Voice of the Martyrs USA

Nine Christian families were forced out of their village by Hindu nationalists in India. Pastor Philip led them out of their village to an area of the jungle that one of the Christian brothers had begun to clear for crops. There, the first thought was not to build for themselves, but to build for God. “The main reason to come out from that village was because they destroyed the church, so we did not have a place to worship,” Philip said. “We wanted a place to worship, so the first thing we did was to build the church.”

📍 Location: India
📖 Read more in VOM’s July 2026 Magazine

15 hours ago | [YT] | 1,027

Voice of the Martyrs USA

In 2023, Hindu radicals in India destroyed Pastor Philip’s church building and gave the Christians a choice: They could renounce Christ, return to Hinduism and retain their place in the village. Otherwise, they would be forced to leave. Some turned away from their Christian faith. But nine families, choosing Christ, departed for the jungle to make a new life. Pray for persecuted Christians in India who are driven from their homes for their faith.

📍 Location: India
📖 Read more in VOM’s July 2026 Magazine

1 day ago | [YT] | 1,688

Voice of the Martyrs USA

Hinduism dominates India, where Christians are considered outcasts — below all the other castes. Unable to join even the lowest caste, they are regarded as filthy, defiling and untouchable. This is why many of our Christian family members in India have been repeatedly driven from their homes for their faith. They are suffering because their nation considers them an impurity that must be removed in the pursuit of a unified Hindu Indian homeland. —VOM President Cole Richards

📍 Location: India
📖 Read more in VOM’s July 2026 Magazine

2 days ago | [YT] | 1,379

Voice of the Martyrs USA

In 2013, Pastor Philip wanted to settle his family in a place in India where there were no Christians so that he could share the gospel. In the community he chose, the first person to come to faith was a prominent leader of the local Naxalites, or Marxist insurgents. Soon others followed, and a church was planted. But receiving the Good News about Jesus Christ made these new Christians the target of Hindu radicals. Church members were beaten, chastised and boycotted. Community leaders withheld tribal benefits like food support, tools and seeds.

📍 Location: India
📖 Read more in VOM’s July 2026 Magazine

3 days ago | [YT] | 1,715

Voice of the Martyrs USA

Many states in India have passed strict anti-conversion laws in hopes of silencing Christians through legal and administrative means. In rural and jungle areas, Hindu radicals physically attack Christians and destroy their property to pressure them into adopting Hinduism. One pastor reported that in 2025, five Christian workers had been killed in separate incidents within 100 miles of his village. Such threats are the price many Christians in India willingly pay to bear witness to Christ.

📍 Location: India
📖 Read more in VOM’s July 2026 Magazine

6 days ago | [YT] | 2,655

Voice of the Martyrs USA

“Hindu nationalists in India seek to make their country a true Hindu nation. Their concept of a true Hindu nation is chilling: It requires the ‘purification’ of India through the removal of other faiths, whose presence offends the gods they seek to appease. And the timing is equally chilling, as the only way to ‘purify’ India of its approximately 30 million Christians and 200 million Muslims in our lifetime would be through severe oppression and violence,” writes VOM President Cole Richards.

📍 Location: India
📖 Read more in VOM’s July 2026 Magazine

1 week ago | [YT] | 1,416

Voice of the Martyrs USA

Join us in praying for the families of Christians martyred for their faith: Dear heavenly Father, we praise you for the faithful witness of our brothers and sisters in Christ who have been killed and ask for your comfort for their families. May your presence bring peace to them. May your Spirit strengthen them. May your love flow through them as they continue to follow you. And may we be obedient to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with our families and in our neighborhoods and communities — at any cost. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

1 week ago | [YT] | 1,983

Voice of the Martyrs USA

From VOM President Cole Richards: Hindu nationalists in India sometimes deceptively describe their ideology as the pursuit of “Hindu unity,” which often sounds uncontroversial and even positive to outsiders. They also claim their oppressive actions, such as persecuting Christians, are part of a “struggle for Hindu existence.” This description is deceptive and ironic, as a supermajority of Indians (nearly 9 in 10) are Hindu. The most honest way they describe their goal is that they seek “to make Bharat Hindu Rashtra within this lifetime,” which means making India (Bharat, the Hindu homeland) a truly Hindu nation in the coming decades.

📍 Location: India
📖 Read more in VOM’s July 2026 Magazine

1 week ago | [YT] | 1,076

Voice of the Martyrs USA

After Thongkham was assassinated, local Christians and ministry coworkers rallied to support his family, unaware that they too were being surveilled by Laotian authorities as they responded. Those who gathered at the hospital were photographed and questioned. Apart from this intimidation of Thongkham’s Christian brothers and sisters, the police never conducted any investigation into the beloved pastor’s death. But the ministry that the killers tried to stop has not ceased. Sengdara, Thongkham’s wife, is committed to carrying on the work the Lord gave him even as she works through the pain of loss. “I will try to go and reap wherever Thongkham has been sowing,” she said. “Why would I retreat from our brothers and sisters who are bearing such fruit in their life?”

📍 Location: Laos

1 week ago | [YT] | 2,669

Voice of the Martyrs USA

On the morning of July 23, 2024, Thongkham and Sengdara met with a ministry partner from out of town, and together they went to the church building. When they arrived at their home later that day, Sengdara felt uneasy. Thongkham went around to the back of the house to see to evening chores. After one of their foster children reported that a stranger had come looking for Thongkham, Sengdara went outside to talk to him. She came to the door just as Thongkham turned to face two strangers dressed in black who had let themselves into the yard. She didn’t have time to even call out to him before the men pulled out suppressed handguns and shot her husband seven times. Stunned, Sengdara rushed to Thongkham’s aid. The men waited until they could see that Thongkham was beyond help, then calmly left the yard. Their son, Max, got help transporting Thongkham to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

📍 Location: Laos

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 1,810