Category: News Briefs

Source: Morning Star News, December 9, 2015

Yaqub Masih is one of thousands of impoverished Christians facing demolition of his makeshift home in Islamabad after a government agency last week stated that informal slum settlements of Christian migrants threatened the city’s Muslim-majority demographic.

“It is one thing being poor, but things are far worse if you are poor and Christian,” said the middle-aged man who ekes out a living as a mason. “Has the government even considered where I would take my family if they put us out on the street?”

In a statement that rights groups called bigoted, Pakistan’s Capital Development Authority (CDA) asserted on December 4 to the Supreme Court of Pakistan that “it is necessary to identify the fact that most katchi abadis [slum settlements] are under the occupation of the Christian community” from other parts of Pakistan, and “this pace of occupation of land may affect [the] Muslim majority of the capital.”

Not all of Islamabad’s slum dwellers are Christian, and initially the CDA had generated propaganda that the settlements housed Islamic terrorists as justification for the evictions, as many of the settlers in [this area] were from the Khyber Pakhtunkwa Province, a heavily radicalized area formerly known as North-West Frontier Province along the Afghanistan border. Islamabad’s settlements overall, however, are largely inhabited by Christians, estimated at nearly 80,000.

» Read full story.

» Also read 2016: The Global Punishment for Being a Woman and a Christian. Among other things it addresses how religious persecution plays out for Christian women in Pakistan (Women Without Borders).

Source: Mission Network News, January 4, 2016

Is there still a glass ceiling when it comes to women in ministry leadership? In the United States, the response may be “it’s being shattered.” Mary Jo Wilson, Vice President for Missional Engagement for Asian Access, believes the response should be the same for women around the world.

“I think it’s been difficult sometimes to capture those women and to find a place where we can engage them and develop them as leaders because they are in the background and often they’re more comfortable in the background.”

Mary Jo’s personal investment resulted in a white paper on women in leadership. “As I studied and prayed, the point of my paper was women and men serving together and how we can come together in the body of Christ and be all about the mission—not separating and not limiting anyone to serve and be about the Great Commission.”

Her studies are now being used by Asian Access to develop better methods to engage women in their servant leadership ministry.

» Read full story and a related story on the Asian Access website.

» Another story from Mission Network News also caught our eye: this one explains how Wycliffe Associates anticipates a record-setting 500 new Bible translation efforts starting in the year to come (thanks in part to some new technological solutions and strategies).

Missions Catalyst News Briefs 12.16.15

1. SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Women and Video Games
2. CHINA: Eric Liddell Honored with Statue and Film
3. SWEDEN: Somali Woman Speaking Out about the Qur’an
4. INDIA: “Casteism” Destroyed through Communion

Glory to God in the Highest, peace on earth, and goodwill toward men!

Greetings!

God’s Word is loaded with stories of people on the move. Have you ever thought about it? Even before he was born, Jesus was what we’d call an “internally displaced person” (forced to travel to Bethlehem). Then he was a refugee (crossing a border) when the family fled to Egypt. In more ways than one, he lived in what was and some would say still is occupied territory.

I took the photo above in Bethlehem and was told that the Arabic script represents what the angels said when Christ was born: “Glory to God in the Highest, peace on earth, goodwill toward men.”

“Bethlehem, in the center of the West Bank and Jesus’ birthplace and area of public ministry, has transformed from more than 70% being Christian in the mid-20th century to less than 15%,” says Prayercast. “Throughout the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, military occupation and violent Islamist persecution have practically forced out the dwindling Christian minority, now down to less than 2%. Christians who remain feel largely abandoned and ignored by the global Church.”

Got five minutes? Watch the short video and pray for the people who live in Bethlehem (and the surrounding region) today.

I’d also recommend the recent Compassion Radio interview with Robin Wainwright, who traced the (possible) steps of the Magi from Iraq and Syria to Bethlehem, going through cities much in the news today. (Jump to 13:50 to catch the last 11 minutes of part one, then listen to part two, which is 26 minutes long).

Did you know that Friday, December 18th is International Migrants Day? Take some time on that day to pray for churches settling refugees against governors’ wishes and others ministering to migrants.

COME, Let Us Adore Him!
Pat

Source: Missiologically Thinking, December 9, 2015

Any young women in your church? Yes?

Any serious video gamers? Don’t know?

What if gaming was a way for them to connect with other women in Saudi Arabia? Maybe this is more likely than we think.

You need to read [an] NPR article and listen to the four-minute story about a gaming convention. It gives you a side of Saudi Arabia that few know about.

