Welcome back to our radio web blog entitled, 2012 in the Church of Jesus. This is a weekly report that's put out by Voice of the Martyrs. It can be accessed at the Voice of the Martyrs website, persecution.com. You can actually have VOM send it to your email every week. For example, when it comes to my email, I print it out, I share it with you, and then I pray for those nations and the people indicated on the report for the following week. Today we begin with Iran. A Voice of the Martyrs partner reported last week that a dear friend, an important Christian leader in Iran, has died after a long illness. Glory be to God because my friend is now in his arms and without pain, wrote our VOM partner. The man who died leaves behind a wife of just a few years. Please pray for us, the VOM partner asked, because he was our best friend, confidant, and co-worker. I've personally known him for almost eight years, and for all of us it's very difficult. In Iran, church is more of a family than a place that we meet, and we really feel that we have lost our brother. His place is so empty without him. We'll praise God for this man's life. We'll thank God for the people that he touched. through his work for Christ. Please lift up the Christian leader's wife, our partner in Iran, and all believers who share Christ in Iran. In Tanzania, extremists in the Tunduro district of southwestern Tanzania burned the homes and livestock of several Christians on September 17. One home was burned to the ground. but bystanders managed to save five others from complete destruction by dousing them with water. The Muslim extremists also burned more than 60 pigs belonging to Christians. In another recent incident in the region, the cars of a Pentecostal pastor and another believer were burned on the night of September 25. It's unfortunate to say that even though all these incidents were duly reported to the nearby police stations, no one has been arrested so far," a VOM contact said. He explained that 80% of the region is Muslim. Please do pray with us against this demonic spirit of attacks on Christians and their properties, he added. In China, Believers at Beijing's Xiaowang Church in China are full of joy despite 17 months of outdoor worship and continual arrests. The believers have been meeting outdoors ever since the government began blocking their efforts to rent or purchase worship space. During their 38th worship service of the year, 22 believers were arrested. Ten were quickly released. but the others were detained at a local police station until afternoon. Xiaowang Church has submitted an application for an official administrative review in response to the harassment and continual arrests by authorities. Please pray that the administrative review will recognize the persecution these believers face and help prompt more freedoms in China. Pray that God will use the faithfulness of the believers at Xiaowang Church to draw others to himself. And then finally today in Lebanon, pray for a bold evangelist who is working now among radical Muslims. Pray for his family and for fruitful outreach work. Of course we are withholding his name. In Lebanon, and that's one of the new countries, I told you whenever we come to a new country we will go to the Global Report of 2012, Persecuted Church Global Report. You can get this at persecution.com yourself. I'm reading today about Lebanon, since we're introducing Lebanon for the first time. Lebanon was a majority Christian nation before 1970, but war, instability, and the growing influence of militant Islam prompted many Christians to leave. With a population that includes Muslims, Christians, and Druze, Lebanon is very sensitive to its religious balance. The three largest religious groups are Shiite Muslim, Sunni Muslim, and Maronite Catholics. Eight of the 23 people groups in Lebanon are unreached by the Gospel. The percentage breakdown is Muslim 59, Christian in some form or another, sometimes in just name, but still Christian, 32%. President was Michael Suleiman. when this book went out. The capital city of Beirut is segregated according to religion. There's very little interaction between the two sides. Although Lebanon's constitution ensures freedom of religion, Article 473 of the Penal Code stipulates that anyone who blasphemes God publicly could face up to a year in prison. New converts often go into hiding to escape their families. Civil unrest and political turmoil create an environment that enables Islamic fundamentalists to persecute Christians at will. Evangelical Christians have also reported being harassed by traditional indigenous Christian groups. So the situation there is very difficult. Well, thank you for joining with me today in concern and prayer for the persecuted church. Lord willing, we will return next week at about this time so that we can keep you in touch with what deeply touches God's heart. I'm Bob. Although I'm an area representative for VOM, this is not an official VOM presentation. If you live in the northern Illinois area and would like me to come and share with your group of any size about the persecuted church and VOM's ministry, I'd be glad to do that. You can email me at diakonos3 at gmail.com. God bless you today. Be sure to check out the rest of this series and my other series on sermon audio. Bye bye.