Welcome to the Prison Pulpit on the China Compass Podcast. I'm your China Travel Guide in Exile as usual. Still an Exile. Missionary Ben, follow me on Twitter, X, at China Adventures where I share a new Chinese city or county and or county to pray for every single day of the week. You can also feel free to email me anytime. ChinaCompass at PrivacyPort.com. ChinaCompass at PrivacyPort.com. You can visit PrayGiveGo.us for many things. There's a link there to our Patreon account where you can support what we're doing and support especially the work in China. That's what the support would go for is actually towards the work in China. You can also find on Patreon different collections of the podcasts that I put together. So targeting a specific region of China, targeting topics like North Korea, Taiwan, targeting different things, all kinds of different things including the Prison Pulpit series where we talked through Richard Wormbrand's writings as well as Pastor Wang Yi. You can also find my substack there at PrayGiveGo.us. Substack is linked up there. ChinaCall.substack.com is the direct link there. I post a lot of things connected to the podcast, some of the things I talk about and articles I talk about. I end up posting on Substack as well. Some other things that aren't on the podcast are on Substack there as well. And every week I share the daily Pray for China weekly post. It has all the days of the week in one particular post, one spot. You can also find at PrayGiveGo.us all of the books and everything else I've published in the past. The short list I've got right here in front of me, the memoirs of William Millen who's the first missionary to Malaysia. Malaka at the time is the city he was in. And the second missionary to China, this is 200 years ago. The other book, the autobiography of John G. Payton with the introduction forward, I should say, written by Toby Sumpter. JohnG.Payton.com is the direct link, but it's also, again, all these are there at PrayGiveGo.us. I'm going to be working on part two of the autobiography of John G. Payton, republishing it here later this year, early next year. I'm going to be visiting the islands again there in the South seas here in a couple of months with my daughter. Hopefully we'll have some better pictures this time as that. I got a few pictures last time, but didn't get as many good pictures as I would like to have gotten. My daughter will help with that. Borden of Yale, the millionaire missionary is also there available at PrayGiveGo.us. His story, man, if you're interested at all in the Muslim situation in the Middle East and what's going on and what has happened in the past, that's quite the look into that world back at the time Cairo in the early 1900s. And what was possible there at that time compared to what's not so possible today in many of those same places. It's just a fascinating look and we can encourage us to pray more for that region and those people in places. The final little book I've got mentioned here, Unbeaten is my story, the story of my arrest interrogation and deportation from China almost eight years ago now. Late next month, April 30th will be the eight year anniversary of my arrest and interrogation there. I tell the story kind of a little memoir in this little book Unbeaten and Unbeaten refers not to me being awesome. I'm unbeaten. They can't beat me. It refers actually to, it's a play on words, something that was spoken to me by the police that night about how they weren't going to beat me because I'm an American. But I know that they do beat the heck out of Chinese people speaking of which in a few minutes I'll talk about. I met some guys this week that are from China who have been physically beaten by the Chinese police at different times. So it's a real thing but no, they did not beat me. They just threatened me and deported me but they do beat their own people and their own believers. That's why we should be praying for them. So you can get all that again. Praygivego.us. Now why the prison pulpit? I answer this question almost every week on the midweek podcast. The goal is to remind people to pray for persecuted believers as Hebrews 13, 3 clearly teaches us to do. Remember those who are in prison as bound with them. That's the part we don't typically do or think about as if we were bound with them. We've looked at Pastor Wang Yi in the past, early-range church in China. They're writings about their arrest and attack in 2018 as well. But I've also regularly turned to other persecuted ministers who have gone before such as Richard Wormbrand to give us a voice from within prison walls. Just to give us an idea and help us to think and put ourselves in the shoes of those who are actually suffering for Christ behind prison walls, inshackles, in chains, somewhere. Again, the goal is not to give specific people to pray for necessarily but to give a way to pray to help us to think and to pray as the Scripture teaches for all those who God might put in our path, whether it's on our social media feed, whether it's on our church prayer list, whatever it might be, we can learn to pray as Hebrews 13, 3 teaches us to do. Let me jump right in here and continue that pre-recorded thought just for a minute. You heard me explain why I focused on Hebrews 13, 3. And I want to say that my message on that very verse was well received by the Indian pastors I met with last week in Hyderabad, India, where I recorded the last podcast. We had a great time, the pastors and I, a fellowship and prayer together. And these men are not just talking about persecution hypothetically, but they face potential threats on a weekly basis. And so it was really encouraging to see them really understand Hebrews 13, 3 in a much deeper way and with the desire to take that back to their churches and their people and teach them to pray more effectively, more passionately for the persecuted for the