Join Josh Youssef, Jessica Jetton, and Olivia Davis as they share important prayer updates for persecuted believers in the Islamic World.

WIll Carlisle (00:04):Welcome back to The Prisoners of Hope Podcast, and today is a great day, joined of course, by the great Joshua Youssef, and we are joined by a dear friend, our pastor, Jason Edwin Dees.Jason Dees (00:24):I like to refer to myself as a friend of HTP.WIll Carlisle (00:27):You are a friend of HTP.Jason Dees (00:28):A friend of HTP.WIll Carlisle (00:29):Who doesn't want to be a friend of HTP?Jason Dees (00:31):Man, I just went to the Middle East with the founder and president of HTP, Joshua Youssef, and it was life changing. It really was an amazing time. Yeah, so I'm excited, Josh, to be here today and to talk about the work that ... Look, I know I just saw a thin slice of what God is doing through the ministry, but it was wildly encouraging. Yeah, I just appreciate the opportunity to be on the trip.Joshua Youssef (01:02):Yeah, well, and I am glad you were on it and I love taking people to the field. We try as an organization to communicate what's happening in closed countries, countries that are really hard to get into. For the most part, a lot of missionaries have tried and failed to get into some of these countries. And so I'm curious what your perspective is, Jason, as you entered into the environment, having seen it maybe from a distance or reading some things about or hearing me tell stories. What was it like actually seeing and actually meeting these people and getting physically close to them in proximity?WIll Carlisle (01:43):Before we jump into the specifics, what's the context of the trip? Where did y'all go? What was the purpose?Joshua Youssef (01:51):So we have field teams spread out from Morocco all the way to Pakistan, and we try to get together as a team at least once a year to encourage one another, pray for one another. We do some training in that time, but it's incredibly difficult to get these people together. You're dealing with countries that do not always get along with each other, and so visas are hard to get. A few of our people were rejected by whatever, their own country or the incoming country. So we met in Turkey. We can say that. I think we met in Turkey and I brought along some of my Atlanta team and friends to come to that field conference.WIll Carlisle (02:36):Amazing, amazing.Jason Dees (02:37):Well, I think the first thing that struck me as I was just thinking about what are my thoughts on the trip were, before I get to being with, seeing the ministry up close, was just being around your team. Your team is so well-equipped and so passionate about the work that they're doing, and I just really think you've done such an job putting together the right team and people that have a wide range of skills. So I was so encouraged by that and then just getting in there and beginning to see up close, the work. The first thing, I have a lot of thoughts, but the little Kurdish church that we went to, it was amazing to be there. Josh knows this story that I have prayed, and I had got this Kurdish prayer calendar back in 2015. I prayed for the Kurds since that time and particularly prayed even that year.(03:36):Just seeing God bear fruit of that and seeing what is happening, and here are these Kurdish people, obviously not in what could be called Kurdistan, here in Turkey, but finding one another, gathering together, worshiping God together. Even there that night, there were people that were there that were strong believers. There were people there that were seeking out the faith. And so I just feel like I saw evangelism even happening as I was there that night. And so that was one of those. Oh, man. And then of course, just seeing what God is doing in particular among some of the Persian believers, they're Iranian believers. I'd love to talk more about that.(04:22):Then of course, the great thing about going to this with you, Josh, is I got to really see ... I got to at least hear field updates from your whole team, from your field team, which it's just amazing. I was blown away by just the breadth of the ministry and the depth of the ministry. So I love HTP. I'm a friend of HTP, but I was very, very encouraged just by this. I believe in this ministry more than ever after coming back and just seeing up close, and that's not always the case with me.(04:55):I've definitely gone on mission trips where I thought I believed in this, but they just had good marketing. Then you're like," I kind of think these people don't know what they're doing," but I really feel like everybody knows what they're doing. There's clear calling. It's not that the work that they're doing is easy or is always ... It's not maybe as big as they want it to be, but there's a clear calling. They know what they're doing. They know what they're called to, and God is bearing fruit. And I just was so encouraged by the whole thing.Joshua Youssef (05:29):Yeah, I love it. Jason had told me he'd been praying for the Kurdish people. This was probably over a year ago maybe. When he told me, I was like, "I cannot wait to tell you what God's doing amongst the Kurds, whether it's Kurds in Iran or Kurds in Syria or Kurds in [inaudible 00:05:45] So when we went to this Kurdish church, all I could think about was this. Jason walks up to the pastor and is like, "Can I say some things?"WIll Carlisle (05:53):That's amazing.Joshua Youssef (05:54):And so he gets up there and he starts telling him, "I've been praying for you guys for 10 years or more."WIll Carlisle (05:57):Gosh, such a powerful moment.Jason Dees (05:59):It was awesome.Joshua Youssef (06:00):And it was just awesome to see, because as Jason said, there was even an older man there who my team were trying to lead to the Lord whose wife had already come to the Lord. He was doubting. In Arabic, they're just sharing the gospel with him. It really was this really special moment-WIll Carlisle (06:18):That's incredible.Joshua Youssef (06:19):To witness.WIll Carlisle (06:20):That's incredible. So were there any personal encounters, people, you got to know, people you got to hear the stories of, Jason, while you were over there that particularly impacted you?Jason Dees (06:32):Well, one of the cool things, help me out with the name.Joshua Youssef (06:36):Cassum.Jason Dees (06:41):Okay, so there's an Iranian Pastor, Cassum. His story, we got to go to his house. We got to hear his story. I got to interact with him. It was interesting too. Our little church, Christ Covenant, has kind of helped his church. He came up to me on the second day. I think I'd said something in the larger meeting, Josh, and he was like, "Man." He goes, "I recognize who you were. I watch your YouTube. I watch Christ Covenant on YouTube," and he was so grateful. Well, this is after I have heard his story. So I shared some of this a couple of weeks ago, but we got to go to his house. So this guy, he has a tough childhood situation, ends up coming to faith, and gets so excited about the Lord, and does what Christians should do.(07:44):The thing that I love about even hearing this is there's this instinctual ... When you come to faith, you love God's word. You love God's people. So got into God's word, started teaching God's word to God's people. God's people start growing. Next thing they know, they've got dozens of people coming from different cities and maybe even hundreds. So of course, and again, I know I guess everybody listening to this, you guys are into what's happening in the Middle East, but in Iran, of course because of the theocracy that exists there, to profess Christ is treason. It's to go against your government. You're going against the supreme leader, and so he gets in trouble for that. He basically goes to prison for treason. So he gets to prison and he says, "Can I have a Bible? Can I please have a Bible?" And they said, "Well, the Bible is the reason that you're in prison." No, you can't have-WIll Carlisle (08:44):Probably not.Jason Dees (08:46):So they don't give him a Bible. So then he says, "Well, is there anything I can do to get a Bible?" And they said, "Well, we've been wanting to paint all these prison cells, and so if you paint all these prison cells, we'll give you a Bible." So he and some buddies, they do all this work. I think he called their bluff. They don't know that they're going to do it, and so they go out and they paint all the prison cells, many days of work, and he says, "I finished all the prison cells. Can I have a Bible?" I think they were like, "Well, we didn't think you would do it, but no, you still can't have a Bible." And so they said, "But what we will do is we'll give you more phone time."