Pakistan: Persecution covered by CNN
Few people know about the plight of Pakistani Christians. My photos on the persecuted community living there are on CNN’s photo blog. Vivian’s reflections on our experiences are linked on the Belief Blog. Please go to the links below and feel free to comment and share to get the word out. CNN Photo Blog CNN Belief [...]
Rwanda: Survivors Become Forgivers
Salafina, 29, a survivor of the genocide with the man that killed her family. “I am the only one that remains. They beat me and I am no longer strong. The church started teaching us to forgive each other. He asked forgiveness and I have forgiven him. I can forgive because I am a Christian. [...]
Pakistan: Life of Persecution
Persecuted by Gary S. Chapman | BOOK INFO The persecuted often suffer in silence, not knowing if anyone or even God cares for them. This book project on the persecuted church in Pakistan is an on-going effort to increase the western church’s understanding of what it means to suffer for the faith. What should our [...]
Ethiopia: Benji Update
From Kevin Turner, SWI.org: “While we were able to keep Benji from prison, it was clearly God’s will that he go back to the refugee camp. His malaria, typhoid and severe malnutrition were treated and he was able to eat many good meals. He went back to the refugee camp, not as a refugee, but [...]
Ethiopia: Benji
Benji endured over three years in Eritrean jails, beaten and tortured to deny his Christian faith. He recently escaped, walking hundreds of kilometers to relative safety in Ethiopia. Benji told us of being locked in a suffocatingly hot metal shipping container in the middle of the desert with only two slices of bread and a [...]
Pakistan: Eyewitness to Violence
A few days before our last trip to Pakistan, we listened to our friend recount, via Skype, the horrors of two attacks on Christian colonies. More than 150 houses were destroyed. At least eight persons were killed. I only have this recording of his words because I was testing a new small recorder I planned [...]
Pakistan: Riding on Faith
(Face darkened for anonymity) Above, “J” wearing ball cap and western clothing. Several times a week, he weaves in and out of traffic on his motorcycle darting between donkey carts, and rickshaw taxis to different villages far beyond the outskirts of his city. In each place, he gathers small groups of Christian believers for Bible [...]
Pakistan: Facing a Giant
“M” (I can’t use his real name) stands dwarfed by this monolithic structure in Islamabad, the largest Mosque in Pakistan. Only 1.6% of the 170 million people living in Pakistan are Christians. As an Islamic-ruled state, discriminating laws against religious minorities are often used to persecute Christians and others. Frequently, the Pakistani government fails to [...]
Pakistan: A Different Osama
I (Vivian) didn’t get to meet 7-year-old Osama, a Muslim student at the elementary school sponsored by SWI, (Strategic World Impact) but the story the principal told us about him makes me wish that I had. It was just too bad our team left the very morning that classes resumed at a school where Muslim [...]
Pakistan: The Shooter
He looks like an ordinary Pakistani, with dark hair, eyes, and skin, but this is no ordinary man. The 25-year-old father of four small children is a hero to 70 women and children whose lives he saved with a shotgun and self-controlled smarts. He stood on his balcony for almost four hours fending off angry, [...]
Pakistan: Voyeuristic Trophy Hunter?
It is so easy to slip from being a sincere photojournalist documentarian into being a voyeuristic trophy hunter. The road to walk, the high road, is very narrow and the slope on either side is very slippery. The muddy incline on one side is called pride: Did I get the shot everyone will slap me [...]
Pakistan: Vacant Eyes
His eyes speak volumes while the horror of his experiences stifle any words to explain in a rational way why he became a victim. On August 1st, a mob of Muslims, angry over a reportedly fabricated episode of desecration of the Koran, rampaged through his Christian neighborhood looting, burning and killing. He was left with [...]
Pakistan: Burned Out
Just back from Pakistan again. We will add more as we process what we have seen and heard. This man stands in what used to be his home and church facility that was looted and burned during a day of violence as thousands of Muslims rampaged through the Christian colony where he lives. (Canon 5D2, [...]
Pakistan: When It Hits Home
Injustice is injustice. We should always try to ease the pain of those going through adversity whether we know them personally or not. But it does matter. The anguish and heartbreak of dear friends is hitting home. A friend in Pakistan has been touched by the looting and burning of more than 100 Christian homes [...]
Pakistan: Where Freedom Falters
I can get so comfortable in my home. We are surrounded by peace, beauty, and all the choices freedom can offer. We lack not. We want not. We don’t even crave. I should be satisfied, yet, I am not. My heart cries out that I am a stranger in this land. The faces of the [...]
Pakistan: Multi-media
This is a multi-media piece about persecuted Christians in Pakistan, created in Final Cut Studio Motion. Click on the photo below to launch the project in Vimeo.
Pakistan: Anger and Justice; I Choose Grace
A Muslim woman refuses to open the door to a negotiator that was trying to gain possession of the house for the original Christian owner. A Muslim family had moved into the house when the original occupants had fled, fearing retribution when their two sons were imprisoned on a false 295(c) blasphemy charge. The Christian [...]
Pakistan: Passion
He walks a path that is not easy. Carrying a burning desire to share the Christian message with his fellow countrymen, he moved to the north. Despite the threats of danger from Islamic extremists, he took the risk. The passion that both captivates and enlivens him will not let him live any other way. Amidst [...]
Pakistan: You really have to want to meet!
Worshipers gather on a Sunday, knowing that only a few days before, two pastors had been killed, two churches were burned and 35 homes razed in Karachi. They worship with the power of God’s grace that overcomes the fear that tries to paralyze them. (Second photo) A church member uses a rented gun to protect [...]
Pakistan: Sharing the Water Cup
The Christian school run by Pakistani believers is like a cool fresh breeze in a very dusty, dry place. It is one of the few places in Pakistan where Muslim and Christian children are allowed and even encouraged to drink from the same cup. Just a short distance from the school, a Christian man was [...]
Pakistan: Pride comes before the fall
I went to sleep with a warm fuzzy feeling that came from a well known photo editor saying he liked the latest round of photos I had shot in Pakistan, “Many are beautiful in their aesthetic construction and use of light.” I awoke in the middle of the night with a knowing that I had [...]
Pakistan: Pastors
This photo and the ones preceding introduce you to one facet of the persecuted church. It is not the story of those that are martyred (although that happens too). These are the stories, vignettes and glimpses of those who must endure. They experience a lifestyle of endurance, a lifetime of patient subjection to authority [...]
Pakistan: Misconception
Pakistan. A young believer wears a cross despite the danger. I used to think persecution was feeling embarrassed in restaurants because I thought people were staring at me when I prayed before a meal. In my thinking, persecution was when Hollywood made preachers look stupid in movies, always the buffoon or forever the bad guy. [...]
Pakistan: Trash
Male, 34, Pakistan. He has been a street sweeper and sanitation worker for 15 years. As a Christian, it is one of the few jobs he can get. Ten to twelve hours a day bent over the broom is exhausting work and like the brick-maker (from a previous post), he gets paid less than three [...]