In This Issue: The unreached people group next door
Day: February 4, 2015
THAILAND: The Unreached People Group Next Door
Source: Asia Stories, International Mission Board, January 25, 2015
A number of shacks were empty, and fewer children came to the tarp than in weeks before to play games, listen to a Bible story, and make crafts. During their last visit to this small village in Thailand, the International Mission Board missionaries found out many workers were moving.
But this night was still special. Believers from another migrant worker camp just down the road came to share their testimonies. That camp is where [an] IMB missionary serves. She came to encourage her friends as they shared with the neighboring village—a huge answer to prayer.
“We’ve prayed a long time for believers in our camp to be bold,” said the faithful prayer intercessor. “They haven’t really shared their faith outside of their relatives.”
A young couple invited the missionaries and migrant believers into their home. Stepping gingerly inside the shack, the wooden floors sank under the extra weight of the visitors’ every move. “Than” and his wife were the first believers here and they were excited to see other migrant workers choosing to follow Jesus, just like them.
The visitors invited the couple out to the tarp to hear a Bible story. The wife stayed home with their newborn, but Than came out, as did several other adults, including a few who hadn’t before shown much interest.
The sweet-spirited migrant families are special to [the foreign missionary], a 40-something mother of two from Mississippi. It’s in their camps throughout northern Thailand where she sees the gospel change lives. It’s where disciples are trained to share God’s love in their home country, a place where foreigners cannot go.
The journey to reach this unreached people group began five years ago with a simple prayer—two mothers asking God where he wanted to use their families.
» Read full story and related material focusing on prayer and reaching out to immigrants.
SYRIA: Japanese Journalist Was Devout Christian
Source: GodReports, February 2, 2015
Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, beheaded by ISIS in a newly released gruesome video, also happened to be a devout Christian.
A reporter seasoned in war zones, Goto traveled to Syria hoping that Japan’s pacifist stance would grant him relative safety, unlike other journalists from nations leading airstrikes against ISIS.
He failed to take into account this new brand of terrorists is breaking all previous norms, with no apparent limits to their depravity.
“You, like your foolish allies in the Satanic coalition, have yet to understand that we, by Allah’s grace, are an Islamic caliphate with authority and power, an entire army thirsty for your blood,” a masked militant says in the video, while holding a knife to Goto’s neck.
In his reporting, Goto focused on the human cost and suffering of war, not on who was winning or losing. An Associated Press report quoted his former pastor, Hiroshi Tamura, who cited his Christian faith for inspiring his reporting.
Goto accepted Jesus in 1997, which was somewhat rare considering only two percent of the population of Japan is Christian. Christ’s call to reach the poor and broken in spirit seemed to motivate his journalism.
“I have seen horrible places and have risked my life,” he told ChristianToday.com. “I know that somehow God will always save me.”
But instead he joined the ranks of Christian martyrs who have given their lives for a higher cause—the cause of Christ. Terrorists may have taken his physical life, but they could not rob his soul of heaven’s joys.
While he focused on refugees, poverty, and innocent victims of war, his reporting also yearned for a world of peace and wellbeing, according to his mother, Junko Ishido.
Goto, 47, traveled to Syria in October 2014 to report on the war and to liberate an old friend, Haruna Yukawa, who was first captured by ISIS in August when he was peddling arms. Instead of negotiating Yukawa’s release, he himself was grabbed by the terror group.
» Read full story. See also Japanese Christian Lays Down Life for Friend ISIS Captured (Charisma News / Reuters).
MYANMAR / BURMA: Obstacle to Conversion Looms for Evangelists
Source: Christian Aid Mission, January 29, 2015
In a country where Christians face hostilities from the Buddhist majority, the upper house of Burma’s parliament last week passed a bill requiring all people wishing to convert to another religion to obtain approval from an 11-member government committee.
The punishment for applying to convert “with an intent to insult, disrespect, destroy, or to abuse a religion” would be as much as two years in jail, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). It was unclear how such intent would be proven.
The legislation, roundly condemned in the international human rights community, would add a huge obstacle to furthering the message of Christ in villages where native missionaries already encounter threats, deprivation, and violence from Buddhist monks, followers of native animistic beliefs, and village officials. An indigenous missionary whose work led to the establishing of a new church last month in the town of Pin Da Zah, Shan state, regularly faces threats of violence.
“By the grace of God, the Lord’s church has been founded in Pin Da Zah town, where strong Buddhists are fighting against other religions,” said the director of a Burma-based ministry that trains and sends native missionaries. “Please pray for them, as their lives are under threat.”
» See also a story about minority Christians facing local opposition in neighboring Bangladesh, Chakma Christians Not Wanted (Mission Network News).
INDIA: Parliament Member Vows Death for Hindus Converting to Christ
Source: Worthy Christian News, January 29, 2015
An Indian lawmaker of the ruling Hindu nationalist party has promised a death sentence for any Hindu who converts to Christianity, according to the International Business Times.
“Wait for some time,” said MP Sakshi Maharaj. “A law will be passed in Parliament in which anyone indulging in cow slaughter and conversion will be punished with the death sentence.”
However, Maharaj said Indians of Christian or other non-Hindu faiths who convert to Hinduism will not be sentenced to death on the assumption that all of India’s religious minorities were all formerly Hindus.
“Ghar wapsi,” or reconversion, is not conversion, but a process to guide these people to where they actually belong, said Maharaj.
Relations between India’s different religious groups have been strained by threats of forced conversions. About 80 percent of India’s 1.2 billion people are Hindus. Muslims make up almost 15 percent of the population with other minorities making up the remaining five percent.
» Read full story. See related story in Christian Daily.
» Watch a nine-minute video, Hindu Guru Converts to Christianity (YouTube).
BHUTAN: Imprisoned Pastor Released Early
Source: Morning Star News, January 20, 2015
[On January 19] a court in Bhutan reduced a sentence of nearly four years in prison to 28 months for pastor Tandin Wangyal, resulting in the father of three remaining free to attend to his family and ministry.
More than 10 months after Pastor Wangyal was arrested for holding a public gathering in Samtse District, he was granted bail of US$1,523 for a sentence reduced from three years, 11 months to two years and four months (and 11 days) in what sources said was a move by the judiciary to dispose of a conviction for which it had no evidence.
“It has been a miracle verdict for me,” a joyous Pastor Wangyal told Morning Star News by phone minutes after the verdict in Dorokha. “I was rather surprised that the court had reduced my sentence.”
As he waited for a final verdict from the Samtse District Court, he spent three days of prayer and fasting on a mountain top with five friends, a friend wrote in an email.
“He said God prepared him for receiving his appeal’s verdict on January 19,” the friend said.
» See another story of captives released: CAR Cleric and French Aid Worker Released (World Watch Monitor).