(09:18):So he had five minutes of time on the phone and they said, "We'll give you 15 minutes of time on the phone." So what did he do with his 15 minutes? He would call his Christian friends outside of the prison and have them read the scripture to him. I think he started off with Psalm 27 or something. I can't remember what he started off with, but he started with one Psalm, and I love that. And then they said-WIll Carlisle (09:40):And he would transcribe it as they were-Jason Dees (09:41):So they would read the psalm over the phone, and he would just write it out. Then all of his buddies started doing it, and collectively they got the whole New Testament.WIll Carlisle (09:50):That's incredible.Jason Dees (09:52):And big parts of the Old Testament. So I just love that love for the word. So then he finally gets out of prison, and they say, "Well, are you going to stop? You're going to stop now? You're going to stop doing this." And he says, "I can't," And I love that. This is what Christians do. Christians love God's word and they love God's people. So that's why he had to leave Iran, because they would've sent him back to prison for 20 years. Now he's faithfully pastoring this church in Turkey that we mentioned. So I was just so encouraged by Cassum and just his faith and the story of this. Here's the thing. So that's what I'm saying. This guy that I'm hearing of his faith, I saw him preach. I see this guy, he's gone to prison for his faith. He is my new spiritual hero, and then he comes up to me the next day and he goes, "I watch you on YouTube." I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, please stop."WIll Carlisle (10:46):Yeah, quit wasting your time.Jason Dees (10:47):I need to watch you. So anyway, I just was blown away by this man's love for our Lord and how real [inaudible 00:11:00] is how real the Lordship of Jesus was in his life. So that's just one little slice. Then again, there's so many stories just like that of work that is happening on the field. And it's been cool too, one of the things that struck me is just the tragedy of this earthquake that's happening and the tragedy of ISIS. All of these tragedies are producing spiritual fruit to the point where it's actually made me rethink tragedy in the world.(11:36):We've done a lot of work here with obviously HTP, but also with Sin Relief. I really am so grateful for those kinds of ministries that come in in these very wounded situations. I say that kind of stuff here all the time. It's not in our strength that the Lord meets us, but in our weakness. Usually, I'm thinking about somebody that had a bad day at work or something, and they worship [inaudible 00:12:05] I'm usually not thinking about a person whose whole life has been devastated and destroyed, but that same principle applies. The Lord met them in their utter weakness and proved his love and proved his lordship and proved his mercy, and these people's lives are being changed.WIll Carlisle (12:24):That's so good. Josh, what's it like for you? This is just 9:00 to 5:00 work that your team does, is working with people like Cassum and hearing these sorts of stories. So taking someone like Jason into that and doing that exposure work, what effect does that have on you?Joshua Youssef (12:45):Yeah, I love to see light bulbs go off in other people that I have experienced. Will, you've met Salam and Samar, but they have paid a price. They're in a moderate, I would say a moderate or progressive Islamic country, but they've been to the secret police headquarters many times. They've done the get in the van, close the curtains, the lamp, the hot room with the lamp. So when they look at our Iranian team and they go, "Oh, gosh, this makes us question our own faith." I go, "Well, wait, if you're questioning your faith, what does that mean for me?WIll Carlisle (13:29):Salam and Samar, whose daughter was almost kidnapped by ISIS.Joshua Youssef (13:32):That's right. That's right. That's right.WIll Carlisle (13:33):Just the light stuff.Joshua Youssef (13:36):Maybe people talk about first world problems and stuff. Maybe perspective is good, right? It is a good thing for us to get at times. Sometimes I can get a little bit used to this and things can become kind of rote and I forget what we're doing. But it's a great reminder when I get to see it in other people, when other people see it and they turn to me and go, "Okay, how do I unpack this?"(14:06):Together, we can say, "Okay, yeah, we don't live in that environment. We don't experience that on a day-to-day basis. We're not going to go to jail for our faith more than likely. So how do we live? How shall we now live? In light of all this, how should we live?" I think it does make me more bold. It makes me want to be more bold about sharing my faith and being evangelistic and just saying, "Hey, why would I, out of fear, give up the thing that I ought not to give up, that they're not willing to give up, which is being able to communicate what the Lord has done in our own lives?" But it is a funny thing, the reaction that we have at times.Jason Dees (14:52):Well, I keep using this word, lordship, but there's this confidence that Jesus really is the Lord. It's the kind of confidence that I think is exactly what we saw in the early church. Caesar is Lord. Jesus is Lord. It's a defiant confidence in the Lordship of Jesus, and I think that in America or in a more privileged setting, I guess I could say the privilege of the West, the freedom of the West, because the decision of Jesus' lordship doesn't feel so stark, nobody's going to put you in jail if you say Jesus is the Lord, right? But there's all these subtle temptations away from the Lordship of Jesus that I think we're subconsciously making. So because we don't have to consciously decide, is Jesus the Lord of my life? We subconsciously deny Jesus as the Lord of our life.(16:02):So I think to Josh's point, it's so good to go into the context of another culture, another country where people are having to consciously decide, is Jesus the Lord of my life today? And am I willing to go to prison? Am I willing to be ripped away from my family? Is Jesus really Lord consciously? That just so erupts their faith. It so ignites their faith, and so I think that really is one of the things that I walked away with. They're confident in the Lordship of Jesus because they're having to make that decision every single day. I think that's something that we can learn in a more free context. I don't want to live in a persecuted context. I enjoy the freedoms of the West, and I think that we should be grateful for that. But am I as confident in the Lordship of Jesus in my life? And I think that's a conscious decision that we as a church can be making even in less persecuted areas.WIll Carlisle (17:07):Yeah, I love that. A lot of the way this conversation is going is similar to Nik Ripken, Insanity of God, the way he concludes the book and what he talks about a lot. It's easy to come face to face with this and then let the takeaway just be like, "Oh, I'm a sucky Christian. I don't suffer. I'm JV, whatever," and not really have any edifying effect. But rather, it's almost this weird discouraging encouragement that we can try to take away from it.(17:43):But what Nik Ripken actually points people to is sharpen your witness. This idea of Lordship, I think, is an even more helpful and broader underlying sort of idea of what we see clearly demonstrated in the persecuted church is lordship and witness and courage and all these things. Rather than just being like, "Well, dang it, I don't live in Turkey, so I'll never have a cool story like that. Jesus has got to be way more proud of them than of me and my friends," and I don't think that should be the takeaway at all. But rather, like you're saying, we have this clear example of Lordship, of trusting God of daily bread.Jason Dees (18:24):Well, because they don't have ... I know Barrett talks about this a lot, John Piper's category of strong pride and weak pride. I didn't sense any weak pride in them, meaning I didn't sense any of this, because I'm so persecuted, I am so righteous, which I sense weak pride in American missionaries all the time.WIll Carlisle (18:50):Interesting.Joshua Youssef (18:53):Yeah, don't you know what I've suffered?Jason Dees (18:55):Yeah, don't you know what I've suffered? I would never spend this much money on a car. They boast in their poverty. They boast in their discomfort for the Lord. These people aren't boasting in their discomfort of the Lord. So that proves to me that the Lordship is not this kind of self-righteousness, but it's actually a lordship of Jesus. And so I think that's one of the things that self-righteousness is everywhere, right? Even when Paul talks about boasting his weakness, he's boasting his weakness in ... I'm having to depend on the Lord. It's not that he's boasting in his weakness. He's boasting in the Lord's strength. He's boasting in a state of weakness. So I think that we boast about our weakness. I think we confused that, and I didn't sense that in them at all. It wasn't that they were proud of their suffering. It's that they had suffered and it was obvious that they had suffered, but it just made them more confident in the strength of Jesus. So I actually think that's a good takeaway. It's easy for these kind of conversations to ... self-pity is a form of self-righteousness, right?WIll Carlisle (20:20):Absolutely, absolutely.Jason Dees (20:21):So it's easy to say, "Woe is me. I'm not a serious Christian because I live