One Body, Many Wounds

One Body, Many Wounds

October 30, 2025

Host: Dr. Isaac Crockett

Guest: Shaheryar Gill

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 10/30/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Isaac Crockett:

Hello, and thank you for tuning in on Pastor Isaac Crockett. Joining me today on this Thursday program is a good friend and a regular guest of our program. He’s a Christian civil rights attorney, Shaheryar Gil with the ACL J, the American Center for Law and Justice Shaheryar, thanks for being on our program.

Shaheryar Gill:

Thank you for having me,

Isaac Crockett:

SHA. Well, sometimes we tell jokes about lawyers and things like that, but we really like the Christian lawyers, especially doing what you do with civil rights. But you and I, last year we did a program with Sam. Sam is traveling internationally right now, but you and I were international. We were over in Lahore, Pakistan in the Office of Legal Aid, which is connected to the ACL J, and that was almost exactly a year ago. So this is kind of fun coming full circle. You’re doing some things in Washington DC this week. I’m in my normal spot in New York State, but we’re really glad to have you on the show. We talk about persecution and that’s what we want to talk about today. We want to look at as the church, we are one body. Christ is the head, we are the body, but there are many wounds going on.

The persecuted church is really facing some severe issues and we’re getting ready for trick or treat and Halloween and all these sort of things. People try to scare each other, but there is real scary stuff happening, all kinds of abuses and even murders going on towards our brothers and sisters in Christ. In fact, this Sunday, the 2nd of November is the International Day of Prayer for the persecuted church. And so this is a timely thing for us to talk about. It’s an important part for us to understand what persecution is. And as I’ve talked with different pastors and other Christians all around the world who’ve faced persecution, one of the things that brings them hope and comfort is knowing that fellowship of believers of Christ followers, that we know about what’s happening, that we’re praying for them, that we’re concerned for them. But I want to start with just talking about persecution, particularly legal things with religious persecution. Shaheryar, what would be a good definition of what is religious persecution?

Shaheryar Gill:

Isaac? Just the word persecution, if you just were to define that. It’s mostly related to physical harm, harassment, punishment of some sort because of somebody’s beliefs. It can happen because of somebody’s race. It can also happen because of somebody’s political opinion, but generally, or the wider form of persecution happens in cases of religion. Jesus said that you will be persecuted because of me, and we know he’s always right. And that’s what we see around the world. Religious persecution is because somebody doesn’t like my religion. And usually, unfortunately it happens. Most people don’t. A lot of people don’t like Christianity. They don’t like Jesus. So the major part of persecution happens around the world is against Christians because of their beliefs. And it comes in many forms. It could be just simply because somebody becomes a Christian from another religion and the society does not accept that it happens in Hindu societies, it happens in Muslim societies.

And then it could also take forms of, let’s say somebody wants my, as a Christian, somebody wants my land. And that’s what you see in Nigeria. People are being attacked, harassed, driven out of their homes because they’re Christian, because they are the weaker party, they’re less fortunate and they happen to be Christians. So it’s easy to target Christians. And so it just takes different forms in different countries. For example, in India, the major, major form of persecution against Christians is if somebody becomes a Christian from a Hindu majority nation or a pastor is preaching, a lot of time pastors are attacked. They are either imprisoned or beaten by Hindu mobs. And the whole point is that to stop them from spreading Christianity to sharing their faith with Hindus. So same thing in Pakistan. There are blasphemy laws there. If you say something about religion or if you have a dispute with a Muslim, you could be wrongly accused or falsely accused of committing blasphemy and go spend years in jail. And I’m sure we’re going to get into some cases that we deal with in Pakistan.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, it’s interesting taking different forms of persecution. I remember well, hearing my grandfather talk about the Nazis and how they persecuted the church. My dad went over to former USSR, former Soviet Union and smuggled bibles, and I remember him talking about the secret agents surveilling churches. And I’ve talked with people, I’ve been in Eastern Europe and talked with pastors of underground churches back in those days. And a lot of times we think of that kind of heavy handed, this fascist, socialist, communist type of thing. But you’re talking about a lot of different forms of this sort of persecution. And I’ve already mentioned Muslim countries, Hindu country, and I think a lot of times we think of some of these religions as being peaceful religions, and yet they’re not very peaceful if you don’t follow them. Could you maybe describe some of the different scenarios that happen in 2025? We have a couple minutes here, but how persecution can fold out for us. You already mentioned people maybe wanting somebody’s land or something like that. What are maybe some examples of how this persecution can look? In modern day

