrating look at Afghanistan and its many mysteries revealed through the lives of flawed men and women. Windle is a top-notch storyteller. Publishers Weekly, 4/20/09

He Is Risen!

It was a dark and stormy night.

So begins one of my most vivid Easter memories. It had been raining when we'd gone to bed, not the monsoon sheets of full rainy season, but a steady downpour. When my husband and I rousted four sleepy, protesting children out of bed at 4 AM, cloud cover blackened any glimpse of stars or moon, a drizzle still dampening our faces as we piled into our rusted, elderly minivan. I had to wonder why we'd ever agreed to join the church we worked with in a poorer, unpaved neighborhood of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, at the city stadium for the interdenominational Easter sunrise service.

At least at this early hour, there was none of the traffic that usually congested this city of a million. Nor was there any light beyond the twin yellow beams of our headlights jolting up and down through muddy ruts. Sane citizens still slept. Only a few main boulevards boasted street lamps. We made a normal hour drive in less than twenty minutes. By the time our tires touched the cobblestones of the city center, we'd met up with other headlights. Entire buses and market trucks packed with waving, cheering passengers vied with pickups moonlighting as taxis and the rare private vehicle.

By the time we'd found a parking spot some blocks from the stadium, the streets were filled with people hurrying the same direction. The smart ones had brought along lengths of plastic, even an occasional umbrella, to cover their heads against the drizzle. This March night held the warmth of early fall in Bolivia's semitropical lowlands, so our four children had no objection to the damp. Their mother was less complacent, irritated that I hadn't thought to bring tarp or umbrellas. The stadium had no roof. Was there a point to fighting through this crowd, only to discover the event rained out?

But my misgivings were clearly a minority opinion, the trickle of pedestrians becoming thousands as we approached the high, concrete oval of the stadium. Despite the early hours, food venders were out in full force. The savory odor of shish kebabs sizzling on coal grills, cheese empanadas fresh from a fryer, a fragrance of cinnamon that was hot api, a thick, sweet gruel made from purple corn, prompted eager pleas from my family. We paused to add kebabs and empanadas to the fruit and bottled water we'd brought along.

Inside was a reminder why we'd left home so early. The 50,000 capacity stadium was already almost full. The bravest had already been here for hours in an all-night prayer vigil. Family groups and entire congregations staked out sections of the concrete bleachers. Hand-lettered banners identified each church while brightly-painted placards exulted 'Jesus Lives!', 'He is Risen!', 'Happy Easter!', 'Celebrate!' The stage out on the field was currently empty and silent, but church groups with guitars, hand drums and tambourines were vying to out-sing each other around the stadium. Balloons tied to railings and wandering venders offering popcorn and soda in plastic disposable cups completed a carnival atmosphere.

Most of this crowd had come much further than our family, from one of the countless neighborhoods of thatched-roofed hovels and dirt alleys that make up most of Santa Cruz. The churches to which they would return for the regular Sunday morning services would be a larger thatched-roof version of their homes or perhaps a more middle-class church like the one we attended with actual brick walls and a tin roof. Their clothing showed the ethnic mix Santa Cruz had become in the last decade of urban growth. Layered bright skirts, ponchos, and top hats of highland Quechua. Sleeveless cotton dresses and white pants of lowland Guarani. Blue jeans and T-shirts of the urbanized Spanish.

Upper-class professionals stood out with their suit coats and shiny shoes, women in tailored pant suits and high heels. In the outside world of poverty, racial tension, social injustice, and class hatred that was Bolivia, these groups would have little reason to intermingle. But for this hour and in this place, social, cultural, class rifts were suspended. This was one family come together to celebrate a common hope and faith.

The sky was now paling even through the cloud cover, so we no longer needed a floodlight to spot the banner proclaiming 'Iglesia Cristiana Antioquia' high up one bleacher. Squeezing in with the rest of our church group on the damp concrete steps, we shared our food acquisitions with friends, accepted in return a handful of tangerines and sweet buns, still warm and sooty from a wood oven. As I bit into an empanada, melted cheese oozing from the flaky pastry, my resourceful husband produced a thermos of coffee. With the strong, black brew banishing drowsiness, my own enthusiasm rose to match the wild excitement of my children. What better place to be on a soggy Easter dawn than a concrete bleacher in an open South American stadium with 50,000 of my brothers and sisters in the family of God?

The stage was no longer empty or silent. Loudspeakers with far too many amps for even so large a facility crackled the proclamation: "Cristo ha resucitado! Christ has risen!"

Surging to its feet, the crowd roared with the enthusiasm of a World Cup playoff. "Cristo ha resucitado eternamente! Christ has risen for all eternity!"

Triumphant shouts became a song, "Celebrate Jesus, celebrate! He has risen!" As I raised my voice to join in, I realized the drizzle had stopped. The open sky above the stadium was aflame with drifting cloud billows and streamers of reds and pinks and oranges. Even as that joyous exultation rose to shake the stadium, the clouds broke open, and as though an answer from heaven itself, a shaft of light blazed earthward to touch the grass of the stadium field.

