Pastor Lalani

It is pastors and church workers in rural areas who often face the worst attacks stirred up by Buddhist militants in Sri Lanka. Here Pastor Lalani tells how she and the church she now pastors have endured persecution, and seen God’s hand at work.

‘My husband came to this area some years back, and started this ministry. Initially we had to move from house to house. It was during this time, in 1988, that my husband was shot, and stabbed and murdered.

Finally we bought the plot of land, where we now have our church. At first it was just a small house, where we held our meetings. We did not go house to house visiting people, but two or three believers, who had been touched by God, they went out and testified. Their testimonies brought people to the church.

Our prayer was that God would touch the people of this area so they could experience his glory, his love and his presence, and would come to know him. In all these years we have continued to teach the Bible, and the church has grown over the years.

We have had a lot of opposition, because this is primarily a Buddhist area. The main reason is because people could not understand what we are doing and who we are. So they stoned our building, burned down our house, and many times threatened us with death. But still we forgave these people, and prayed for them, that God would allow them to experience his love and his grace.

When the foundations of the new church building were being laid, some of the people in the surrounding area were very provoked. One Sunday morning, as the believers were leaving the meeting, a mob attacked them, forcibly taking their Bibles, which they tore up and burned. They threatened the Christians, saying ‘If you come back to this church, we will attack you again.’

Another time, our house was stoned in the night for 15 days continuously. My son, who was only small at the time, was very frightened, and he used to crawl under the table. However I never went to the police, or took any action against them during this whole period.

On April 2 1999, which was Good Friday, three high powered explosives were planted at the church. Two exploded. Thankfully only the building was damaged, and no lives were lost, and nobody was hurt. The next day we carried on our work, and I asked God to forgive them, because they were doing these things out of ignorance. This was the same prayer I prayed when they killed my husband.

When Pastor Lionel started the church in 1983, there were only two or three believers. At the time of his death in 1988 there were about 35 or 40 people attending the Sunday meetings regularly. Today, we have about 350 people coming every week, and we have six branch churches, with about 100 meeting regularly each week in each.

This is only because of God, and we thank Him for that.’

 

 

Being left out

Being bullied

Parents not listening

Being betrayed by friends

Getting killed

Facing prejudice

Continuous death threats

Being falsely accused

Having possessions stolen

Being humiliated in front of a crowd