Day: April 1, 2015

In This Issue: Increase of International Students

1. USA: Staggering Increase of International Students
2. YEMEN: Christians Say “Suffering Is Our Reality”
3. TURKEY: Orthodox and Protestants Take Steps to Mend Mistrust
4. GREECE: A Story of Survival

On Easter 2011, a group of Lebanese Christians performed the song “Jesus Is Risen” at a mall in Beirut (SAT-7, via INcontext Ministries).

Source: ASSIST News, March 26, 2015

The largest and most accessible mission field in the United States has grown another 14 percent in the last year according to the Department of Homeland Security. The new statistics confirm what missiologists have been saying for decades; the easiest way to reach some of the most unreached people groups in the world is to stay right here at home.

For example, Saudi Arabia, which forbids Christian evangelism and missions of any kind on penalty of death, has sent 80,941 students here this year. Saudi Islamists are the prime funders of the world’s most famous terror movements including al Qaeda and ISIS. This means one of the only places to reach out to young Saudi leadership from the world’s most closed country is in the USA.

In fact over 855,807 of this year’s international students are from Asia—331,371 from China alone, another country which forbids American missionaries. Most of the Asians are in the 10/40 Window, a region mostly behind the veil of Islam, communism, or extreme nationalism. Over 146,000 are from India where Hindu nationalists are increasing terror attacks on Christians and American missionaries are illegal.

» Read full story, which describes some of the ways Christians are responding to this opportunity. Many of these ministries participate in the Association of Christians Ministering among Internationals, which will hold its annual gathering in Wheaton, IL at the end of May.

» Also note that the Institute for International Education’s Open Doors reports offer numbers that differ somewhat from those above, but affirm that the number of international students in the USA is at an all-time high (almost double that of any other country).

Source: Christian Broadcasting Network, March 31, 2015

Yemen is the Arab world’s poorest country. With the majority of the Yemini people following Islam, the tiny Christian community there is under constant threat.

“Life for Christians in Yemen is very hard,” a Yemini Christian named Sam told CBN News. “For that matter, across the Middle East, there’s not a country where Christians are not suffering for their faith. This is our reality.”

Sam was a Muslim, but he converted to Christianity. CBN News met him at an undisclosed location off the coast of North Africa. In an exclusive interview, he said if authorities discovered his real identity, he could be arrested or killed.

“All Christians in Yemen are from a Muslim background,” he continued. “According to Islamic Sharia law, it is forbidden for Muslims to convert to Christianity.”

“The government says there is religious freedom, but that is not true,” he continued. “Christians are routinely harassed. They face daily struggle and persecution; first from their family members, then from the government.”

Some 25 million people live in Yemen. The majority follow the Sunni branch of Islam. No one knows for sure how many, but it’s estimated there are a few thousand secret Christians.

» Read full story or watch video.

» See also What Is Going on in Yemen? (The Economist) and Remembering Yemen (J.D. Payne).

Source: World Watch Monitor, April 1, 2015

On a Saturday in late March, a group of 20 volunteers went to an abandoned church in Turkey’s southeastern city of Mardin. They cleaned out broken chairs, a cracked pulpit, and books that haven’t been opened in decades. In the corner sat a 100-year-old organ.

The church, in the heartland of Assyrian Orthodoxy, has recently been transferred to a Protestant congregation. Although only big enough to hold 50 people, the building’s transfer represents the first steps of reconciliation between Protestantism and Orthodoxy in a city where the denominations have been bitter rivals for nearly two centuries.

When American Protestants first came to the Ottoman Empire in the 1800s, they drew tens of thousands of the empire’s ethnic Christians away from their original churches and baptized them as Protestants. Within decades, the Western missionaries had set up hundreds of churches along with hospitals and schools where foreign languages were taught. Orthodox patriarchs threatened excommunication for anyone who fraternized with them or went to their churches.

» Read full story.

» Readers might also be interested in an article on The New Faces of Christianity in Europe, as demonstrated by a visit to St. Denis Cathedral in Paris on Palm Sunday (The Schuman Centre for European Studies).

Source: Christian Aid Mission, March 26, 2015

A Syrian Muslim who has no use of his hands or feet managed to flee to a Greek island off the coast of Turkey, where he faces new challenges to survive.

A doctor on the Greek island of Lesbos recently called the director of a ministry to Syrian refugees in Athens, called Bridge, to say that the disabled Syrian, Sami, was going to be released from an immigration detention center the following day—and that he had no accompanying relatives, friends, or money.

“We asked him how he came to Greece, and the answer was, ‘My co-travelers were carrying me on their backs on the mountains of Turkey till we reached the beach, and then I came by boat,” Voula Antouan said. “Easily you could see the despair and the questioning in his eyes, thinking that coming to Greece he would find everything waiting for him.”

The manager of an inexpensive hotel that previously had taken Syrian refugees told Antouan that he could not stay there, even with Bridge paying his bill; the manager said the elevator was too small for wheelchairs. When Antouan said they would handle the wheelchair and would provide all his meals, the hotel manager balked.

“No, you do not understand,” the manager said. “There is not even a handle in the bathroom. How can he manage it himself?”

The ministry’s search for more permanent housing was equally challenging. Lack of vacancy in an economically depressed country overrun with refugees, no facilities for people with special needs, and Sami’s unresolved legal status all blocked Bridge’s efforts.

» Read full story and another from Christian Aid about Burma’s Rugged Spiritual Landscape.

» Read about another amazing escape, this one involving Egyptian Christians in Libya.