The longest journey Is the inwards

Most of the time our energy, thoughts, and efforts are flowing out --out into the events of life, the words of others, the tasks and interests of the world outside us. Sickness blocks some of that flow.

It turns our thoughts inward. It raises concerns about our own well-being. It leads us to think self-reflective thoughts, to become more aware that there is an untraveled road winding down, down within us to our very core.

It is the longest journey we will ever make, if we travel this road. And the most important. For on this road, we will discover two magnificent beings: the person we really are, and the God in whose image we are made.

Dag Hammarskjold

Lips Are Given for Smiling

by Richard Wurmbrand

Dearly beloved,

In Communist China and other countries where believers are persecuted, there are now millions and millions of Christians, despite the persecution that is exercised. They meet in secret places with joyful hearts because they believe with the apostle that nothing can separate them from the love of Christ (Romans 8 :38,39)

You should see how the persecuted Christians recite the Apostle’s Creed. They state the same affirmation of faith that we recite in the West. But where there is persecution the Creed is said somehow in a different manner. You should see how they say it.

As they begin, their faces shine and their eyes are full of joy. They say, “I believe—you, the persecutors, may not believe, but I am me. I am not you and if the whole world not believe, I believe—I believe in the one God, the Father almighty. He has made not only the earth but a beautiful heaven, and if you put me in jail, if you take away my life on this earth, I would have a heaven.”

They say, “I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ» and they finish the Creed as we finish it. I believe in the resurrection of the body and in life everlasting.”

I give you the good news that persecution and torture did not break their faith but mad it stronger. We have unknown numbers of brothers and sisters in jail, but they have kept the same faith that you have. I did not know how often you sing to the glory of God. Some Christians sing only once a week, on Sunday; others sing throughout the week.

We, in prison, sang every day and every Christian in jail had a musical instrument. The Communists were nice : every Christian, when he entered jail, received a musical instrument. Not a guitar butt chains on his hands an feet. Chains are splendid musical instruments. We could sing, “Onward Christian soldiers (clink, clank), marching as to war (clink, clank, clink, clank).”

The words of praise and glorification of God never cease. The brethren in Communist and Muslim prison pray for you. You should also pray for them and think about them with love. Do not think that they sit there in their prison cells, very sad and brooding. There is a joy in their hearts because Christ is with them.

One of our brethren was arrested. They beat and tortured him because he did not wish to denounce his faith. The Communist officer who led the interrogation said, “I am tired. We will not beat you any more. We will deport you to Siberia where the snow never melts. It is a place of great suffering. We will deport you and your whole family to Siberia.”

The brother smiled. Lips are given to us for smiling; a Christian

can smile even in moments of great sorrow. The Christian replied with a smile, “Captain, where can you deport me? The whole earth belongs to my Father. Wherever you send me I will be on my Father’s earth..”

Now the Communist got very angry. He said, “We will confiscate all your property.”

The Christian continued to smile and said, “You are free to take all my property, but I pity you because I have gathered my treasure in heaven and you will need a very high ladder. If you find such a ladder, you will have to climb and climb and climb. If you arrive there, you can take everything I have. On earth I have nothing.”

Now the officer thought he was being mocked. He shouted, “We will shoot you!”

The Christian still replied with a smile, “If you take away my life in this world, my real life of bliss and beauty will begin. I am not afraid of being killed.”

The Communist yelled at him, “We will kill you! We will keep you alone in a cell behind locked doors and iron bars, and we will allow no one to come to see you!» The Christian still smiling, replied : «You cannot make me sit alone in a cell. I have a Friend who can pass through locked doors and iron bars. No one can separate me from the love of Christ.”

That is the experience we had in jail. Other Christians and I experienced it in our jail; my wife and other Christians had it in their jail.

Alexei Kortov, a pastor who was in jail in Russia for 45 years, had also the same hope and joy.

