From Jon Pratt — Usually when I read fiction, I do so for fun. I place this type of entertainment in the same category as attending a Twins’ baseball game. But a book I’ve recently finished, while clearly a fictional work, did not have the same effect as baseball. Randy Alcorn’s Safely Home (Tyndale 2001) kept my attention like any well-written book, but Alcorn’s story provided insight into the suffering of our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world in a way that profoundly affected my thinking. Using an American businessman and a Chinese house-church pastor as his main characters, Alcorn describes the realities and challenges faced by the persecuted church in China as a window into the life of the suffering church throughout the world. Along the way Alcorn provides a sound theology of the wisdom and providence of God in bringing people through suffering, even when that suffering ends in martyrdom. From Jon Pratt — Usually when I read fiction, I do so for fun. I place this type of entertainment in the same category as attending a Twins’ baseball game. But a book I’ve recently finished, while clearly a fictional work, did not have the same effect as baseball. Randy Alcorn’s Safely Home (Tyndale 2001) kept my attention like any well-written book, but Alcorn’s story provided insight into the suffering of our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world in a way that profoundly affected my thinking. Using an American businessman and a Chinese house-church pastor as his main characters, Alcorn describes the realities and challenges faced by the persecuted church in China as a window into the life of the suffering church throughout the world. Along the way Alcorn provides a sound theology of the wisdom and providence of God in bringing people through suffering, even when that suffering ends in martyrdom.