After taking the stage to address VOM staff at a weekly chapel service, Pastor Andrew Brunson at first found himself overcome with emotion and unable to speak. When he regained his composure, he explained the connection he felt to VOM: “I spent a lot of time in prison with Richard Wurmbrand.”
Andrew then explained how he had read VOM founder Richard Wurmbrand’s writing while imprisoned for two years in Turkey, where he had been charged with espionage and trying to overthrow the Turkish government. He had even torn a picture of Richard out of one of the books and put it on the cell wall next to a picture of his own family.
Andrew said he wished he could have been more like Richard while in prison. He said he was sometimes frustrated — with God and himself — that he couldn’t victoriously overcome his long months in prison with the kind of faith and joy that Richard writes about in books like Tortured for Christ and In God’s Underground.