Voice of the Martyrs Update

Todd Nettleton with Voice of the Martyrs shares about a Chinese evangelist who was recently released from prison…and went back to doing his ministry THE SAME DAY! Todd also provided update on a story 26 years in the making, where one of the killers of Graham Staines and his two young sons in India in 1999 has been released from prison…and was given a hero’s welcome outside the prison. And the encouraging story of what happened when local Muslims tried to disrupt easter services in Indonesia. 

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:01):
Todd Middleton is our guest. He's the host of voice
of the Martyrs Radio, also the chief of media relationships
and message integration for voice of the martyrs. He's also
the author of when Faith Is Forbidden 40 days on
the Front Lines with Persecuted Christians.

S2 (00:16):
Todd, good morning to you, and we so enjoy having
you come on and just keep our minds and our
hearts open to our fellow believers around the world. And
I feel like we should start with China. Uh, there
was an evangelist who was recently released, and what he
did next, I think is kind of surprising, to say the.

S3 (00:36):
Least. It is. You know, I'd love to say this
is what I would do, but I don't think this
is what I would do. So. So this evangelist, his
name is Chen Wang Xiang. He has just been in prison.
He actually was released. He was originally sentenced to 19 months,
but he was released after a little less than 12 months. So.
And it's not clear to me 100% why they let
him out early. But, uh, he came out of prison.

(00:58):
He he looked skinny. Uh, but he was joyful. He
was happy. He hugged his wife And literally that afternoon
they were on the streets doing evangelism. Now he is
a former drug addict. He's someone God rescued from addiction
and he has such a passion, such a heart for
addicts and for the downtrodden. Um, that's what got him

(01:19):
in prison. That's what has gotten him arrested a whole
bunch of times in China before this and the afternoon
that he left prison, he and his wife were out
on the streets doing ministry. Not like, hey, let's take
a couple days off. Hey, you know, at least come
home and get a hot meal and and get a
good night's sleep. Nope. Let's go to work. Let's go
back to doing the ministry that God has called us to,

(01:42):
even though that's what got him thrown in prison.

S2 (01:46):
That's incredible.

S1 (01:47):
Yeah, that is truly amazing. Um, I would probably try
walking the other way.

S3 (01:54):
Well, the other thing he said after coming out of
prison is he didn't stop ministry while he was in prison.
He said he was able to pray with 300 fellow
inmates during his almost one year in prison. So that's
roughly one a day. And he was able to secretly
baptise three of them while he was in prison. So
this is a guy who says, hey, I'm I'm on

(02:15):
mission for God. And wherever I am, I'm going to
talk to people about Jesus. If you put me in prison,
that's great. I'll talk to the other prisoners. And if
you let me go, I'm going to go out on
the streets and talk to people. The frustrating thing about
this for me is like, if if you hear of
someone who's helping drug addicts overcome addiction, you would think
the Chinese government would pin a medal on him and say, wow,

(02:37):
thank you. You're improving our society. You're helping people. But no,
because he's doing it in the name of Jesus Christ.
He gets locked in prison.

S2 (02:47):
Mhm. That's so strange. Will he be protected? I mean,
what happens if he continues, I guess.

S3 (02:56):
How long, how long is it before he goes back
to jail? That, that that literally is the question is
how long is it? Um, and nobody knows. Like is
it going to be days? Is it going to be weeks?
I wish I knew more about why they let him
out before his full sentence had been served. I don't
know if that was a matter of, hey, we're going
to give you credit for the time before your trial,

(03:18):
or if there was some, like, good behavior thing, um,
in which case they could probably just pull him back
in on the sentence that he was already facing. They
wouldn't even have to go to another trial. Um, I
don't know all the details of his early release, so.
But you got to think, and I would assume that
he thinks and his wife thinks. Yep. I'm going to
be arrested again soon. So I think his attitude would be, well,

(03:42):
I better get out and minister today because I don't
know how long I'm going to have a freedom. So
let's go. Let's go to work.

