Kids of Courage

Elise Wixtrom writes reviews of VOM resources for readers of kidsofcourage.com. Enter “Elise” in the search box to read about Elise and to find more of her reviews. Read below her review of the Torchlighters DVD, The Perpetua Story. Torchlighters DVDs are available at vombooks.com.

[Preview is recommended before showing the DVD to younger children.]

Perpetua, a woman who lived in Roman times, just like Augustine,  became a Christian soon after she gave birth to her baby son. She was very young when she accepted Jesus Christ, but she became an active participant in the early church.

At that time, the Romans did not accept Christianity as a true religion. They instead wanted everyone to pledge allegiance to the emperor and to their gods. So they made it illegal to become a Christian. Anyone who professed to love Jesus was fed to wild animals. The Christians were shunned and hunted, as if they were not even people.

Perpetua took a great risk by becoming a Christian in this era. In fact, the danger of becoming a Christian was so great, the believers had to gather in homes under the veil of night. Still, the Roman army would come through the streets and raid the houses, looking for gatherings.
One night, Perpetua and her friend Felicity (who was a slave), were attending church just as usual, when the Roman army raided her pastor’s house. The soldiers arrested everyone who attended, including Perpetua and Felicity. The two women, Felicity’s husband, and Perpetua’s baby son were all thrown in jail. In the morning, they would be asked to burn incense to the emperor as a sign of loyalty.

Perpetua and her friends were afraid of what was going to happen to them in the future, so they prayed without stopping until they fell from exhaustion. As the Christians were sleeping, Christ Jesus came to Perpetua in a dream, where he handed her a cup and told her to drink. “This is a taste of sweet things to come,” he said. Perpetua knew then that she would go to be with the Lord soon.

When morning came, Perpetua told her friends about what had happened in the dream. “We will be delivered and go to the Lord as martyrs,” she explained. And they were all at peace.

When the time came, Perpetua and her friends were thrown to the wild animals because they refused to bow down and worship the emperor above God. Because of their faith and steadfast assurance that God would deliver them (even if that meant death), they became an example for all other Christians to follow. That is, they told the world that they would not back down when choices got hard. They told the Romans that they would not bow down to false gods. And they told the Church that God will not abandon you even if you feel like He has. As followers of Christ, they met their end with grace and love – and entered into a new beginning as bright as the morning sun.

Learn more and watch a clip from The Torchlighters: The Perpetua Story here.

(To protect their identities, the names of some of the people on this website and some identifying details have been changed.)

Isaac is a school evangelist. He tells his classmates about the prophets in the Old Testament and about how their prophecies and promises predicted Jesus. He shares the gospel one person at a time, telling one story at a time. And he’s only in the second grade.

In the country where Isaac lives, most people are Muslims. Christians are often persecuted, and even Christian adults are very cautious about sharing their faith. Aaron is a VOM worker who visits the country. He said, “Almost every Christian I talked to spoke in very hushed tones, even inside their home.”

The adults have reason to be cautious. Isaac’s parents, Abraham and Sarah, had to move their family out of a village because Muslim neighbors were destroying their home and threatening them with harm. Abraham has returned to the village for visits. He feels sad when he sees his broken down house and the greenhouse where he raised cucumbers to earn money to support his family.

But Abraham is also joyful, because his family has stayed faithful to God, and his son bravely tells others about Jesus, even when teachers and other Muslim adults are listening. “It’s like my son has no fear,” Abraham told Aaron.

“The Lord was telling me,” said Aaron, ‘Don’t focus on the big. Don’t focus on the large movements or big numbers of people. Focus on how My kingdom is spreading in small steps of obedience, one at a time.’ [I saw that happening] even through a second grader on the playground of the school.”

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

To Think About
Can you think of one small step you could take to advance God’s kingdom?

A group of homeschool co-op kids in Canada have created an illustrated coloring book prayer calendar. The students, ages 10 to 14, started with the daily requests from the VOM-USA prayer calendar. They then added drawings, designs, flag and map outlines, and explanations of the meaning behind their artwork.

“As the … students learned concepts that affect persecuted Christians worldwide, their drawings formed this prayer calendar so that we remember to pray,” the calendar says.

You can download the calendar to print and color here.

Thanks to the Canadian students for sharing their calendar with us!

Note: You may notice that some of the words on the calendar have Canadian spellings, and some of the holidays shown are Canadian holidays.