in the West, or woe is me. I suffer so much because I live in a persecuted thing." Me is not the point. It's what is Jesus doing in my life where he has me, and what does it look like for Jesus to be Lord of my life right now today?WIll Carlisle (20:44):Yeah, yeah, and we even see that modeled in scripture. There's all these different cultures within the early church, and there's different cultures, worldly cultures that the early church is within. With that, there were different levels of persecution. There were different levels of hardship. There were different levels of prosperity. The point is not, how low can you go in terms of self-effacement and misery and sadness? But it's how closely to Jesus can we walk? How much rest can we find in the gospel? And then all the other noise will cancel out. In heaven, whether you lived in Lebanon or Syria or Georgia or Delaware, we won't judge one another or assess one another or ourselves based off that, but off of what Jesus did.Jason Dees (21:43):That's right. That's right.Joshua Youssef (21:44):Well, I love this discussion. I agree with Jason, the unfiltered love that these people have for Jesus, it was evident. I do think some organizations tend to deify the persecuted church and they become these little demigods. When you talk to them, they definitely don't want that, right? That's not their desire.Jason Dees (22:12):Well, and I think that's one of the mistakes of Christian missions, the motivation of Christian mission. John Piper has talked a lot about this too, but the motivation of Christian mission should be the worship and glory of God, not compassion for hurting people. Now, secondarily, we care about hurting people. We love our neighbors. If we can meet someone's need, we want to meet the need. So of course, I'm not taking away ... We talk about great commandment ministry here at Christ Covenant, but all of that is not ...(22:54):The end of that is not that this person would ... that we would show compassion for a needy person. The end of that is that God would be glorified. So that's the end of mission, is the glory of God. Again, you can cut so hard on that that you can say, "Well, we don't need to do any mercy ministry. All we need to do is preach the gospel." Well, no, the glory of God is accomplished in multiple ways. So if I meet someone's need in the name of Jesus, God is getting glory in that situation. But the end, we talked about this last night a little bit, Josh, if you go out and do mercy ministry for the sake of the people that you're doing mercy ministry for-Joshua Youssef (23:42):You'll burn out.Jason Dees (23:43):Yeah, you'll burn out. You'll become bitter. You'll become very proud, because those people will always take advantage of you. Not always, but a lot of times those people will take advantage of you. We talked about this last night. There's a situation. There's this guy that we know, and this community, because of broader cultural narratives, has turned their back on this guy who's literally sold everything and given himself to the poor. Now, the poor are rejecting him because of a broader cultural race narrative, but he's not giving up on them. He's continuing to serve this community, because it was never in a sense about the community. I love Matthew 25. When you serve the least of these, you did it for me. You did it to me. Unless you see the face of Jesus in the person that you're serving-Joshua Youssef (24:37):Amen.Jason Dees (24:37):You'll never be able to serve them with love and gratitude and mercy.Joshua Youssef (24:41):Amen.Jason Dees (24:41):You'll only really be able to exploit them for something. I think so much of mercy and justice ministry just exploits the poor for something that we want to get out of them, even if that getting out of them is a good feeling for serving them. But if you really see Jesus in them, you can serve them from a place of worship without expecting some necessary response. Of course, we're practical people. We don't want to continue to be taken advantage of.(25:11):There's a lot of layers to this conversation, but the point I'm trying to make here is it all gets back to Lordship. It all gets back to, I want to see Christ in his kingdom, in his name, magnified, glorified among the people. So yes, I do want to see these people wrapped up in the glory of God, but I'm not just here on a humanitarian mission. I'm here on a God mission. I think that's a big difference. Again, I think that's so the heart of HTP, and that's what's cool about HTP. There is, I'm going to use this word, humanitarian aid kind of things going on, but it's not about the humans. It's about the God that human beings are created to serve.Joshua Youssef (25:59):Amen. I love it. I often say this is a two-way street. Paul, in Romans 3, he uses this language of reciprocity. I'm obligated this debt. I owe you the gospel. I want to say the persecuted church is in a state of physical weakness. We are in a state of physical strength, economic strength, or resource strength. So where they're spiritually, they may not be weak, we are, I think, in the West. So there's this reciprocity thing happening where-Jason Dees (26:30):We need the spiritual strength.Joshua Youssef (26:31):I think we need their spiritual strength. We need their story. We need their testimony. We need that exhortation to go, "Oh, yeah, why are we so fearful about sharing the gospel? This is silly." At the same time, they're physically weak and they need resources at a point of weakness. So it's this reciprocity that's happening that I love to see and I want to do better at. I want to tell the story better here in the West.Jason Dees (26:59):Hence the podcast.Joshua Youssef (27:01):Yes, here we are.Jason Dees (27:01):Here we are, here we are.Joshua Youssef (27:03):We should start a podcast.Jason Dees (27:04):We should. Well, I think that's a good word. Even Josh and I and Will's a good friend, Ben Washer, I've often heard him say, if somebody's doubting their faith or somebody's in a spiritual weak moment, "We just need to take them over to the Middle East. The spiritual nourishment that they need right now is this," and I love that. That's good. He's seeing what you're talking about.WIll Carlisle (27:32):Well, that's the reason I'm in this chair, is the encountering God's work, a global kingdom outside of the southeastern version of it that I was ... It's what I considered the whole thing to be. So yeah, that's why this story is so important. It salvaged my faith in a big way and many, many others.Jason Dees (28:00):I think that's a good word, Will. If all you do, it can be very discouraging. American Christianity can be very discouraging right now, if all you're reading is American evangelical news sources. Then you'll just think that American Christians are just a bunch of political demagogues or evangelicals or that or whatever. We realize, oh, actually American Christianity is not the whole of Christianity or even the majority of Christianity or even the centerpiece of Christianity. It is a version of Christianity that has a lot of wealth, but I would not say that the heartbeat of the global church right now is the American church.(28:57):So if you start to think about that as we are not in the inner ring, I actually think that will help your faith. I don't say that to knock American Christianity. Some of the things that you see around us right now that can be disturbing on our Christianity, well, guess what? That's not really the center ring of evangelicalism or even of global Christianity. It's an external ring. Then I think that leads you to say, "Well, what is at the inner ring?" Again, Christianity, it's hard to say, "Well, what's the inner ring of global Christianity right now?" But at least you could start looking around and saying, "Okay, what else is God doing?" And when you start to see that, it's enormously encouraging.Joshua Youssef (29:42):We could spend a lot of time unpacking this. I mean, the fact that Cassum, one of the churches that really was instrumental in his faith in Turkey was started by a Korean, the Afghan Bible College, which was an online Bible college, was started by a Korean. The Kurdish church we visited, it had no real Western influence. It was a Kurdish MBB Muslim background believing first generation church. So there is this global gospel that we're seeing that doesn't necessarily have America at its center, which is a wonderful thing, I think.Jason Dees (30:21):Yeah, amen, amen.WIll Carlisle (30:23):Well, we could go on for hours, hours and hours and hours talking about all these things, but we best not.Jason Dees (30:33):I've got to get to physical therapy.WIll Carlisle (30:34):You got to get to physical therapy, so much to do and so little time. But Dees, we're very grateful for your heart, for the Kurdish people, and for God's church. We're excited to see it move forward. So for Josh Youssef, for Jason Dees, this is Will Carlisle, and we look forward to seeing you next time on Prisoners of Hope.Speaker 4 (31:00):Thank you for listening to another episode of Prisoners of Hope. Visit us at www.HTP.org. Thank you.

