Can you imagine spending Christmas without family or friends? Can you imagine a Christmas in prison or a concentration camp? Can you imagine spending Christmas as a refugee in a foreign land? Can you imagine spending Christmas in hiding, in fear for your life? Can you imagine spending Christmas hungry and desolate? Can you imagine spending Christmas recovering from torture? Can you imagine spending Christmas wondering if you will have to flee because your village is being attacked? Can you imagine spending Christmas nursing injured family and friends? Can you imaging spending Christmas grieving over the death of a loved one? Can you imagine not even remembering or being aware that it is Christmas? Can you imagine spending Christmas in these ways because of your faith in Jesus?
For millions of Christians around the world, these imaginings are not fiction of the mind but their daily reality! Two years ago (2001) Elizabeth Kendal from the Religious Liberty Commission (RLC) wrote:

"This Christmas, multitudes of our very own brothers and sisters will be celebrating the birth of our Saviour: secretly, for fear of secret police, anti-Christian militants or vigilantes; in poverty, due to crippling systematic discrimination or war; with grief in their hearts, as they celebrate without loved ones who have been imprisoned, exiled, enslaved or murdered as believers and followers of Jesus. Many of our brothers and sisters will barely be aware of Christmas as they struggle to survive in hostile environments, fleeing from jihad militias, living under aerial bombardment, or lost in the total isolation of a solitary confinement cell. "

Sadly, not much has changed and recent history has shown that during the festive season, Christians in oppressed countries become increasingly susceptible to acts of violence and persecution. Speaking on the current situation in Vietnam, which is an example of a country that actively persecutes Christians during the festive season, Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently said:

"...the repression in the Central Highlands is expected to become even more intense this month (December), when officials invariably detain evangelical Christian leaders and shut down Christmas worship services, which are perceived as linked to the Montagnards' political organizing. "

Examples of how the Vietnamese government persecutes Christians over the festive season are rife. The Montagnard Foundation (MF) reported that on December 2, 2000, three Montagnard Christians, Siu Seo, Siu Ai, and Nay Glel, were arrested by the police, crucified to flagpoles that were made to appear like crosses and tortured with electric cattle prods. Commenting on Christmas in Vietnam last year, a missionary in Ho Chih Minh (Saigon) city said, "for the nearly 150,000 Christians in the Dak Lak province this year, Christmas was a bleak and uncelebrated affair ." The missionary continued, "Christmas in Dak Lak was a very quiet affair this year (2002). Children's choirs were forbidden from singing 'Silent Night' in heavenly harmonies. Fathers and sons, hiding in the forest, or languishing in awful prisons, cried for their families and their families for them."

Christians in Vietnam are not the only ones who suffer over Christmas. In Pakistan last year (2002), during a special Christmas day service for women and children, three young women were killed and fourteen people injured when a grenade was thrown into their Church in Daska . Four people, including an Islamic cleric who was believed to have incited the attack , were arrested. Last Christmas also saw an attack on a church in Maliapota in the eastern state of West Bengal, India . The Church was, according to the BBC, "stormed by 50 armed men". The priest and fourteen other people were injured. The attack happened during a special midnight mass that was attended by more than 1000 worshippers. On Christmas Eve in Indonesia in 2000, bombs exploded outside five Churches in Jakarta, which killed at least 10 people and wounded many more . Last year in Bethlehem, due to the Israeli occupation and a strict curfew imposed on the region by the Israeli military, Christmas for Palestinian Christians was a fairly subdued affair . In Saudi Arabia where religious freedom is non-existent, foreign Christians must meet secretly if they are to celebrate the birth of Christ and local believers dare not admit to their faith in Jesus for the fear of being arrested and possibly killed for their faith.

The most vivid reminder (due to the extensive press coverage it received) of what Christians in other countries may have to endure for their belief in Christ over the Christmas and New Year period was the slaying of the three American missionaries in Yemen at the end of last year. On the Morning of December 30, 2002 Abed Abdul Razak Kamel, who had agreed with a friend to target Christians , walked into a mission hospital in Jibla and shot and killed William E. Koehn, Kathleen A. Gariety, and Martha C. Myers. A fourth missionary, Don Caswell, was injured in the incident.

Even without an escalation of persecution over the festive season, many Christians will spend Christmas and New Year under the yoke of severe oppression for their faith in Christ. Some Christians in China's infamous labor (reeducation) camps, like Pastor Stephen, will ironically be forced to spend up to 20 hours a day making Christmas lights that will be sold in the west . Others like Pastor Gong Shengliang will possibly spend time abused and tortured for their faith. In other parts of the world, Christians will, during this Christmas season, languish in prison away from their families and loved ones and in North Korea, Christians in concentration camps will continue to be "valued as 'less than human' and treated 'worse than animals' by their captors. "

In places like Indonesia and the northern states of Nigeria, Christians will spend the festive season with the ever-present threat of attacks from their surrounding communities. Recent communal violence in these countries that saw villages destroyed and Christians killed can resurface at any time forcing Christians to flee. (On October 10 Christian villages in Sulawesi, Indonesia were attacked and in early December, Christians were killed in Poso, Sulawesi. Toward the end of November, rampaging Muslim students destroyed Christian homes and Churches in Kazaure, Nigeria.) Christians from countries like Bhutan, Iran and Burma will continue to endure in refugee camps in foreign countries. Yet other Christians, like the Montagnards of Vietnam, may spend Christmas in a jungle seeking safe refuge in a bordering country. Other Christians like the Karen people in Burma will continue to endure under a military junta that aims to destroy them. In Laos Christians will continue to face the threat of being turned out of their homes, exiled from their villages or even imprisoned. In Sudan, while peace talks proceed, Christians will continue to starve in the South. In India and Sri Lanka Christians will continue to endure under the yoke of a rise in religious fundamentalism. Throughout the Middle East and in many Muslim countries (Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc.), Christians will continue to live under the religious oppression of predominately Islamic governments.

Can you imagine spending Christmas in any of the ways described above for your faith in Christ? It is true that for most of us who have never traveled to countries that actively persecute Christians, it is very difficult to realistically perceive what Christians in foreign lands endure for their faith in Jesus. Perhaps it is impossible for us who live in countries with religious freedom to imagine spending Christmas in these ways. But then, what can we imagine?

Can you imagine spending Christmas remembering those who suffer for their faith? Can you imagine spending Christmas interceding for persecuted Christians around the world? Can you imagine your Church taking some time to do the same during their Christmas and New Year services? Can you imagine helping persecuted Christians in a material way through donations? Can you imagine spending Christmas making others aware of those who daily live and die for their faith in Jesus? Can you imagine resolving, next year, to be persistent in your intercession for suffering Christians?

Personally, I try to imagine each and every Christian all over the world daily interceding for their siblings in Christ. But perhaps I'm just a dreamer! This year, as you, your families, your congregations and your communities gather to remember the birth of our Lord Jesus, take the time to spare a thought and a prayer for those, who, at this time of great joy for many, will be severely tested (even unto death) for their faith in Jesus.