The sun had risen.

The Son has risen.

It is a dark and stormy night.

War. Oppression. Injustice. Famine. Grief. Pain. Death. Sometimes the storm clouds seem so many and dark, it does not seem possible light will ever prevail. But this morning I join brothers and sisters in faith gathered in the burned-out shell of an Orissa church, behind closed doors in countries where they dare not raise voices in song, in stadiums across Latin America, on Miami beach and an Amazon riverbank, and in countless church sanctuaries around the world, as we celebrate the reason we have hope. Jesus Christ, who freely gave His life on a cross for our redemption, is risen from the dead! Though the storm clouds may momentarily mask our vision, the light has already triumphed.

The sun will return.

The Son will return.

Happy Easter!

Change a Heart, Change a Nation

Change.

A favorite slogan during any election campaign, change is a word we dread as much as desire. We long for change to make things better. We fear change will make things worse. And too often, even when we get the change we've fought for, whether geographical, political, economic, or social, we find ourselves disappointed. Why? Because though our circumstances may be changed, we ourselves are still the same and so are those around us.

Which is why we find ourselves so disappointed when billions are poured into places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Somalia, only to see the continuation of violence and hate and cruelty. You see, change that truly transforms society comes through changed hearts, not circumstances. And hearts change when they are restored to personal relationship with their Creator and heavenly Father through the transforming love of Jesus Christ.

When God promised restoration to an idolatrous, wicked Israel, He described it this way: "I will give you a new heart . . . I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26). When enough individual hearts change from hate to love, cruelty to kindness, greed to selflessness, their society will never be the same.

These thoughts come to mind as I have been putting together the most recent issue of our ministry magazine. One article comes from the Congo. If you've followed events of recent years there, the violence and chaos make Afghanistan and Somalia seem like Paradise. Africa’s second largest country after Sudan, roughly one-quarter the size of the United States, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC, is one of the most naturally wealthy regions on Earth with rubber, diamonds, gold, oil and numerous other mineral reserves.

As memorialized in the Joseph Conrad classic 'Heart of Darkness', human greed and brutality has kept its people among the planet's poorest from the days of slave raids and a colonial era characterized by forced labor and horrific working conditions to the vicious dictators and rebel fighting of its independence era. All-out civil war in recent years has resulted in more than five million dead. News headlines are a constant succession of atrocities, 'boy soldiers' now a dictionary entry. Most foreign ministry and aid organizations have been forced out of the country. Christian hospitals, printing presses, church buildings and schools were largely destroyed.
But though buildings will burn, a changed heart is unstoppable. In the midst of horror and darkness, Congolese Christians are still holding high the light of Christ's love and hope. Which brings me to that article I was editing. A friend, the subject of the article, spent many years in DRC with our ministry organization before having to leave for health reasons. A few months ago she received a letter from Congolese churches she'd worked with, asking for 15,000 sets of teaching material covering the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ--in Bengala and Swahili!

It seemed a tall order. How to get it published, much less into a country where travel was still almost at a stand-still. But God began to open doors. A Kenyan Christian publishing house took on the project. $10,000 were donated for printing costs. An African ministry that uses 4-wheel-drive vehicles to carry aid and the Good News to more inaccessible regions of Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, and DRC agreed to transport the materials for no cost.

It gives me goose-bumps to think that right now those 15,000 series on the life of Christ are flowing into the Congo. Children and adults are learning of a God who loved them so much He left the splendor of heaven to walk the dusty streets of a war-torn world. To set an example of how to love each other and forgive enemies. To give His own life on a cross to take our sins on Himself and pay the price for our redemption and restoration to our Creator.

If those children and adults will but listen, it just might do more to change the Congo than all the guns and U.N. peacekeepers and aid packages. And so I pause to pray for the impact of those small, simply-printed green volumes--and a people crying out for a hope of change.

Change a heart, change a nation.

While We Were Sleeping

The first non-English language into which my political-suspense novels were translated was Dutch. The Netherlands is a delightful country with its canals, houseboats and tall, skinny buildings. A nation of readers. The first place I was ever served raw meat as a main dish--and enjoyed it!

The Netherlands is also famous for its laissez faire attitude towards moral issues Americans take seriously like drug use, prostitution, euthanasia. So I was disturbed to have the Netherlands pop up recently on my 'freedom of speech' watch-list.

In synopsis, a supreme court has just ruled that a Dutch politician may be prosecuted criminally. Not for trying to sell a parliament seat. Nor hiding bribe money in a freezer. Nor indulging in inappropriate conduct with interns.

No, the charge is 'insulting Islam'.

It is a charge that across the Islamic world has sentenced countless journalists, moderate Muslim scholars, and Christian converts to prison. Only this time the ruling did not come from a sharia court, but from a Dutch appeals court. Politician Geert Wilder had stated publicly his belief that Islamic 'sharia' law is a fascist totalitarian ideology that poses a threat to Western democratic freedom.