Shaheryar Gill:

Isaac, some of the examples involve just enforcement of laws in different countries. For example, in Pakistan and some other Muslim countries, they have blasphemy laws or anti-conversion laws. So a simple conversation about religion could land somebody in prison because one person in that conversation gets offended by the comments. For example, that happened in one of our cases where a Muslim coworker asked a question about religion to a Christian, and the Christian didn’t have an answer. He gave an answer whatever he thought was appropriate, and he was then accused of blasphemy. Another situation would be, for example, in India where people are actually sharing their faith with Muslims. It often happens in a low caste Hindu community where people are already discriminated. The lower caste Hindus are discriminated against by the higher caste Hindus. So a lot of Christians sometimes than they are if they’re preaching and if they’re talking to a lower caste Hindu who is open to hearing the gospel and Hindus get the information about it that this Christian pastor or a Christian person is sharing his faith, a lot of times they would just simply attack instead of even accused false making, any false accusations of conversions, they would mobs would attack and physically harm a Christian pastor.

Their forms are in Nigeria and there are mobs of Muslims, jihadi groups that are attacking Christians in Nigeria.

Isaac Crockett:

It’s so interesting because even though this is modern day 2025, so much of what you’re describing is right from what Jesus Christ warned us about and right from how we see people reacting even in the Bible times. We have so much more to talk about on Christian persecution when we come back. Well, welcome back to the program. I’m Isaac Crockett, and on our program today we’re talking with civil rights attorney Shari Argi. He’s senior counsel at the ACL J, the American Center for Law and Justice, and he leads the AJ’s international team working with the ECLJ, European Center for Law and Justice and their different affiliates, including Pakistan where he and I were last year, and he’s been there and we’ll talk some more about that in a little bit. But Shaheryar, you and some of the others from the ACL J, you recently sent an open letter to the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and that letter was about the dire situation for Christians in Nigeria.

They’re facing persecution. I think in the letter you said an average of 32 Christians killed each day in Nigeria. That’s just hard to fathom. But in that letter, you point out that under the Biden administration, this is a letter that was just sent out a few days ago, informing the Secretary of State that under the Biden administration, Nigeria was taken off of a list that was known as the CPC or the country of particular concern. And this is because of their persecution. For whatever reason, the Biden administration took it off that list and you urged Marco Rubio to place Nigeria back on this list of countries of particular concern. Could you paint a quick picture of the scale and the nature of the anti-Christian violence that’s going on in Nigeria today? And maybe just go into kind of why it’s so important for the American government to recognize this persecution is happening.

Shaheryar Gill:

Right. So Isaac, Nigeria has about a population of about over 200,000,218 or so or so, and half of them, almost half of them are Christian. About half of them are Muslim, mostly Sunni Muslims up in the north and Christians down south. The disputes and the persecution harassment, discrimination has been going on for years in Nigeria. Mostly the violence happens against Christians by Muslims. And there are about three groups, three major groups that act in Nigeria. One is Boko Haram, the other one is Islamic State in West Africa province, kind of like the ISIS and the Ani Herman. Basically these groups are attacking Christians in Nigeria for a long time now. Every year, thousands of people are killed, thousands are abducted and displaced from their homes. Just this year, in the first seven, eight months, about 7,000 Christians have been killed and over about 8,000 have been abducted for because of their faith.

