EDITOR’S NOTE: Following are the comments of Daniel Wani, delivered during the Suffolk Leadership Prayer Breakfast last month. Wani is the husband of Dr. Mariam Yahia Ibrahim, a Christian who was held for six months in a prison in Sudan for refusing to renounce her faith. She was the featured speaker at the Suffolk event.

Good morning.

My wife Mariam and I are grateful and humbled to join with you this morning on this National Day of Prayer. Morning means new beginnings, new hope, and new spirit.

The theme this year is “Lord, Hear our Cry!” from 1 Kings 8:28.

Last year at this time my wife and I were both in Sudan. We were on trial for adultery because of my wife’s religious faith. The court system considered my wife as a Muslim, even though she is a Christian and has never been Muslim. She was raised a Christian by her mother.

In Islamic Sharia law, a Muslim woman cannot marry a man from another religion, so we were charged with adultery, and because they considered her a Muslim she was also charged with apostasy.

In May of last year, on the same day, we were behind bars in a courtroom. The judge dropped my charges for adultery but sentenced my wife to 100 lashes for adultery and to hanging for apostasy.

When the judge announced the sentences, she stood firm and did not break down. She just smiled because she knew that she had never committed a crime. She was always a Christian and she would die a Christian.

At that time, many people of different faiths, including Muslim people, came to protest against those unjust sentences.

Today I see people from different faiths and different parties coming together for prayer. Faith brings us together in spite of differences, because faith means love and peace. John tells us that Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

Faith can bring people together. When Mariam’s sentence was announced on the BBC, churches all over the world rang their bells in protest, and Muslim scholars in most Muslim countries condemned the sentences. Because of this demonstration of unity, the Khartoum government reversed the sentences.

Today we need this kind of unity from our leaders, in the nation and worldwide. I never feared, because I had faith that God was going to free her. Freedom was a gift from God, through mankind. Also, I never feared because we trusted that God would hear us.

Now, let us pray for our leaders, for our country, and for all persecuted people everywhere, for Yat Michael and Peter Yen, the two pastors from South Sudan who have been detained in Sudan since December 2014; for Asia Bibi in Pakistan and Saeed Abedeni in Iran.

When we all pray, God will hear us and unite us in faith and love and peace

Thank you!