Two years have passed since 21 Egyptian Christians were beheaded by ISIS on a beach in Libya. As persecution in Egypt continues, the families of those martyred in 2015 have continued in faith and hope.
The news comes from the Christian group Focus on the Family, whose Middle East team have been supporting the families of those murdered by ISIS since the February 2015 atrocities took place.
Even at the time, staff reported that: 'We saw a living Bible in how these precious men and women responded to their pain, loss, and adversity.'
In a more recent update via email, the team wrote: 'The great news about the families of the martyrs of Libya is that even after more than two years they still live in the condolences of the Holy Spirit and they stick to their faith that their martyrs showed to the whole world; how the real Christian should live and die for the glory of Christ.
'While we have been visiting the families regularly we met with some of the wives of the martyrs and asked them about their kids and how they live right now, a common answer was, "Our kids in their new nice private school have been so proud of their fathers among their friends and they have worked hard to match with studying the new curriculums to stay up to that new level of education."'
The legacy of those killed in Libya lives on; the team said, 'Most of these families hang in their homes a banner with all the martyrs' photos', in which each martyr has a crown over their head.
The past six months have seen four major terror attacks against Coptic Christians in Egypt: a December bombing of a church in Cairo, two Palm Sunday bombings of Coptic churches in Tanta and Alexandria, and a mass shooting of Christian pilgrims on a bus in Elminia last month.
Egypt's Coptic Christian community represents about ten per cent of the majority Muslim country. The report said that the Christians grieved in 2015 have shared their pain with those killed in more recent attacks.
It said: 'One of the great impressive signs of faith we witnessed very recently in the lives of those families, after the several attacks on Christians in Cairo, Tanta, Alexandria, and the most recent bus in Elminia, is that some of the families' members went to give condolences to the new victims and share a real example of how God has been faithful to and strengthened them in such tough painful experience.'
The report concluded: 'Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.'