And since 2009, and this should tell us some of the scale of persecution that is happening. It’s about 12 million Christians have been displaced since 2009. And this is generally a lot of times Ani herdsman are attacking Christian farmers and taking their lands, either kidnap them, kill them, rape them, and then people flee from their homes. And these herdsmen then take their lands. On average, you can say about 32 Christians are killed each day in Nigeria. That should tell us sort of the magnitude of the problem. And as you mentioned that from the ACL J, we sent a letter to the Secretary of State to designate, re designate instead Nigeria as a country of particular concern, which would in turn give us some leverage, if you will, to push the Nigerian government to take action against these groups and stop the persecution.

Isaac Crockett:

So from this information that you’re giving, which again, it’s hard to imagine 12 million people since 2009 displaced. It’s hard to imagine these thousands of people just this year. I mean not even the whole 12 months, just in the first few months of this year, 7,000 killed about 8,000 kidnapped. These are just staggering numbers, but from the information that you have, what are the primary drivers of this persecution? It sounds like it’s this religious, it’s Muslims, but you named the Boko Haram Group, the Islamic State of Western Nigeria, and then the Ani herdsman. What are the motives on these three groups and how do they differ from each other and what’s going on because of that?

Shaheryar Gill:

I think Isaac, the common motive for all three groups is really the hatred for Christianity. That’s at least the common motive. Another big reason for these groups to attack Christians is land. So the persecution primarily in Nigeria revolves around religion and land. So Christians are attacked because if they have land, then these groups are going to attack them and take their land. So in one way, it’s not rocket science, it’s not hard to figure out what’s going on, but the issue is really the problem with the government not taking action, not prosecuting, not arresting these people and not protecting Christians who are an equal citizens of the country of Nigeria.

Isaac Crockett:

And what are you doing legally, ACL J? You do things at the UN and things, and I’d just be curious what’s going on through that. Is there anything you can do in Nigerian courts or US courts about this? What are maybe some of the legal actions that you can try to take?

Shaheryar Gill:

So the first thing, Isaac, as you mentioned already, we just sent a letter to the Secretary of State about designating Nigeria as a country of particular concern. And it was actually designated by the first Trump administration. Secretary Pompeo at that time had put Nigeria on the CPC list. And then in November, 2021, president Biden’s administration then removed Nigeria from the country of particular concern list. And that decision was ill-informed because the situation of persecution has not changed in Nigeria, it should have been on the list. And that would have given some ways for the US government to pressure the Nigerian government to tackle this problem of persecution. So we are asking the US government to designate Nigeria and then take those actions. What are that America would be allowed then to take against Nigeria. The second way to handle this issue is the way we are engaged at the A CLJ and through our affiliate in Europe, the European Center for Law and Justice, we regularly appear before the United Nations and we make oral statements, sometimes written statements to the Human Rights Council, basically again, asking them the council to take action against the Nigerian government.

It can take, the council can do several things. First, it can pass resolutions against the Nigerian government. It can require the Nigerian government to take action against the Ani herdsman and Boko Haram and this ISIS group. So we’re engaged at the UN every year. I think we spent at least three times in three quarters of a given year, we are able to present oral testimony, oral statements before the Human Rights Council, and it also gives us several other times to present written information. So each year, about at least six times, we update the UN agencies about what’s going on in Nigeria so that they can take action.

Isaac Crockett:

So the Nigerian government, they’ve designated certain areas as Sharia states, these attackers are not being prosecuted or at least not very fast. And so I look at that and I think that looks like state complicity. The state didn’t do the attacks, but they’re not bringing justice. But you’re actually saying even the United Nations courts and things have this information six times you’ve testified before on an annual basis showing them this. I’m just curious, maybe a couple minutes here left, but how you’re documenting this for legal advocacy and can this, hopefully all these different pressures can help make a difference, including now. It’d be great if the Trump administration can re-designate them on our list of countries of particular concerns, but maybe you could kind of tie some of this together, how this could effectively pressure all of these government groups to do the right thing.

