Life in Iran was already hard before COVID-19, but the pandemic has dragged the country into an even deeper economic crisis. “There is an increase in illegal activities to make money,” a leader overseeing several groups reports. “Women are increasingly forced into the Islamic practice of ‘temporary marriage’ in exchange for money to support their family, a legal practice threatening some Christians who live in Islamic families too.”

Damascus in Syria remained the world’s least livable city-Syria marked 10 years of civil war this year, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit. The war, Coronavirus crisis and persecution make Christians more vulnerable. Your prayer is much needed.

North Korea’s indoctrination of its children—ensuring the worship of the ruling Kim family—is one of the first steps the state takes to control 25.7 million people living in the country that has been No. 1 on Open Doors’ World Watch list for the last 19 years. Now, recent changes are tightening even further the country’s grip on its youngest citizens.

Thank you for joining a week-long prayer campaign for Myanmar – the situation is still tense in many parts of the country and the uncertainty of the times still remain, but your prayers have been a source of strength and joy for your Burmese Christian family!

A Christian couple have been seriously injured in an attack by radical Hindu nationalists.

The pastor and his wife were praying at home when five men forced their way into the house with a hammer.

“My whole life I had been forced to comply with the ‘system’. And they always found a reason to beat me, like if I listened to the wrong music or if my daughter’s headscarf accidentally fell off. In my dreams, Jesus never forced me. Instead, He extended His hand. Nobody in my life had ever extended their hand to me before.”

In these places, in 2021, believers are facing a silent epidemic: Christian girls and women taken from the streets and their homes, then forced to convert and marry a Muslim man.

It is an epidemic with an overarching agenda: to destroy God’s Church.

Mojtaba Hosseini is 30 years old. He used to be one of the leaders of a quickly growing house church movement in Iran. That was before his church was raided and he was arrested and imprisoned for three years in an Iranian prison (following a first arrest resulting in probation). Recently, we visited him (he was released in 2015) in a safe place outside Iran.

Saghar knew, as a Christian from a Muslim background, that holding her secret house church was dangerous. She had grown up in a Muslim family and, like many believers from a Muslim background, first encountered Jesus through a dream. He used the same words as He spoke to the disciples Simon and Andrew in Mark 1:17: “Follow me.” That simple, powerful call changed Saghar’s life forever.

Open Doors field partner invites believers worldwide to join them for a week of prayer for the nation.

At around 7:30 on the morning of May 11, in Indonesia’s Central Sulawesi province, a normal day turned into a nightmare as terror struck Indonesian Christians once again. Our partners in Indonesia tell us that four believers were beheaded by Islamic extremists—in the same region where four believers were beheaded and burned alive in November 2020.

This Mother’s Day, Ayaan from Kenya shares her prayer for all mothers around the world. Her business was destroyed by neighbours who hated her Christian faith – but Ayaan has seen God’s faithfulness.