suffering and of course for the lost as well. Speaking of India, persecution is indeed on the rise there in India. I mentioned on my last podcast I had been meeting with some Indian pastors. And a couple quick testimony, I don't want to add all the details, but a couple of things. One of the guys came to Hyderabad 40 something years ago, just the year before I was born. And he shared the story of when he first arrived and was going out to the villages to lead some Bible studies and to lead some families and worship and just try to continue really planning a church for the first time. How he was chased and threatened by radical Hindus at that time and the landlord of the property had to come out and physically manhandle these Hindus from the neighborhood around them and had to physically along with his sons with sticks and basically homemade bats or whatever you want to call it and force these Hindus out of his property and threaten them that he would protect the visiting pastor who was leading these people in worship and prayer there. And so this brother, I won't say his name, his wife told him actually we need to go home, we need to go back to our hometown. This is too dangerous, too crazy, but they continued and they stayed. They ended up planning a church there and he's still serving there 40 something years later in that same area, that same region. And he's one of these men that I was helping to train and spend time with his past week. Another one of the pastors is from the state of Orissa. I think sometimes it's pronounced Odissa, Odisha. This was the state where in 1999, I can't believe it's been that lie. I remember this when it happened barely. I was a teenager, but 1999, an Australian missionary father and his two young boys, I think they were ages six and ten were burned by Hindu radicals in their car where they were sleeping in their car overnight at an evangelistic outreach meeting that they were visiting in a rural part of that particular province. And they were burned to death and they died together. The father and his two young boys, the mother publicly came out and forgave the persecutors. She gave testimony later to the love of God and to God's grace and to the sacrifice they had made. Again, you can go back. I think their last name is stain, STA, INE. You can find that story online somewhere. I'm sure it's not hard to find. But that happened in one of the states where one of these men also was coming from. And he said there's still a radical tendency in that state by the Hindus there. And the native pastors and Christians remember that family and the sacrifice they made, the martyrdom that they suffered there in that state to take the gospel to that place. So again, those are just two short stories that I was able to hear firsthand from these pastors last week there in India. Now today I'm in Bangladesh. I'm in Dhaka, Bangladesh here today. And I almost forgot to share my little. So I mean, I'm staying in downtown Dhaka, which is the capital of Bangladesh. I've been wanting to come to Bangladesh for over 20 years. I know this sounds pretty crazy. But I way back in 2002. I think it was might have been 2001. I met a few people back in the states who were either serving here or were on their way to serve here in Bangladesh. And I was able to support some ministries that were doing work here back in the day. I remember as a high school student working part time job, I gave, I guess generously. I got a letter from one of the organizations thanking me personally for my gifts and as a high school student making not that much money. But I felt so burden for the people here. And I wanted to give. I wanted to support the gospel work that was going on here. And I've always wanted to visit never had the opportunity. I've been close to the border before I've been in India right along the border. Just never had the right opportunity. I've got friends that live here. An Indian family that lives here. Other friends who come here with their church fairly regularly from the US. And just never had made it. This is my first time here these last couple of days. And I've got another day or two to go. And it's been a privilege so far to be here and to meet some of the local pastors. Got to spend some time today with a couple of them here. And Bangladesh is not as serious of a situation as India as far as persecution goes. But it is, it's not completely open either right. It has similar issues from the Muslim majority. I'm India is the Hindu majority. And it's kind of surprising. You would think it'd be worse with the Muslim majority rather than the Hindu. You think it'd be more strict or more persecution here. But it's actually a little bit less than officially I think they said it is a secular government. It's not an Islamist government. It's not like the Islamic Republic of Bangladesh like Pakistan is or even like places like Malaysia. I think are one of the things about Bangladesh though that is always fascinated me. It's very few people realize how crowded it is here. How just crazy crowded it is here back in 2002 or so back then I think the official statistics were 130 million people. 130 million people back in 2002 and that was a ton right. But now today the current estimate is closer to 180 million people. 180 million people it's grown by maybe up to 50 million people in the last 20, 25 years in population. So close to 180 million people today in this nation. And it's not a big place. The landmass of Bangladesh is not big. It's about the same size as Georgia, the state of Georgia. It's about the same size slightly larger than Iowa. Slightly smaller than Georgia. Slightly larger than Iowa. I think it's slightly larger than Alabama. And so it's close and sized all three of those states. Again, in those states Georgia has the most people of those three states 11 million people in Georgia. 