Category: News Briefs

Source: Various

Recent military action in northern Syria has brought more devastation and displacement. Watch a new video crying out to God for Syria (Prayercast).

Northern Syria is now divided into five zones with leaders are at odds with one another (Al-Monitor) and the region faces a critical water shortage (Syria Direct). Recent violence is taking quite an emotional toll on Christians (Open Doors).

Of course, this has been going on for some time. The Syrian Network for Human Rights recently reported that more than 14,000 people died under torture at the hands of the Syrian regime from 2011 to 2019, while the families of another 130,000 still detained wonder if their loved ones are still alive (The National).

That’s a lot to take in. And against that backdrop, we read this. World Vision asked Syrian refugee children in Lebanon what they are thankful for.

» Read Syrian Refugee Children Find Hope in Thankfulness.

Source: Forum 18, November 14, 2019

Three Protestant pastors given long jail terms in absentia for leading New Life Pentecostal Church in Kazakhstan’s commercial capital Almaty lost their appeal at Almaty City Court on November 1. The three have said they will appeal to Kazakhstan’s Supreme Court in the capital Nur-Sultan.

The pastors were variously accused of founding the Church in 1991 with “criminal intent,” and “by means of the technology of psychological and psychotherapeutic influence with the aim of causing psychological harm to the health and stealing others’ property by means of deception and abuse of trust… with the use of information technologies and methods of turning the victims into a state of changed consciousness (trance).”

The case against the three pastors is “complete drivel,” Yevgeny Zhovtis of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Humants and the Rule of Law commented. “I have read the verdict. It is nonsense.”

The three convicted pastors now live in the United States. Pastor Zaikin told Forum 18 “we still want to return to Kazakhstan.”

Pastor Kryukov says attendance at New Life Church’s various services on an average Sunday in Almaty is currently about 850.

» Full story includes pictures and much more detail.

» Pray for this region with a new Central Asia video from Prayercast.

Source: OMF International, November 2019

In 2017 I had the pleasure of spending three months in a Southeast Asian country as part of OMF’s Serve Asia program.

In all honesty, at times the needs seemed overwhelming due to cultural differences, the lack of healthcare, or limited resources and the lack of facilities which I had become used to. However, it challenged me to depend wholly on God and to ask him first. I also had to “think outside the box” and look at what was available and what would work best locally.

An example was using a combination of crates and bricks to raise the height of a bench to help a man with cerebral palsy do his work. He loves his role of sawing and sanding wooden board for artwork!

The lack of language also made things more complicated although I managed a few language lessons and grasped a few basic phrases which always caused my new friends to smile (and sometimes laugh).

I was also able to spend time helping at a local Christian home school. This allowed me to use my occupational therapy skills in sharing resources and advice for teachers and assistants working with children with additional learning needs.

Admittedly, I had only envisaged this as a short-term trip. However, the experience has opened my eyes to the opportunities for the gospel in this country and God has started a work in my heart as to the real possibility of longer-term mission. I was surprised by what God could do through me.

» Read full story.

» Other stories about using your talents in missions: Read how a man who worked in marketing saw his skills repurposed for ministry (Beyond) and how runners are needed in Susan (Mission Network News), plus follow the journey of a Malaysian Chinese girl pursuing God’s call while honoring her elderly parents (OM).

» See also, from Pioneers, Why Not You? Why Not Now? and Discerning Your Calling.

Source: God Reports, October 16, 2019

Peter and Tammy Russell work with Wild Hope International in Tanzania after spending years working with Kenya’s Maasai. Recently, they had a five-day getaway on the pristine beaches of Zanzibar. Peter had looked forward to the time to “relax, read a good book, enjoy some good food, swim, and exercise.”

“As we flew in over the Indian Ocean, the aquamarine and coral blue of the waters surrounding the emerald archipelago formed a picture so breathtaking that I felt my soul start to rejuvenate,” he recounted.

[But] that night Peter had a disturbing dream. “I saw Maasai going to perform a sacrifice filled with occult meaning. When I woke up, I shared the dream with Tammy, we prayed together, and the heaviness lifted somewhat. But later in the day it came back, and I had a stirring in my heart to have church on the beach.”

When Sunday arrived, Peter and Tammy took a walk on the beach.

When a young Maasai man greeted them, Peter answered him in Maasai. The young man was shocked to hear his language coming from a tourist.

“I have a message on my heart to give to you Maasai here. Can you gather your friends together?” Peter asked.

» See full story with pictures.

Source: Barnabas Fund, October 22, 2019

Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the Indonesian Muslim political party and world’s largest moderate Muslim movement, has made a significant break with Islamic conservatism in an unprecedented decision to abolish the legal category of “infidel” (kafir) for non-Muslims.

The groundbreaking move, apparently aimed at sweeping away Islamic doctrines often used by extremists to justify terrorism, was first announced at the NU national conference in West Java earlier in 2019.

