Jail-time evangelism

Laos: The ongoing crackdown against Laotian pastors is spreading the gospel through prisons | Jill Nelson

Pastor Khamxay doesn't remember all of the horrific events during his three trips through a Laotian prison. Repeated blows to the head have affected his memory. But he does recall the horrid stench as well as the five prisoners he led to Christ during a recent imprisonment.

Few Westerners have visited the landlocked country of Laos, one of the world's few remaining communist states and one of Southeast Asia's poorest countries. But reports of intensified persecution of Christians prompted one British Christian agency that ministers to the persecuted church to send an investigative team into Laos to gather testimony from believers like Khamxay.

Already this year 15 Hmong families have been arrested and risk being sent back to Vietnam—an almost certain death sentence. The day after these 58 believers were seized, nine Hmong church leaders from Laos were sentenced to 15 years in jail for failure to control the size of their ministries.