Forced to burn her gospels: Sasha in Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, Sasha’s Hindu father forced her to burn her gospels when he discovered her secret faith.

Sasha in Sri Lanka is 18, but she became a Christian when she was 12 years old, after she experienced a miraculous healing with her sister and aunt. 

It wasn’t her initial plan. She remembers: “I thought I would only come to church but remain Hindu.” It wasn’t until a week later – when Sasha was healed from a sickness after being prayed for – that she recognised that Jesus was the one true God. After this experience, she wanted to be a true believer. 

Sasha faced immediate opposition from her father. “He would say things like, ‘The church is like a hospital. Once you get healed, you come back home from there. You don’t have to go there always’, and he’d say it sarcastically,” says Sasha. The situation at home gradually got worse and worse. 

Beaten by her father

Things came to a head towards the end of last year, just after Sasha got home from college. Her mother and sister were not at home. She asked her Dad if he had eaten. When he said no, she went to the kitchen to serve him some food. As she was bringing the plate to her father, he demanded, “Bring me your bag!”

Sasha did as she was told. When her father saw her bag, he instantly hit her. He’d seen the gospels that she had been carrying. “I always had some gospel tracts in my bag. I hand them out whenever I get the chance to share the gospel with someone,” Sasha explains. Sri Lanka is number 61 on the World Watch List, and converts from the majority Hindu religion face the greatest amount of persecution – particularly in their private life.

Despite begging him to stop, the beating continued. When he did eventually stop harming her, it was with a dire warning: that he would kill her if he ever saw her near a church again.

As a young woman in her father’s house, Sasha is particularly vulnerable. She is expected to be obedient to her father, and her gender makes her additionally exposed to persecution. Like many women and girls around the world, the persecution and threats she faces take place behind closed doors, in the family home – to the outside world, this sort of opposition may be unnoticed, or even condoned.

Forced to burn the gospel

Sasha’s father then grabbed the gospels out of the bag and forced her to burn them. “I cried and begged at his feet saying that I cannot burn them,” she says. The fear of being beaten again made her give in to his demands. Sasha wept as she burned the gospels one by one. 

Since then, her father checks her bag whenever she goes out of the house. “He always asks me where I’m going, to make sure I’m not going to church,” says Sasha.

Despite this abuse and opposition, Sasha remains resolute in her faith. “The day after the incident was a Sunday. I told dad that I was going to class, but I went to church instead,” says Sasha.

“Since childhood, I didn’t feel loved by my parents. They never spent time with me. But when I accepted the Lord, I felt true love through Him. Going to church on Sunday gives me the strength to get through the rest of the week.”

Sasha wants to see change

Sasha now has to keep her faith hidden from her father, and can’t evangelise as openly as she once did, but she refuses to let her difficult predicament keep her from following Jesus with all her heart. Open Doors local partners are able to encourage Sasha with regular meetings to pray for her. Most crucially, they are able to show her that she is not alone.

Please pray for Sasha, and all the other women and girls who have to keep their faith secret and who fear violence and repression from persecutors – particularly those who live in fear of their father, husband, brothers or other male relatives. Please pray that they will see change.

*Names changed for security reasons