“Aelen” woke up one night
to the sounds of someone burning her house down. Thankfully, she was able to
grab her baby son and escape. Unfortunately, it was one of many hardships she’d
been forced to face since deciding to leave her tribe’s traditional religion
and follow Jesus instead. Many in her village,
including her family, perceived the change in her religious beliefs as an
offence to their culture. Many Laotians
believe Christianity is an American religion. When someone in the community
becomes a Christian, the community worries that the spirits they worship will
be offended, and that the community might also suffer ill-effects as a result.
Though she escaped the
attempted arson of her home, Aelen’s problems weren’t yet over. A little while
later, she visited her sister in another city for a while. When she came home,
she found that her father and brother had moved into her home and were claiming
it as their own. Aelen went to the local authorities to complain. She then
found out that the village headman had even issued her father a new property
deed for her home. Further lobbying for justice at the local level and even
provincial level hasn’t helped. It looks like Aelen will be forced to leave the
village. When she asked her father how he could do such a thing to her, he told
her, “Because you are a Christian.”
It’s not just young people
who suffer like this.
An older gentleman,
“Keowynn” and his wife and daughter were also recently evicted from their home,
in this case by their own son. Keowynn is a key Christian leader in his area
and he leads a church that he planted many years ago after he moved to an
unreached region as a missionary.
In spite of Keowynn’s
faithful example, his oldest son despises his parents’ faith. He also drinks
and uses drugs. Much like the prodigal son in the Gospel of Luke, his son
demanded his inheritance from his father and said that the house should be his
portion. The conflict between the oldest son and the family has been ongoing
for at least three years, and on March 15, 2017, the son finally forced his
father, mother and sister from the home.
Keowynn and his family are
now living under a roof they erected in a rice field. It’s a tough life, but
they don’t want to abandon the other believers in their community. They are afraid if they leave, the other
believers will become too discouraged and renounce their faith.
Pray: For both Aelen and Keowynn and their families. Other Christians
in Laos are assisting them, but it’s difficult to lose home and family. Pray
that they and other believers in Laos will stand firm in Christ, no matter what
they encounter.
THINK BIG.
START SMALL. GO DEEP.
Source: https://www.persecution.com/public/newsroom
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