VOM Radio

Sister Sara wrestled with faith questions as she studied Christianity, Islam and other religions in a years-long quest for truth. Last week, Sara shared her struggle to understand and believe how Jesus could be God—a common stumbling block for Muslims hearing the gospel message. Listen this week to hear what happened after she received forgiveness of sin through Christ—and how you can pray for her and other Christians living and ministering in Central Asia.

As soon as Sara read Matthew 28:18-19, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” she gathered her words to tell others the gospel. Her first effort was sharing the hope of Christ with her family. Sara tells how her family responded and explains the importance of discipleship resources, written in local heart languages, to train up new Christians in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Sara worked to learn how to share the gospel in her own language—and then began learning to explain Jesus’ love in other languages as well.

“People need God, but they just didn’t know it.” Sara says. It was only a short time into her outreach ministry when Sara first experienced pushback. God reminded her that Jesus faced persecution with humility and that is the model Sara tries to follow when opposition arises. Her own family’s responses to her Christian faith reminded her that she couldn’t save anyone herself but had to trust God to do the work, and to trust his timing.

When Sara reads of historic missionaries who went to the difficult places, she asks, “Why don’t we go there sooner? The harvest is plenty and ready!”

Pray the Lord will raise up gospel workers and evangelists to preach the gospel in Central Asia. Pray that, as these workers face Christian persecution, they would be faithful to Jesus even in difficulty and suffering.

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the podcast.

As a young woman in an Islamic culture in Central Asia, Sara was drawn to stories of Jesus. He was a good man, she thought, one whose life matched his teachings. But how could Jesus be God?

Sara wrestled deeply with this question in her search for truth. Intellectually, she found the Bible to be true, but she couldn’t commit to everything it said. Eternal life was attractive, but the idea that Jesus was God was confusing to her. Sara poured herself into studying different religions, desperate to figure out how she could be confident she’d go to heaven when she died.

She prayed, “God, there should be only one way to you.”

Sara loved the Bible study she joined at a local church. She was attracted by the love Christians had for each other, even being willing to share their weaknesses and struggles. Everything about Jesus and his followers was attractive to Sara.

After so much study and so many questions, Sara heard God’s voice—speaking to her in her own language. “You need to make a decision.” She knew it was God himself speaking with love, authority, gentleness, and power. Sara remembered reading John 14:6 where Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and they life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Listen to hear how Sara came to understand Jesus as the perfect sacrifice for her sin and the peace he gave to overcome her anxieties. Join us next week to hear the price Sara paid for her faith in Christ.

Never miss an episode of VOM Radio! Subscribe to the podcast.

This month we are commemorating the 10^th Anniversary of The Voice of the Martyrs Radio. This week we look back on one of the most powerful conversations ever shared on VOM Radio airwaves.

Sister Amber spent more than a decade in Tibet providing vocational training to local people and sharing the gospel. She felt God’s call especially to work among Tibet’s nomadic tribal people. Amber watched as God brought about a great ministry breakthrough: people who’d been completely closed to her message were now asking to learn more about Jesus!

But just days after the breakthrough Amber experienced persecution. Chinese police came pounding on her door. Listen as she tells how the Holy Spirit strengthened and spoke to her and how God brought Amber from a place of terror to the point of expressing Christ’s love, even to the men violently persecuting her. “I never felt Jesus so close,” she says.

God laid on the hearts of people around the world to pray for Amber, including one who drew a picture of Amber surrounded by five policemen in a room. Months later, when Amber saw the picture, it matched exactly the setting of her interrogation! It also contained a ray of spiritual hope.

Your faith will be challenged as you hear Amber’s thoughts on how the New Testament speaks of the “honor” of being persecuted; she’ll also give first-hand advice on how to pray for Christians in prison right now.

Learn how you can pray every day for persecuted Christians like Amber who are imprisoned in hostile and restricted nations. And never miss an episode of VOM Radio! Subscribe to the podcast.

Over the last decade, God has allowed VOM Radio the opportunity to bring you into fellowship with persecuted Christians and tell the stories of what God is doing around the world even amid suffering and persecution. This week we’ll look back on some of the most moving moments of the first decade of VOM Radio.

It was September of 2014 when The Voice of the Martyrs began releasing new VOM Radio episodes weekly. The first episode introduced listeners to members of our persecuted family in China. Gina, a gospel worker with YWAM Frontier Missions and Julian, serving with Operation Mobilization, told in 2015 how God was drawing Muslims to himself – even ISIS fighters were coming to faith in Christ!

By watching the JESUS Film in his Turkmen heart language, Silas’s life was forever changed.

Several guests over the years have told of being imprisoned for Christ just as the founders of The Voice of the Martyrs, Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, were imprisoned for their faith. Helen Berhane, who spent many months locked in a shipping container in Eritrea, reminds us that everything—including following Jesus—will cost us. Listen to how David Byle and Petr Jasek, both imprisoned for Christ, saw God’s purpose for them in prison as they shared the gospel, and how Dan Baumann was reminded that God could still change people’s hearts, even in prison in Iran.

You’ll hear these stories of heroic faith and also stories of faith overcoming fear, like Maria praying God would remove her fear after Cuban authorities issued an arrest warrant for her husband. God has inspired thousands with the testimonies of martyrs’ widows who publicly forgave their husband’s killers, like Anita Smith and Pauline Ayyad. Hannelie Groenewald shares how she learned that her husband and teen-aged children had been killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Also Gary Witherall remembers how God ministered to him after his wife, Bonnie, was killed for her faith in Lebanon.

More than seven years after his abduction, Susanna Koh still doesn’t know what happened to her husband, Pastor Raymond Koh. After a season of great loss, Nik and Ruth Ripken chose to sit at the feet of persecuted Christians to learn from them about following Christ in difficulty and suffering.

THANK YOU for listening to the stories of our persecuted family over the last ten years! We pray that VOM Radio will continue to build a bridge of fellowship between fellow members of the Body of Christ whether they live in free nations, hostile areas or restricted nations. What episodes most moved or inspired you during the first 10 years of VOM Radio? Share your most impactful episode.

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the podcast.