Gladys Aylward, a British teenager, liked to go to wild parties. She dreamed of becoming an actress. But her plans and habits changed when she accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior.
As Gladys grew in her Christian walk, she was saddened by the fact that millions of people in the world had never heard of Jesus. She believed that God was calling her to share the good news of the gospel with people in China.
A Pakistani girl
The following story about Parveen, a girl in Pakistan, is from the Kids of Courage archives.
“I am 13 years old, and I live in Pakistan. My name is Parveen.
“My father believes in Jesus. But when I was a year old, my mother left my father, became a Muslim, and married a Muslim man. My father remarried, and now I have a stepmother.
“I go to a Christian boarding school in a large city. In the evenings, a pastor’s wife prays with us. She told us that Jesus sacrificed for us because he loves us. I started studying the Bible every day. After that I decided to follow Christ and got baptized. I was very happy.
Pastor Wurmbrand in prison
Pastor Richard Wurmbrand was a Romanian pastor who spent 14 years in prison for his Christian activities. After he got out of prison, he and his wife, Sabina, started The Voice of the Martyrs.
In prison, Pastor Wurmbrand continued to tell people about Jesus. He told the following story to some of the inmates.
Pastor Wurmbrand’s Story
A long time ago there were two brothers. The older brother was good. The younger brother was rebellious, and he and his friends were part of a bad gang.
The older brother prayed for the younger brother, and he often begged him to change his ways. But the younger brother paid no attention.
One night the older brother sat in his room reading. The younger brother burst into his room. “Help me!” said the younger brother. “The police are after me! There has been a big fight and I have committed a crime!” There was blood and dirt all over the younger brother’s clothes.
“I will save you!” said the older brother. “Let’s change clothes.” The older brother put on the dirty, blood-stained clothes and gave his brother his own clean, white shirt and pants.
The brothers had just finished changing clothes when the police arrived. They had chased the younger brother from the fight and finally caught up with him. But as soon as they saw the older brother in dirty clothes, they arrested him, believing he was the criminal.
The police took the innocent brother in dirty clothes before a judge. He told the judge, “I take responsibility for the crime.” The judge had all the evidence he needed: the police report, the bloodstained clothes, and a confession. He sentenced the older brother to prison for life, and asked if he had anything to say.
“Yes,” said the innocent brother. “Please give my brother this letter.”
As you celebrate Thanksgiving this year, remember the Christians in the following story from a Thanksgiving in North Korea a few years ago.
Elizabeth, a North Korean Christian, joined with a few other believers for a worship service. She noticed one child in the group whose shoe was torn open. His foot was frozen. His family did not have enough money to buy new shoes.
The house had no heat. Sometimes the family skipped meals for many days in a row because they had no money for food. “The food problem is worse this year,” a North Korean Christian said. “And it was really bad last year.” Bad weather has destroyed food crops in North Korea. Also, government leaders do a poor job of getting food to those who need it. Many people are poor, hungry, and sick.
Prison cell in Asia
The following story is from the Kids of Courage archives.
Silas was in prison. His cell was about 66 feet long and about 16 feet wide. Fifty-six other men lived in the cell with Silas.
“We slept on cement platforms,” said Silas. “In the morning we ate nothing. At midday and in the evening we ate rice. This rice was cooked from moldy, rotten rice. The bowls were never full, and after a few mouthfuls it was gone.”
Silas was arrested because he took part in a protest to bring attention to the problems of some ethnic groups in Vietnam. In free countries, it is legal to protest in public. But Vietnam is a communist country. Government officials can have people arrested for protesting in public.
The ethnic groups want the freedom to worship the God of the Bible. Vietnamese leaders do not want Christianity to grow among the groups. They also do not want the people in the groups to be able to read the Bible in their own language.