Shaheryar Gill:

Right. So Isaac, see, less than 1% of Ani Herman who attack Christians have been arrested or prosecuted. That’s a very small percentage. Yes, absolutely. I would say the government of Nigeria is complicit and unwilling to, and I wouldn’t say it’s unable to do it, but it’s unwilling to take any action, any concrete action against these people. So I think the first step is to put the Nigerian government on notice, require them to pressure them to take action and some of these actions, I mean, once we re-designate Nigeria as this country of particular concern, we will be able to then under the law, take certain actions, for example, limit the possibility of giving them aid, monetary assistance or tie that assistance to assistance to basically having the government do something about it or put some conditions on that aid. So there are several ways this problem can be addressed. The UN can certainly take some concrete actions and require the government of Nigeria to prosecute these people, to arrest them. I think the Sharia course generally shouldn’t be prosecuting or acting against Christians.

Isaac Crockett:

So much going on there. Sharia, we could spend multiple programs probably on this. We’re going to take a quick break. We’re going to come back and talk about some other areas of persecuted churches, but you don’t want to miss this. A lot of information going on right now, we’ll get back to it on Staying in the Gap today. Well, welcome back to Staying in the Gap today. If you’re just joining us on this Thursday edition of Staying in the Gap today, we are talking with a good friend, someone who’s been on our radio and TV program. We’re talking with civil rights attorney, Shari Argi, and he’s senior counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice, and he leads the a CJ’s international team, very involved in Pakistan, very involved in Europe at the UN, working for persecuted churches and things like that. So we’ve had a good conversation.

We have the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church coming up this Sunday, and we have a lot going on. It’s Halloween, and we’re thinking about gory, yucky stuff, but there’s real horror stuff happening for millions of Christians all around the world. So it’s just been a real eye opening time. Our last segment, we talked about what’s happening in Nigeria. I know even liberal talk show host Bill Maher has been talking about Nigeria, and so it’s important for us to understand this. I’m going to try to put the open letter that we talked about from Shaheryar and Jordan Sekulow and others on our Facebook page, but I hope that you can be aware of what is going on and praying for Christians and know what’s happening and have some good resources. But speaking of good resources, I want to see if our program producer, Tim Schneider, can come to the microphone and talk about some of the resources we have at the American Pastors Network and Stand in the Gap Media.

Tim Schneider:

Hey, Isaac, good afternoon to everybody. Want to let you know about some of the things that are happening behind the scenes here. And as Isaac mentioned, want to let you know about some of the resources that we have here at the American Pastors Network. If you only listen to the radio program or check out our TV program, you’re missing out on a lot because there’s a lot more that we are about here at the American Pastors Network in Stand and Gap Media. So please consider checking out the stuff that’s mentioned as you can, giving financially to us and supporting our ministries that we talk about here on the air and just all that is appreciated very much. But want to let you know about two websites that we have. If you not check them out or it’s been a while, consider going and checking them out.

We have two websites, American Pastors network.net and stand in the gap media.org. Lots of information on American Pastors network.net about things that are happening here in the ministry on stand the gap media.org. You can go over there and find our archives of TV and radio programs, lots of ears of archives there that you can find on stand in gap media.org, and lots of topics and discussions and things that we have there. Also, if you’re on American Pastors network.net, please consider signing up for our e-newsletter. We won’t inundate your inbox with spam, but we’ll send you information about the ministry that you might find hopefully and you will find useful. One of the things we have is this e-newsletter. If you sign up for it, we’ll send you, like I said, information about the ministry. One of the things too is every week you’ll get an recap email of the previous week’s radio programs.

You’ll get a transcript. You’ll be able to listen to podcast q and as you’ll see what the latest TV programs are. Lots of information comes out weekly, usually on that e-newsletter of the previous week’s, radio and TV stuff. So sign up for that. And you’ll also get information about prayer needs here at ministry and other things happening. So go to american pastors network.net and sign up for our e-newsletter. Also, we encourage you to please pray for this ministry. We cover your prayers. We obviously need your prayers for what we need to do here at this ministry and what hopefully the Lord will guide us and lead us to be able to do. So please pray for this ministry, and as you see prayer request, please pray for those. Also, also, please consider giving to this ministry. If you’re blessed by this ministry, we could certainly use your support. Unfortunately, things are not free in ministries like this. We do need the support financially on many other levels too of support, but certainly prayer and financially is very important. So please consider giving no amount too big, no amount, too small is too much, but we certainly would cover whatever the Lord would put on your heart to help us out with here. So that’s what I’ve got here, Isaac, I’ll go ahead and send it on back to you.

