A Pastor and His Calling
Bangalore is sometimes called “The IT Capital of India,” a tech hub where most of the world’s well-known technology companies have a presence. It was there, in India, that I heard one of the “freshest” stories of persecution I’ve ever heard, interviewing a persecuted pastor just twelve hours after he was released from prison. Peter Paul bears the names of two apostles, and just as Peter and Paul preached about the risen Jesus, Peter Paul also preaches that gospel message, wherever he is.
Peter Paul supplemented his tiny pastoral paycheck by working as a teacher. While India is a predominantly Hindu country, the slum area where Peter Paul lived and worked was predominantly Muslim, and most of his students came from Muslim families.
Peter Paul founded an after-school tutoring program to help children academically, but also as a point of contact for outreach to introduce them to Jesus. He handed out copies of the JESUS film to many of his students, and they happily took the discs home and shared the film with their families. That act of evangelism somehow flew under the radar, but his next step did not: Peter Paul gave New Testaments to about twenty of his young students.
A Mob and An Arrest
The students didn’t have shelves full of books at home, and they were very proud of the brand-new books they’d been given. But when they took the New Testaments with them to the Madrassa where they received Islamic instruction, its leaders were incensed. Why were Muslim children being given Christian books? They demanded to know who’d given the children the books. Leaders of the Madrassa saw gathered a mob of about 150, recruiting angry Muslims from three local mosques. They all went to Peter Paul’s house, arriving just as Peter Paul was finishing his morning prayer time. Dragging him outside, members of the mob slapped and kicked Peter Paul, chanting repeatedly that they wanted to kill the infidel. Peter Paul’s wife, Nirmala (alas, not Mary), tried to negotiate with the mob. She promised her family would leave the area if only they would release her husband. Peter Paul told his wife not to worry.
“I said to my wife, ‘Whatever is the Lord’s will will happen in my life,” he told us. “I did not feel afraid. I knew God could redeem me from them.” Members of the mob ransacked the family’s house, destroying everything inside. Then they dragged Peter Paul to the school where he taught, calling local police and the media to the scene of his “crime”-telling people about Jesus. When the police came, they didn’t arrest members of the mob who had just beaten a man and destroyed all his possessions. Instead, they arrested Peter Paul, citing him for “disturbing communal harmony” by giving Christian books to Muslim kids. He was taken to jail.
Faith in Prison
Pastor Peter Paul told me that while he was in jail he thought about the Bible stories of God’s children being locked in jail. He thought about Paul and Silas, singing in stocks in the jail in Philippi. He thought of the story of Peter, bound between two Roman soldiers when the angel arrived and led him out of the prison. He began to pray. But his wasn’t a prayer for rescue or release. “Whatever is Your will,” he told the Lord, “do it in my life.” Peter Paul asked the prison leader if he could speak to the other prisoners, and when permission was granted he stood up and shared his testimony of God’s work in his life…
TO BE CONTINUED…
Date: 13th January 2024
Martyr: Peter Paul
Location: India
Source: When Faith is Forbidden: 40 Days on the Frontlines with Persecuted Christians
Author: Todd Nettleton
Suffering Saturday 073
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