Kids of Courage

The previous post told about Dan Baumann, a Christian worker who was imprisoned in Iran for nine weeks. He experienced the love and presence of Jesus helping him endure the harsh treatment.

But Jesus taught Dan another important lesson. “One day, I felt God spoke to my heart,” Dan said. “[God said] ‘Dan, I want to teach you to love your enemies.’ I remember thinking, ‘No, not now, thank you.’”

Every day, one of Dan’s captors hit him, Dan was not interested in loving the man. But he felt God saying to him, “Dan, ask me what I think of him.” Dan realized that God loved his attacker. So every day, he prayed, “God, change my heart.” Little by little, Dan’s heart began to change, and he began to care for his captor.

One day, Dan said to the man, “Sir, why don’t we become friends?” The man answered, “You are crazy! We will never be friends.” Dan asked his twice more, and said, “Let’s start by exchanging names.” And he reached out his hand to shake the man’s hand.

“It was then that he froze,” Dan said. “Then he starts looking around, and then he took his hand out of his pocket and shook my hand. He said, ‘I would love to be your friend.'” The two men told each other their names.

Then the man asked, “Is there anything you want in the prison?” Dan had been living in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell. He asked his new friend if he could have a bigger cell.

“I never saw that man again in my life,” Dan said. “But later the night guards came to my cell and said, ‘We have orders to move you to a bigger cell.’ I knew that God had changed the man’s heart.”

(Source: VOMRadio.net. Edited for length, clarity, and age-appropriateness.)

To Think About
At first, Dan was not willing for God to teach him to love his enemies, but he became willing to be made willing. He asked God to change his heart, and in turn, his obedience helped change his captor’s heart.

Is there anything that you know God wants you to do that you have been unwilling to do? Will you ask God to help you become willing?

A teacher at a Christian school in Virginia recently wrote The Voice of the Martyrs and told what happened when she shared stories of persecuted Christians with her eighth grade class. “They were stunned, shocked, horrified, and moved,” the teacher said. Many openly cried as we read. One child said, ‘I don’t think I have that kind of faith.’

Do you ever think you might not have enough faith to withstand persecution?

Dan Baumann, a gospel worker with Youth with a Mission, recently talked with VOM staff about his time in prison in Iran. He was taken to prison after he talked about Jesus with Muslims. Every day, the prison guards treated him harshly, often beating him. Dan thought he could not put up with the bad treatment anymore. He wanted to give up.

He told what happened as he lay on the floor with no more strength to endure.

“In my broken state, I felt something and the room starts to shake. As it starts to shake I lifted my head from the floor. I had the normal lighting from the light bulb, but there was something very different. The room was a glorious white light, is how I can describe it.

“Then I had a vision, I have had a few visions in my life and this one was really clear. It was Jesus standing in front of me, like we might have seen in movies or in books. It was the same picture of Jesus standing in front of me, but what I saw was His face, which was filled with love, kindness, and caring. And then I felt His hands come underneath me, and I felt like God spoke right to my heart with loving words, ‘Dan, I love you and I promise I will carry you through this time.’

“In the midst of my brokenness, in the midst of me having nothing, God was still good and He met me and He gave me hope. I fixed my heart and mind on that, and with that came a growing reality that God was not only good, He was really, really, really good — like He was actually better than I thought.”

Dan was released after nine weeks in prison. He had lost 55 pounds during his imprisonment. Today he continues to serve God and to teach others about Jesus.

(Source: VOMRadio.net. Edited for length, clarity, and age-appropriateness.)