Will Carlisle:Welcome back to the Prisoners of Hope Podcast. This is Will Carlisle. Beautiful sunny day in Atlanta, Georgia, joined by the great, the fine, the wise President Joshua Youssef. Josh, welcome back. We have a great episode today. A great interview with a friend of HTP. The great Pete Wooding. Pete is a freelance investigative journalist. I don't know if investigative is the right word, but he investigates.Josh Youssef:He's freelance. He's freelance.Will Carlisle:Yeah, yeah.Josh Youssef:He got the freelance part, right?Will Carlisle:He's not like a spy or a detective. But he does a lot of reporting on global things and I'm going to let you speak more into... So tell us a little bit about who we are about to talk to.Josh Youssef:Pete's comes from an interesting pedigree. His dad, Dan Wooding, was a journalist in the UK and had done a lot of reporting on Billy Graham, and a lot of the Billy Graham crusades over the years. And so he's kind of a well-known figure within Christendom in the United Kingdom. But Pete and I have known each other for almost 20 years, we've done stories together on, primarily, the Middle East. And he's traveled in and out of the region to really tell the story of the persecuted church for Help The Persecuted. But he also represents a few other media outfits like CBN and Global News Alliance. So I'm really excited about this interview with him.Will Carlisle:Absolutely. I don't want to pull any of the punches of what he's going to say or beat him to the punch rather. But he has this incredible scary moment in Lebanon that he tells us about. And then a great story about a tuk-tuk driver. And so it's a really great episode. What sort of impact do you think someone like Pete has on an organization like Help The Persecuted? Why is this an important relationship?Josh Youssef:Well, I mean, for us, storytelling is so important. We want to get the story right and we also want that story to be... I mean, there's kind of a marketing aspect. We want people to hear it so that they'll feel inclined to support.Will Carlisle:Sure.Josh Youssef:But we also want people to hear the story and be encouraged in their own faith, in their own-Will Carlisle:Have doubt [inaudible 00:02:32]-Josh Youssef:... self-doubt. But so very excited about Pete being part of our team and him helping us craft that story, and shape that story, and tell that story.Will Carlisle:Absolutely. And he is an excellent storyteller. So without further ado, this is our interview with Pete Wooding.Pete Wooding:Yeah. I guess, I'm getting to the age where I consider myself a veteran broadcast journalist, I've been working in Christian media since the late '90s now. But I think I also inherited a passion for the persecuted church from my father who reported on the persecuted church going way back to the late '70s when Christians in Uganda came under intense persecution under Idi Amin, and he wrote a book about it. And he was a tabloid Fleet Street journalist. And that trip brought him back to the Lord and he dedicated his life to reporting on the persecuted church. So I've done the same, gosh, for the last 27 years, and traveled to some hot spots around the world. And more recently, getting to see the work of Help The Persecuted firsthand has just been just remarkable.Will Carlisle:Yeah, that's awesome. I do think that that's a good clarification up front is Peter does not work for Help The Persecuted, but it's like the paths have joined through that shared interest. So Josh, how did you meet Peter?Josh Youssef:I think Pete and I have known each other for at least 15 years. We would've intersected at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville. And then through various media environments, we've intersected and worked together. And I love Pete's attention to detail. And we could be in the field in Lebanon, and all of a sudden, he pulls up the... He's doing a CBN News stand-up. He's got full access to their whole Facebook page and can do a stand-up almost instantly to hundreds of thousands of people. And yeah, I love the work that he does and the detail that he brings to the stories.We had a few conversations about your trip to Lebanon and Egypt, and our team said we have to get Pete on the podcast to talk about his experiences. And so I would love to learn a little bit more about your time in Lebanon and for the listeners to hear that. What stood out most prominent to you, maybe in a broad sense about what's happening in Lebanon. And you traveled into all kinds of war-torn areas and all sorts of deep economic situations where there's just economic turmoil. What struck you most about Lebanon on your visit?Pete Wooding:I think for me, it was seeing pastors and families directly impacted by the Middle East war, particularly on the southern border of Lebanon. We got as close as we could to interview a pastor that helped evacuate a family that ended up in the Help The Persecuted refuge center in the mountains of Lebanon near Beirut. We wanted to get the full story, so we went to visit this pastor, wonderful, humble man. We couldn't believe it when we asked him to describe what it was like having a church, literally about a kilometer from the border with Israel where they're caught in the crossfire between Israel and Hezbollah. And he said, "Well, we've had to flee seven times now in the last 19 years. And we just pray every time that God will bring us back home." What a humble man. So he helped to connect this mother and her two daughters who had to leave the husband behind on the southern border.And then we went to the refuge center where she had stayed with her family there. And this was just before Christmas, one of the most heartbreaking moments where we said, "Well, what would Christmas be like for you?" And the mother just said, "Well, nothing. Normally, we'd be at home with my husband and with my two daughters." The daughters were crying, she was crying and just, it's heartbreaking when you hear firsthand, see the look on their faces when they say, "We don't know when we can go back home." So I think that was a real standout moment for me.Josh Youssef:Pete, obviously, what's happened to Israel... October 7th was a really awful day for Israel, and the fallout of that day is being felt, not just in Israel, in the West Bank, but like you said in Lebanon. There's obviously some missiles and things going back and forth between Israel and Lebanon, but what do you see as the worst-case scenario for Lebanon right now?Pete Wooding:I think it's a bit like Ukraine. I've traveled to Ukraine many times since the war started, just a deadlock. It's coming up to two years for the war in Ukraine, there's no end in sight. And you're seeing it escalating further afield in Iran, and then you're seeing it in Pakistan, crossfire taking place. And so I think that's the greatest concern... This could go on for years, and there'd be many more families... We spent time with having to flee, never knowing when they can go back. So I think that's the hardest thing for war is just when you know there's no end in sight.Josh Youssef:You had an incident when you went down to the southern border with Hezbollah. You want to talk about that?Pete Wooding:Yeah, sure. I guess, the journalist in me just gets into that mode sometimes. And we thought, "Let's really try and see the reality of this and get as close as we can to the southern border." But it was just too dangerous to head south, so we went to the eastern border with Israel. And suddenly, we realized we're in a Hezbollah-occupied community because we're seeing their flags everywhere. And our pastor, who is just completely fearless, you've interviewed him before, Pastor Amin, who heads up, helped the persecuted in Lebanon. When he was getting nervous, I was getting a bit nervous. And our cameraman was getting nervous, and our driver, but we wanted to get as close as we could, and I wanted to do a piece to camera to be able to say, "I'm on the border with Israel. This is where the fighting has been happening."And at the moment that we start filming, we start to hear explosions. Now, this was a bit unnerving because Pastor Amin and our driver decided to park 200 yards up the road in case something happened. But when they heard the explosions, they said, "We just need to get these guys out." So I still have my microphone on, I'm still holding the tripod, and we run to the car and shut the door. I'm still folding the tripod up, within seconds, as I close the door, a vehicle comes up next to us with seven men in it and starts questioning the driver, "Why are you here?" 'Cause they're speaking in Arabic, I don't know what they're saying. But as we pull away, the driver says, "That was Hezbollah."Will Carlisle:Wow.Pete Wooding:When you're in that moment, you don't quite realize the reality of it. I said, "What would've happened to me?" They said, "Well, they hadn't seen you, the windows were tinted. Nothing happened. God protected us." But they could have kidnapped me being a British citizen, held me for ransom.Will Carlisle:Wow.Pete Wooding:And so I was a bit in shock. And then we went from there to the Help The Persecuted refuge center, we wanted to get some more footage. And went on the Help The Persecuted team call, and Josh was there, and I think it had just hit me what had happened. And I just started crying and Josh said, "Welcome to Help The Persecuted. You've been baptized in tears." And it was just one of those moments. I waited 'til I got home to tell my wife what had happened. But it's just one of those things. A story to tell the grandkids, I guess.Will Carlisle:Gosh. Well, I almost traveled with Josh this year overseas. So now, I know to double check that before I hop on the plane.Pete Wooding:Yes.Josh Youssef:We've all had those moments where we ask our team, "What would've happened?" And then they tell us, and I think, "Oh, maybe we should have talked about this before we went to this place." But I'm glad you're safe, Pete.Pete Wooding:It helped me to get an understanding of when your life is in danger, because I think another standout moment on that trip is we went to a safe house up in the mountains that was run by Help The Persecuted. Went to two safe houses. First of all, interviewed a Muslim-background believer who had fled Iraq. And when you hear it, they tell you face to face. I've heard these stories for years when their life is in danger, but when it's their own father and their uncles that are threatening to kill you because you've come to Christ. So this brother fled to Turkey, but wanted to go back and rescue his children and his wife. When he comes back, he realize that his own father and his uncles had tortured his wife. And through a series of miracles, he gets out to Lebanon, and he was staying in a Help The Persecuted