Category: News Briefs

Source: Justin Long’s Weekly Roundup, May 30, 2025

Two political trends are slamming into American universities, and ministries to international students will feel the shock.

The first is the geopolitics of China and the USA. Chinese students, in particular, are being targeted for visa revocation. The second is the political dustup between the administration and “elite” universities over DEI, campus speech, and the like.

International students may, as a result, be sent home (or elsewhere). The implication for missiological strategies in the USA: for a long time, there has been a strategy of “reaching the nations [that] are coming here.”

It is now perhaps time for international student ministry’s turn to feel what refugee ministry already did. This trend will also affect many Christian colleges that likewise rely on international students as a significant portion of their revenue stream. All of this might be reversed in another three years—given current patterns, it might reverse in another three months. But I wouldn’t count on it. I suspect that people who have student visas are living on borrowed time, and many may end up moving to universities in other countries.

Read the rest of this commentary.

Note that an annual event for people who work with international students takes place this week (June 5-7), and it’s all online (Association of Christians Ministering Among Internationals).

Source: Mission Network News, May 20, 2025

Reports of insurgency continue in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province, despite the government’s efforts to quell it.

A string of attacks starting on March 31 and leading into April displaced 15,000 people, according to one report. For some people, it was their third or fourth displacement.

“Paolo,” a partner with MegaVoice, explains that the insurgency started small in 2017 after the discovery of massive natural gas reserves. It has now become a seven-year-old conflict that has killed more than 4,000 people and displaced 800,000.

“Anyone in front of them, they were killing. They were burning house[s],” Paolo says. “[It] was not necessarily a religion conflict. [It] was because there’s a financial possibility in the region. But definitely these affect a lot of the [religious] work, especially because many missionaries moved from there because of security issues.”

But MegaVoice’s local partners have stayed. Paolo says these people are essential for distributing audio Bibles.

The full story explains the receptivity the ministry has found for audio Bibles in the local language.

The deaths and displacement are the tip of the iceberg, it seems. The United Nations has reported that nearly 5.2 million people in Mozambique need assistance due to a “triple crisis” stemming from “armed conflict, recurring extreme weather events, and months of post-electoral unrest” (quoted by multiple sources).

News about human suffering is never hard to find, is it? ReliefWeb reports that thousands of children in Myanmar’s earthquake zone face a new school year without schools.

Source: Morningstar News, May 27, 2025

Muslim parents in southern Somalia were overjoyed to see their missing 20-year-old son, a drug addict, return home free of substance abuse this month.

When they discovered that his transformation sprang from putting his faith in Christ, however, they drove him from their home in Hararoba, near Afmadow in Lower Juba Region, on May 19.

The young man had come to Christ on April 20 after an underground Somali pastor shared the gospel with him.

Serving the Hidden Church in Somalia. It describes a network of safe houses set up to shelter believers in similar situations (International Christian Concern).

INcontext recently published an infographic about how to pray for Somalia. The nation seems marked by deepening instability.

Source: Christian Today, May 30, 2025

The “quiet revival” in Britain, especially among younger men, may well be occurring in the Republic of Ireland as well, with new research suggesting increasingly favorable attitudes towards Christianity in the country, albeit with a fair amount of suspicion towards the Roman Catholic Church.

A poll of 1,000 people commissioned by The Iona Institute and conducted by Amarach Research found that Gen Z (18-24 years old) is more open to faith than Millennials (25-34 years old). A majority of people in Ireland (61%) described themselves as religious or spiritual in some way. The vast majority of the Irish population still identifies as Roman Catholic. However, only about 16% said they attend Mass regularly.

Half said their attitude towards Christianity was positive, compared to only 28% who said the same about the Catholic Church. Nonetheless, one in five (21%) had a negative attitude towards Christianity, while over a quarter (29%) were ambivalent.

Read the full story.

Also from Christian Today, read Ireland Sees Rise in New Age Weddings.

1. Iran: Three Christian Converts Summoned to Serve Prison Sentences
2. Southeast Asia: Shan Church Planting, a Story of Growth
3. South Asia: Are High-Caste Hindus Resistant to the Gospel?
4. World: Don’t Forget the Seafarers
5. Indonesia: A Celebration Six Decades in the Making

Read or share email edition.

Source: Article 18, May 8, 2025

Three Christian converts, including a woman pregnant with her first child, have been summoned to begin prison sentences totaling over 40 years on charges related to their religious beliefs and worship meetings.

Narges Nasri, Abbas Soori, and Mehran Shamloui were sentenced in March, and their appeals were rejected in April, meaning they could be summoned to begin their sentences at any time.

Yesterday, the three were told they had five days to submit themselves to Evin Prison to begin their sentences. Failure to do so would mean forfeiting bail equivalent to more than $20,000 each, and sources suggest they may now be out of the country.

The three Christians were arrested in November last year during concurrent raids by intelligence agents on their homes in Tehran.

