VOM Radio

Nik and Ruth Ripken are back for the second half of our conversation. How do we bear other Christians’ burdens (Gal. 6:2), both those living in hostile and restricted nations, and missionaries that serve in difficult places around the world? Why is it so important, before we offer help, to offer a listening ear to hear the stories on the hearts of the people that we want to minister to?

As veteran missionaries who have served for 35+ years, Nik and Ruth offer advice to American Christians on how we can minister to missionaries home from the field.

How should young people feeling a call to missions respond, prepare and pray? Nik and Ruth offer advice for those sensing God’s call to serve Him in far-off and even difficult places—and remind us that ALL followers of Christ are called to GO…the only question is WHERE each Christian is called to go to.

How have the Ripkens kept their marriage strong and fresh through 35 years of ministry in difficult places…and how has God used their marriage as a spiritual lighthouse to reach Muslims for Christ? Why is it that Muslims often ask them about their marriage, and about how they raised their children?

What are some specific, practical ways we can pray for missionaries that we support and send out? How do we pray for Christians in the midst of persecution? How can we pray for the nation of Somalia, a nation where the Ripkens served heroically in the midst of a tragic famine.

This special podcast edition of this week’s conversation includes bonus material not included in the broadcast version. If you missed the first half of our conversation with Nik and Ruth, you can listen to it here. Their first visit to VOM Radio, following the release of the film version of Nik’s book, The Insanity of God, is here.

Nik and Ruth Ripken have served 35+ years as missionaries and conducted extensive interviews with hundreds of persecuted Christians from all parts of the world. They went not as teachers but as students, simply to sit at the feet of persecuted believers and learn from them. The bold believers they met shared amazing lessons about living out faith in Jesus in the midst of hostile enemies, literally sheep among wolves.

What are the qualities that allow faith to thrive in such hard places? How are churches built in nations closed to Christian witness? Are there ways we can reach out to people from hostile nations, right here in the United States?

Nik and Ruth also offer insights for American Christians on ways we can encourage and bless missionaries that our churches are sending out and supporting—both while they serve and when they come home to refresh and recharge.

Nik is the author of The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected, which was also made into a film. You can listen to Nik and Ruth’s previous conversation on VOM Radio, conducted when the film was released, here.

Fouad Masri founded Crescent Project (www.CrescentProject.org) to train American Christians to share the gospel with Muslims. In 25 years since, the group has trained more than 21,000 Christians to reach out with love to those deceived by Islam. Listen this week as Fouad helps ignite your passion for reaching out, and equips you to enter those conversations with confidence and grace.

Listen as he shares how God implanted the passion in his heart—as a young man in Lebanon—to reach Muslims with the hope of Jesus. What questions are on the hearts of Muslims? How is Jesus the Answer to those questions? How can we pray for our Muslim friends and coworkers?

God calls us to be light in darkness for Muslims, and Fouad and Crescent Project provide tools that equip and enable our light to shine more clearly.

Other workers associated with Crescent Project have been guests on VOM Radio, including Jami Staples talking about women’s ministry (Part 1, Part 2) and Ali Sassi, who while still a Muslim was challenged by a Christian friend to demonstrate how the Bible had been changed—a challenge that ultimately led him to faith in Christ.

The Bridges Study app from Crescent Project, which equips Christians to reach out to Muslims, is available for iOS and Android.

Rashin Soodmand was 13 years old when her father, Pastor Hossein Soodmand, was executed in Iran for the crime of apostasy. His body was quietly buried in an unmarked grave in a part of the local cemetery reserved for “the cursed.”

Yet only three days later, Rashin wrote a letter to God promising to follow Christ boldly, just as her father had—even if it meant great sacrifices. Today she is living out that promise, including ministering to the church inside Iran.

Her father wasn’t the only martyr of the Iranian church Rashin knew well. In this second part of our conversation, Rashin shares some of the things she remembers about the other martyrs she knew personally: Haik Hovsepian, who preached at her father’s funeral; Mehdi Dibaj, who encouraged her to attend Bible school; and Pastor Mohammad “Ravanbakhsh” Yusefi.

This is Part 2 of our conversation with Rashin; if you missed Part 1 of her amazing testimony, listen here.