Yesterday...

Yesterday I went with a friend to a grocery shop across town, an area she was more familiar with than I.  With only a little pleading with the parking attendant, we were able to squish into a parking place on a street I'd been to just once or twice before.  "This street used to be full of people" she told me.  Hint, hint.  Lots of people around here had either been forced out of their homes, forced to return to their familial hometowns (where they are registered) or they had been taken into government custody.  This is usually called "jail" but most people all agree that what is supposedly going on is that the people taken are going through political education.   Still, who knows what the conditions are....

Perhaps we could call it forced education time....  but another friend just a few days before said to me "We are helpless.  Hopeless.  The government could be taking all these people- some from every family- and they could keep them as long as they want.  We fear that anything could happen to them.  We know so few who have returned after being taken.  We may never know, may never be told, if we don't hear from them again.  And we can do nothing about it."  Many people have told me that is exactly what happened when there was uprising in our city several years ago.  The official report is that about 200 people died.  Locals have all told me that well over a 1,000 people have never been seen since then.

So we parked and walked back past that parking attendant, the only way in and out, and we wanted to thank him for letting us in.  But we couldn't get through....  just to walk into a neighborhood now, turn the corner on a street, you might need to register your government id card and undergo a security check- pat down and scan.  People can be tracked where they are at all times.  And family members of people in custody have been called out before, detained and questioned, if their cards ring any bells...  We made our way through with hearts racing....

And if id card checks aren't enough, phones are being scanned too.  Everywhere.  Any nationality.  Supposedly the government is trying to make sure that everyone has installed an app on their phone that makes sure they have "clean internet" (because apparently the enormous governement supported firewall isn't enough, at least not in our province.)

But the fear is that they are swiping our phones to turn our phones into "bugs" so they can listen in to whatever we say on or near the phone.  Then there's also the very reasonable concern that they're snagging passwords (for online email setups, for example)...  Locals are all very concerned to have any religious material on their phones, but we actually haven't heard of having the U Bible causing anyone trouble.  It's just hard to tell that to people right now... when their relatives have been taken for who knows how long for being suspected to or associated with someone who may have visited an Isl@mic website... in recent years.

Please pray with us for PEACE for this land, for these people.  Wisdom and humility and softening care for government leaders in this land.  Ask with us for a gracious move of God to use this hard time just like He did for Israel:  using a time of exile as an opportunity to bring a newly humbled people into renewed relationship with Him as He desires, as He deserves.   May Is l amic or any other kind of terrorist influence be silenced in the hearts of this people and across this land.  May there be peace in hearts and homes.   May families be restored and heads of homes and whole families turn to Christ... who their culture has been prejudiced against and completely unaware of for centuries...

May your kingdom come to this land, to these precious 12 million plus people who live in darkness... Shine your light here, God of Truth, Gracious Savior....