Our brothers and sisters have learned what it means when they repeat the words found in the Creed—“I believe”

You have all passed through different experiences. Every one of you, every day, have before you different choices and decisions. Christ is purity; if you are impure, you deny Christ. Christ is truth. When you lie, you deny Christ. Christ is love and peace. When you quarrel and when you hate, you deny Christ. Do not be hypocrites. Let us be Christians who express joy to our Savior.

Let us each love Him with all our heart. We are not put to the same tests as our brethren in Communist and Islamic countries. But Christ looks to the heart. May He see men and women separated from the love of Christ.

May God bless you for your prayerful help, which we share with the persecuted Church.

Richard Wurmbrand

A Mother in Chains

By Richard Wurmbrand

Dear brothers and sisters,

I will tell you an episode from prison life in Communist Romania. A Christian pastor had been arrested. The Communists wanted him to deny his faith in Christ and to betray the secrets of the Underground Church.

In many countries today, much of the work of the church is underground. Believers have to gather in secret, hold Sunday schools in secret, and print gospels and distribute them in secret. The governments and others who persecute Christians wish to know where all this is done. As it is today, so it was in years past in the Communist bloc in Eastern Europe.

This brother had been very much tortured and weakened, but he was steadfast and did not betray the secrets of the Underground Church. Then one day the police officer, who was investigating him, called him again from his prison cell. This time the capitan was extremely polite and nice when he invited our brother to sit comfortably in a chair. He told him, "You have nothing to fear. Nobody will even touch you with a finger. I wish to discuss your beliefs with you. I have heard that you Christians believe that God appeared once on Mount Sinai and thet He gave you Ten Commandments. Would you please tell me what these commandments are? I am very courious."

The Christian was very happy to recite to the Communist officer the Ten Commandments. He began: "I am your God. There is no other God besides me. You should not bow before graven images. You should not take the name of the Lord you God in vain. You should remember the Sabbath day." Then he came to this commandment, "You should honor your father and your mother."

Now, when our brother had entered the room with the police officer, he had seen in a corner a big heap of rags. Something moved in this heap. He had wondered what it was. Now the Communist captain, who had asked him to recite the Ten Commandments, so probably God must have chosen the most important commandments. He said, "Honor your father and your mother," so this commandment must be very important.

The captain told him to look in the corner. The pastor saw his own mother emerge from the heap of rags. His mother was in chains. When he looked at her, he was frightened.

She was now only skin and bones. There were dark circles around her eyes and bruises on her face where she had been beaten. Youcould see that she passed through tortures. The captain told the Christian, "Look at your mother and see how much she has suffered. God has said, ‘Honor your mother.’ I promise you that if you deny your faith in Christ, if you tell us the secrets of the Underground Church,
tonight you will be free and your mother will be free. You will be able to care for your old mother and you will be pleasing to God."

"God knows everything. When He gave the Ten Commandments, He did not say, "Do not betray, do not tell the secrets of the church!" He said, "Honor your mother," so probably to honor your mother is more important than to be faithfull to your church. If you tell us everything, you will be free tonight together with your mother. If she dies under torture from our hands, God will reject you because God told you to honor your mother."

What would you have chosen? You can learn all the theology and all that is in the Bible and not know what to do in such a situation.

Our brother turned to his mother and asked her, "Dear mother, what should I do?" The mother in chains replied, (From the time you were a small boy, I have taught you to love God, to love Christ, and to love His church. I am ready to die for the holy Name.

Then the brother turned and told the captain, "You were very right, Captain. First of all, a man must obey his mother. You have heard what my mother has said. My mother has said that I should remain faithfull to Christ, to God, and to His church. I will tell you nothing."

The mother died in chains under torture, but she had this joy of knowing that her son honored God and honored her.

There are millions upon millions of men who do not give God honor. He is the Creator. Every day He gives sun, moon, stars, and rain, yet millions of men do not give him honor. Many of the godless governments of this world forbid the Christian religion and persecute those who practice Christianity. They teach little children to hate the name of God and the name of Christ. What pain this must be for God.

