Despite death threats from her father, this 18-year-old stays faithful

*Representative image used

When Sasha*, now a young woman living in Sri Lanka, trusted Jesus at age 12, she had no idea how difficult that decision would be.

So difficult that she would endure vicious death threats from her father, a devout Hindu: “If I see you near a church again,” he father told her, “I will pour petrol (gasoline) over you and burn you alive!”

But that’s not the beginning of Sasha’s story—nor the end.

Everything changed

Sasha was with her older sister, Shani*, and aunt at a local church when she made her life-changing decision. After a miraculous healing through prayer, the two women had become believers of Christ and had taken 12-year-old Sasha to church with them.

“Even then,” Sasha recalls, “I thought I would only come to church but remain Hindu.” It wasn’t until a week later when Sasha was freed from an evil spirit that she knew Jesus was the one, true God. Sasha knew then that she wanted to be what she calls a “true believer.” Her mother also trusted Christ.

Sasha’s father had been living abroad and did not object to his wife and daughters attending church while he was away. But when he returned home, everything changed. He began to voice his opposition.

“He would say things like, ‘The church is like a hospital. Once you get healed, you come back home from there. You don’t have to go there always.’ He’d say it sarcastically,” Sasha remembers. Her home situation only grew worse.

Her father soon gave them an ultimatum: “If you don’t stop going to church, I will leave this house.”

Not wanting to lose their father, the girls and their mother took turns secretly attending church. “At home, I would dress like I was going for tuition classes and then change and attend church,” Sasha said.

But a few months later, one of Sasha’s cousins tipped off their father about their secret visits to church. Enraged, he beat his wife and daughters for their disobedience.

Ongoing opposition

Open Doors partners first met Sasha, Shani and their mother when Sasha was 16 and have continued to walk with the three women. Last December, they visited with Sasha, now 18, in a public park because it was impossible to meet her at home. Soon into the conversation, she told them her father remains vehemently opposed to their faith decision, that he’d even threatened her life only a month before (in November 2024). Sasha remembers the assault vividly …

Returning home after college classes on a Saturday evening, she came back to find only her father there. Her mother and sister were out.
“Dad, did you eat?” she asked him.

“No,” her father said. She went into the kitchen to make dinner. She had no way of knowing that in a few minutes, she’d face the worst beating of her life.
As she brought the plate to her father, he demanded, “Bring me your bag!” Sasha knew he would be angry when he saw the tracts she always carried in case she got the chance to share the gospel with someone.

Within seconds, Sasha felt the hard, cold slap of her father’s backhand. He had seen the tracts.

“He started hitting me with whatever was near him—a broomstick, poles—and slapped me with his rough hand. He works in an iron workshop, so his hands are quite rough. It was painful, and I couldn’t stop crying,” Sasha shares.

No matter how much she begged and cried in pain, the beatings continued, along with the horrific death threat to burn her alive.

“Betraying your religion is like prostitution,” her father shouted as he stormed in and out of the kitchen, holding a knife to his throat. “Do you want me to kill myself? Is this why I took care of you for so long?”

Sasha couldn’t speak or move. She remembers how her body shivered and ached as tears rolled down her cheeks. That’s when her father grabbed the tracts from her bag and forced her to burn them.

“I cried and begged at his feet saying that I cannot burn them,” she said. Fearing another beating or her father harming himself, Sasha wept as she burned the tracts one by one.

Since that night, her father checks her bag each time she leaves the house. “He always asks me where I’m going, to make sure I’m not going to church,” Sasha says.

Resolute and resilient

With that level of opposition and violence, you might think that Sasha would want to reconsider her decision to leave Hinduism or at least back away from sharing the gospel. Yet even after that night, the young woman remains resolute and resilient in her faith.

“The very next day after the incident was a Sunday. I told Dad I was going to class, but I went to church instead,” she says with a cheeky grin.
For Sasha and the millions of Christians around the world who face persecution from their own family members, faith in Jesus and their local church community are vital lifelines.

"Since childhood, I didn’t feel loved by my parents,” she says. “They never spent time with me. But when I accepted the Lord, I felt true love through Him. Going to church on Sunday gives me the strength to get through the rest of the week.”

Life is still not easy for the young Sri Lankan. Sasha must continue to keep her faith hidden from her father and find secret ways to be part of her local church. She can’t read her Bible at home, bring Christian friends into her house or talk openly about her faith.

But through your support and prayers, our local partners continue to walk with Sasha, praying with her and encouraging her that she’s not alone. They ask us to remember this young woman who faithfully trusts God as her Savior and Redeemer.

*Name changed to protect security

please pray

1. Pray that the opposition from Sasha’s father will stop and she’ll be able to attend church without fears of being discovered.
2. Pray that Sasha’s father will come to know the Lord and experience the love Sasha has found.
3. Pray that the Lord will strengthen Sasha through these tough times. As she shares the gospel with people she meets, pray she will have divinely orchestrated encounters with people who need to hear the message of Jesus Christ.
4. Pray that Sasha’s life would be a testimony for people around her.

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Despite death threats from her father, this 18-year-old stays faithful

Everything changed

Ongoing opposition

Resolute and resilient

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