Isaac Crockett:

Alright, well thank you for that Tim, and for all that useful information about what we have going on. I want to go back to you and the work you’ve done, civil rights, Christian civil rights, persecuted church. Again, I got to see a lot of this up close and personal. As I mentioned at the beginning of the program last year, I spent some time with you and the guys you work with over in Pakistan. We actually did a radio program from Pakistan. You’ve been back to Pakistan since then, even this year you’ve been over there. You’ve been over in Europe doing things before the United Nations and the international criminal courts things. You’ve been to Israel, you’ve been kind of all over and you have a lot of different responsibilities and things you’re representing, but Pakistan is obviously close to your heart and you have family there and a great office over there. Could you maybe give us an update on the state of the persecuted Christians and Pakistan, and I want to get some updates on some of the young men that we’ve been praying for and following their cases. But I’m curious if you have some new cases that you could share with us. I know there’s a lot going on a regular basis there, but maybe even some new cases that could be shared with us today.

Shaheryar Gill:

Right. So since our last conversation, we’ve had several new cases that are happening in Pakistan. One of the case is about a 16-year-old girl at a brick kiln who was raped by the nephew of the owner of the brick kiln. So her dad worked at the brick kiln. He’s a bonded laborer, which basically means he took a loan from the brick kiln owner and he’s now working at a brick kiln until he pays off the loan and he was provided a residence at the property of the brick count, which is basically a lot of these employees are provided and his daughter was raped by the owner of the brick count. So we are representing her to prosecute this rapist. Another case we are dealing with is a Christian, young Christian man whose kidney was removed and sold by his former employer who sort of pretended to be a doctor.

And this young Christian man goes to him with abdominal pain and he tells the doctor, supposed doctor told him that he had appendicitis, then they needed to perform a surgery instead of appendicitis. They removed his kidney. So we are trying to prosecute this person for that as well. Then we’re representing a little 8-year-old girl who went to a shop to buy something in the neighborhood. Her mom sent her to get something from the store, which is a common thing in Pakistan. And the shopkeeper an older about, I don’t know, 50-year-old Muslim man, he put her hand in her pants. This little girl comes back scared, tells her mom and the mom and dad then go to the police and file a complaint. This person again, he was arrested and we are representing this Christian family against this person. That’s just new cases, but I’m sure we’ll have some time to talk about, give some update about the cases of blasphemy in which we’re representing some Christians.

Isaac Crockett:

It’s incredible as I stay in contact with you and some of the work with over there lawyers and things in Pakistan, how many times these just all sorts of crimes are perpetrated against Christians and families basically because they’re in this Muslim majority area where it feels like they can get away with it. So it’s important to realize that this sort of stuff is happening on a regular basis in many of these areas of the world. But yes, you mentioned the blasphemy cases and these are the situations where somebody, for being a Christian is accused of some sort of blasphemy thing and it’s just incredible the hoops they jump through to make things up and most of these cases. But we’ve been praying for several young men in several of these cases, Asan, Shazad, Mai Moon, and I might be missing up their last names, but could you maybe catch us up to speed a little bit and some of these, either these three guys or some of the others that you’re covering, that these are blasphemy cases where they could be put to death. I mean, the sentence would be that they would be hanged for being a Christian essentially for supposedly committing blasphemy.