At issue is a film documentary Wilder produced juxtaposing Koranic verses calling for armed jihad against images of that jihad actually being carried out. Was the film tastefully produced? Have all Wilder's statements been PC? I couldn't say, not having seen the film. It may be that I myself would not appreciated the final product.

FITNA: "This 15-minute film, which drew millions of viewers since its release Thursday, contains footage of Muslim clerics and protesters calling for the slaying of Jews, verses from the Koran, videos from scenes of suicide bombings and executions, illustrations of the demographic increase in the number of European Muslims and archive material from the Dutch media about Islamic terrorism-related incidents."

But what sends chills up my spine is that the veracity of Wilder's position has not been made an issue. After all, sharia law imposed currently by Islamic regimes across the planet proscribes freedom of speech, religion, association, and self-determination. Meanwhile Islamic leaders make no bones that the Koran's ultimate command is a global 'caliphate' ruled by sharia theocracy. So Wilder isn't the only one who might consider 'totalitarian' or 'fascist' a not unreasonable characterization.

The Dutch court's ruling addressed a much simpler issue. To question or criticize Islam is offensive to Muslims (of course it is! By sharia law, it's punishable by death!), therefore making Wilder's public debate 'hate speech', a criminal offense. It seems the Dutch haven't forgotten the worldwide violence and destruction that followed Danish cartoons lampooning Islam. And if you think the Dutch are alone, Wilder was just banned from travel to Britain. Why? Because his presence might incite violence among British Muslims.

Is anyone as concerned as I am by this ruling in a Western democratic nation? When was the last time questioning the tenets of Christianity was made a criminal offense? Oh, yes, something called the Inquisition. And why has not our media, so protective of its rights, jumped to speak out at this erosion of freedom of speech? The abridgement of public debate or criticism on any topic should have every human rights activist across the free world on their feet.

If I am passionate about freedom of speech, it is because I have seen firsthand the consequences of its denial. I grew up in Latin America at a time when too many who spoke up against oppressive regimes became one more 'desaparecido' or 'disappeared one'. In Afghanistan, where I traveled recently, a 23-year-old journalist in prison for downloading an internet article, has been joined by two other journalists who translated the Koran into local Dari vernacular.

They thought they were doing something good, since few Afghan Muslims read the Arabic of the original Koran. After all, the Christians have translated their Holy Book into Dari. An Afghan court judged it blasphemy and handed down a death sentence. Working in recent years with ministry partners in India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Nepal, and many other countries, I have seen the bludgeoning club of 'anti-conversion' laws use against those who would choose their own faith or share it with others.

Among them more than 50,000 Christians burned out of churches and homes this past year in Orissa, India. I have shared in earlier blog entries about the refugee camps our own ministry organization, BCM International, established on the Orissa border to shelter the 62 pastors [see group picture; faces blurred for security] and their families of our own Orissa churches, all of whom had lost home and church to Hindu extremist mobs.

We recently hosted a BCM medical team, including dentist and ophthalmologist, at the camp. Along with their services, the team was able to give to each family a set of dishes and pans[see photo below].

The reason is that our refugee camps are closing at the end of this month. The government camps are already closed. These Christians have lost homes, jobs, loved ones. Now they are being sent back to the same villages that burned them out. The government is insisting they can maintain order. The Hindu extremists have announced that returnees must convert to Hinduism or be killed.

Meantime some of our pastors have already returned to burned-out ashes of their churches. Below is an excerpt of a recent letter from our Orissa regional director, Rev. Nayak [his phrasing]:

"It is worthy to praise the work of our BCM pastors during this tough time of hazardness. Pastor Tuna of Bataguda boldly went to their village and gathered the scattered out believers from different places of the area and started worship service in his church in spite of dreadful fear. He encouraged to others that they are serving the living God. He said to others that we are already dead in Christ, no need to fear any more to anyone. If they die, they die for Christ and their eternal place is heaven. This very thin and short BCM pastor shows a strong faith, and looking to his braveness, other pastors also have been taken the steps, among them Pastor Bimalraj and Pastor Lubara Mallik. Pray for these
pastors who could be the example for others."

It is easy to make a stand on freedom of speech sitting in my current comfortable swivel chair in front of my computer monitor. It is another to raise one's voice and refuse to be silenced under threat of death. And I am reminded as I see the courage of penniless Orissa Christians on one hand, while on the other a well-armed democratic state knuckles under without a fight on their own freedom of speech, that freedoms can be lost far more easily than they can be won. Freedom of speech and religion as we know it today is less than 250 years old. Current events in the Netherlands are a frightening object lesson of what may be in store if erosion of those freedoms is allowed to continue unchallenged.

Meanwhile, my own upcoming Afghanistan release, Veiled Freedom, explores just what it means to be an Islamic 'democracy' without those accompanying freedoms. And I have to ask myself, having written in its pages truth and only truth, is Veiled Freedom one title of mine that will not be welcome in its Dutch translation?