safe house.But on top of that, Help The Persecuted got his brother out. And so we had a wonderful moment where we were with the two brothers together, with the family. But when I asked the first brother, "Was it worth it?" He just broke down in tears. And sometimes when you're interviewing people, I've been in this position.... When they get emotional, I don't normally have that effect on people making them cry. You feel a bit uncomfortable, but you also want to tell their story. So we sat there, it felt like 10 minutes, it was probably about 30 seconds. And I said, "Well, why was it worth it?" And he gave it an incredible answer that, "For the sake of Jesus. That we've gained Jesus even though we've lost everything." And that was an amazing standout moment for me to see the safe houses, see that their lives were saved, and to see this family back together.But again, the long-term part of it is even more amazing that despite everything he's been through, he wants to go back. Most of them want to go back home, start churches. He prays every day that his family will come to Christ. So that just sums up the incredible brothers and sisters that are in our family in this region of the world.Will Carlisle:Wow.Josh Youssef:Well, you came back home and then you went back to the region into Egypt. And I'd love to hear a little bit about that experience. You had sent me a video of a young man, or maybe not so young man who we had helped, who had a tuk-tuk. Maybe tell us a little bit about that story 'cause he's got a great testimony.Pete Wooding:Oh, my [inaudible 00:14:28]. I love Turkish coffee and I love just chatting to people. And we sat outside on this roadside cafe and drank Turkish coffee and heard this brother's incredible testimony. And again, I've heard this for years about Muslims that have dreams about Jesus and this man did. He had a dream that he was going to drown, and that Jesus was going to rescue him. And then not much later, he's helping fix a car and the chemicals come out the car and blind him. And his doctor thinks he's going to be blind for life and he's preparing for that. But through a series of miracles, he's healed. Isn't that God's grace that he ends up being a tuk-tuk driver? And so we rode in his tuk-tuk that Help The Persecuted bought for him and did a story on that. That's going crazy on Help The Persecuted Facebook, it's had about 22,000 views if you guys get a chance to watch it.Me riding in this amazing guy's tuk-tuk. We couldn't show his face. But he showed me pictures of his family and just said, "Look, what you did for me. I can feed my wife and my children." When you see the pictures of the family and see the difference of Help The Persecuted's Enduring Livelihood project is what it's called, was just incredible. We saw examples of that in another place in Egypt with a man that Help The Persecuted start a laundry business. He'd been a factory worker. When he came to Christ, they fired him, and he said, "I felt like a slave in that factory. But now, you've given me freedom, not just physical freedom to have my own business, but spiritual freedom because I've gained Christ." And he was ironing... I guess, one thing I hate doing is ironing. But he loved doing his ironing and sewing. It was just in this little alleyway, but gosh, his face was just a beaming.That's another video that's on our Facebook page. If you get just to see the smile on this man's face. And then we went to one of the poorest communities in Egypt where Help The Persecuted is being able to provide 20 sewing machines for women to help start businesses for their families. And this place was going like back in time. People riding on donkeys everywhere, I got to sit on a donkey carriage and it's like... And I was the only Westerner in the whole town, I felt like the Hollywood celebrity in this community. But to go into the homes and see these sewing machines and how much that's changed their lives. But also, we went to a church service and to see the spiritual hunger of the people there as we delivered emergency relief kits to these families. And there's something about Arabic worship that just gets to your soul to hear them singing, particularly when it's a Christmas song that you recognize was just so powerful.Josh Youssef:I wonder, Pete, you've talked about the civic death that takes place in the life of a believer, particularly a convert where the society says, "Okay, you can no longer have a job." Or "You can no longer have your inheritance or a home." Or "We're going to deprive you of these things." When you see this kind of persecution at that civic level and then also even just at the physical level where people are being killed or people are being tortured, what does it do for you and your faith? How does this impact you and your relationship with Jesus?Pete Wooding:I think it's two things. First of all, it's just incredibly humbling. I live in the UK, and we get a bit concerned 'cause it's been snowing this week, it's been really cold. It rains a lot here, it's a bit uncomfortable. But I live a very comfortable lifestyle, and so I always find it incredibly humbling. What can I complain about? The freedom that we have to worship, to pray, to share the gospel publicly, we take it for granted. So I think that's the first thing. I think the second thing is that they're the friendliest people I've ever met in Lebanon and Egypt. We arrive in this village and start filming them on my phone, and you think they're going to be a bit suspicious, but they were so warm and friendly. I mean, it helps if you learn a few words. So I probably have about four Arabic words I've learned so far, but if you say, "Marhaba," like hi, they just love that.So that's the other thing is that I'm from a completely different world. I'm a middle-class, middle-aged journalist in the UK, and yet when you get to sit with these people, I have Turkish coffee. I know I talk about Turkish coffee a lot but I love it.Josh Youssef:I love it.Pete Wooding:But just to sit with these brothers and sisters, you realize we are all family. And they become your friends and it becomes very personal to you then. I know I'm supposed to be an objective journalist, but I'm a bit of a softie, I guess. I'm a nice journalist.Will Carlisle:It seems like entrepreneurship is a big pillar in these persecuted communities. And I imagine that a lot of that is connected to segregation against Christians in these marketplaces, in these countries. So yeah, what is the, I guess, effect of being able to start a business? And it looks like a lot of persecuted church work is helping these people start businesses. Is that an accurate understanding?Pete Wooding:Oh, very much so. They just want that opportunity. If you give them the tools, that's all they need to get started. They're so hardworking. We visited one pastor who's got a Christian bookshop. And he was so proud to show us around his Christian bookshop, his family help him run it. And yet, outside of that was a rubbish dump, you call it trash. Young boys were picking out, salvaging stuff, and it just broke your heart. And yet, in this Christian bookshop that they've started themselves as a pastor, that's got hardly any resources. He was showing us Christian literature for children that he uses. He's known as the street evangelist in his community, and he's just so creative in sharing the gospel but having this Christian bookshop. So yeah, they're very hardworking.I remember another moment where we did a winter relief distribution for about 400 Sudanese refugee families that have fled to Egypt. We got there a few hours earlier and heard some incredible testimonies. And one of them was Sudanese refugee that came to Egypt around 2017, and just had a heart to start a church. And Help The Persecuted bought in the keyboards, his first musical instrument to start his church. It's now a thriving church of 150 people. So a pastor like him is also very entrepreneurial, just starting a church from scratch. But Help The Persecuted gave him those tools to get things going, and he proudly showed us the pictures and videos on his phone of his church.Will Carlisle:Wow.Josh Youssef:Will, I figured you'd appreciate that. The keyboard that was given to him as a musician.Will Carlisle:Oh, yeah. I love it.Pete Wooding:I think another aspect of that entrepreneurial spirit... Hard to say that word, isn't it?Will Carlisle:It is.Pete Wooding:Is to go to the Seeds of Hope Farm. Now, that's where we had our Maida juggling competition, Josh, last year. The Seeds of Hope Farm. Josh has the secret gift of juggling Maida as you call them. Tomatoes, we call them. But it was incredible to see that since the war began, they are doubling the size of that farm. When we got to visit the land, it's incredible to see this piece of land, and we got some great drone footage of this new piece of land where they're going to double the size. And it's going to enable them to feed a thousand families every month, it's incredible. But to go and see that was incredible. And we got a wonderful interview with the farm engineer, and he just said that "This is just God's tool for us to help minister to the families. This is a bridge into the community to feed them."But you imagine Lebanon was already going through desperate financial economic crisis, but the war as the same in Egypt has just added to that financial crisis. The price of vegetables and fresh fruits, I think has at least doubled in price. So I can't wait to see once they complete the extension of the Seeds of Hope.Will Carlisle:Well, it was a great, great privilege to sit down and spend time hearing from Pete about his encounters, his time with Help The Persecuted in the Middle East. Josh, what are your thoughts, takeaways?Josh Youssef:Pete's been around the world. He's seen war zones, and he's seen all sorts of sadness, and triumph, and all kinds of things. But I have been so excited to see his faith grow as a result of his experience with the persecuted church, and you can hear that in his voice.Will Carlisle:Amen.Josh Youssef:So super thrilled about our relationship with him, and glad he got to share with folks.Will Carlisle:Amen. Amen and always just such a great reminder, it's why we do this podcast. This idea, it's part of the priesthood of believers that our perspective being broadened by other Christians who are in different contexts than us, whether it's Pete Wooding or someone living in Lebanon or beyond, that will deepen our faith and make us stronger. So I hope that you were as edified by our conversation as we were. For Joshua Youssef, this is Will Carlisle, and as always, we invite you to join the great work that God is doing through Help The Persecuted by going to htp.org/give. That's htp.org/give. We'll see you next time on Prisoners of Hope.

