(submitted by a reader)
I am in charge of the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP) for my church. Using info from Safely Home we had an underground house church meeting in addition to our traditional church service. We kept the meeting place secret and people had to give a "sign" to get in, either a cross or a fish. Some ladies hand copied portions of scriptures to be read later in the meeting. Everyone received a page that was torn out of an old Bible that was falling apart. (I must confess this was hard to do, but I know persecuted Christians do this to share God's Word).They were instructed to use that as a reminder to pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters.
There were only a few chairs in the place we met so most people sat on the floor. We had a door keeper who only admitted people if they knocked three times (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). We sang to guitar music. We had people give reports about persecution (taken from Voice of the Martyrs magazine) and we spent time in prayer for our persecuted brothers and sisters. We also had a project of collecting Bibles and blankets for Voice of the Martyrs (VOM)
We concluded our service by telling about "mules" for Jesus that smuggle Bibles into lands. Our "mules" brought in the blankets and people prayed over each of them as well as the Bibles. The people who attended really felt they got a lot out of the service. I thought you might like to know about this, since the inspiration for it came from your book, Safely Home.
M. D.