But the Spirit of God is more powerful than all this atheistic agitation. The light can shine in the darkness. In North Korea, in China, in other Communist countries and throughout the Islamic world, men and women come to Christ. We thank you that with your prayers and your gifts you help our Voice of the Martyrs
workers caryy the message of our powerful God to the most difficult places.

Richard Wurmbrand

The Value of a Man!

By Richard Wurmbrand

Beloved brothers and sisters,

Wherever the communists are in power, they persecute the Christians. You must know that in China alone, one-fifth of mankind is in the hands of the Communists. And in North Korea and Cuba, Vietnam and Laos, they also have control. They have closed thousands of churches. They have killed unnumbered Christians and the jails are, even now, used to hold religious prisoners. On top of this, Christians face terror in the Islamic world.

One day I also arrived in jail. I will tell you how it happened. One Sunday morning I walked toward a church gathering and, while I walked, a van of the secret police stopped beside me. Four men jumped from the van and they pushed me into it. They chained my foot to my hand.

Now I will tell you what was the first thought which came into my mind.

Two days before I had read from the book of Joshua and I wondered very much. In this book, endlessly repeated, are the words, I wondered why these words were repeated all the time. When you tell somebody something once, twice, thrice, that is enough. I became curious. I counted in the Bible how many times the words are written and I found they are written 366 times. For every day of the year it is written, including once for every fourth year. Therefore, it is written not 365 times. It is written 366 times.

Foe every day of the year, the Christian should know he does not have to fear.
The communists put Christians in jail. They killed the Christians; but the communists feared, not the Christians. They feared; we sang. We sang every day in those prisons which were 30 feet beneath the earth. We never saw the sun, moon or stars. We never had a Bible or any other book. We were terribly hungry, beaten and tortured. The communists torture very well. Blood ran many times.

There we said to each other, We were human and God understands if you cry in your suffering. He is God and His son, the Savior of the world, suffered and cried. He understands if you cry when your suffering is too deep. He understands if you weep and cannot stop weeping - but keep your smile and sing to the glory of God.
In communist prisons very strange things happen. Some things appear to be very tragic.

A brother by the name of Nikolai Camara was put in jail. When he was put in jail, he was not a brother. He became a brother while he was in jail. He had been a robber and was sentenced to ten years.

When he was in jail he saw there Christians and he wondered very much what kind of beings these men were. They were men but they were something else than men. They could show joy when the suffering was great. They could sing in very dark hours. When they had a piece of bread, they shared it with someone who had none. In the morning and in the evening, they would fold their hands. Their faces began to shine. They would speak to somebody whom Camara could not see. He wondered to whom they spoke.

One day two of the Christians sat down on the bedside of Camara and they asked him, Camara told them his sad story. In the beginning he had been a thief, then he stole more and more, then he became a robber. Now he was sentenced to ten years for robbery. He finished his sad story by saying, . One of the Christians, with a smile, said to the robber,

The money in Russia is called rubles and the Christian asked the robber, Camara did not understand the question. said the Christian.

Camara understood. "A lost man is a man. He has the whole value of a man. A lost man who is a thief or an adulterer or a murderer has the whole value of a man. He is of such value that the Son of God forsook heaven for him. He had such value that the Son of God was able to die on the cross to save this lost man."

The Christian said to the robber a few words which I can tell you.

Every one of you is valuable to God.

I love the Gospel very much. I love also things which are missing from the Gospel. I like it so much that some things never appear in the Gospel. In the whole Gospel, you will not find that Jesus ever asked anybody what sins he had committed. He was with drunkards, robbers, prostitutes. He never asked anybody, tell me how many sins you have committed?

When he met men who had committed great sins, he told them. I also tell you that your sins are forgiven because Jesus died for you. You have only to believe. Camara was converted. He became a Christian. He finished his term and was freed. He then became a member of the secret church in Russia. In Russia and other communist countries, there was a secret church, as there is in China and North-Korea today. They cannot gather as you can. Those who wish to preach the Gospel do it secretly.

