VOMRadio

How do we start gospel conversations with Hindu or Buddhist friends, neighbors and coworkers? Tim and Dawn have a simple answer: ask questions! Tim and Dawn serve as gospel workers in South Asia, leading an effort to plant gospel seeds in countries like India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and the Maldives—countries where Christian persecution is a common occurrence. Listen as Tim shares about Buddhis...

Brooks Buser, President of Radius International , says the best missionaries smell like the local people they have gone to serve. They focus not just on learning a language but understanding and living the culture, eating local food and joining in the things that fuel human interaction in that place. Buser says just as Christ came as a human baby into this world, missionaries that last become like...

The government views Cuba's people as sheep who will blindly follow rules and restrictions communist leaders force on them. There is another group the Bible compares to sheep: followers of Jesus. Romans 8:36 says, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." This week on VOM Radio we'll hear from two Cuban Christians, each with different experie...

"You can help persecuted Christians, but they can help you more ." Richard Wurmbrand, the founder of The Voice of the Martyrs, shared this truth with Steve Cleary and it changed forever his perspective about being in fellowship with our persecuted family. Cleary, founder and president of Revelation Media , was an early staff member at The Voice of the Martyrs, including traveling to churches and o...

Ben Barrett and his wife were open to go wherever God wanted them to go. Ultimately, God called them to go on mission to one of the world's most concentrated areas of lost people – North India and Nepal. It wasn't always an easy transition, but God instilled a deep love for the people in their heart and a desire to reach them with the gospel. Ben is VOM's new Regional Leader for work with persecut...

October 7 th , 2023 is one of those dates that will always be remembered. On that terrible morning, Ben Barrett was working for VOM with persecuted Christians in the Middle East and leading the ministry's work in Israel, including Gaza and the West Bank. His phone began to light up with messages from both Messianic Jewish believers and Arab Christians—even before the terrible attacks were announce...

Pastor Andrew Brunson, author of the book God's Hostage , was imprisoned two years for his Christian work in Turkey (now called Türkiye). He says every single day was a battle to overcome fear, grief and anxiety. One who inspired him in these battles was Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, the founder of The Voice of the Martyrs. Brunson explains how Wurmbrand inspired him  to dance inside his prison cell b...

After serving many years as a gospel worker in Turkey (now called Türkiye), Pastor Andrew Brunson spent two years in Turkish prison. He was accused, among other "crimes," of helping plot a coup against President Erdogan's government and being a leader in the CIA. The reality is that Andrew was in Turkey as a missionary and pastor, working to spread the gospel. Brunson recounts how God was teaching...

Pastor Matthew is a long-time pastor in the communist nation of Vietnam. Since coming to faith in Christ he's been persecuted by family, neighbors and by police. Matthew came to Christ through the witness of an American missionary mentor. He heard the gospel message, but he also saw the life she lived and the love she showed to the people around her. He couldn't know, at the time, the high cost he...

"When people are not discipled, they are frail. Their faith is not strong." Dr. David Kasali, founder and president of Congo Initiative , is determined to disciple more Christians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a place where they are being specifically targeted for persecution by terrorist groups and radical Islamists. Listen as David tells about recent attacks by the Allied Democratic F...

Seventy percent of Sri Lanka's people are Buddhists, and Buddhism is given "foremost place" in the nation's constitution and laws. Officially, there is religious freedom for people of other faiths, including Christians. Yet new believers in Christ often face pressure and persecution from family members or their local community. Mayukha Perera, managing director of Back to the Bible Sri Lanka , joi...

Pastor Nouh Yattara was born into a nomadic Muslim family. He became a believer through the work of missionaries in his home country of Mali—and through his desire to own a ball-point pen. After living in fear of superstitions, demons and death, Nouh found new life, and an end to fear, in Christ. "I knew if I accepted Jesus that he has the power against all of that," Pastor Nouh says. It wasn't an...

"By God's grace, I endured a few years in prison in exchange for an eternity with Him." Ebrahim Firouzi, a Christian convert from Islam, spent seven years in prison in Iran. Now he is enjoying eternity with the Lord, experiencing the fulfillment of that promise following his death in February.   This interview was recorded about four years ago—after Ebrahim's release from prison while he was servi...

