Blessed Behind Prison Bars

VOM has sister ministries all over the world, which share the stories of our persecuted family with Christians in their nations. VOM received this letter from a prisoner in the Ukraine who receives the VOM newsletter translated for his country. Even in prison, this brother is sharing Christ. He prays that believers like us will learn to love and serve Muslims.

“Dear VOM ministers, brothers and sisters! Peace be with you! The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. 2 Cor. 13:14

By God’s grace, since 2014 I have been receiving your VOM NL. Thank you very much! In it I find encouragement and support. The difficulties I face as well as my life sentence are nothing compared to the suffering that our brave brothers and sisters in Christ undergo. Every day I send my prayers to God for all his suffering children. I thank God for the honor to be a partaker in their sufferings!

We are not able to change Muslims, but we can do our best to change ourselves, to become disciplined and faithful in prayer, and become a light to them. In our prison, there are a few Muslims with a life sentence. Recently God put me into the same cell with one of them. I shared about Christ with him and prayed 5 times a day right next to him – he prayed as a Muslim and I prayed as a Christian. In Mt. 10:16 the Lord says, “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”

I read that Mahatma Gandhi once said, “I like your Christ, but I do not like Christians, who are not like Jesus Christ!” There are so many people around us, who do not know God, but none tells them about Him. We Christians, are often busy with our own problems, struggles and fights with one another. I thank you very much for sending me your materials that remind me to re-evaluate my Christian life and my values! I pray that Christians learn to love Muslims and serve them, while preaching them the Gospel of Jesus Christ by the way they live and act towards other people.

I have a dream to organize a tent camp near my house in Yalta for children whose parents are in prison, in order to share Jesus with them. I keep all the materials for kids, that were inserted into your NL, so that someday I could send them to this camp!

With gratitude and love, your brother,

Victor