S1 (03:47):
Todd Nettleton with voice of the martyrs is our guest.
Just letting us know what's going on in believer's lives
around the world.

S2 (03:54):
And so, Todd, now we come to the story of
Graham Staines and his two young sons. Can you, um,
talk about who that was, what happened, and then what
has just happened?

S3 (04:05):
Yeah, this is a story. It's interesting because I started
at voice of the martyrs in 1998, and this happened
in January of 1999. So it's one of the first
really sort of big attention getting stories that happened during
my time at voice of the martyrs. So it it
definitely kind of hits a chord with me. But Graham
Staines was an Australian missionary in India, uh, actually a

(04:27):
doctor working with leprosy patients, but then also doing outreach,
doing ministry there. And he and his two sons. So
Philip was ten years old and Timothy was six years old.
They were at an evangelistic outreach, kind of in a
village somewhere in India, in the state of Odisha, and

(04:47):
they slept in their car after the sort of the
activities of the day were over, they went to sleep
in their car. A group of radical Hindus came and
surrounded the car. They they locked them inside and then
they burned the car. So all three of them were killed.
This happened January 23rd, 1999. Excuse me. So that's the background.

(05:08):
Now we come forward to today. Just a few weeks ago,
one of their killers, one of the leaders who, in
that mob that burned that car, was released from prison.
They said the Indian government said they were letting him
out for good behaviour. But here's the interesting part. There
were radical Hindus outside the prison ready to welcome him.

(05:29):
They hung flower garlands around his neck. They welcomed him
out of prison as a hero. Kind of a conquering
hero returning. And this is the man who led the
killing of a man and his two sons, now 26,
25 years ago.

S2 (05:46):
That is. Wow. It's hard to hear.

S1 (05:48):
Todd, as we hear stories like that. And Tommy and
I were both here just shaking our heads, just going.
I can't believe that a that happened. And b, this
is the result. Uh, like, uh, half what, a quarter
of a century later that this person, this activity is celebrated.

S3 (06:07):
Hey, you know, it's interesting how India has changed in
that 25 years to the point that now Hindu nationalists
are the the leaders of the Government of India. I
like the the philosophy of the national government is that
Hindu nationalism, that that these attackers supported that, that they
were shouting slogans for as they killed this man. Here's

(06:30):
another part of this story, though. So Graham's widow, Gladys,
stayed in India for another six years after her husband
was killed. She continued to work in the Leprosy mission.
She continued to serve the people of India, and so
she really demonstrated forgiveness and the willingness to stay even

(06:50):
after her husband, after her two sons were killed. Um,
and so even even out of this horrible attack, God
brought a show of forgiveness and a show of his
grace and a show of being able to love our enemies, um,
to the point that that she has been given awards.
You know, she's been recognized for her sacrifice and for
her service. She is also featured. The voice of the

(07:13):
martyrs has a book called Hearts of Fire that has
the stories of eight women who suffered persecution. Gladys Staines
is one of those stories in that book. She's one
of those chapters.

S2 (07:25):
Wow. Thank you so much for just sharing this with us.
And and, um, thank you for. Well, obviously, her incredible
sacrifice and theirs in their lives. Um, but to we've
got to keep praying that this radical Hinduism in India, uh,
would be turned upside down by the gospel.

S3 (07:46):
We absolutely do. And, uh, and there are gospel workers
today in India who are making that sacrifice. Maybe not,
you know, being burned to death in their cars, but
they are in prison. They are being beaten up. They
are making that sacrifice and saying, we're not going to
turn to Hinduism, we're not going to renounce Christ, and
we're not going to stop telling people about Jesus. So

(08:07):
this kind of persecution is still going on in India.

S1 (08:11):
Todd Nettleton is our guest. And just sharing with us
what what's happening with persecuted believers around the world.

S2 (08:17):
So, Todd, now we come to the nation of Indonesia
and something happened there. Um, on on Easter. Talk about that.