Camara was a member of this secret church, but he was a former robber, a man without any conscience, a simple member of the church.

One day the pastor was arrested. They beat and tortured him to try to get him to tell them the secrets of the church. They wished to find a Judas who would tell them the names of the members of the church. If he had, thousands would have been arrested. They wished to know how they secretly printed Gospels and distributed them. He was tortured, but he did not tell them anything.

Then the captain of the investigation, after he had beaten the pastor so much, said. They arrested Nikolai Camara who had become a Christian. They brought him before the pastor and they told the pastor, you do not tell all the secrets, we will torture Camara before your eyes.

The pastor could not endure that somebody should suffer for him. He asked Camara,
Camara said to him, Then they gouged out Camara’s eyes. When they approached Camara’s eyes with a knife, the pastor could not suffer it. He said to Camara, You will remain blind". Camara replied, Then they said to the pastor, "If you do not betray, we will cut out Camara’s tongue".

The pastor in despair said, Camara’s last words were, Camara died a martyr’s death. It is such terrible suffering when you thing about it.

We received a picture of his tortured body. They had ripped open his belly with a knife. They had cut the soles of his feet with a knife. You see from the photograph of the corpse the suffering which hew endured.

This is a terrible sad story, but there is also great beauty in it. The one who had been a robber, understood the value God placed on a repentant soul and he became a saint to whom the angels locked with admiration. He gave his life for the Savior. We know of many such brethren and sisters in communist countries. We are proud of them and we thank you for helping us to help them.

God bless you,
Richard Wurmbrand

The Prayer of Sunset

When I was a young boy, during the War years, we faithfully observed a little ritual in our home, not from a sens of piety, but to aid the war effort. We would not put on the lights until five o’clock, . In my child’s mind this quickly became associated with the end of the day and the change of pace it brought. It became the signal for my mother to begin preparing supper, and it meant my father would soon be home from work.

Long before electricity, the lighting of the household lamps heralded the evening. In the Book of Exodus, chapter thirty, it is reported that God commanded Moses to see to it that seven lamps were lit in the Tabernacle between sunset and nightfall:

«You are to make these offerings of incense before the Lord without fail from one generation to the next.Early Christians, continuing a practive already long established among the pagans, would bless the evening light with a short prayer of praise. Soon they began to augment this very simple rite with a hymn and other prayers. But even when a regular routine of prayer was organized in the church building, the blessing of the evening light remained the pivot on which all the other ceremonial gestures revolved.

These early Christians made Psalm 140 their evening prayer, because of the phrase . Even to this day, the recitation of Psalm 140 is an integral part of vespers, the evening service of prayer. The other phrase of the opening verses, , probably urged them to restore the lapsed rite of burning fragrant spices. The first Christians had disdained the use of incense because it was connected with pagan rituals, but as the acute danger of idolatry began to subside, the study of Scripture moved them to restore the use of incense as an act of worship.

Richard Wurmbrand

Our Mission

Mission and focus
The Aid to the Martyr Churches (Canada) Inc. Charitable Corporation proclaims and practices the evangelical imperative of the Christian faith by bringing help to the poor, hungry, sick, suffering, to all those who are in need, by putting the charity in the core of our life in faith.

We send missionaries to preach in communities, churches, schools, institutions, proposing to the public to share, pray and act to bring help to the poor, hungry, sick, suffering and orphaned.

Our missionaries also bring help to the communities, churches, institutions and families. We, therefore, support the development of indigenous charity and strengthen the infrastructures of churches, especially in, though not limited to, countries where Christianity is a minority, thus contributing to create, strengthen and develop vibrant, eucharistic Orthodox Christian communities through the world.

To inform the world about atrocities committed against christians and about the courage and faith of the persecuted.

To give relief to the persecuted christian communities, to the families and to the individuals who suffered atheist oppression.

To undertake projects of encouragement, to help eastern christians to rebuild their lives and witness in countries that have suffered oppression. (Contributions are tax-deductible in Canada.)

Rev. Radu Roscanu