Dan Ole Shani, the Kenyan-born CEO of Open Doors International, brought stories of current persecution during his recent Australian visit.
Open Doors is a ministry to the persecuted church, famously started by Bible Smuggler Brother Andrew. But Shani told a gathering at the Open doors building that he was hired without reading Brother Andrews’ best-seller book.
Shani had lots of fresh news. (It would be good if there were no news of persecution and no need for this story) He introduced a story about “Artur” – not his real name – from Central Asia by describing him as a modern St Paul. It soon became clear why.
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“Artur says that, when he was praying and asking the Lord to use him in the way he wanted, his prayer once went something like this, ‘Lord sent me to a place where no one else wants to go.’ And so one day, Arthur happened to a news broadcast on television. And the broadcaster said, ‘Chechnya is the place no one wants to go.’ Shani laughs.
“Artur said, ‘That is it. That’s my calling.’ And he went and served in Chechnya. And some of his stories are almost too hard to believe, but they did happen. Okay? The miracles go on. He’s been jailed multiple times. He’s been threatened with death multiple times. Yet, the man’s resilient, spiritually resilient, smart. Arthur was never got at. God always provided for him whether he was, and when he would go into jail, he would needly start telling other Christmas about Christ in places like Chechnya, hardened people, as you know, right?
“And when people turn to Christ, the prison warden would get upset. Hey, we locked you up because you are a Christian, and now you are talking to us about Christ in jail. So they’re turning to Christ.
“He labours honestly; he’s a sort of person [of] whom I say to myself privately, I wouldn’t be surprised if one day I hear Artur is no longer alive because he’s so bold, he’s so courageous, you know, he just goes where no one else wants to go.”
‘Jimmy’
Shani was in Columbia last October, stunned by the stories of persecution from Christians he met. “Jimmy is a black Columbian, which was a surprise, but Columbia has a large group of black people. Jimmy’s Colombian and speaks Spanish, but he looks like one of my brothers, right?
“And, uh, ” Jimmy cried when he started telling us his story. He’s a 37-year-old, uh, physically, strongly built, looks, you know, macho. But he kept crying. And we would pause and wait, and he was still crying because of what he was going through. The gangs in his community, who are also black, threaten him because he’s a Christian.
“‘Stop preaching on the streets.’ ‘Stop going up with your pastor to tell us about Christ.’ ‘You’re trying to expose us and say what we do is bad. It’s evil.’
“Jimmy didn’t give up. He kept going. So those gangsters did something really evil: they took his 11-year-old niece and killed her.
“And that’s one of the reasons he was crying. Every time he thought about a life just snuffed out.”
Shani told of how an Open Doors partner agency came alongside Jimmy. After some false starts ruined by gang extortion, “this time, the business he set up is a beauty parlour. He employs a couple of ladies and doesn’t earn much from the business. He told us he earns about $50 monthly from the business. But it’s enough to put food on his table.”
In the question time, Shani explained that Open Doors is not a development agency. But it helps Christians in emergencies, sometimes with equipment, a loan, or seed for a farmer whose crop has been burnt.
Enslaved.
“I’ll tell you another story about a young man, 22 years old, whom I met in a simple African country. His story was stunning because he said he was the only Christian in his family when he became a believer in Christ. And they were so angry with him. First, they beat him. He didn’t change. He said, ‘I’m holding on to Christ.’
“ Then they decided to send him to a neighbouring country to other relatives. Those relatives were brutal because they made chains, like the old chains that were probably used in slavery, with a clasp around his ankle and chained him to a tree. They denied him food and gave him some water. He suffered.
But some persons, some believers in Christ, heard about this. They came there at night, cut the chain, and then he walked for three weeks to return home. There he was, seated in front like you now, telling us his story. He wasn’t bitter. He was, he was tender.”
Where we fit in the story.
“Shami recounts what Jimmy the Columbian told him when they met. ‘I had a dream several days ago about this meeting, I had a dream of meeting Christ, and they comforted me.’
“The comfort we get from the body of Christ. What stuns me when we sit with people like those persecuted Christians is what they say.
They say, ‘your visit here means so much to us.’
It is the most important thing because they begin to understand the concept of the body of Christ. They start to realise that you, people like you who have never seen them, can pray for them with love.
Image: Open Doors International CEO Dan Ole Shani, and Open Doors Australia CEO Adam Holland