Last week Luke and Kate, medical gospel workers who've served in Myanmar, shared how God called them to Myanmar to share the hope of Christ. This week, in Part 2 of our conversation, they reveal the loss and devastation their family experienced as they were forced to leave the place God had so clearly called them to. "It was devastating," Kate says, "and we still sometimes have to process through...

Luke and Kate had both felt God's call to missions. But they were still waiting to know where that call would take them. They went through training. They travelled to serve in different countries. And all the while, they asked God where he wanted to send them long-term. His answer finally arrived after a 12-hour bus ride to a rural village in Myanmar where there were no other foreigners. Kate and...

Brother Job thought it would be just another day. He was walking to work at a church in North Africa when he was accosted by four men with knives. The terrorists forced him into a vehicle and drove him away. "It's my last day on this earth," Job thought to himself. Growing up in a Muslim family in North Africa, Job knew there would be persecution when he left Islam to follow Jesus. He came to fait...

There are 500,000 evangelical churches in Latin America, but only 6% of Latino congregations are involved in missions. As executive director of COMHINA , and in his previous work with Operation Mobilization Latin America, Brother Julio wants to increase that percentage! He desires to bring about collaboration between churches and missionary organizations to equip and send out Latino missionaries....

A Christian and pastor from Central Asia, Brother Silas constantly interacts with Muslims. He says many are seeking truth and looking for answers to their deepest spiritual questions. Brother Silas and Tom Houser, executive director for People International , share this week what new Christians in Central Asian nations—including Muslim background believers—experience when they become followers of...

Many Muslims are ready to hear the gospel and experience the love of Jesus Christ. For more than two decades Peter Smith has prayed for the nation of Iran and connected with ministries reaching people and supporting persecuted Christians in the nation he and his wife "adopted." Seeing the gospel go forth in the Middle East reminds Peter of the good soil that produced 30, 60 and 100-fold harvests i...

Last week, Brother Kevin shared how he came to Christ and how God gave him a passion to reach the 13 million Hui people in China. For members of this people group, to be Hui is to be Muslim. Those who become Christians are considered traitors, bringing shame to their family. Hui Christians face social, psychological, and sometimes financial persecution, typically enforced by members of their own f...

Within two months of Brother Kevin and his wife beginning gospel work in India, more than a thousand people had come to Christ! The fruit of the gospel was immediate . Local missions leaders asked them to stay on and help disciple these new believers. They saw the opportunity, and the incredible growth of the ministry. But Kevin couldn't dismiss an urge to visit China before agreeing to stay and m...

"For us, it's not AWANA, it's 'Can we disciple one more child?'" Gajendra Tamang is the Regional Director of AWANA in South Asia, coming alongside pastors and local churches to help reach and disciple children from many different religious backgrounds. Gajendra knows first-hand how a life can be changed through a simple invitation to a Christian activity. He came to faith while attending college i...

Fidel Castro, leader of Cuba's communist revolution, died in 2016. But has Castro's death changed the level of Christian persecution in Cuba? "No difference at all," Pastor Mateo, a church leader in Cuba, says emphatically. The Cuban government attempts to restrain the gospel in many ways. Yet despite persecution, the church in Cuba is growing—stretching beyond buildings and homes and gathering on...

It was four in the morning when Els Woodke answered the phone to hear the words she'd been praying for and waiting on for six-and-a-half years: "Jeff has been recovered!" The last two weeks we've shared the story of Jeffery Woodke , American gospel worker in West Africa captured by Islamists and held hostage for more than six years. Now, Jeff's wife, Els, shares her side of the story of waiting an...

"Hope is the first thing to go" Jeffery Woodke says, speaking about his six-and-a-half years as a hostage held by radical Islamist terror groups. He says he started out, after being kidnapped, praying eight hours a day. But over the years his hopelessness increased and his prayer time faded to twenty minutes daily. Suicidal, he beseeched his persecutors numerous times to take his life, knowing hea...