Shaheryar Gill:

Right. Isaac, let me give you the most recent update in state versus Asan Mac’s case last night, or which would be today for us. But last night in Pakistan, the hearing on appeal was scheduled, but it was postponed. The court couldn’t get to the case because of other cases and the time limitations. So it was again, postponed. What happened in that case was this young Christian Guy was falsely accused of committing blasphemy. The allegation against him was that he had posted on TikTok a picture of the evidence of another blasphemy case, which in itself, even if he, let’s say he did that, it doesn’t constitute blasphemy under the law, meaning sharing some other cases. Evidence is not a crime. So he was accused and his phone was recovered. The phone did not have any information about the allegation. His TikTok account had no information about the allegation. So we have good evidence in this case that we can easily show that he did not commit the crime. So all we are doing is he was sentenced to death by the trial court, by the way, and it’s been over about two years now. He’s been in prison. So we are just waiting for the high court to hear his appeal, and once we get to argue the case, we’ll know what happens. But it was postponed today

Isaac Crockett:

And that unfortunately happens far too often, that just as it feels like something might happen, then it gets postponed. Real quickly, we just have a few seconds, but how long or how many times, maybe approximately has this case been postponed that you can think of?

Shaheryar Gill:

So the last hearing Isaac was in last October. I was there at the court and we were prepared, went to the court and it got postponed. So it happens all the time.

Isaac Crockett:

So this has been dragging on now for years and to go from one October to the next October, and now as of today, it got postponed again. So let’s pray that justice will be done in these cases. Let’s pray that the court will hear these and let’s pray for these young men as they continue to wait in prison for all of this. There’s so many things going on in Pakistan, but really all over the world. We want to wrap things up when we come back after this as we talk through some final things that we can do as Christians to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ, in Nigeria and Pakistan and India and all over the world. We’ll be right back on Stand in the Gap today.

We’ll welcome back to our program as we’re wrapping this program up about one body, one church, many wounds. We’re talking with civil rights attorney, Christian civil rights attorney, Shaheryar Gilli of the ACL J. We’ve talked about Nigeria and the Middle East, some you were giving us some updates on some of the young men in Pakistan that we’ve been praying for who’ve been unjustly jailed for false accusations of blasphemy that could end up in them being killed, their lives taken, capital punishment. You were telling us about some of them. Could you maybe give us a little bit of an update on ammo? He’s one that we’ve prayed for and has an interesting kind of backstory on this going on as well.

Shaheryar Gill:

Yes, Isaac ammo and his brother Kaiser, they both have been in prison for about 10 years now, and they were falsely accused of committing blasphemy, posting a blog that had some material that was offensive to Muslims. But they said that they had a fight with a Muslim friend and he could have done that. So they were falsely accused. They were sentenced to death by the trial court and the high court upheld their conviction. And the case is now before the Supreme Court. We have been at the Supreme Court for about three or four times now, and each time when the court schedules to hear the argument on appeal, the opposing counsel comes and basically asks for a continuance, which is, and he tells them, oh, it is too complicated. The case is complicated. I’m not prepared, so if I could get another continuance. So he has done that at least three times in the recent a few months, and the court actually gives them a grand scheme of continuance, which is sort of an odd thing for a US court to do for that kind of a reason. It would be actually unethical if the lawyer came unprepared, but unfortunately that happens in Pakistan and we are praying that the court actually hears the case and then these brothers are provided justice.

Isaac Crockett:

And I’m thinking in that case, particularly Shaheryar, if I remember correctly, we spoke to the wife of a moon in your office there in Lahore. Is that, am I thinking of the right case?

Shaheryar Gill:

That’s correct. We in fact, met with her in our office last year and she, as you might remember, she goes to see her husband every week, every week, once a week. And she’s been doing that for 10 years. I mean, what a testimony.

Isaac Crockett:

And here they were, a young couple. I mean, she’s almost like a widow. It’s so strange. Her husband is alive, but he’s stuck. And so now most of her adult life, she’s been separated from him having to go see him basically behind bars. And she’s very eloquent as she talks about him and as she tries to make sure that the jail is taken care of him the right way. And she’s a very intelligent lady. So it’s not just some young guy, but it’s his whole family. They haven’t been able to have kids. They’ll probably never be able to have children because he’s been behind bars for a decade and just so many other things that happen as a result. But one of the things in these countries where this trauma is faced and the trauma isn’t just the one person, in this case with the moon, it’s his wife and his siblings and his parents and the church, when people are displaced, and we’ve been a part of that.

