In This Issue:
Month: December 2016
Greetings and Merry CHRISTmas!
Source: Flowing Data
I have a couple of gifts for you.
Maps
I love maps. My favorite missionary quote is “To know the will of God, we need an open Bible and an open map” (William Carey). So I give you some virtual maps. First, remember that all maps are wrong. Then use this amazing tool to see the how big the world truly is.
Here’s a fun Christmas game (after you have eaten so much you can hardly move): drag all of the nations close to the equator and compete with others to see who can put them back the fastest. I wish I had a wireless mouse and keyboard for my large screen TV (hint to Santa!).
Music
My church is continuing the Advent candle tradition with the themes of joy, hope, love, and peace. This year I’ve been challenged to think of freedom as a Christmas theme, too. A rendition of Handel’s Messiah that beautifully highlights the freedom theme is Handel’s Messiah: A Soulful Celebration, especially Track 8, Glory to God, the angels’ announcement with some Martin Luther King dubbed in. Wow! There you go, another gift for you.
Rejoicing with you,
Pat
MIDDLE EAST: Snake-bitten Woman Healed through Dream
Source: God Reports, December 14, 2016
“Hajira” was raised in a prominent, loving, Muslim family in the Middle East. One evening her family, along with their cooks, drivers, and servants, went out to the desert to enjoy an evening bonfire under the moonlight. It was an annual tradition, and this year they set up camp near some rocky hills.
After dinner she went for a short walk through the desert with her brothers and sisters. Her father and mothers remained near the bonfire with the servants.
“While we were walking, I knew something bite my leg,” she recounts. “We saw a big snake moving fast after biting me.” Within seconds Hajira became unconscious and they rushed her to the hospital. She lapsed into a coma that lasted four days.
When she finally woke up she was unable to move and felt severe pain. “I heard doctors discussing renal failure and increasing fibrinolysis. Nobody thought I would live.”
Listening to the doctors, Hajira began to lose hope and tried to prepare herself for death. “I turned my face to the wall and wept. I did not want others to see my tears. I prayed to God for a painless death.” Then she drifted off to sleep.
While Hajira slept, something very unusual happened. An angel appeared to her and said, “Call upon Jesus, the Son of the Most High, who was crucified and died for you and rose from the dead.”
The words of the angel irritated her. “Prophet Jesus, the son of Mary? He was not crucified; and also he was not greater than my prophet,” she told the angel, reflecting her teachings under Islam.
“You are wrong,” the angel replied. “Jesus is the Lord of the prophets. He is the true Savior. He can heal you from all sickness and save you from sin and death. Call upon him with your heart and mouth.”
When Hajira awakened she saw her brother standing beside her. “Did you have a dream?” he asked. “I heard you were talking … something about the prophet Jesus?”
She described what the angel said in her dream. “I thought he would become angry,” she recounts, but his response surprised her.
He said he had an experience with Jesus in a dust storm when he and his team were involved in a military operation. The experience touched his heart and left him with many questions.
Hajira and her brother joined hands at the bedside, and he began to pray: “Jesus, if you are the true savior, show us the way. Jesus, if you are the true savior, forgive our sins. Jesus, if you are the true savior, heal both our physical and mental sickness. Jesus, if you are the true savior, send somebody to us for further guidance.”
» Read full story or see original story (Bibles for Mideast).
» Readers might also appreciate a story about a Middle-eastern man who gave God five hours to prove himself before he planned to commit suicide (Arab World Media). Another describes a movement among Gypsies who have moved from fortunetelling to fervent Christianity (BBC).
KAZAKHSTAN: Pensioners Fined for Praying with Hospice Residents
Source: Forum 18, December 16, 2016
Three pensioners were fined more than two months’ pension for praying with hospice residents and offering New Testaments. [All three] pensioners, between the ages of 61 and 72, are members of Rodnik Baptist Church in Oskemen. For many years the church has helped residents of the privately run Zhandauren Hospice with clothes, wheelchairs, and medicines.
“The place is quite poor, sad, and depressing,” one church member told Forum 18, “and the 100 or so lonely elderly residents rarely have any visitors. Some of them live there for years, forsaken by their children or relatives, either unable to care for themselves or having no other place to live, and some require round-the-clock care.”
On the afternoon of October 14, the three women brought tea and sweets for the residents, talking to and praying with some of them and offering copies of the New Testament.
“Our ladies only visited and met with those who invited them to come,” the church member added. “They did not impose themselves or their care on anyone, nor did they create any disturbance. The staff, particularly the head manager, were always open and happy to see them and others from Rodnik there and had no objections.”
