Her husband had led a secret house church for several years. One day the authorities came and arrested him and put him in prison. The pastor’s wife was placed under “house arrest.” The only time she was permitted to leave her house was to shop at the market.
Not that it mattered much: She had no money. What she did have was 7 kids to feed. She trusted God, and knew her church family would take care of her. So she went to the market as she always had.
She would wear a big loose smock with large pockets over her clothes when she went to the market. As she slowly walked through the booths, she would feel a nudge here, or a tug there, until she had walked all the way through the market and returned home. There she found the pockets full of tomatoes, onions, and other things. It was always enough to feed her and her children. Sometimes there was money in a pocket.
When the kids seemed to be really hungry, she would be surprised to find a chicken on her front step. One day, her oldest son was offered a job in a near-by village, and there just happened to be a bicycle leaning against the front door on the day he was to report for work.
These people do not need, nor want, a building full of pews in which they can sit and worship. But they know what it means to be the church to one another; they know how to care for their members.
—-from The Insanity of God by Nik Ripken
*Don’t let the title of the book throw you. It’s full of true-life testimonies of Believers from around the world who are REALLY under persecution, and the journey of a man seeking to understand why it is true that faith grows under persecution.
THE RIGHT RENDITION 