Even my little church has worked with a CLJ and helping people who have had family killed by the mob and they’re trying to kill the rest of the family, helping put them in a safe house in a different city. These displacement, these kidnappings people who their daughters oftentimes are kidnapped and taken advantage of other violent things and rape and things like that, as well as even murder. And yet the local church god’s people can come and help. Real quickly, Shaya, what are maybe some ways that you’ve seen churches in some of these other countries help people heal, even in spite of these horrible persecutions?

Shaheryar Gill:

I think Isaac, one of the best ways to help is to really stand alongside these persecuted people and pray for them. I mean, that goes a long way. They need strength, they need our prayers, so putting ourselves in their shoes and just kind of even, I don’t think we can even imagine what these people go through, but at least we understand the information. We understand the level of persecution and these families, the kind of persecution these families are facing. So I think the best way, the first way is to pray for them and to also then come alongside and provide whatever assistance we can. I mean, through the ACL J, we are providing legal assistance. As you know, we work on these cases and through the support of the members of the A CLJ supporters of the ACL J, we have been able to really fund our operation in Pakistan and pay for the attorneys pay for the legal costs. So there’s that way, not everybody can actually engage and go to the court and do something about it, but we all can pray and we all can participate with organizations that do that.

Isaac Crockett:

So yes, praying and knowing what’s going on following these organizations, of course, aclj.org, aclj.org is just all sorts of information about what’s happening in America. But you can look at what’s happening internationally. You can see from Shaheryar and others who’ve written articles about it, aclj.org, and you can give towards that too so that they can help fund what’s going on to defend these Christians. We have a little bit of time left Shaheryar. There are people listening to this program. We actually broadcast on radio in parts of Africa, and then others listen on podcast platforms and other online platforms all over the world. If you could speak directly maybe to a pastor, like some of the pastors we’ve talked about in Nigeria or Pakistan, what would you tell that pastor or that persecuted Christian, someone listening who’s maybe a persecuted Christian somewhere, what would you say to them?

Shaheryar Gill:

I think what I would say is I can give you an example of what that looks like. I was in Pakistan a few years ago and I met these people and I used to think that maybe we are an encouragement to these persecuted Christians when we go and help them, but I realized that it wasn’t really that it was the other way around. I was the one who was encouraged by seeing how these people stand firm in their faith. And we in the West sitting here and just kind of even helping. We don’t realize what kind of faith that requires. So I would say they are an encouragement to us first. And then I would also say that they should also know that their brothers and sisters around the world are not just sitting around. I know personally know families who pray for the persecuted church every day. They support financially in other ways. I know a family here in America who sends, every time I go to Pakistan, they send something for the children of one of our clients. And that’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen. When I see these smiles on the children’s faces, it is just an amazing, so I would say that we are, I know and through standing in the gap, that we all know that Christians around the world who are standing by and trying to help their brothers and sisters. So there’s some encouragement in that.

Isaac Crockett:

Amen. Amen. Well, let’s pray for them right now. Our gracious heavenly Father, we thank you for the truth of salvation, for the power of the Gospel, that if we repent of our sins and believe in Jesus Christ, you free us from the bondage to sin, and you promise us everlasting life. I pray today for our brothers and sisters in Christ, some of whom are behind bars and suffering all sorts of unimaginable ways because of this belief, because of confessing Jesus Christ as savior. I pray that you might strengthen them. I pray that you might give them grace and patience and strength for whatever trial they face if it be your will. Pray that some of these ones we’ve spoken of today might get justice and might be freed from the jails that they are in, but we pray that all that it happens would be to your glory. And for the sake of Jesus Christ, it’s in His name. We pray. We thank you, father. Amen. Well, Y Gil from the ACL J, thank you so much for being on our program today. Please go check out our stand in the gap today Facebook page. I do believe that the open letter we talked about is on that page. Until next time, stand in the gap for truth where you are.