Here it is, New Year’s Eve Day. Everybody I know is making plans of some sort to celebrate tonight. But as the day begins, I check my email, expecting only to delete the solicitations for online high school diploma courses and for erectile dysfunction medication. (How does the internet know that I’m 55 years old yet not know that I’m a college graduate?)

Imagine my surprise when I get an email from a pastor in East India. My church helps support a church-planting effort in that region. Hundreds of small Christian churches have been established in the last several years. There are over 78,000 Christians in those fledgling churches. It has been spiritually encouraging for me to see the growth of the Christian body in that predominantly Hindu country; and I’ve been pleased that my meager financial contributions have supported the effort.

But the email I received today reports nothing but horror. Those Christians have recently been subjected to dreadful persecution. Their churches and their homes have been burned. Under the threatening chants of “Become Hindus or face death!” they have been forced to flee into the jungle with no possessions or provisions. Family members are separated from each other. The most recent report says that 10 people have been killed, 500 houses burnt and 50 churches destroyed. At one jungle encampment, 300 people have been without food and water for 6 days. Relief efforts are thwarted by violence on the access roads.

And, here I sit this early morning on New Year’s Eve. I’m wearing a second of three sets of new Christmas pj’s, pondering which of several parties I’ll attend tonight.

Somehow, I now longer feel in the mood to celebrate. I didn’t expect to enter the New Year with fasting and prayer. But nothing else seems appropriate.