11 million which is a fairly high number for the US. My home state of Oklahoma has got less than 4 million. So 11 million in Georgia and in the same size landmass Bangladesh has 180 million. So almost half the population of the entire United States would fit or would be like being in Bangladesh in a place the size of just Iowa or Georgia or Alabama. It's 15 between 15 and 25 times more people than those states there. So I looked up ahead this thought. I wonder if it's Bangladesh the most densely populated nation on earth. And yes and no. It's not more populated than some of these city states that are sort of in that gray area. Are they actually nations? Are they countries? Are they independent? Are they territories? So for instance Macau is the most densely populated city state in the world. Macau, 22,000 people per square kilometer. I'm not sure what that comes to in. And square miles. Grock didn't tell me here. Monaco is really, really small 19,000 per square kilometer Singapore. A little larger but still really small area. 8,000 per square kilometer in Hong Kong as well. A little larger but still pretty small. 7,000 per square kilometer. So Bangladesh is roughly 3,500 people per square mile. 3500 per square mile. We have counties in Oklahoma that have less than 3500 people in an entire county of 1,000 square miles. So we're talking. We have counties where the populations per square mile is just you can count on your hand. You know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 people per square mile. And this is 3,500 per square mile throughout the entire nation. Which again is about the size of Georgia. So not massive. But it's the most densely populated according to Grock. The most densely populated sovereign nation on earth larger than 1,000 square miles, which is pretty small. 1,000 square miles is just 20 by 50 miles or 30 by 30 ish miles. So not a very big place. But it's the most densely populated nation of any size whatsoever any any significant size on earth. For example, other nations that are small, for instance, Taiwan, the Netherlands, South Korea, all have population densities less than half less than half of Bangladesh. Even though we know those as being very crowded places, Taiwan is extremely crowded. The Netherlands, Holland is extremely crowded. But it's still less than half is crowded as Bangladesh, South Korea as well. I've seen it for myself today walking around exploring here. I mean, I'm in the so-called upscale part of town. It doesn't feel very upscale honestly to me. It feels pretty pretty run down in many ways. It's got some tall buildings, some nicer hotels here and there. But very crowded. A lot of beggars on the streets, a lot of a lot of Muslims, man. When you walk around, you can see them everywhere. I didn't feel unsafe though. It was nice. I was walking around buying a couple little things here and there exploring a little bit. Walked by the river. The river didn't smell very good at all. Not what I would call a super upscale, but it's the nicer part of this particular town, DACA, which is home to 30 million people. Today, talking with some of the locals that I was meeting with today, including one pastor, I'll mention it in a minute. I won't mention his name. I learned that there are roughly four regions, how they divide up the regions for the purpose of planning and evangelism and church planning and what not. And then four groups of people as well. Now, those four regions are not home to those four groups of people. I separated in that type of way. But there's four and four more or less. So you have the northern region, the southern region, and that goes the capital is in the central. So the central region is the capital, which is home to again 30 or 40 million people. Then you have everything north of that leading up towards the Indian border, everything south of that leading towards the sea, the Bay of Bengal, and India as well as down that direction to the southwest. And then you have the southeast and the southeast is along the Bay of Bengal. And it's actually the only part of the country that's got a lot of hills and it's in the mountains and hills bordering Myanmar on that side of the country, Myanmar and India both, I think, on that south eastern portion. And so you have, again, north, south central, which is right where I'm at here in DACA, and then far to the southeast along the coast where you get into the hills of south of far eastern India and Myanmar. Now, those, the, the country's also divided into four groups of people roughly, the vast majority are Muslims, 91% Muslim back in 2002 or so it was 88% Muslim. So it's gone up by 3% and my friend tells me that it's not only population growth. It's also the Muslims are getting more aggressive in their evangelism of the Hindus and the others as well, the nominal Christians as well. So Muslims, 91% the Hindus make up, I think he said maybe 8% 7 or 8% Hindu. And in Bangladesh surrounded by India, you can understand whether it be quite a few Hindus here in the country. Then you have the tribal peoples and the tribal peoples are almost one and the same with many of the Christians, but not completely. There are still some unreached tribes, some animist tribes. So you have the tribal peoples in the southeast there, what I mentioned a minute ago. And then you have Christians and Christians in this nation are less than 1%. I think the number of my friend told me was 0.3% 0.3% but so it's much less than 1% Christian. That's still a lot of people out of 180 million people that might be close to a million people total, you know, half a million or more total in the country. And so here's some final thoughts. Again, this is kind of an overview of Bangladesh today, but I want to give you some final thoughts on Bangladesh and how to pray for this nation. Again, I don't have any specific prayer requests other than you can pray for my friends that I'm meeting with and that they