However, on the afternoon of October 14, about ten officials “in dark clothes” suddenly arrived, Kerbele noted. “They split us up, wouldn’t listen to us, and wouldn’t answer our questions as to what it was about and what had happened,” she later told the news website Ratel.kz. “We couldn’t take one step left or one step right.” She recalled that she had been questioned “as if I had done something terrible.”
» Read full story. From another part of Central Asia, see Azerbaijani Christians Fined over Illegal Prayer Meeting (World Watch Monitor).
NEPAL: Eight Christians Acquitted
Source: Christian Solidarity Worldwide, December 6, 2016
[Eight Christian leaders] were arrested in June this year. The group was held in police custody for nine days and poorly treated in prison. Before being released on bail, local police officials charged them with attempting to convert children to Christianity through distributing a comic book which explains the story of Jesus.
The charges are thought to be the first in Nepal’s history in which Article 26 (3) of the newly promulgated constitution was quoted, which states that “No person shall, in the exercise of the right conferred by this Article … convert another person from one religion to another, or any act or conduct that may jeopardize others’ religion and such act shall be punishable by law.”
The arrests took place following two trauma counseling sessions organized by Teach Nepal, a Kathmandu-based non-governmental organization (NGO), at two schools in Charikot. At the end of the sessions, the organizers distributed a small gift pack to the children, which included a 23-page Christian comic book.
The final hearing in the case was postponed four times this year before it was held on December 6, and the court delivered an oral verdict dropping all charges and calling for the bail money to be returned to the eight Christians. The written verdict is expected within a month.
» Please pray for a US pastor jailed in Turkey on terrorism charges and for Compassion International, which runs a child-sponsorship program in India in danger of being closed down under new government restrictions.
FRANCE: New Church Plant Opens with Christmas Service
Source: Pioneers Australia, December 2016
Lourdes is a Catholic town with a population of around 15,000 people. It hosts almost six million pilgrims every year who come seeking the Virgin Mary for healing. It was here in Lourdes in 1858 that 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous saw apparitions of a lady who declared herself to be the Immaculate Conception. Nearly 800 years before, the region had been given to the authority of the Virgin Mary. Today the town is filled with hotels and religious souvenir shops for pilgrims and the entire economy of Lourdes is dependent on the business of Mary-worship.
There hasn’t been a Protestant church in Lourdes for more than 35 years. In 2015, a Pioneers team moved into town. They have been laboring through prayer and relationship-building over many years towards the goal the Lord placed on their hearts: that Jesus would be worshiped by a body of believers in Lourdes. This has required a battle in the heavenly realms, as they are facing an opposition that is felt but often unseen. We are excited to share that on December 10 the new evangelical church was launched in Lourdes with a Christmas gathering. Official services will begin in 2017.
MOZAMBIQUE: Gospel Confronts Witch Doctor
Source: Baptist Press, December 2, 2016
Local witch doctor Adelina assisted villagers with divination and spells in a grass-roofed hut beside her home. But still, Adelina allowed [missionaries Brian and Becky Harrell] to use her home to share Bible stories with a weekly group. After a year of seemingly fruitless prayer for Adelina, Brian and Becky were about to give up. Adelina would listen carefully to the stories yet continue practicing witchcraft.
“We just couldn’t [continue sharing the gospel] right there next to this witch doctor hut,” Brian said. “What was the message that we were sending to the local community?”
Then one day when the group was preparing to pray, Adelina suddenly rose and said: “I need you to help me to do something. I know that what I have been doing is wrong, and I want to get rid of my witchcraft.”
The following Sunday a group of believers gathered to sing songs, dismantle the hut, and pray. They burned the gourds and all the paraphernalia Adelina used in practicing witchcraft.
“It was incredible,” Brian said. “It was an extremely intense day for her. … This was something we had been hoping for and praying for.”
Since then, Adelina has given birth to her seventh child.
“She says that all of her neighbors told her that this child would not live because she is no longer doing witchcraft,” Becky said. “This baby … is still very healthy. Adelina is now eagerly sharing her testimony, boldly explaining to people what God has done in her life.”
» See also a story from Taiwan, One Less Idol Shelf (OMF International).
Practical Mobilization
In This Issue: How to Celebrate Like God Does
How To Celebrate Like God Does
By Shane Bennett
So, you got a minute in the midst of Christmas craziness to read Missions Catalyst? Good for you! And thank you. We’re honored. As a measure of my gratitude, let me be brief and to the point: Party! Cut loose! Enjoy this season! Celebrate. As you’re able, enjoy your family, friends, and your God! There you go.