» Read full story. Also noteworthy, of course, is the news that Saudi Arabia has elected its first female politicians (Al Jazeera).

» You might also be interested in read about a Christian gaming company that has seen more than 16,000 people come to Christ through a partnership with the Billy Graham Association (Charisma Magazine).

Source: Global Chinese Ministries Newsletter, December 2015

Eric Liddell, the British Olympic champion who later became a London Missionary Society (LMS) missionary, has been honored for his commitment to the Chinese people. In a rare gesture of respect and admiration, a statue of the Christian athlete has been erected in the northern city of Tianjin. It was unveiled in a ceremony attended by his daughters, as well as survivors of the Japanese internment camp where he was held during the Second World War.

The actor Joseph Fiennes has been cast as Liddell in an upcoming film. The film, called The Last Race, will focus on the latter half of Liddell’s life when he had left sports and moved to China as a missionary. It serves as a sequel to the well-known earlier film Chariots of Fire which depicted his gold medal race at the 1924 Paris Olympics.

Fiennes said: “It is one thing to preach the Bible, but it is another to actually live out your beliefs in an internment camp.”

» Read full story and its source. See also another story about the film, The Last Race (The Independent).

Source: Charisma News, December 1, 2015

Mona Walter is on a mission. Her mission is for more Muslims to know what is in the Qur’an. She says if more Muslims knew what was in the Qur’an, more would leave Islam.

Walter came to Sweden from Somalia as a war refugee when she was 19. She says she was excited about joining a modern European nation with equal rights for women. But as a young Muslim woman, that was not the Sweden she encountered.

It was in Sweden that she first experienced radical Islam on a daily basis.

“I discovered Islam first in Sweden. In Somalia, you’re just a Muslim, without knowing the Qur’an. But then you come to Sweden and you go to mosque and there is the Qur’an, so you have to cover yourself and you have to be a good Muslim.”

Walter says she grew up in Somalia never having read the Qur’an.

“I didn’t know what I was a part of. I didn’t know who Muhammad was. I didn’t know who Allah was. So, when I found out, I was upset. I was sad and I was disappointed,” she recalled.

» Read full story and/or watch related video.

» Also read An Imam Encounters Christ (Advancing Native Missions).

Source: Act Beyond, December 2015

“We cannot take the Lord’s Supper across caste lines,” some Indian believers explained. Sam [a ministry partner] did not know quite how to tackle this issue, so he asked the Beyond team in India, “What should we do?”

We see in the book of Acts (Acts 2:46) that the early church celebrated the Lord’s Supper. Specifically, the verse says they worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity. It came to light this summer that a whole segment of the movement in India, involving many churches, were not taking the Lord’s Supper.

As Sam investigated this, he learned that caste-ism was the problem. India’s systemic sin, caste-ism, states that a high-caste person becomes spiritually unclean when he or she eats with a low-caste person.

Teaching obedience is very different from simply teaching about Jesus or about the Bible. Jesus’ final command to his disciples was to teach others to “teach them to obey [him].” Racism in any form is unacceptable to God. Prejudice in any form, having a preconceived notion about another person, is anathema to the gospel. Caste-ism is racism taken to the extreme. Caste teaches that, from birth, some people are simply better and more valuable people than others. It is a huge issue, and it must be dealt with in the new churches. So, the team needed to get this right. They needed a heart change on a core Indian problem, not just verbal assent to some teaching they might give.

Only the Lord can touch a heart. The team knew the new churches needed to learn from the Bible, not from them, so they gave Sam a list of verses which address caste-ism, the equality of all people in God’s Kingdom, as well as who can take the Lord’s Supper. The team also prayed. Sam took these Scriptures to the leaders.

They studied God’s Word together. They discussed what God was saying regarding caste-ism and the Lord’s Supper. Sam did not preach or teach. He gave them the Scriptures. He prayed. He asked questions. They all looked at Scripture together. Finally, the leaders came to the conclusion that, “If I am in Jesus, I am no longer Brahmin (or whatever caste I was born into). I can either be a Brahmin, or in Jesus, but I cannot be both. If that’s the option, then I want to be in Jesus!”

Then, the leaders did something the team seldom have seen. They apologized. In front of each other, without attempting to save face or defend themselves, they admitted, “I am sorry; I was wrong” to Sam and to their disciples. Apologizing in public is a big deal anywhere, but it is huge in Asia. Usually apologies there are passive at best. For someone to take ownership of a wrong he has done, and then to apologize, not just to someone he considers “above” himself (Sam), but also to people who look up to one (disciples) was astounding. Our team was speechless.