Around 20,000 Muslim scholars gathered to create and endorse a new Islamic legal framework (fiqh). The new rulings include a raft of changes embracing the modern definition of nation state, instead of a caliphate, and recognizing all as “fellow citizens,” irrespective of their religion or ethnicity, with equal rights and obligation to obey modern national laws.

Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim nation and the NU claims to have more than 90 million members. Its revisions of Islamic doctrine and legal rulings are expected to reverberate throughout the Muslim world.

» Read full story.

» The NU also eased a ban on non-Muslim greetings, that is, greetings associated with the other religions of Indonesia (The Jakarta Post).

In Ghana, where chiefs make blood sacrifices and employ soothsayers, some traditions are giving way as Christians become chiefs and elders (International Mission Board). This edition of Missions Catalyst includes several articles about how God is equipping and using local Christian leaders in Africa and beyond.

1. GHANA: The Christian Chiefs
2. MOZAMBIQUE: Graduates Ready to Serve
3. WEST AFRICA: Celebrating the Scriptures
4. EAST AFRICA: From Islamic Scholar to Follower of Jesus
5. CHINA: A Testimony

Source: International Mission Board, November 4, 2019

The tension can be felt across the crowd of hundreds outside the palace in Nalerigu, Ghana. They wait in silent anticipation for the Taraana, one of the Mamprusi king’s seven elders, to come out of the hall to present the man the king has selected as chief. When he does, the new chief’s supporters erupt into cheers and applause. The Taraana ceremoniously places a white smock on the chief followed by a bright red cap. Thus begins several days of celebration and ritual as the new chief is “enskinned.”

The Taraana—which translates literally to “peer” or “equal”—is in many senses the king’s right-hand man. However, over the next few days, this Taraana will not be involved in the ritual sacrifices to the ancestral spirits or in the formal Islamic prayers for the new chief. This Taraana is the first in the traditional kingdom of Mamprugu’s seven-hundred-year history to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

Like many West African nations, even though a democratic government runs the nation, there are traditional, tribal chieftaincy structures that are still the authority at the local and, occasionally, even regional level. These local leadership positions are almost always intricately connected to African traditional religious belief systems.

In northern Ghana, chiefs sit on skins (hence the term enskinned instead of enthroned) and those skins are often taken from the animals that were sacrificed to ancestral spirits in a prayerful plea to win the chieftaincy contest. Once in power, a chief will wear magical amulets to empower his rule and protect him from his enemies. He will regularly employ soothsayers and make blood sacrifices to ancestral shrines for guidance.

So the question arises, can a Christian become a chief? Fifty years ago, this was unheard of in northern Ghana.

» Full story (with pictures) reports there are now so many Christian chiefs in Northern Ghana that they formed their own Christian Chiefs Association, working to integrate Christian principles and discourage harmful practices. Read Annual Northern Ghana Christian Chiefs Conference Ends with a Call to Promote Peace (Ghana Broadcasting Corporation).

» Read about the evangelical Ethiopian Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner again struggling to reconcile opposing forces (Christianity Today).

Source: Global Partners, October 23, 2019

Five couples and two women graduated from the Xai-Xai Bible College in Mozambique at the end of September. (A few students received a one-year Christian ministry certificate.)

These graduates were sent out and are very needed in their communities as new churches are planted every year by the JESUS Film team and by house-to-house evangelism. Other churches were waiting for a trained pastor. The graduates returned to four different districts.

Manuel Boca and his wife will be Mozambique’s first missionaries to a foreign country, Malawi, in the next few months—once their work visas are finished. Please pray for these graduates as they transition into a new season of ministry!

» In the full story, several first-year students briefly share their ministry hopes. Let’s ask God to continue raising up and equipping the Christians of this African country.

Source: Ethnos360, October 20, 2019

Not every people group has the privilege of having a Bible in their language. So, when a Bible translation is completed in a new language, it is understandably a time for celebration.

In the case of a certain people group in West Africa, a Bible translation has been in the works for many years. This summer, their New Testament translation was completed, printed, and shipped to Africa just in time for the scheduled celebration. This New Testament is only the second Bible translation completed by Ethnos360 in West Africa.

The day of the event, more than 300 people came to celebrate, both believers and unbelievers. There were people from the village where the event took place, leaders from other villages and leaders of other religions. Several missionaries also came to celebrate. All of the visiting leaders as well as those among this people group who had completed the literacy course received Bibles. Pray with us that they will read their Bibles!

» Read full story and another from Ethnos360, What Do You Mean—Heart Language?

Source: Open Doors, November 4, 2019

“Abdul Razak” is an Open Doors trainer who lives in East Africa—but he has not always followed Jesus. And he did not accept Jesus easily. His journey was long and tumultuous, and worsened by Christians’ inability to answer his questions about the faith.

But the Holy Spirit made the words of John 3:5 (“Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.’”) stick in his heart, and prevented him from giving up his search for truth.

Today the frustrations that made his road to Jesus so difficult drive his passion to equip Christians to defend their faith—and to offer the best possible help to Muslims seeking the way, the truth and the light.

» Read this man’s story.