A deaf girl living in Central Asia remains hospitalized with severe injuries after her family beat her because she refused to renounce the name of Jesus Christ.
DOOR International shares the story of Saida, a young girl who was severely beaten by her family after they discovered she had embraced Christianity.
"The screams she emitted caused the neighbors to call the police," the outlet reveals. "When the police came, the police saw it was her family beating her and they said, 'Well, this is a family issue, so we won't get involved.' The family then realized they kind of had immunity to continue to beat her, so they continued to do so to the point where she had to be brought eventually to the hospital in intensive care."
Although Saida ended up in the hospital that day, she refused to comply with her family's command to deny her faith.
Open Doors USA reports that Saida's family threatened to beat her again once she's released from the hospital. However, members of the local church hope to intercept the young girl before family members are able to attack her once again.
Reads the Open Doors report: "Please, pray for this young and very faithful deaf sister - for her safety; for her physical, emotional and spiritual healing; that God will change her relatives' hearts; and for their ultimate salvation. Pray also for an opportunity for Christian believers from Saida's church to secretly remove her from the hospital and get her to safety."
Rob Myers of DOOR International, a Deaf-led ministry that focuses on sign language Bible translation and leadership training, told Mission Network News that believers like Saida are targets of persecution like any other Christians in hostile areas. However, because Saida is deaf, the problems she faces are unique.
"What's different for deaf believers is many times parents are unaware of what's going on in their child's life. They may be meeting with people, they may even be signing with friends about Scripture, and their parents have no idea because most parents of deaf children don't actually sign," he said.
"What usually prompts persecution would be something like when Scripture is found in the home, when a child is asked to marry someone from the parents' faith and the child refuses because they then put forward that they're a believer. Many times those types of situations then cause a situation in a family to escalate."
Myers also explained that deaf people aren't able to communicate with police when they are abused by their family members.
"Pray that God would open the eyes of the people who are performing these beatings," he said. "We obviously want to pray for safety for many of these missionaries, and we work toward that. But many of them...when we ask them, 'What should we pray for you for?', they don't say, 'Pray for my safety.' Many of them will say, 'Please pray for boldness.'"