If you have only two more minutes, skip to the story (item #2) below. It’s really the best part. But if you have just a bit more time, let me flesh out the party injunction…
The Partying God
My mom gave me a book recently that her book club read and enjoyed. It’s called The Partying God: Discovering the God of Extravagant Celebration.
I’m guessing most of you are not going to gravitate to a book with a title like that. Being smart, serious, and globally minded folks, you might be more apt to look for titles like Ignorance, Intention, and the Possibility of Forgiveness: A Study in the Remissibility of Sin in Second Temple and Early Christian Sources. (Sound like a doctoral dissertation? It is.) So in case your mom doesn’t give you this book, I want to give it to you. Or at least the main idea.The author, Robert Herber, invites us to see the joyful, celebratory aspects of God. This is a good time of year to do that.
Herber says God celebrates because he has to. It’s his nature. When the Prodigal Son comes home dirty, shame-faced and smelling of swine, the dad throws a party. He tells the older brother, “We have to celebrate. My son was dead and is now alive!” And in Luke 15:10, Jesus says, “There is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” God is the King of Celebration!
When Jesus enfleshed this great partying God and walked among us, he celebrated: Jesus made wine at a wedding, he invited himself to dinner at Zacchaeus’s house, he asked another bad guy to be his disciple then went to a party the bad guy threw with a bunch of his bad guy friends (and presumably some bad girls as well). If we’re going to follow this Jesus, I guess “go to parties” and “host parties” need to go on our list along with “stop cussing,” “tithe,” and “drive no more than five miles per hour over the speed limit!”
One last thing Herber mentions, and this I love: God is insistent on inviting all kinds of people to his parties. Jesus tells a remarkable story in Luke 14 about a guy who throws a banquet and through an odd series of events ends up beating the bushes to urge all sorts of overlooked outsiders to come, eat their fill, and celebrate. I really like that about God. And I like that God puts a fistful of invitations in our hands and ask us to go fill up the party room.
Let me close with a party story that first appeared in Missions Catalyst more than a decade ago when some of you were still putting out milk and cookies for Santa Claus…
Good Reason to Celebrate
By Shane Bennett
As the door swings open, warm light spills out into the dark, chill night and outstretched arms welcome you to the party. Handshake to handshake, hug to hug, you’re gathered into the house. Familiar songs from holidays of your childhood compete with football on TV, the running footsteps of a dozen children, and the happy din of catch-up conversations. The earthy bouquet of pine-scented candles gives way to the rich and steamy aroma of the feast that awaits you. A sigh comes unbidden to your lips. The food makes the day, doesn’t it?
To your feeble and false protests a plate is pressed into your hands and Aunt Somebody leads you down the table laden with food that says, “Life is good. God is good. Our family that we celebrate and celebrate with is good.” As you step away bearing what looks for all the world like a tenth scale model of Pikes Peak, you hear Aunt Somebody admonish, “Eat that, then you get right back here for more.” Tucking into your personal buffet, you watch family and guests arrive and depart, sharing greetings and giving and receiving gifts. Deep in the back of your mind, Louis Armstrong’s gravelly voice begins to rise, “I said to myself, ‘What a wonderful world.’”
Later, when the children begin to drift to sleep in upstairs rooms, downstairs chairs, and relatives’ arms, the family patriarch takes a seat toward the head of the room. The TV is turned off, conversations drop to whispers then cease, and he begins to speak. Of course you can’t understand the resonant Arabic flowing from his lips, but Aunt Somebody, now sitting next to you, helps out by telling you he’s reciting from the Qur’an, recounting the story behind this celebration, the sacrifice that Abraham was willing to make but that God, at the last moment, prevented.
In your heart you know the ram God gave Abraham foreshadows the sin-quenching sacrifice of Jesus, whose birth you’ll celebrate soon. But your dear friends, now warming the room with their breath and bodies, warming your heart with their love, do not see it so. Your warm heart aches, “When will they see it so?”
Can I give you a word for Christmas this year? Please celebrate with gusto, and encourage your family and friends to do likewise. We have good reason to celebrate: We’ve been given an astounding gift. And if conscience allows, raise a glass and toast the happy situation that finds you a child of God Most High. Then, perhaps in some quiet moment, whisper a prayer that next Christmas finds many more gathered around the table, counted as your sisters and brothers, wholly devoted to this great king Jesus.