This past Sunday, October 27, was International Religious Freedom (IRF) Day. Twenty-six years ago, then-President Bill Clinton signed into law the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, a groundbreaking policy that created the modern infrastructure for the U.S.’s advancement of religious freedom worldwide. The IRF Act was passed unanimously by both the House and the Senate, demonstrating not just bipartisan commitment to this fundamental right, but showing how the protection and promotion of religious freedom was core to America’s identity.

While the passage of the IRF Act was an important legislative step forward, we should remember that the legislation was not just about an abstract principle. It was about mustering the full weight of U.S. foreign policy to help real people facing persecution just because of their faith — real people who are themselves an enormous inspiration.

People like Algerian Pastor Youssef Ourahmane. Pastor Youssef is a mild-mannered but charismatic evangelical leader, whose ministry in Algeria began in 1988. The North African country is 99% Muslim, and evangelical Christians make up only a portion of the remaining 1%, which still amounts to over 100,000 people. Over the past 36 years, Pastor Youssef has committed himself to spreading the Gospel of Christ, even under the most difficult of circumstances.

Pastor Youssef shared his story with me and others during a recent trip to Washington, D.C. He had his first run-in with the authorities in 1997, when someone complained that he had been sharing a video about Jesus. He was taken to the local police station, where he was interrogated the whole day. He was finally released because he had committed no crime. But the interrogations would become a regular event in the coming years.

In 2008, the Algerian government began to crack down on non-Muslim religions, enforcing a law known as Ordinance 06-03. The law created restrictions on the ability of non-Muslims to gather for worship, as well as instituted an onerous regime of regulations for churches to be able to register and operate legally. Eleven years later, the full force of the law was finally brought down on the churches.

In 2019, police arrived at the church that Pastor Youssef, now the vice president of the evangelical association in Algeria, had helped build with an order to shut it down. The church had served as the main training center for local Christians, many of whom were converts from Islam. Within a few weeks, every other evangelical church in the country, save one, was closed. A month later, Pastor Youssef returned from an international trip to find that his own home had been sealed shut.

Over the next four years, Pastor Youssef was in and out of the police station regularly for interrogations. In April 2023, he was interrogated again and accused of holding unauthorized worship services. A few months later, he received notice that he had been convicted and sentenced to two years in prison and a fine — without even being aware that any court hearing had taken place. Since then, he has gone through multiple appeals, with his sentence being reduced first to a year, then increased with an additional six months. He is now appealing to the Algerian Supreme Court.

Pastor Youssef is one of roughly 50 Christians who have been convicted of “crimes” such as illegal worship or “shaking the faith of Muslims.” One pastor who protested the closure of his church was beaten in front of his own child.

What is inspiring about Pastor Youssef is his selfless willingness to defend others, even as he himself faces imprisonment. He has spoken internationally about the effect that the church closures have had on the Christian community: “When the churches were closed, a lot of the Christians felt that something was gone in their Christian faith because the building had been part of their identity.”

Pastor Youssef’s humble service to his church is a testament to the strength of faith in the face of persecution: “God knows the number of my hairs on my head, and none fall without His will. … I try by my best, by His grace, to be a good testimony to others.”

Without strong and courageous Christians like Pastor Youssef willing to risk imprisonment for their faith, international advocacy would often be in vain. I’m thankful that people like him are willing to stand up for their faith.

I’m grateful as well for another Christian facing persecution I recently met, mother-of-five Rhoda Jatau. She is a lifelong civil servant living in Northern Nigeria, a place where more Christians are killed for their faith than all other countries combined. In May 2022, a young Christian woman, Deborah Yakubu, was viciously murdered by a mob of her classmates in Northwestern Nigeria. Her lynching made national and international headlines as a video of her attackers showed them stoning and burning her while shouting into the camera, “Allahu Akbar.”

Rhoda lived many states to the east of where Deborah was killed. But a few days after Deborah’s murder, a mob came to Rhoda’s neighborhood, causing destruction and calling for her arrest. According to the mob, Rhoda had committed blasphemy because she allegedly had shared a video on a private social media group condemning the killing of Deborah.

Police took Rhoda into custody, and she was charged with blasphemy as the mob had wanted. She was held in detention for over 19 months, with only occasional access to her lawyers and family. Thanks to national and international outcry, she was eventually released on bail, but had to go into hiding while her trial continued.

When I met her, amazingly, she stressed that her faith had strengthened during her imprisonment. She thanked those who had been praying for her and supporting her. As her trial continues, the world should join in prayers for her full acquittal.

These are the stories of just two of the many people who should be celebrated as we recognize International Religious Freedom Day. The defense of religious freedom is not simply a defense of an abstract right, as important as it is. It is the defense of real people who have put everything on the line for their faith. When we meet these men and women of faith, and hear their stories, we should remember that, but for the circumstances of our birth, we could just as easily have been them, and just as easily have faced those same trials. But would we have withstood the test?

I admire people like Pastor Youssef Ourahmane and Rhoda Jatau because they are the real champions of faith. May we, and all of America, always stand by them.

Sean Nelson is an international human rights lawyer serving as Legal Counsel for Global Religious Freedom at ADF International. ADF International is supporting the cases of Pastor Youssef Ourahmane and Rhoda Jatau.