Will (00:00):Welcome back to the Prisoners of Hope podcast. This is Will Carlisle, and I'm joined as always by the great, the illustrious, the loved Joshua Youssef.Josh (00:14):Great to be back. Happy new year.Will (00:15):Happy New Year. Happy New Year. It's January. It's the first Prisoners of Hope of the year. And so today we're just going to have a little bit of a state of affairs conversation about the persecuted church, about what 2024 feels like globally for the persecuted church and help the persecuted vision for the year and kind of down into the nitty-gritty personal side of the ministry that is happening. So one of the things that is sort of like a topic of conversation within this fear is that persecution seems to be increasing and Islam seems to be on the rise in parts of the world, and that can kind of come with a whole host and plethora of opinions and hot takes and whatnot. So Josh, what are your thoughts on why is persecution increasing? Why do we seem to be seeing the things overseas that we are seeing? Yeah, what is your takeaway?Josh (01:24):Well, we're looking at two different things. One is the growth and advance of Islam and the growth in advance of the church, the growth in advance of conversion. And so when you look at the last 1400 years since Islam, you have only... Let's say prior to the 1980s, you have only really a handful of conversion moments within the Islamic community. You have stories about William of Tripoli and others who were around the crusader time in places like modern day Libya and Turkey and stuff, where there were instances of Muslims coming to faith in Christ. In fact, I think in modern day Libya, there was an account of about a thousand Muslims coming to faith in Christ. Now, we don't know whether they were genuinely preached the gospel and that they converted, or was it that there was in this battle, they felt like, okay, let's join the other team.(02:28):We don't know. But when we look at the 1980s, '90s, 200s, we have seen... And I'm writing about this for reform theological seminary, we have seen a movement of conversion from Islam in mass numbers. We're seeing even a phenomena of things that make us in the reform camp very uncomfortable, like dreams and visions of Jesus. And so you have this growth and advent advance of Islam, but you also have this growth of the church. You have more converts today than we've ever seen. And I've said this repeatedly. I go around and ask pastors all the time, pastors in Morocco, pastors in Iraq, pastors in Syria, "How many converts did you know..."(03:14):Even know, not just have you heard of in the 1960s and '70s. And they would say, "We don't remember any of that." And they would say, around the nineties and two thousands, we started to see more. And I talked to one pastor in Iraq, and he said half of his church are converts from a Muslim background. So you have this advance of Islam, which is a very honor, shame culture, does not respond well to conversion and leaving the faith. And you have this growth of the church. And what it is, it's basically two trains kind of colliding, and that's the persecution.Will (03:47):Yeah. Yeah. It's helpful for me to think of this through the lens of spiritual warfare rather than just a tug of war kind of match. I've been watching a Band of Brothers recently, the amazing World War II miniseries. And one of the things that's fresh on my mind because of that is war is really messy and painful to watch. And it's not like, "Oh, this side is clearly winning all the time without any casualties, without any struggles, and this other side is receding." But there's this give and take, and there's a million different angles that all tell different stories. That's the story of World War II.(04:35):And scripture clearly talks about these sorts of matters as spiritual warfare, these unseen forces that we see come into play in these dreams and visions and all this spiritual activity, some of which we've covered on this podcast. And so I think that what you're saying is a great reminder to not be easily shaken, but to actually be reoriented towards this is warfare and both sides are trying to make advances. We know who wins in the end. We know the name above every other names, but as there's advances and rises in persecution, that is only a side of the story, but we know who wins at the end. So given though that persecution is increasing, what is HTP's plan and what are you doing to respond to this shifting climate?Josh (05:37):Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, we feel called to rescue and restore and rebuild people who have essentially gone through a very difficult situation, a very challenging situation where their livelihood has been taken from them, their inheritance has been taken from them. In some cases, their life has been taken from them, and then they were the provider for their family. And so we have to provide for the family that's left. And so how do we support a beleaguered church, a struggling church, a church that is what I would call weak in the physical sense. I don't think they are spiritually. They're actually stronger than us spiritually, but they are weaker physically and in a social fabric sense. And so that was what we aim to do, is to support a church that is weak and that can survive and with the goal to survive a dry climate, if you will. Not a literally dry climate, but a spiritually dry climate. And so we want to see a church that's flourishing in hostile lands, and that oftentimes does take a practical turn for us.(06:50):We have to sort of treat these people as a whole person spiritually and physically. When they lose their job, we need to help them find a job or create a business. When they are kicked out of their house, they need practical roof over their heads. They need a safe house. And so those are the day in and day out tactical things that we do. Now, strategically, we're looking at Libya. We just recently brought Yemen online. That's going to take some time to get fully onboarded, but Libya is in the future. Afghanistan's still in our sites. We think we have a solution there. And Libya is one of those places that I've been doing ministry in and out of the Middle East for over 20 something years. And every conference that I would go to, people would say, "We can't find anybody in Libya." Libya has just always been a drought place, and we think we have a bead on the right person or persons. And so that's a country that I think really needs the gospel. It's an unreached country for sure, but we also know that there are believers there that need support.Will (08:01):Yeah, that's awesome. There's two things in play there. It's like some of it is as daily life and tactical as job hunting aid or daily provision, but then also this high level globalistic, looking at these different countries and the political and spiritual climates and ramifications. So there's a lot going on there and a lot it sounds like, to be excited about for another year of this ministry that you are doing. For you, Josh, personally, what are you most excited about? And maybe you can speak collectively for your team for 2024 and these new prospects and all the work that's going on. What are you most excited about for this year of ministry that you are looking at ahead?Josh (09:01):Yeah, I mean, we are actually gathering as a team this year, the whole team, almost Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, I mean, all of us coming together. And so I'm super excited about that. We don't get to do that very often. A lot of things are done through Signal and Zoom and calls, WhatsApp. So it's good for us to be together. That's like what we're really looking forward to. And then there's just this desire that I have for us to go into these countries, Yemen and Libya, and get into find a solution for Afghanistan. So those are the big things that I'm dialed in on.Will (09:52):What is all staff, HTP home team gathering? What are you going to do? What's the plan, hope, dream?Josh (10:03):The Middle Eastern culture is so warm, it's so kind, and there's just a lot of warmth when we all come together. And they often talk about in the Middle East, they talk so close to each other, you can smell each other's breath. And sometimes that can make a westerner very uncomfortable. But for me, having some Middle Eastern blood in me, I sometimes feel like I'm at home when I'm with the group and there's lots of laughter. There are a ton of tears. And just hearing from my own teams, look, they're helping people who are struggling and they themselves are struggling. They're struggling with the same kind of things that we deal with in the West in terms of just day-to-day life. But then they are also being chased down by