{"id":4984,"date":"2024-05-16T07:07:06","date_gmt":"2024-05-16T07:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/church-awaiting-justice-remains-under-attack\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T07:07:06","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T07:07:06","slug":"church-awaiting-justice-remains-under-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/church-awaiting-justice-remains-under-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Church Awaiting Justice Remains Under Attack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Anura and Ayesha lead a church in western Sri Lanka that has been repeatedly attacked in recent years. Some of the perpetrators of these attacks are facing charges in court. However, Ayesha reported, every time the court dates near, groups in the village try to stir up trouble by breaking Buddha statues or throwing human feces on them and then blaming the church for dishonoring Buddhism. So far, no progress has been made in these cases. In 2023, attackers threatened new converts from the villages and pelted stones at their houses. Police have interfered with services and even directly threatened Pastor Anura to stop church services. Pray for Anura, Ayesha and their church to be bold and courageous as they bear suffering and continue to take the gospel to more villages.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/globalprayerguide\/sri-lanka\/\">Click here<\/a> to find out about Christian persecution in Sri Lanka and learn how to pray.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.icommittopray.com\/request\/2667\/anura-and-ayesha\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Post a prayer for Anura and Ayesha on iCommitToPray.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anura and Ayesha lead a church in western Sri Lanka that has been repeatedly attacked in recent years. Some of the perpetrators of these attacks are facing charges in court. However, Ayesha reported, every time the court dates near, groups in the village try to stir up trouble by breaking Buddha statues or throwing human feces on them and then blaming the church for dishonoring Buddhism. So far, no progress has been made in these cases. In 2023, attackers threatened new converts from the villages and pelted stones at their houses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-i-commit-to-pray","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Church Awaiting Justice Remains Under Attack - Stories<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/church-awaiting-justice-remains-under-attack\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Church Awaiting Justice Remains Under Attack - Stories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Anura and Ayesha lead a church in western Sri Lanka that has been repeatedly attacked in recent years. Some of the perpetrators of these attacks are facing charges in court. However, Ayesha reported, every time the court dates near, groups in the village try to stir up trouble by breaking Buddha statues or throwing human feces on them and then blaming the church for dishonoring Buddhism. So far, no progress has been made in these cases. 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