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Gospel Jail

Jesus said, “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but
whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.” 

— Mark 8:35

In recent months, the church leaders within our network were planning a big outreach event. With a civil war raging in this country bordering Thailand, there were not a lot of places where a large gathering could be hosted safely, but they decided to do it on a remote mountain where there were several small villages. It seemed safe.

One evening, several of the pastors were gathered in one of their homes at the base of the mountain to plan the camp. Suddenly, at 11:00 PM, the door was kicked open and military forces entered the home with their guns drawn. Four pastors were arrested and taken to jail.

In the jail that night, the pastors looked around at the other people in their cell, their faces swollen, and their bodies bruised. They knew what the military was capable of—intimidation, torture, even death. That night, it was difficult for them to sleep.

The next day, the wife of one of the pastors called our teammate. She was in tears. She also knew how grave the situation was. So, we prayed together, and asked God to give the men courage, that they would feel his presence in that cell.

Later, one of those in jail named Pastor Daniel told
us what happened:

We were terrified. We cried out to God and asked, “Why has this happened? What are we doing here? We had great plans to share the Gospel at the outreach. Why, Lord?”

While we were praying in our cell, our captors came in to interrogate us. Suddenly, one of the other prisoners turned on us and, in an attempt to avoid more torture for himself, he started falsely accusing us, saying, “These men are with the armed resistance!”

Two of the pastors were taken away for more interrogation, while another pastor and I remained in the cell with the rest of the prisoners. We felt sick with fear and anger. How could this man betray us and lie about us?

But then I heard the voice of the Holy Spirit ask me, “When will you tell these men about me? When will you tell them about the hope that you have? These men are all as scared as you.”

I felt convicted for my lack of compassion. Immediately, I started sharing the Gospel with everyone in the cell, telling them about my life before I met Jesus, how I had been a factory worker in Thailand and heard the Gospel for the first time. I told them about how I had surrendered my life to Jesus and returned to my country to share my faith with my people.

As I was sharing, the guard came back into the cell with the other pastors. Miraculously, they were unharmed. To everyone else’s surprise, the guard announced, “You will be released tomorrow. Someone has paid your fine, and so we will let you go.”

We praised God and, for the next several hours, we kept sharing our faith with our fellow prisoners.

The next day, we were released from jail with only the clothes on our backs—everything else had been confiscated, our wallets, money, and identification—but we returned home rejoicing that God had done a mighty work for us and that the light of the Gospel had gone forth into one of the darkest places we knew.

Later, at the outreach event, many more people came to the Lord as Pastor Daniel and the others shared their story about how God had met them in jail and provided an amazing opportunity to share the Gospel. Within weeks, many of the same people gathered to celebrate Easter up on the mountain, and it was quite the party.

PRAY

Pray for peace and political stability in this nation and pray for Pastor Daniel and other church leaders like him who are risking their lives for the sake of the Gospel.

 

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