Category: News Briefs

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).

Source: Barnabas Fund, November 24, 2015

Around 40 Christians had met together to pray in the home of another Christian in the Mahabubnagar District of India’s Telangana state on October 12, according to International Christian Concern. At around 7:30pm, a mob of Hindu radicals, led by the previous village surpanch (council president), broke into the house shouting insults at the Christians.

They beat the Christians harshly, including the women and the children. One of the believers in the group, 25-year-old Swapna, was four months pregnant at the time and begged the attackers to leave her alone because of her pregnant condition. They beat her anyway and she was later discovered to have lost her baby.

The authorities arrested seven people in connection with the attack after the believers registered the incident with local police. However, they were released on bail later the same day.

» Read full story.

» See also an interesting (if inflammatory) piece from The Guardian alleging that India Is Being Ruled by a Hindu Taliban. Learn more about ministry in India by watching The Letters, a new documentary about Mother Teresa which is opening in theaters December 4.

Source: IMB Commission Stories, November 8, 2015

From a distance it was hard to tell why Felicity was off by herself while other Filipino students played outside. A closer look, however, revealed she wasn’t just standing and moving her hands about—the 7-year-old was practicing sign language.

This eager-to-please, playful child [is] only one in her family who is Deaf, and sometimes it’s just a little easier being herself around other Deaf.

“She’s in her element and can really relate and open up,” said IMB missionary Dave Daggett, who has served 15 years with his wife Ivette in the Philippines.

Because God worked in the hearts of these church planters, Felicity will grow up with opportunities for Deaf community beyond her school. The Daggetts helped start a Deaf church right in her home.

Dave and Ivette [who have a Deaf daughter] met Deaf people within two weeks of arriving in the Philippines. Although they came with church planting among the hearing population as their focus, God has used them to also start numerous Deaf churches throughout their province. [Their] approach to church planting [is] the same as with hearing churches—[to see people] disciple other people.

» Read full story and watch a brief video about this ministry. See also the IMB’s Deaf Peoples website.

Source: Mission Network News, November 9, 2015

Nepal is caught between the dragon and the elephant. Sounds like the beginning of a folktale, but the reality is that the country is being squeezed by the politics of China and India. Nepal is the second poorest [country] in Asia after war-torn Afghanistan.

[Now] Nepal is facing a humanitarian crisis due to the blockade of its border posts with India over the new secular constitution. The blockade, which is now into its second month, has severely restricted the amount of fuel and essential supplies reaching the country from India.

Greg Kelley with World Mission explains how the politics trickles down to impact everyday gospel work. “The biggest resource that is crippling the ministry outlets is the gasoline [shortage], so it makes it very difficult to get from Point A to Point B.”

Kelley says the gospel is still going forward. “Just this past week, we got an amazing report of a listening group of people gathering around and listening to the Word of God: 72 people gave their lives to Christ in this one village.”

» Read full story and a previous MNN story, Blockade of Supplies into Nepal Continues; both go further into the geopolitics than what we’ve shared here. UNICEF warns that millions of Nepali children are at risk this winter.

Missions Catalyst News Briefs 11.18.15

1. WORLD: Messages from the Paris Attack
2. ALBANIA: Historic Gathering of Global Christian Leaders
3. NEPAL: New Constitution Bans Converting Others
4. KYRGYZSTAN: Couple Shares Gospel, Forced to Flee their Village
5. MYANMAR: The Gospel Spreads Like Wildfire

Ms. Yamini Ravindran of the Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka speaks at Global Christian Forum meeting in Albania on standing together through discrimination, persecution, and martyrdom (see story below).

Credit: Global Christian Forum/Eero Antturi.

Greetings,

If you were a citizen of Heaven and your job was to be the bureau chief for the “Earthly Times,” what would be your choice for a headline story this week? Paris attacked? The historic gathering of Christian leaders reported below? The International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church? Would it be a story of the gospel’s advance, or its decline? Would Heaven highlight bad news such as those so willing to “cast the first stone” in Afghanistan?

For Missions Catalyst I like to find the news that you might not find from major sources. It might look as if we ignore some big news, but if I can’t find a unique, kingdom take on it I may not put it in our line-up… not because it is unimportant, but because it has been well covered.

One thing is sure: Heaven is poised to invade Earth. Some people here call it Armageddon. Others speak simply of the end of the world, or focus more of the completion of the Great Commission. (You might be interested in mission strategist Steve Smith’s new novel, Hastening, offering his take on this.)

There’s no doubt that a heavenly invasion would be news both on Earth and in Heaven. Heaven surely has a better vantage point than Earth has; we get it wrong (a lot!) Check out the interactive Timeline of When the World Ended to see that religious folks are not the only ones making predictions. Be sure to peruse the “other” category. Interesting. Maybe it is weird to like this stuff, but I do, and it puts some things in perspective.

Watching and praying with you,
Pat

Source: INcontext Ministries, November 2015

The attacks in Paris [were] a message delivered to a global audience and packaged in the wrapping of terror.

The main message that the Islamic State (IS) conveyed with the acts of terror is that they are now pursuing the vision of expanding their borders beyond the edges of Iraq and Syria.