would continue to their churches will continue to grow as they plant new churches in more unreached areas and as they target the Muslims for outreach here as well. Islam, like I just mentioned, is growing faster than anything else here in this country. Christians converted from is I mentioned the islam are trying to convert the Christians and the Hindus, but there are Christians being converted out of Islam. So people being converted coming from Islam, it's growing, it's been over estimated at times some estimates give the number as many as 3 million converts from Islam. But my friend who is one of those converts, he is a Muslim background Christian. He grew up in a Muslim family, his family converted many years ago, his brother was first in his grandfather and then his mother and then him finally later when he was a college student, but he says about 200,000, 200,000 converts from Islam in the recent in recent history. So that's a lot of people, but that's still a really small number compared to the overall number of people in this country, as I mentioned earlier, 180 million people. Now I've spent some days with this yesterday, well today I'm this is posting on Wednesday. So Tuesday and Wednesday I spent some time with one of these brothers as well as another brother from the tribes, the hill tribes as well. And I've got to hear from them personally, hear some of their stories, hear some of their testimonies, see what they're doing and how they're serving in this nation, encourage them in different ways. So here's what we need to pray for and I've shared this as a sermon at times back in the States many years ago, especially I used to share this all the time. Pray for there's four things here, more labors Luke 10 verse 2 and more labors open doors, open doors for the gospel to to go in. We have labors, we don't have open doors, and we have a hard time going through. And then once the doors are open and the labors are ready, they need boldness, they need boldness to be able to speak and to go into the places that God is opening doors for them to go and calling them to go. So boldness, even Paul and Ephesians chapter 6 says pray for me that I would speak boldly as I ought to speak if Paul needed boldness, how much more does does the average the quote unquote average brother or church plan or pastor need the Holy Spirit to give boldness to speak. So number three boldness number four, then would be protection as you're bold and as you go through the open doors, the enemy is going to come against the work in many ways. So protection from the evil one. I don't have any stories of persecution right now to share with you from here, but it's going to happen. It does happen often on and the enemy will come after his people here as they continue to share and preach the gospel in this nation. So we pray for protection for them from the evil one. So more labors open doors, a Holy Spirit boldness and then protection from the evil one here. And as always, you can put yourself in their shoes, you know, we obey what scripture teaches us as if we were with them. Paul said, remember my chains in collotions four verse 18, we want to put ourselves in the shoes of the workers here, the preachers here as we pray for them as we intercede for them. One final thing before the outro, the pre-recorded outro plays, we've got a big project. I'm trying to raise some funds for with some Chinese, Chinese missionaries and Chinese evangelists and pastors coming up later this year. We're going to be training and doing some cross cultural training and with the missionary arm of China's underground church. And we need to raise $50,000 by September to help with this need. We're going to train them. There's lots of lots of things involved in that on how they have to get where they didn't get to be trained. China's still a real big mess and really, really risky and dangerous for them. So if you'd like to help with that, mci3.org, you can go to that website and give at the link there mci3.org to the link in the show notes. We need to raise, we're going to raise with God's grace, we're going to raise $50,000 by September for this particular need. Talk to you again in a few days. You'll hear the outro coming up right now. Thank you for listening once again to the prison pulpit podcast here on the China Compass podcast. Subscribe and leave a review on your preferred podcast platform and don't forget to visit praygivego.us for the books I mentioned earlier and everything else I mentioned is either linked up there or it's right here in the show notes. Check it all out. Hebrews 13, 3, once again, remember those who are in prison as bound with them. That's the charge that we're given. Talk to you later. Talk to you in a few days. God bless. Would you in our scene as if you were bound with me? I hear screams of those going mad trying to sleep on a cement slab. The cards are hard as if they cannot see. They don't recognize our humanity. Oh, remember me. Oh, remember me. Would you in our scene as if you were bound with me? The pastor taught us what is right. The snatched away in the dead of night. How will we care for his family? Or answer the question, where's my daddy? Oh, remember me. Oh, remember me. Would you in our scene as if you were bound with me? When it's a crime to share of a God who cares, a crime to shine light into despair, the church will find it's hard to be. Anything other than guilty, oh, remember me. Oh, remember me. Would you in our scene as if you were bound with me? Remember me. When will I walk free? Oh, remember me. Where's my daddy? Remember me. Do we need to flee? Remember me. The season of suffering which I'll pass, then I'll see my Savior's face at last. Pray that I'll walk faithfully and bear my cross. Oh, remember me. Would you in our scene as if you were bound with me? The season of suffering which I'll pass, then I'll see my Savior's face at last.