SixSibs

Hearts of Fire is a book that tells the story of 8 different women who lived during the 20th and 21st century, and who outspokenly shared the gospel with those around them, no matter the risks.
This book has many examples of people who stood up to their ungodly rulers, choosing the hard way of Jesus rather than the easy way of the world, but the story that struck me the most was the story of a young woman named Mai, who immigrated to Hong Kong to escape from communistic Vietnam, in hope that she would soon be able to go to “the West” to have a better life. She stayed in Hong Kong for almost 5 years, and was converted while she was in a refugee camp there, but just weeks before she was going to leave Hong Kong, she felt that God was calling her back to her homeland. All of those around her thought that she was crazy, as no one wanted to go back to Vietnam, only out of it, yet she stuck to her conviction, and returned to the troubles and, since she had become a Christian, persecutions of her homeland. I thought that that was amazing! How many people would go back to a place of suffering unless they had a good reason? Mai had the best reason of them all!
Hearts of Fire is a very convicting book, one that I would give 5 out of 5 stars for older readers.

Tortured for Christ.
The title of this book alone can tell you that you’re in for a read that’s not all feel-good and flowery.
This book was written by a man named Richard Wurmbrand, a pastor from Romania who lived under the cruelty and injustice of the USSR. Amazingly, even though he was brutally tortured, and saw many of his friends die because of the atrocious conditions in the jail they were in, he emerged from jail not with a hatred for communists, but with a hatred for communism, not with a hatred of the sinner, but of the sin. Although in his book he repeatedly denounces the evils of communism, he never once even hints that he has the slightest feeling of hatred towards the ones who tortured and imprisoned him. He thought of communism as a disease that destroyed a man’s senses of right and wrong, and said, “I am very sorry if a crocodile eats a man, but I can’t reproach the crocodile. He is not a moral being. So no reproaches can be made to the Communists. Communism has destroyed any moral sense in them. They boasted that they had no pity in their hearts. I learned from them. As they allowed no place for Jesus in their hearts, I decided I would leave not the smallest place for Satan in mine.”
That quote alone is amazing and humbling, but so are many, many other portions of the book, as Mr. Wurmbrand talks about the state of religion in Russia. He said that, “A man really believes not what he recites in his creed, but only the things he is ready to die for”, and repeatedly asked if we “westerners” would be willing to do as the Christians in the had done- lay down their lives for the gospel.
He told of how there was once a young man who served as a captain in the Russian military, who barged into a room where a pastor of the Underground church was praying. He asked him if he was a Christian, and when the pastor said he was, the officer said that if he didn’t denounce his faith and turn to communism, he would shoot him. The pastor, with a pistol against his head, said that he would never denounce his Lord, and the officer dropped his pistol and embraced him, saying that he wanted to be sure that Christianity was true, and the pastor, by not denouncing his faith, had shown him that it was truly a faith that was worth dying for.
Mr Wurmbrand asked if we would consider our faith worth dying for.

Although I wouldn’t recommend this book for younger readers, due to the graphic violence it depicts,  for older readers  I would give Tortured for Christ 5 out of 5 stars, and would highly recommend that you get it.

By Adam E. Heironimus

Yesterday I finished reading “Jesus Freaks II: Revolutionaries” by dc Talk. It was a collection of short stories about Christians who were willing to be revolutionaries, people who went against the “norm” and were willing to be “Jesus Freaks”. I was really blessed by all of the stories, but  the story of an Indian believer named Sundar Singh, who was imprisoned, beaten and threatened multiple times and eventually disappeared on a missionary journey to Tibet in 1929, was one that really stood out to me. He said “The true Christian is like sandalwood, which imparts its fragrance to the ax which cuts it, without doing any harm in return.”  I was amazed by how many people were willing to be “like sandalwood”, and continued to pray for and share the Gospel with their enemies, even as they were being tortured in ways almost too horrible to imagine. I was very blessed by reading this book and would highly recommend it to anyone.

Using the 5 star rating system, I would give this book a 5, and I would highly recommend you check it out from your local library or buy it on Amazon.com!