Vengeance Is Not Violence

Three years ago, religious thugs stormed into our church during a Sunday service. This was a church our pastor had been running quietly for fourteen years. They shouted slogans, interrupted prayer, and threatened everyone. They came back the next Sunday. And the next. After three Sundays, the pastor decided to move out of the area.

I had been a normal Christian till then. I went to church regularly. I sang hymns. But faith did not demand anything costly from me.

That day changed something. Not suddenly. Not dramatically. There was no surge of courage or instant clarity. Life continued as usual. I prayed the same prayers. I still felt small. But something inside me settled into a direction. I realized that being pushed out should not be the end of the story. I found myself praying a stubborn prayer. If we were driven from one place, I would work to make the Christian voice heard across the city.

I did not know what that would look like. So I started small.

Most of the church members were daily laborers and semi-literate. I began teaching them to read the Bible. Chapter by chapter. Week after week. Then I asked them to do something unusual. I asked them to record a three-minute audio of their understanding of each chapter of the New Testament.

I did not expect much. But they surprised me. Their reflections were simple, honest, and deeply rooted in lived faith. We stitched these recordings together into a daily audio. It became, in effect, a small radio broadcast. Soon, when church members drove through the city for work, they were listening to this daily church radio.

We had been pushed out of one place. Our voices began to travel through many.

The very people who were told they did not belong were now being heard in homes, buses, and streets across the city. What intimidation tried to silence ended up being amplified.

As the church grew stronger in understanding and confidence, weekly prayers began in two other places in the same area.

Around this time, another pastor heard about what we were doing and asked if I could help his church as well. Almost immediately after that conversation, his church faced the same problem. The landlord asked them to leave.

This time the question was different. A gathering of daily laborers could spread a voice. But could they build a church for themselves?

We prayed. We formed a small church board. We planned. But plans do not buy or build without money. We looked at land plots and watched them get sold to others. Over and over. Each time just beyond our reach. There were long pauses where nothing seemed to move except disappointment. Still, we held on to the resolve.

I called my college friends and asked them to contribute whatever they could. They did. The pastor began reaching out to anyone who would listen. Money started arriving slowly. Church members began contributing. Some skipped buying clothes and routed that money to the building fund. We all gave whatever little we could. Eventually, we had enough to buy a plot and start building.

Most of the church members were masons. So they worked day and night. Some asked for minimal wages so they could feed their families while building the church. Many worked for free. Progress was painfully slow. Some months, the entire visible result was just a few new bricks.

There were problems, as there always are. Delays that tested patience. Disagreements that strained trust. Accidents that could have stopped everything. There were days when quitting would have made sense. But the work continued. When there was no work, we gathered and prayed at the site.

After two years of slow and steady building, we dedicated the church today.

Standing there, touching the walls, seeing people worship inside something they had built with their own hands, felt unreal. Yet the walls were solid. The floor was firm. The truth of it could be felt.

This is where I finally understood what that old resolve meant. Vengeance did not need to look like violence. It did not need fists or fire. It could look like staying. Like building. Like refusing to disappear.

Hate celebrates quick victories. Love takes the long road. It waits. It suffers. It builds quietly, brick by brick, until what tried to erase it no longer matters.

That is the way of Christ.

Christmas is not about God overpowering the world. It is about God entering it, refusing to leave, and winning by love that outlasts violence.

Merry Christmas.