The story does not end there though. After apologizing, the leaders intentionally gathered multiple churches with mixed caste-background people, and they all took communion together!

This may sound like a small thing to us, but this is so major for India. Caste-ism is the filter through which the vast majority of Indians think about relationships and community. God broke through their hearts and minds through his Word alone.

» Read full story.

 

In  This Issue:

1. EUROPE: Iranian Musician Finds a New Song
2. LEBANON: One Million Syrian Refugees
3. INDIA: Hindu Radicals Storm Prayer Meeting
4. PHILIPPINES: Deaf Disciple Deaf
5. NEPAL: Between the Dragon and the Elephant

Image: World Watch Monitor; Syrian refugee children in a makeshift tent. More than a million Syrian refugees are registered with the UN in Lebanon.

Greetings,

In a 2014 article for the International Journal of Frontier Missiology, L.D. Waterman explored eight dimensions of life in Christ, three of them dealing with aspects of identity: core identity, social identity, and collective identity. This week’s news deals with all three. An Iranian musician finds a new core identity, refugees must adapt to a new social identity, and Nepal is battling for its own collective identity. For most of my life I thought only of core (or personal) identity, which may be understandable for someone from individualistic America. Yet identity can be much more complex.

A look at how we spend our time might suggest where we find our identity (Flowing Data).

For insights into how an individual embraces an identity as a terrorist, see the 55-minute documentary My Brother the Terrorist (LINK TV), or, for a Christian perspective, please read Four Islamic Voices (INContext).

In Christ,
Pat

Source: SAT-7, November 6, 2015

As a drummer, Sadegh loved to watch Arab music on TV. He first came across SAT-7 by watching its Arabic music programs such as We Will Sing [featuring] popular Egyptian musician Maher Fayez.

“Sometimes I found myself watching several hours of SAT-7 although I didn’t understand what they were saying,” he remembers. “Then I found the Farsi channel and started watching that.”

Around this time, Sadegh [then living in Iran] received an email message from a friend in England that included a Gospel of John. As he read this, a flood of questions came: surely Jesus was more than a prophet if he raised the dead and healed people? But, when he raised this with his mother, she asked “Who are you listening to now, what TV are you watching?”

Sadegh realized he would have to continue his spiritual search in secret. As he carried on reading the Gospel he had hidden beneath his carpet, his belief that God was aloof and distant was blown apart.

“It was when I came to this point in John 3:16. It said God so loved the world, I thought ‘I am part of this world so God loves me. He loved me so much that He sent His Son.’

“I found myself on my knees,” Sadegh says, “I cried out to God: I want to live for eternity, I don’t want to die.” He describes how he felt “covered with love” as he “spent hours on the floor crying with joy. It was like something very deep coming out of my heart—this root of selfishness, pride, hatred,” he recalls.

The old Sadegh was gone: The new one became a secret believer, constantly reading John’s Gospel, but afraid to ask others about Jesus or try to obtain a full Bible because of Iran’s secret police.

» Read full story.

» Interested in Persian culture? See 11 Persian Sayings that Make No Sense in English (Chai and Conversation) and read about Amsterdam’s Persian storyteller (Global Voices). We also just picked up on a story that 450 new believers have recently been baptized in Iran (GodReports).

Source: Open Doors, November 26, 2015

World Watch Monitor recently received a diary from a church leader living in Aleppo, a Syrian city at the heart of the battle between rebels and President Assad’s forces. Not long ago, “Pastor Samuel” visited Beirut in neighboring Lebanon, which is now home to one million Syrian refugees.

“Beirut is one of the most expensive cities in the world; whenever I visit, I make it one of my duties to meet with Syrian refugees, especially families who left Aleppo. It is not easy meeting them when I know they’ve had to leave behind a decent life where they had jobs, owned their own apartments, and were serving in the church and their communities.”

He hears stories of Syrian refugees being treated as second-class citizens and being taken advantage of: working long hours at manual labor for half the salary of locals, paying almost double the usual rent for tiny one- or two-bedroom apartments, and risking trips back to war-torn Syria for medical care because they cannot afford to pay for it in Lebanon where health care is subsidized for citizens.

“When I met refugees in Lebanon some years ago, most of them said that they were expecting the war to end within a couple of weeks or months, and that they would be able to return to their homes and jobs. But the war has continued for four and a half years now, and there’s still no end in sight,” Pastor Samuel continued.

» Read full story with prayer points. See also the longer World Watch Monitor story on which it is based, and read about Syrian “lost generation” of children unable to go to school because of the war (BBC).