From Voice of the Martyrs email:

In Turkey
Following Sunday worship services January 8th, five young men attacked and threatened to kill a Protestant church leader in Turkey’s fourth largest city. Kamil Kiroglu, 29, was beaten unconscious twice along the street after leaving his church premises in Adana at about 5:00 p.m. “They were trying to force me to deny Jesus,” Kiroglu said. “But each time they asked me to deny Jesus and become a Muslim, I was saying, ‘Jesus is Lord.’ The more I said, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ the more they beat me.” Wielding a long butcher knife, one of the unidentified attackers threatened to kill him if he refused to deny his Christian faith and return to Islam. The five strangers showed up at the Adana Protestant Church’s rented facility 45 minutes before the Sunday service began around 2:00 p.m. The group’s leader said that he had “converted” the four Turks with him to Christianity, but he did not know how to teach them. They waited until after the service when everyone had left before confronting Kiroglu and asking him to deny Jesus. Kiroglu told Compass, “I am praising God not because He saved me from death, but because He helped me not to deny Him in the shadow of death.”

Give thanks to God that He spared Kiroglu’s life. Pray his example of faithfulness will be an inspiration to his congregation and all who hear of his ordeal. Pray the Lord will lead his attackers to seek the Lord Jesus who gave Pastor Kiroglu the strength to endure.