Category: News Briefs

1. IRAQ: The Difference Between Refugees and IDPs
2. EUROPE (?): “Jesus Is Going to Set You Free Today”
3. USA: Latest Statistics on International Students
4. SOMALILAND: Couple Jailed for Evangelism Freed
5. BURUNDI: How Faith Leaders Helped Bring Peace

Greetings!

We at Missions Catalyst are so thankful for our readers. I can’t speak for Marti or Shane, but I wish I could send every one of you a Christmas card! I hope this will do.

Let me share a little bit about what I’ve been up to. I am one of the first to enroll in The Awakening School of Theology and am in the second semester of an online class about the “unseen realm.” I am loving it! Ponder this, from the instructor, Dr. Michael Heiser: “‘Spiritual warfare’ is the Great Commission!”

My gifts are a few recommendations:

• Buy An Advent for the Cosmos by Jeffrey Pitts (a fellow student of Dr. Heiser, whose ideas are reflected in this book).
• Don’t miss all of the wonderful content that Paul Neeley posts at Global Christian Worship. He has collected some wonderful songs and artwork for your Advent season!

Peace of Christ to you and yours,

Pat Noble

Source: Preemptive Love, November 24, 2020

There are two camps in northern Iraq, separated by a single road, for those who fled war. Neither is what you’d call comfortable. Hardship and hunger are present in both. But when you look at these camps, within sight of each other, you can’t help but see the difference.

In one, concrete houses line mostly paved roads. The structures are tiny and nothing remotely like home. But they’re reasonably sturdy, and they give families a degree of safety and privacy. UN and big aid logos are emblazoned on practically everything. And while the amount of help here is nothing like what it used to be, it’s also not nothing.

Across the road, there are mainly tents—many of them years beyond their useful life. There is far less security here, and far too little help. What meager support there is for the families who live here? It’s disappearing soon.

What makes the difference? One is a refugee camp, and one is a camp for IDPs, or internally displaced people.

The humanitarian aid world is famous for its jargon—for its insider language and acronyms. To the outside observer, it can all seem pretty opaque. But some labels matter. Arguably, none matter more than the labels “refugee” versus “internally displaced person” (IDP).

It may seem like splitting hairs, but the difference between these two categories—and which you fall into if you have to flee your home—can be the difference between getting the help you need… or not.

» See full story with pictures.

» Also read this story about a young man in an IDP camp in Iraq who escaped ISIS to encounter coronavirus—and Christ (Christian Aid Mission).

Source: Assemblies of God World Missions, November 30, 2020

(This article is from AGWM personnel in a sensitive region.)

When “John” walked into the room where “Sara” was sitting, he thought someone had beaten her. She was covered with bruises and staring blankly into space. But her father told John she had been beating herself, punishing herself for almost strangling her three-year-old son in a demonic fit. Relatives had intervened and saved the boy in time, but then sent Sara back to her parents’ home.

Sara had been demon possessed for 13 years and had three failed marriages. She would often climb up on the roof, screaming and cursing at anyone walking by.

In desperation, her parents had reached out to our Roma friend John, whom they heard about from Roma believers in their city. John agreed to come pray for Sara. On the way, he asked two other believers to accompany him, although they really didn’t want to go. John didn’t give them a choice—they were going!

When they arrived, John asked Sara what her name was. She wouldn’t answer and would only stare back at him in frenzied silence.

John said, “Jesus is going to set you free today.” In a deep, inhuman voice that sounded as if a whole choir were speaking, the spirits inside Sara snarled, “No, she’s ours; she belongs to us. She’s cursed.”

» Read full story.

» Readers might also be interested in The Battle for China’s One Billion Souls (Asia Harvest).

Source: Missiologically Thinking (J.D. Payne), November 17, 2020

The Institute for International Education tracks data on students studying at colleges in the United States. Their annual report, Open Doors, is an excellent resource and was released [November 16]. Be sure to check out the 2020 Fast Facts PDF.

The student population exceeds one million international students. However, this past academic year witnessed a two percent decline. Despite this change, the United States remains the top destination for students.

The top sending countries of students to the United States continue to be China, India, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia.

Many colleges and universities have friendship programs that connect students with citizens. This is a great way to meet and share life with individuals who represent some of the least-reached peoples of the world. Find out what is available in your area.

No passport required. No language learning required. No teaching certificate required. Simply be yourself as you let the gospel shine into the lives of others.

» Read full story.

» Check out three startling statistics that reveal how much the church has changed this year (Outreach Magazine).

Source: BosNews Life, November 22, 2020

A married Christian couple detained for evangelizing in Muslim-majority Somaliland have been released, well-informed sources told BosNewsLife.

Aid group Barnabas Fund said the couple was deported to Somalia, allowing them “to travel with their youngest child to a safe country and reunite with their two elder sons.”