S3 (08:25):
Yeah. Indonesia is a country with a they have a
word in their language called Pancasila, which is sort of
this idea that, you know, we have people from different religions,
we have Muslims and we have Christians and we have others,
and and we can all get along. We can all
get along well. So that's the, the language, the, the
word in their language. But, uh, on Easter, there was

(08:46):
a church that was gathering actually gathered on Maundy Thursday
for Maundy Thursday service. And neighbors of the church who
were Muslims blocked the roads. They didn't want any of
these Christians to come to the church. They didn't want
them to be allowed to come in and worship. Well,
the church is like, wait a minute, we've got a
Good Friday service and we're Sunday is Easter. We're going
to gather for Easter. Here's here's the good news. So

(09:08):
this is a good news story because the the police
in this city guaranteed the safety of the Christians. They
basically said, nope, you have the right to worship. You
have a church building. It is officially you know, the
government knows it's a church building. Your church owns it.
You can worship there. And so the police arranged sort
of to block the traffic and let them into the building,

(09:30):
and then also created a safe way for them to
exit out of the neighborhood without running into the mob
of people who was kind of protesting and upset and angry.
And so, like I say, this is a good news story.
This is not always how it happens, but in this case,
the police stepped in and said, yep, we're going to
follow the law. And these Christians have a right to worship.

(09:50):
And so we're going to let them we're going to
make sure they can get to their building. We're going
to make sure they can get home safely. Uh, so
praise the Lord for that, because that's not always how
it happens. Sometimes the police are sort of turn a
blind eye if the mob wants to attack. We've even
heard stories where the police were involved in the attack.
So the fact that they stepped up and said, we
are going to follow the law and protect this religious minority,

(10:15):
that's a great that's a great outcome for these believers.

S1 (10:18):
Yeah. Todd, thank you so much for that. We never
hear that story. We always hear it flipping the other way.
So thank you so much for just sharing that. You're
hearing Todd Nettleton with voice of the martyrs, which you
hear 6 p.m. Saturday evenings right here on 88.9 Moody
Radio and and Todd coming up this weekend. What what
will people be hearing about this weekend?

S3 (10:37):
I really want to encourage people to tune in this weekend.
John Weaver is a he's an author. He's a gospel worker.
He lived for a long time in Afghanistan. And so
we're going to hear about what's happening right now in Afghanistan.
The Taliban is in charge. There is a lot of
radical Islam. But I have good news. I'll give you

(10:57):
a little preview. The gospel is still going forward. The
gospel is still spreading. And John's going to give us
an update this weekend on voice of the Martyrs Radio.
And it's encouraging. It also will equip you to pray
as we kind of know what's really happening. We can
pray a lot more knowledgeably. And so just again, I
would just encourage you tune in this weekend.

S2 (11:16):
All right. Thank you so much. And remember also you
can get information on what's happening with Christians [e-mail]. And Todd,
before we cut you loose, can you just go ahead
and lift up a quick prayer for some of these
situations we've talked about today.

S3 (11:33):
I would love to do that. Father, thank you for
our brothers and sisters around the world who are willing
to sacrifice rather than deny Christ. They are carrying your
message out even when it's dangerous, even when it's illegal,
even when people are opposed to them. Lord, help us
to follow their example. Help us to be inspired by
them and be willing to have maybe a conversation. Go

(11:53):
a little awkwardly. Be willing to step forward in faith
and say, hey, let me pray for you today. I pray, Lord,
that our brothers and sisters would be an encouragement to us.
And Lord, I pray you would be an encouragement to them.
I think of Brother Chen, who is free now and
doing ministry. Protect him and watch over him. Give him
fruit for his work. I also think Lord of Pastor

(12:14):
Wang Yi, who is still in prison in China, and
his family. Bless them and encourage them today. Father, thank
you for the fact that we're part of your family
and we're connected with these brothers and sisters around the world.
Allow us to encourage them and pray for them. Allow
their stories to inspire us today. In Jesus name. Amen.