Dear prayer friends in the Lord,
We hope you have a wonderful New Year in 2018!
Please hold up 5 brothers in Christ, who have been arrested on December 30th. They are currently in prison. They were holding a Christmas celebration party. The village just had believers who accept Christ in June, 2017. They were led to Christ by one of our key leaders. These new Christians belong to the H* people group, but oversee by the K* leader.
The recent update we got (Jan. 3rd, 2018) follows these points below:
1. The authorities charged them that they did not get official permission from the village authority to hold a Christmas celebration.
2. One of the H* man showed a Jesus Film on a projector to the whole village, and started to evangelize and witness to the people in public. He also asked people to accept Jesus publicly which is something that is not permissible.
3. Our leader was invited to speak at this Christmas party, and the authorities decided to arrest him also. His wife also attended but she did not get arrested also. It was not our leaders' plan to have Christmas celebration in this village, but he does help oversee the believers in this village.
Right now, we do not clearly know what is going on for sure, and no one was able to meet those 5 people in prison. The thing we know for sure is that the police charged them 2,500,000 kip (10,000 baht) for 4 trucks that those 4 H* leaders brought to the village without permission. Now their wives have to get food for their husbands. Please pray for this situation and will update along the way.
S*
*Name and location have been changed for their protection.