secret police. They're having to navigate truth. How do they tell the truth and not be shrewd about certain things they can say and can't say to certain people? They're constantly living under the thumb of either a state dictatorial regime or being watched by other family members who are suspicious of their own situation and what they're doing.Will (11:17):Yeah. Gosh, that's amazing. When is that all team gathering going to happen, or is that-Josh (11:23):Early February. We'll say early February in an undisclosed location.Will (11:27):I like it. Yeah. Well, that's definitely something to be praying towards for all of us, for some refreshing time for everyone. What else, as you look forward into 2024? For the avid HTP prayer warrior, what are the big picture? A lot of us get the prayer report every week, which it's amazing and well put together and has these... It's very granular. You can kind of get into the stories of these people that HTP is helping. But looking at 2024 on a whole, where should people be directing their prayers? Where should I be aiming those big picture prayers for help the persecuted?Josh (12:15):Well, it's good. I mean, each country has their unique set of problems. But I will say that Lebanon is one of those countries that needs our prayer. It's such a pivotal country for us because it's critical to... It's what I call a fallback country. So you have converts in Syria who are really running for their life, truly running for their life, or converts from Egypt or converts from Iraq. Lebanon is our easiest country to get people in as far as visas and as far as the number of safe houses that we have and the structures that are there. So we need to pray for Lebanon that it would remain free of war. And the economic situation that's impacted Lebanon is just awful. So we've expanded the size of our farm. We've set up a refuge center, and so these are things that we need to be praying for Lebanon.(13:08):It's this foundational block country block for us. Somebody asked me, "Well, what happens if Lebanon falls?" And the answer is at that point, I don't know. I mean, Turkey's kind of an option, but not really. Not for more middle Arab centric people, but for Persians it is. So these are things we need to be praying for. We started these ministry teams in Lebanon, and they've been doing great personal discipleship and personal ministry, and so we want to start doing that, those kind of care teams in other countries as well. And so pray that we would find the right people who are committed to evangelism and to that ministry shepherding aspect.Will (13:58):Absolutely. This is going off script a little bit, but I'm curious. I'm sure other people are. Obviously, one of the hottest topics of conversation right now is the war in Palestine, the Israel-Hamas conflict. We only see the tip of the iceberg, which is the outright tension between this group, Hamas and the state of Israel. But I would assume that that has tentacles that run deep into the climate of the Middle East. So is that affecting the work of HTP?Josh (14:39):I pulled up this tweet from a friend of mine, Robert Nicholson, and I've known Robert for years now. He's up in New York and does some writing. He's written for Wall Street Journal and Atlantic, I think. And Robert tweeted this out, and I sent it to my team. I said, "Finally, somebody's written something I've been thinking, but I didn't know how to articulate." But he said, "Middle Eastern Christians come in two flavors. One is brainwashed by Arabist and Islamist propaganda and thinks that Israel is their enemy. The other knows that the people trying to destroy Israel want to destroy them too." And if I'm honest with you, Will, this is a challenge that we're dealing with as an organization... Not so much as an organization internally. I think we are all pretty uniform, but certainly what we're dealing with in the broader Christian world... And I say Christian. I actually think a lot of converts who've left Islam understand this better than those who were born into a cultural ethnic Christian background like a Coptic Christian or a Maronite Christian or whatever.(15:52):Their identity has been so rocked and so broken up. The soil has been so broken up of Islam that they no longer have this loyalty, this blind loyalty to Palestine in the sense of... Again, I'm talking more like Hamas. I have very sensitive feelings about Palestinians in general. I lean more towards their plight in some ways. But in terms of this, Israel is evil and has done these heinous things, and they're killing babies and all this kind of stuff, it's just rooted in reality. And so some have, unfortunately, I think blindly adopted this notion that Israel is evil. And again, they are a nation that... They do wrong. I mean, they make mistakes. But I don't think at their core, when you look at the makeup of their government and the makeup of their people, they're not a capricious people, generally speaking.(16:56):And look, there's some the wonderful things that Israel has done. You've got Arab Christians who are members of the Knesset. You have Arab Muslims, you have Jews. You have a very diverse... Not very diverse, but a diverse group of people representing different ethnic groups from within Israel in their government. And so I would just say that some of this has clouded the way in which we view the world, in which we view the region, in the way we view evangelism and our call. And so I suppose my call to my staff and my team has just been, "We do need to keep the gospel central to what we do. We don't need to be defending nations and defending political parties and so forth." But at the same time, I am calling them to ask questions around this issue of truth. What is the truth? And I'm not shy about that. We shouldn't be shy about having open discussions about these things.Will (18:06):Yeah. Absolutely. As we start to wrap things up, one of the greatest things we can do in this podcast is to highlight some of the stories of these Prisoners of Hope, the namesake of the podcast, the people who seem like they're exiles and captives in the world. And yet in reality, the only thing that they're held captive by is hope, that all will be restored, all will be well. So who are some of these Prisoners of Hope that your team has been meeting with recently? Do you have any one or two just kind of like stories on the top of your mind that jump out as that hope in play in the lives that you're interacting with?Josh (18:54):Yeah. Our team just came back from Egypt, and they did this story on one of the cases that we funded. It was a gentleman who was a Muslim from a Muslim background, had lost his vision due to a battery exploding. And he believes that the Lord miraculously healed him. And he came to faith in Christ, and his family immediately took away his inheritance. They kicked him out of his home, and then the community around him realized what had happened and prevented him from working. And so we were able to buy him this little tuk-tuk, and this is how he makes money. He drives people around Cairo in this tuk-tuk. And my team was saying that his smile was just radiating joy, radiating hope. So here was this man who's lost everything. He's lost his family. He's lost the love and admiration of the community, and yet he, he's got Jesus, and he's got his tuk-tuk.Will (20:01):And he's got his tuk tuk. I love it. I love it. That's awesome, man. That's awesome. Well, it's great to look ahead and see all the work that is to be done. So maybe to close, Josh, could you just say a prayer over 2024 and all these things that we've been talking about and [inaudible 00:20:22] that we can mimic in our own prayer lives?Josh (20:24):Lord, we commit this year to you, 2024, that we would not make flippant New Year's resolutions. But if there is one, Lord, it would be that we would stay ever close to you, or we pray for those who are suffering for their faith, that they too would be drawn closer to you, that you would use HTP, Help The Persecuted in a way that shields our brothers and sisters and protects them. But together, Lord, that they would be drawn closer to you in the East, and that our brothers and sisters here in the West also to Lord through that suffering, through the story of their suffering would too also be drawn closer to you. And that's our prayer in Jesus' name.Will (21:14):Amen. Well, thanks for listening to Prisoners of Hope. For Josh Youssef, this is Will Carlisle. And if you would like to support the work of Help the Persecuted, please visit htp.org. That's htp.org/donate. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Prisoners of Hope.Josh (21:37):Thank you for listening to another episode of Prisoners of Hope. Visit us at www.htp.org. Thank you.