Their names have not been released amid security concerns. Somaliland police spokesman Colonel Faisal Hiis Elmi confirmed that the Christians were detained on September 21 after Christian material was found at their home.

In remarks monitored by Worthy News, police “arrested two apostates who had become preachers of Christianity.”

The couple made several appearances in the Somaliland regional court before being unexpectedly released and ordered to be deported on November 1, Christians said. Their release came after an unnamed European government official raised the issue with the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Barnabas Fund explained.

» Read full story and another from BosNews, Hungary Warns of Christian Persecution in Europe.

» From another part of Africa, please pray for Nigeria after armed men killed several dozen people working in rice fields (INcontext International).

Source: Tearfund, November 5, 2020

Faith leaders can play a crucial role before and after elections. As ambassadors for peace, they can heal the hurts that divide people and promote unity. In this year’s election in Burundi, faith leaders were a beacon of hope, showing communities what a peaceful election could look like.

“Earlier this year, before the 2020 Burundi elections, we organized different workshops with faith leaders to equip and engage them to advocate for free, fair, and peaceful elections,” shares Désiré Majambere, who leads Tearfund’s work in Burundi.

“Elections in Burundi have often been marred by violence. We wanted to show people there was another way.”

After the Tearfund-run workshops, faith leaders took the message of peace into their communities. A prayer event was organized for the leaders and candidates of the political parties. Sermons on electoral participation and unity were crafted and delivered. Faith leaders even took to the radio so they could reach even more people.

Whole communities were discipled in peace and reconciliation. And it didn’t stop there. After the election, faith leaders continued to hold people together, and communities remained largely calm and peaceful.

» Read full story.

In this edition:

1. WORLD: Discovering a Country’s Digital and Spiritual Landscape
2. MEXICO: The Cult of Santa Muerte
3. USA: The World’s Least Reached Are on Our Streets
4. EGYPT & BEYOND: MBB Global Prayer Day
5. INDONESIA: Five Radically Saved

Source: Mobile Ministry Forum, November 10, 2020

Mobile Ministry Forum has published a Digital Atlas for several years, providing a detailed overview of the digital landscape for the 40 least-reached countries [and have now] launched the new Digital World Atlas at digitalworldatlas.com. On this website, you can search for a specific country and view its spiritual and digital data. For example, you can view India’s rich religious make up or the total number of mobile subscriptions in Malaysia.

» Read more or contribute data.

» WorldVenture is publishing a series of blogs and videos to help your ministry or church thrive in the digital age and make disciples locally and internationally. Here’s part 1. See also Digital Media to Launch Movements (Pioneers).

Source: International Mission Board, October 29, 2020

Casting a long shadow across one of Mexico City’s poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods stands a seven-story tall image of Santa Muerte—the Saint of Death. She takes the form of a human skeleton clad in black plastic sheeting with arms outstretched, inviting residents in from the streets to make offerings of flowers, fruit, burned cigarettes, and alcoholic drinks.

Even in a country known for its fascination with death (which is celebrated every November during the Day of the Dead festivities), Santa Muerte seems macabre and gruesome.

The cult of Santa Muerte was popularized by Jonathan Legaría, the ambitious son of a middle-class family in Mexico City, his father a politician and his mother a karaoke bar owner. He had always been fascinated by magic and the occult and convinced many that he had healing powers.

After his violent death in a hail of bullets in 2008, at just 26 years of age, the cult grew rapidly under the organization of his now-deceased mother, Enriqueta Vargas. Indeed, there are now estimated to be more than 10 million followers, not just in Mexico, but across the Americas, with altars to the saint in various cities in the US.

IMB Mexico City missionary, Carlos Llambes, explains the mindset behind the worship of death.

“They think that the only thing in life that is sure is death, so we better be on good terms with her,” Llambe says.

» Read full story with pictures and prayer points.You might also be interested in another article from the IMB, Refugees in Southeast Asia Find Home in Christian Community.

Source: Lausanne Global Analysis, November 2020

On a bustling street corner in a central Queens neighborhood stands a building adorned with Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags, an active Tibetan Buddhist temple. The founder is an immigrant from the Himalayan villages of Nepal who works as a taxi driver. He has American-born grandchildren, and they are just as comfortable catching a subway in New York as they are a motorcycle taxi in Kathmandu. They are residents of this new world, global gateway citizens who have access in one world and influence in another.

Imagine if Christ living in one of us were to meet him here, in his taxi, on a routine drive in the midst our busy schedules. Can one not breathlessly wonder how the Holy Spirit might take hold of not just one heart, but also an entire people group? On behalf of this man, and the unreached people groups, one of which he represents, may I urge you not to sit idly by in a time when the harvest has come to us.

» Full article describes opportunities and challenges for ministry in global gateway cities. Read the overview of LGA’s November Issue.