In a world where only pain that affects me directly counts, it becomes more and more critical that Christians will show solidarity with anybody who suffers, regardless of nation, race, or religion.

The declaration by French President François Hollande that “this is war” was not metaphorical nor was it symbolical. It came as a declaration that enough is enough and on Sunday night France launched massive air strikes on the Islamic State group’s de-facto capital in Syria.

Refugees will ultimately pay the price for the attacks: The prayer of every follower of Christ in these troubled times should therefore be that our hearts are not hardened by hatred and [suspicion].

Somali atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Foreign Policy [advocates] that Christians should redouble efforts to convert Muslims in order to reduce Islamist excesses. Changing the ideology at the heart of Islam is critical. Hirsi Ali intones that war alone will not do away with Islamist violence:

“We will not win by stamping out the Islamic State or Al Qaeda or Boko Haram or Al-Shabaab; a new radical group will just pop up somewhere else,” she said. “We will win only if we engage with the ideology of Islamist extremism, and counter the message of death, intolerance and the pursuit of the afterlife with our own far preferable message of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

This is an amazing confession by an atheist and should confirm what every Christian believes (1 Timothy 2:3-6).

» Read full story (a three-page PDF. We greatly condensed it!)

» Also read Three Problems in Islam and Two Consequences of Denial Revealed by Charlie Hebdo (Adopt-a-Terrorist-for-Prayer) and Nine Things You Should Know About Islamic State (The Gospel Coalition).

Source: World Evangelical Alliance, November 14, 2015

In response to increasing discrimination, persecution, and violence against Christian communities around the world, a historic consultation of Christian leaders has called on churches globally to pray, support and be in solidarity with those suffering persecution due to their faith. An initiative of the Global Christian Forum, the consultation that brought together 145 church leaders from 56 nations was supported by the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (Vatican), the Pentecostal World Fellowship, and the World Council of Churches. Together, they represent more than two billion Christians.

The gathering, held in Tirana, Albania from November 2-4, was the first time in modern history that every stream of global Christianity had joined together to listen and learn from Christians who experience discrimination, persecution, and violence.

In its final message—another historic first for World Christianity—the consultation offered “repentance” for times when churches had “persecuted each other and other religious communities in history.” And it called on churches “to urgently strengthen the solidarity of all Christians” in the face of discrimination, persecution, and martyrdom in the 21st century.

It was co-hosted by the Albanian Evangelical Alliance in a country where communism sought to violently wipe out anything related to religion, destroying churches, mosques, and other places of worship. However, in the 1990s Albania returned to granting full religious freedom to all major and minor religions.

» Read full story.

Source: Christian Aid, November 5, 2015

Nepal has quietly enshrined a long-time ban on proselytizing in its new constitution. For an indigenous ministry in Nepal that has long found ways to quietly proclaim Christ as Lord, that means business as usual.

As did the interim constitution of the prior seven years, the new constitution signed by Nepal’s president on September 20 outlaws “any act to convert another person from one religion to another or any act or behavior to undermine or jeopardize the religion of another,” with violations punishable by prison and/or fines.

While the ban on proselytizing appears to contradict Nepal’s assertion of the right to profess and practice one’s faith, Christians were relieved that framers ultimately did away with a reported concession to Hindu groups to ban all religious conversions and rejected their demand to restore the Hindu monarchy.

The government instead approved a constitution defining the state as secular and thus neutral toward all religions. Nepal thus completed the transition it began in 2008 from the world’s only Hindu monarchy to a secular, multiparty, constitutional republic.

» Read full story.

» See also two stories about work in Nepal from Operation Mobilization: A New Testament in Every Household (which describes contemporary approaches to Bible distribution) and We Haven’t Eaten in Three Days (dealing with effects of the country’s current fuel shortage).

Source: Open Doors, November 4, 2015

Pray for a situation which took place in a village in the southern part of Kyrgyzstan, a Muslim-dominated country in Central Asia.

Recently a group of Protestant believers from different parts of Kyrgyzstan visited a Christian family in their village. “Janysh and Laura” are the only Christian couple in the village [and] always share the gospel with their neighbors. The couple has an outreach ministry which includes showing the JESUS Film. Recently, they showed the film and presented the gospel to four families from their own village.

Three days after the gospel presentation, two intoxicated men started screaming in the middle of the night near [their] home. They shouted that Janysh and Laura were infidels who had disgraced Islam. They threw stones into the house. No one was injured.

The next day a group of 10 people came and asked Janysh to come out of the house. They told him that he had to confess he was following an “alien” religion. Otherwise, he would be forced to leave the village with his family.

The next day an imam (leader) of the local mosque came to talk with Janysh and Laura. He also tried to make them renounce their faith in Jesus Christ.

With the situation escalating to possible severe violence, the couple decided to leave the village with their children. They hope to eventually return.

Please pray for the dangerous situation in the village to end so Janysh and Laura may return home. Thank the Lord for their boldness to present the gospel in their community.

» Read full story. For another picture of evangelism and backlash in the life of believers, read the story of Hem and Seema from India (Empart Australia).