Will Carlisle (00:00):Welcome back to the Prisoners of Hope podcast. This is Will Carlisle, and I'm joined today in studio with the great Joshua Youssef, President of Help The Persecuted. Josh, we're dangerously close to the end of 2023, which is wild. And it's been a big year for Help The Persecuted and a lot of great work has been done and a lot of lives impacted by the work that you guys are doing.(00:35):So one of the things that your organization has been involved with and are raising funds for is this winter relief project. So for those of us who know little to nothing about it or who know a lot about it, what is that and how has HTP been involved in that relief process?Josh Youssef (00:58):Well, Will, a lot of people don't realize that it gets cold in the Middle East in the wintertime. People think of it as desert. They think of it as arid and warm, but actually the winters can be very bitter. They can be bitter there. Some of the most bitter cold I've ever experienced were places like Lebanon and Egypt. And so what we're dealing with is not only frigid temperatures, but we're dealing with huge, massive economic crises. Lebanon, I think I've said this before, is according to World Bank, one of the top five 100 world crises of the last a hundred years, so it is one of the worsts crises. And so Syria has been over a decade of civil war. And so when our teams come to us, they say, look, we want to do something for these people for the Christian population.(01:51):But there's also another component to this, and it's hard for us to understand in the West, but in the East you do have some ability for the above ground church to operate. So Christians can exist within a Muslim environment, but they can't evangelize, and so they can't evangelize outside the walls of a church. And so what ends up happening around Christmastime is because of the secularization of Christmas, Santa Claus and stuff, even Muslims can go, "Oh, okay, yeah, we are okay with this." And so there's an opportunity where people actually come into the church around Christmas. I mean, years ago, Saddam Hussein, the dictator in Iraq, would actually visit churches on Christmas Day and give gifts to the Christians because for them, Jesus being born is okay. It's Easter, that's the problem.(02:49):So it is a great opportunity. Christmas is a wonderful opportunity for the church to not only help each other, help the Christian population, but to reach out to the Muslim population as well. And so what we are asking for is people would contribute towards that this December, but also pray. We should be praying for these outreach events that the Lord would open the spiritual eyes of people who don't know him during this season of advent.Will Carlisle (03:15):Amen. So that's very interesting and powerful, but for some of us that might seem different than the type of work we're used to hearing about with Help The Persecuted. So what's the strategic purpose and mindset as an organization behind that? It's less of this getting people into safe houses and more of this broad humanitarian thing. So is that a left turn from business as usual, or is there a strategy there that plays into y'all's DNA mission?Josh Youssef (03:57):It's a good question, Will. Some folks had read our annual report this year and it felt very relief oriented. I mean, the reality is that we did deal with some very seismic problems, earthquakes, no pun intended, with the seismic, the Turkey earthquakes, the Morocco earthquakes, Syrian earthquakes. These were huge, awful, horrible things that impacted at risk communities, including Christians.(04:25):But I don't like it when we strip away evangelism. That becomes this one sort of pillar. And then this other pillar is helping people. And the gospel is this sort of organic infused thing, right?Will Carlisle (04:41):Amen.Josh Youssef (04:42):Where we are given something that we don't deserve, which is God's grace, and we need to extend that grace not only to do good to all, especially those in the household of faith, to Christians, but also we should be also helping people who don't know Jesus yet because they will hopefully one day be in the household of faith. And so a lot of times that's our bent is doing not only good to the church, but also to those who have yet to come into the church. I mean, in a way, sometimes I say we're part of the problem because we're creating the persecution. As we reach out and the Lord opens the spiritual eyes of a Muslim, persecution comes quickly. And we heard a story about that recently. And so that is our aim. Our aim is gospel proclamation at the same time supporting a weak MBB church, Muslim background believing church.Will Carlisle (05:42):Absolutely. Man, that's powerful. I think it's helpful to see these larger relief efforts as they play into the face-to-face ministry that we want to see happen through these efforts. And yeah, it is very reminiscent to me of these ideas throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, which is that people who bear the mark of Christ or of God should be a blessing to their communities and that there should be justice that's done, there should be charity that's done, there should be generosity that's displayed because the Holy Spirit is present in the community. And that's part of the evangelism is these broader efforts.(06:32):So this is a little bit of a beta question, but do you have any stories or a story to go from big picture, earthquakes and global events, down to how God is working on the ground in real lives through this and then through tangential efforts? What are we seeing right now?Josh Youssef (06:59):Yeah, I mean, oftentimes there's something God is doing something in someone's life ahead of us, in front of us. And so when our teams, our ministry teams come into a situation, whether it be a winter relief situation or a natural disaster situation or whatever, the Lord has already begun to prepare them. And one of them is the story of Jamila. And she was a Muslim living in Iraq. She marries a man who she thinks is a Muslim, but he turns out to be an underground Christian. And in their marriage, she's hearing him say things and she hears him actually sing Christian hymns. And she's like, okay, something's up here. He confesses to her that he's a Christian. The family finds out and they kill him secretly. She doesn't know that it was the family that killed him. He just doesn't come home one day. She fled to Syria with her children, and there was obviously a war in Syria. She ends up coming to Lebanon. And so when our field... There was at one point the family in that whole process, the family revealed to her, we were the ones that killed him.Will Carlisle (08:15):Wow.Josh Youssef (08:16):So she ends up coming to Lebanon, and it's our ministry team in Lebanon that ends up discovering her. She's living in a cemetery with her children. Our team find out about her, and they come up upon her. And at this point, she's ready to receive the Lord. And she's recalling all the faithfulness of God that her husband used to share with her. And so that she ends up becoming a believer and is now a part of our team in Lebanon. So I love how our team, they end up really looking at the whole person when they come upon a situation, what is the need of that... Obviously, we all agree it's a spiritual need, but there's also a physical need that's necessary, particularly because they're being chased down by their family. So anyway, that is really the heartbeat of Help The Persecuted is looking at the whole person and being able to meet the needs of the whole person in time and space.Will Carlisle (09:17):Man, that's a super powerful story and just a good word. How should we be praying from the sidelines from the States or the United Kingdom, wherever we're listening from? How should we be praying and joining in the effort beyond just giving funds?Josh Youssef (09:39):Well, I definitely, we are headed into the year-end. We're doing a match, a $300,000 match for the month of December. But I think we need to be praying for these outreach efforts around Christmastime, that the Lord would open spiritual eyes and that he would give us those divine encounters with people who the Lord's already beginning to prepare their hearts and their minds.(10:03):And I think we also need to be praying for those who are living in fear and living with their faith hidden, those who are running from family members. I mean, that is an incomprehensible thing. And I've said this before to a few people, but I took a buddy to the Middle East and we were with a family who'd been running from neighborhood to neighborhood to neighborhood, and the family was coming like 700 miles away to come and kill these people. And my friend looked at me and he said, "Why don't they just give up?" We don't understand the honor, shame culture. There's such shame in the conversion process that the family feels like they have to kill them. And so we need to pray for boldness for these people, pray for strength, pray for provision. And so yeah, we need to do that.Will Carlisle (10:49):Absolutely, man. Well, this is super helpful. And the two plugs that I would give, is one, one of my favorite resources that HTP provides is the prayer list that you'll send out every Saturday. It's a great way to start the weekend on Saturday morning, sit down with your coffee and pray through a list of names with a little bit of information.(11:19):And then secondly, to reiterate Josh, this month, thanks to some generous ministry partners, every gift is matched dollar for dollar up to $300,000. So an amazing way to literally watch the Lord multiply your gifts in real time. And to give to that end, please visit htp.org/donate. So for Josh Youssef, this is Will Carlisle, and we'll see you next time on Prisoners of Hope.(11:58):Thank you for listening to another episode of Prisoners of Hope. Visit us at www.htp.org. Thank you.

This Sunday is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. In this short episode, Josh and Will invite you to join them in prayer for three specific needs in the persecuted church.

Josh and Will sit down with Brother Rachid, a Moroccan Christian apologist who leverages his massive social media following to shake the foundations of Islam and draw thousands of seeking Muslims to Christ. Listen to his remarkable story—how he came to Christ through a radio station initially used for Nazi propaganda during World War II, began his ministry with the simple yet sacred practice of hospitality, and his experience with the current, unprecedented movement of Muslims coming to faith in Jesus. Brother Rachid, a former Muslim turned Christian apologist, shakes the foundations of Islam with his evangelistic social media presence.

When God called Salam and Samar back to the Middle East, they could not have fathomed the miraculous stories He'd place them in...stories of Muslims boldly coming to Christ and standing firm in Him when persecution inevitably enters the scene. In this episode, Josh and Will continue their conversation with Help The Persecuted's Field Ministry Team leaders, hearing account after account of God's faithfulness to the lost and persecuted throughout the Muslim world.

Salam and Samar testify to the rich blessing of sharing the Gospel with Muslims...even when it puts their lives at risk.Salam and Samar, our regional directors in the Middle East, have been on the frontlines of an unprecedented movement of Muslims coming to Christ. Josh and Will sit down with the couple to hear how their decision to boldly share the Gospel no matter the cost, even with radical terrorists, altered the trajectory of their lives.

Josh and Will speak with Amal, a field team member from Lebanon, and a child soldier who encountered Jesus through the people he once fought against. His conversion from Islam, to atheism, to Christianity started with finding contradictions in the Quran, to being amazed by the wisdom of the Bible, to a fascinating dream. He shares about his work and leading a former ISIS leader to Jesus!