Dear Cornerstone Family,
Last Sunday was the 2025 Day of the Christian Martyr. According to tradition, June 29 marked the martyrdom of the Apostle Paul. It’s only tradition, but this month Christians around the world remember the faithful witness of those who, like Paul, have given their lives for the advancement of the gospel.
I can never hear the word ‘martyr’ without thinking of Jim Elliot, among others. As a child growing up in Portland, Oregon, he was captured by the truth of the gospel. As a student at Wheaton College, he grew ready to give his life to a cause grand enough to demand his whole-hearted allegiance.
Jim Elliot and good friend Pete Fleming sensed a clear call to go into all the world. As they prayed their hearts were drawn to the Huaorani people, an unreached people group in Ecuador known for their violence toward outsiders. Three more would join them and together they would arrive in Quito, Ecuador in February of 1952 before moving to the jungle where they took up residence at a mission station.
Elliot and his group of four friends and their pilot made contact from their Piper PA-14 airplane with the Huaorani using a loudspeaker and a basket to pass down gifts to the natives who reciprocated by sending gifts back to the plane. That was enough to for Elliot and his group to build a base a short distance from their village along the Curaray River. There they were approached four days later by a small group of Huaorani and even gave an airplane ride to one curious Huaorani whom they called “George.” Further encouraged by these friendly encounters, in January 1956, they began plans to visit the Huaorani.
Those plans, though, were preempted by the arrival of a larger group of about ten Huaorani warriors. Jim (age 28) was martyred on the riverbank along with his friends by those he had come to evangelize. Family members would later find penned in his diary words which had propeled him forward in the face of danger, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
That was then. What about today? Open Doors maintains a World Watch List with an annual ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution. From the top 50 alone, 310 million Christians face very high or extreme levels of persecution. That’s one in seven Christians worldwide. Last year 4,476 were killed for faith related reasons. Currently, the nations presenting the highest levels of hostility in order of severity are North Korea, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Eritrea, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Saudi Arabia.
Would you join me in praying faithfully for those who are persecuted for their faith?
Your servant,
Tony