{"id":443,"date":"2010-10-29T08:29:13","date_gmt":"2010-10-29T01:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/martianuswb.com\/?p=443"},"modified":"2013-03-12T22:19:19","modified_gmt":"2013-03-12T15:19:19","slug":"all-the-time-we-were-praying-and-asking-jesus-to-save-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/martianuswb.com\/?p=443","title":{"rendered":"All the time we were praying and asking Jesus to save us"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Mehnga Masih was locked in his house with his wife and nine children when the mob came.<\/p>\n

“Convert to Islam or die!”, shouted the mob outside his home.<\/p>\n

Frightened, Mehnga and his family did the only thing they could do: pray. Soon, their prayers were answered.\u00a0Managing to flee their home, they hid in the long grass as they watched homes in their village of Korian go up\u00a0in flames.<\/p>\n

The violence in Korian began when a boy had allegedly cut up pages of an Arabic textbook that contained\u00a0words from the Qur’an. The cut-up pages were used as confetti at a Christian wedding. But apparently, Muslims\u00a0already had a long-standing grudge with the boy\u2019s father, and some speculate that the incident at the wedding\u00a0may have been an opportunity to snatch the Christians\u2019 land, which had become valuable since the government\u00a0had apportioned it between the Muslims and Christians years earlier.<\/p>\n

The area mosque announced that Christians had disgraced the Qur’an and Muslims should kill them. One pastor\u00a0said that the mosque was calling them to come with their weapons and was threatening to burn Christians\u2019\u00a0homes. Armed with guns and explosives, the mob quickly grew to 800. Witnesses say some of the attacker\u00a0included members of radical organizations linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n

But the terror did not end at Korian\u2019s borders. Two days later in the neighboring village of Gojra, the growing\u00a0mob attacked. Mosque loudspeakers fanned the flames of violence proclaiming, “Kill the American dogs!”.<\/p>\n

Christians cried out for help from police, but only a small number responded and were no match for the well-armed attackers. When more police arrived, the mob opened fire on the Christians\u2019 protectors.<\/p>\n

In a matter of hours, a hundred homes were burned, and seven Christians were killed — burned alive.<\/p>\n

Among the dead were Walter Masih\u2019s wife, grown daughter and her unborn child. “We are very scared”, he\u00a0said. “These people can attack again whenever they want. We can do nothing — only believe in Jesus. We have a\u00a0strong trust in Him”.<\/p>\n

Christians in Pakistan are well-acquainted with violence and injustice. Though their nation was founded in 1947\u00a0on the promise of equal rights to religious minorities, they are treated as second class citizens, often doing the\u00a0most menial jobs. Many are street-sweepers and brick-kiln workers, with young girls working for Muslim\u00a0employers, some of whom have beaten and raped them. Pakistan\u2019s blasphemy laws, contained in section 295 of\u00a0the penal code, have made it criminal for insulting Islam, Mohammed, and the Qur’an. These laws have often\u00a0been used against Christians to settle personal grievances.<\/p>\n

Many Christians are not without hope or forgiveness. One pastor who has rebuilt a church destroyed in the\u00a0Korian attack said, “I pray for the Muslim attackers who destroy our houses. We cannot fight them, because\u00a0Jesus said forgive your enemies”.<\/p>\n

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http:\/\/idop.org\/<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mehnga Masih was locked in his house with his wife and nine children when the mob came. “Convert to Islam or die!”, shouted the mob outside his home. Frightened, Mehnga… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[35,64],"class_list":["post-443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-persecuted","tag-idop-2010","tag-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=443"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2597,"href":"http:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions\/2597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}