Read the full story. A related story from Middle East Concern adds some prayer points. Please pray that:

• God will strengthen and guide these converts in the decisions they will have to make,
• Narges and her unborn baby will be protected through the stress they have endured, and
• Those involved in the harassment and persecution of Christians will repent and come to faith in Jesus Christ themselves.

On another and more encouraging note, see also Two Thousand Iranians Turning to Jesus Every Day (Bible Society via God Reports).

Another article from Article 18 reports that a religious freedom group in Belarus has been added to a list of extremist organizations. Police also visited a leader’s relatives and took DNA samples to help them track him.

Source: OMF International, May 9, 2025

For five or six years, missionaries working with the Shan have said, “We are on the cusp of seeing a movement to Christ taking place amongst the Shan.” When considering church planting among the Shan, it’s crucial to remember those who shared the gospel in challenging times when the Shan people were less receptive.

From 1863 to 1965, expat missionaries worked with Karen missionaries to reach the Shan and Shan-speaking minority groups in Burma. The Shan work in Thailand began much later, in 1953. [During these decades], between 0.05 and 0.1 percent of Shan people have believed in Christ. Only since the late 1990s have the Shan people responded in groups instead of as individuals.

In 2024, an OMF missionary with decades of experience wrote a paper that described the early Shan believers as “one in a thousand” — those who persisted in faith despite persecution, discouragement, and isolation, with little or no support from other believers.

How did it change? Read the full story. It’s a long one, but a reminder that breakthroughs may be preceded by decades of prayer and effort.

Readers might also be interested in a new book coming out on May 28. Check out What Actually Starts Movements: Partnering with God for Kingdom Multiplication, by Emanuel Prinz (100 Movements Publishing).

In another story from East Asia, ministry leaders respond to China’s recent restrictions on foreign missionary activity (Christianity Today).

Source: Beyond, May 15, 2025

Sanjay and his brother recently traveled to Haryana to meet with some key leaders, gathering at Laksha’s home. Laksha, who is from a high caste, has been an active disciple-maker within the movement for about six years. She and her team are witnessing remarkable growth, particularly among high caste individuals and women. In her district, there are around 36 house churches.

During the meeting, Laksha shared that it’s easy to assume that people from high castes are proud and resistant to the gospel. However, when she encounters those who have become disciples of Jesus, she sees how deeply God has transformed their lives.

Read more.

See also an article asking, “How many Muslims convert to Christianity each year?” (Global Christian Relief).

Source: Christian Today, May 7, 2025

A Christian mission agency has called for the welfare of nearly two million seafarers to be taken into consideration, as the global shipping fleet cuts costs by adopting new technologies.

The Mission to Seafarers (MtS) runs 121 centers in ports around the world, and its people visit more than 40,000 ships each year. Seafarers face dangerous oceans and seas to transport more than 90% of the world’s goods and fuel – making them essential key workers who often go unrecognized by the general population.

MtS Secretary General Peter Rouch has expressed concern that often ships’ crews are overlooked when investment is being made in new technology.

“Overworked crew members are more likely to make costly mistakes, which can harm the shipping industry, of course, but the more important aspect is to understand seafarers as much more than a simple resource. Those who enable global trade to function are human beings who will invariably flourish in a web of warm and healthy human relationships.”

Read the full story.

Another story from Christian Today highlights a ministry you might be more aware of, reporting that Alpha International had its most successful year ever, reaching millions across the globe. Praise God.

Source: Mission Network News, May 12, 2025

When Scripture translator Ed Maxey first set foot in Papua, Indonesia, he was closer to death than he knew. Mission Aviation Fellowship’s Linda Ringenberg tells the story.

“He was so exhausted from the hike that he laid down in the mud. He didn’t know that at that time the Ngalik warriors were hiding and surrounding him because they didn’t know who these people were, and they were going to kill him. The fact that he lay down was a sign of weakness, so they decided they were going to spare his life.”

That was over 60 years ago. Since then, the Ngalik people have benefited from Ed and his wife Shirley’s efforts to translate the New Testament into their language, a work that was completed in 1992. The Maxeys’ son Buzz and his wife, Myrna, became the second generation of translators, heeding God’s call to translate the Old Testament for the Ngalik people.

As of this year, the Ngaliks have a complete Bible in their heart language.

See the full story with pictures and praise God for this milestone.

The Maxeys were Christian and Missionary Alliance missionaries. Read a longer article about this work from the Alliance or watch the eight-minute video, also below. It’s really well done.

This happens as Papuan Christians face increasing persecution in their region, another article says, adding, “The completed Ngalik Bible translation is expected to dramatically boost evangelism and discipleship efforts in Papua” (International Christian Concern).

In another part of Indonesia with a considerable Christian population, Borneo, work is just beginning on the Old Testament, 25 years after the New Testament was completed. Read Palangkaraya Hosts First Step toward Complete Ot Danum Bible (United Bible Societies).