One of the speakers at New Wineskins for both the Saturday night session I mentioned above, and for the pre-conference Conference on the Persecuted Church for which I was a co-leader, was the Rt. Reverend Andudu Adam Elnail, the Bishop of Kadugli and Nuba Mountains, Episcopal Church of Sudan. Bishop Andudu is a dear friend, and I knew his testimony would be deeply moving to all those gathered in those western North Carolina mountains.

Mandryk and Wall spoke at New Wineskins for Global Mission, a triennial gathering of mission agencies, relief and development groups, seminaries, clergy and laity. The conference drew more than 1,200 registrants to the mountains of western North Carolina September 26-29, along with a parallel youth event and nearly two dozen pre-conferences hosted by various Anglican ministry groups.

I bought the line then that the Church of England was 'the best boat to fish from'. I saw ministers I respected being really fruitful for Christ in the CofE, so it seemed natural for me to go to the same denomination as my evangelical leaders.

Also, the biblically-faithful legacy of the Book of Common Prayer and the 39 Articles of Religion was and still is the official doctrine of the CofE, and so an evangelical could join it with spiritual integrity.

As is well known, Christianity was born in a hemorrhage of blood -- first Christ's, then almost all his apostles'. Roman and Islamic Christian persecution is fairly well known, but Sookhdeo's accounts from India, Africa, Southeast Asia, China and other parts of the Orient may be news to many. Some of the treatment is sketchy because so little is known of what actually took place due to the paucity of historical sources from early ages and far-flung places.