Missions Catalyst

Source: SAT-7, March 21, 2019

“I grew up with a lot of religious people around me. Faith interested me, and I started researching different religions on the internet, but I had a preconception that Christianity was bad,” [explains Kaya, a young man who serves with SAT-7, a Christian satellite television ministry].

“My father took me for a walk one day, and he took me to a church. He just wanted to go for a walk, but I believe that God used my father without him realizing it.

“As soon as I stepped inside the church, I felt like I had entered a different world, and I was filled with peace. When I look back on it, I realize that it was the Holy Spirit. For a year, I continued to search and think about God. I was very confused, but I just prayed, ‘God guide me to the truth.’”

“On Christmas Eve, I was reading the Bible and suddenly I felt that Jesus Christ stood in front of me. I couldn’t grasp what was happening at the time.

“I immediately got down on my knees and said, ‘Jesus Christ, I believe in you.’ I was twelve years old at the time, but I knew that I had found my purpose in life.”

» Full story describes the explains the struggles and uneasy truce young Kaya and his family have experienced. These tensions are not uncommon in Turkey (or other places), so Kaya is able to relate to, encourage, and pray with listeners who contact SAT-7.

» Also from Turkey: The Turkish president says he intends to turn the Hagia Sophia into a mosque again.

Source: Morning Star News, March 28, 2019

Amid a nationwide wave of kidnappings, the Rev. Emmanuel Haruna of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) was kidnapped at gunpoint outside his home on church premises in Gidan Ausa, Nasarawa state.

“He was making a phone call by his house when some men shot into the air and took him away,” the Rev. Romanus Ebenwokodi, ECWA spokesman, told Morning Star News. “Please pray for his safety and release.”

Earlier on Monday (March 25) in Kaduna state, gunmen reportedly abducted the Rev. John Bako Shekwolo, priest of St. Theresa Catholic Church in Ankwa Kachia County, according to an archdiocese statement. Little else was known at this writing.

In Nasarawa state, Pastor Haruna leads an ECWA congregation in Gidan Ausa, near Lafia, the state capital. Also chaplain of the Boys Brigade, Nasarawa State Council, he was said to be searching for a better signal to make a phone call when he was kidnapped after 10pm. A statement from the Nasarawa State Council confirmed the kidnapping.

» Read full story, which details other incidents, and pray for those involved.

» See also Islamist Terror and Supernatural Deliverance in Nigeria (Gateway News). For in-depth analysis, listen to an interview with Alex Thurston, Episode 123: Boko Haram (Africa Past and Present Podcast).

Source: Mission Network News, March 20, 2019

A [Christian] man named Elijah was leading a training event when a Buddhist monk came across the meeting. Elijah invited the Buddhist monk in, and the monk stayed for the rest of the day.

Once training for the day concluded, the monk asked Elijah if he could return the next day, but with two friends. Elijah agreed. Sure enough, the following day brought three Buddhist monks to the training.

“As they were hearing in the discipleship classes about who Jesus is, and what he does, and intimacy with Jesus, and what it means to be a Christian, then they finally explained to Elijah ‘well, somebody has to be wrong here. Either Buddha is God or Jesus is God,’” explains Tim [spokesman for a partner ministry, Global Disciples].

“They asked Elijah if he would be willing to test and to see who really was God. They would go to a forest, and they would fast and pray, and if God or Jesus could bring lunch to them, and if he could make it rain, then those three Buddhist monks agreed that they would them accept Jesus as Lord.”

The men traveled to the jungle and once there, they prayed. Tim relays that at exactly 12:30pm, there was a man hollering in the forest. The stranger stumbled into the opening where Elijah and the three monks were. The man was lost, but as they talked together, he opened his bag and shared his food with Elijah and the monks.

“God gave them their first miracle,” Tim says.

However, it still needed to rain. The catch? It was the dry season for this region. Tim says on this particular day there were no clouds in the sky. Eventually, the monks left the forest, unconvinced by the meal.

“[Elijah] wrestled with God, even so much so that his whole body was sweating, and he was wrestling, and he was wondering ‘God, do you really do things like this? Would you make it rain?’” Tim says.

Elijah finally returned home and about five o’clock that evening clouds began to form and it rained so hard that they had to cancel their evening service, and the Buddhist monks couldn’t even come to the service that evening.”

The next morning, the three Buddhist monks returned to where Elijah was leading the training, and they proclaimed Jesus Christ to be Lord. Tim says they were secretly baptized by Elijah. They even left their Buddhist priestly robes in the area of the forest where they had met with Elijah as a symbolic gesture of leaving their old lives to begin a new life in Jesus.

“Today, those three Buddhist monks are evangelizing and they’re working among drug addicts in their country.”

» Read full story.

» Also read about a series of miracles that helped launch a movement in India (YWAM Frontier Missions) and take a look at a slide show about the baptism of 520 in Chon Daen from Northern Thailand (Change the Map). Just watching this really lifted my spirit! Watch it!

Source: Pathways to Global Understanding

Looking for a mission curriculum to use with a class or small group? Want something that covers the biblical foundations but also historic, strategic, and cultural dimensions, and includes media and case studies? Check out Pathways to Global Understanding.

This curriculum, edited by Meg Crossman, been around for quite a while and you may have seen it. Now, though, there’s a set of 12, half-hour teaching videos and leader’s guides that make it easy to run your own group. Pathways has also put together a great resource list you can use to augment the sessions. (It’s worth creating an account just for that.)

All this is free, but to get the most out of it, each participant should get a copy of the (468-page) book and read the articles on each topic.

» Learn more and register to access the videos and other materials. Get the book from YWAM Publishing for US$33.99 or a condensed version, PathLight to Global Awareness.

» Wondering how Pathways compares with the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course? I’d say it very covers similar ground but with less depth in some areas. You may find it easier to digest and implement. See also XPlore, Momentum, and Storyline.