Preparing for Persecution

"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church"
-Tertullian, 1st century AD-
On a cold drizzly day in early 1998, I took a sobering tour through the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. A picture of a Gestapo officer brought back memories of the Nazi soldiers that guarded our neighborhood in Norway during World War II. Young as I was-I was born in Oslo early in the war-I will never forget the piercing air raids, the thundering war planes, our hiding place in the basement, and the sounds of exploding bombs and fires around us.My young father was part of the "Hjemme Fronten" (the Home Front)-an underground army of loyal Norwegians who would rather die than submit to Nazi tyranny. Caught helping other brave soldiers escape into neutral Sweden, he endured hunger, torture, and the threat of death in three concentration camps before his release at the end of the war. Through the years of oppression, we all learned to treasure our freedom.The Norwegian people hadn't known tyranny until the Nazi warships sailed up the Oslofjord on April 9, 1940. Overnight, Hitler's fascism replaced liberty, and trusted friends became foes. Resistance to the new ideology could cost our lives. Yet, how could we submit to evil and betray our king?We couldn't! For most Norwegians, the choice was clear. Unlike Hitler's masses, we hadn't been weakened by years of ceaseless propaganda, slogans, service, and celebrations dedicated to the triumph of National Socialism....
To read more go to:
http://www.crossroad.to/Persecution/persecute.html
As in the days of Noah...