Category: News Briefs

Source: SBC International Mission Board, May 28, 2024

[Soon] thousands of people from across the globe will descend on the city that’s home to the Eiffel Tower for the Olympics.

While volunteers are traveling to Paris to serve, people can also minister from their living rooms.  

Digital engagement ministry strategies will extend the reach of the gospel far past the closing torch. Through chatting with a digital responder, not only will spectators hear the gospel, they’ll have the opportunity to connect with a Christian in their home country.

Read the full story for interesting details about how the strategy will use specially designed trading pins popular at such events. Maybe you or someone you know would like to join the digital response team?

Source: Evangelical Focus, May 20, 2024

More than two years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, the consequences at all levels are devastating.

One of the most targeted groups by Russia in occupied Ukraine are Protestants, only surpassed by members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Time magazine has reported that 34% of the registered religious persecution events had Protestants as victims, and 48% of them were in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Furthermore, there are 600 places of worship destroyed, over 30 cases of religious clergy killed and kidnapped, 109 known cases of interrogations, as well as forced expulsions, imprisonments, arrests, and sometimes even torture.

The full article includes links to other coverage and also reports that the vast majority of Orthodox Ukrainians have switched their membership away from the Russian Orthodox Church.

Got a burden for this part of the world? Check out Pray for Eurasia which profiles 175 unreached people groups Users can also set up a daily notification as a reminder to pray. The app is available in English, Ukrainian, Russian, and German. Spanish and Chinese will soon be added.

Source: The Christian Post, June 2, 2024

More than $130,000 has been raised through online campaigns for Davy and Natalie Lloyd, American missionaries who were killed in Haiti by gangsters and whose remains were flown back to the United States on Saturday. The couple, along with the Haitian director of their mission, Jude Montis, 45, fell victim to an ambush at their mission compound on May 23.

Davy, 23, and his wife, Natalie, 21, were known for their commitment to providing education and religious services for children in Haiti. They were part of the Oklahoma-based group, Missions in Haiti, which was established by Davy’s parents in 2000. Natalie was the daughter of Missouri state Representative Ben Baker.

Two official fundraising campaigns were set up to cover the funeral expenses and transportation costs for transporting the couple’s remains back to the U.S.

Read the full story. Note that while these deaths got national headlines in the U.S., criminal gangs killed nearly 5,000 people in Haiti last year.

See also American Missionaries Killed in Port-au-Prince (Christianity Today) or watch the video below from South Africa’s INcontext International.

In other news, read about Haitians seeking solace from gang violence in Voudou practices (Religion News Service).

Greetings!

This story might make Heaven’s headlines: “Cancelled” Welsh hymns on mental illness and addiction resurrected by singer (The Guardian). Lleuwen Steffan is performing these lost Welsh hymns—which also speak to concerns of our day—in chapels throughout Wales. I am fascinated and can’t wait for the English translations! Learn more.

Also, thanks to Global Christian Worship for highlighting the multi-cultural, Jesus-centered worshiping community Proskuneo Ministries, which gets its name from the Greek word for worship. The timing of the discovery was God’s gift to me as I plan for Pentecost Sunday (also International Day for the Unreached) this Sunday, May 19. Watch some of them perform The Blessing in English, Spanish, and Korean below and scroll through the playlist for more great worship.

Pat Noble

Source: Mission Network News, May 9, 2024

Only [days] remain until the International Day for the Unreached! A third of the world’s population is still waiting to hear the good news about Jesus, but you can help change that.

Unknown Nations’ Greg Kelley, a member of the Alliance for the Unreached, says awareness is the first step.

For example, “We need to become more aware of India and Nigeria because of how strategic they are from the Kingdom standpoint,” Kelley says. “You can make a case that India and Nigeria are representative—more so than any other country in Asia and Africa—for the ends of the earth. Yet most Christians don’t think that way.”

Why start with these two countries? First of all, “There’s no country in the continent of Asia that has more people groups than India, and more unreached people groups, just like Nigeria is to Africa,” Kelley says.

Read the full story and learn about Alliance for the Unreached. You can access more IDU materials from their website.

See also Why Are the Unreached Unreached? (The Mission Podcast).

Source: Wycliffe Bible Translators, May 3, 2024

[Translation consultant] Olivia Razafinjatoniary was asked to lead door-to-door evangelism efforts in a Tsimihety community in Madagascar, sharing the gospel with people there [at the time the newly translated Tsimihety Bible was dedicated]. But there was one issue: Olivia was from another region and didn’t speak any Tsimihety.

As Olivia knocked on the door to a house, she encountered a woman who was initially resistant to the gospel message. But neither the woman nor Olivia had any idea that God was about to do something incredible.

Read the story and watch a three-minute video (also below).

You might also be encouraged to hear about a church born in a camp for the displaced in Myanmar after audio Bibles were distributed there (Unknown Nations).

Source: Haggai International, May 9, 2024

Surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean in the north and the Caribbean Sea in the south, the Dominican Republic is known for its beaches, historic sites, and merengue music. Also called the Cradle of the Americas, this region hosted one of the earliest known Mesoamerican civilizations, the Olmecs. But a lesser-known fact is that the Dominican Republic is the only country with a Bible on its flag.

With this heritage of faith evident in his country, Haggai leader Roberto Peña is committed to continue sharing the gospel through preaching, teaching, and equipping new leaders. As the senior pastor of a church in Santo Domingo, he says, “We have reached hundreds of people in the last year through different evangelical campaigns. …This is a great time when the church of Jesus needs to be prepared for the great revival that is coming.”

The full story briefly mentions ways this ministry is reaching people beyond the Dominican Republic (in the Middle East!)

You might also be interested in a story from neighboring Haiti, where a young man has become MAF’s first Haitian pilot/mechanic (Mission Network News).

Source: Back to Jerusalem, April 3, 2024

“One of our brothers has been thrown in prison,” Pastor Anil (not his real name) reported on Monday. “Please pray for him. His family has no other way to get support.”

Bhutan’s ruling Drukpa people are 100% unreached and strictly enforce the Buddhist religion. “The government does not want to say that they put him in jail for being a Christian, so they made up charges against him,” Pastor Anil said. Pastor Anil is one of the few Drukpa Christians in Bhutan and is in charge of a nationwide fellowship.

The pastor has a daughter who is currently in school. With her father in prison, she has no way to pay for tuition.

Read the full story. BTJ has a scholarship fund to help the children of persecuted pastors.

Did you know? Many Buddhists observe Buddha’s birthday today (May 15). Learn how Buddhists in different countries celebrate and why they do so on different days (AP/RNS) and, to join Christians who want to see the Buddhist world transformed, watch or listen to the Change the Map podcast.

In this edition:

1. Kenya: How God Transformed a Devout Muslim
2. Lebanon: Movement Day Unites Lebanese Christians
3. Sudan: A Left-Behind Bible Leads to Churches
4. Myanmar: Baptist Pastor Re-arrested the Day He Was Released From Prison
5. India: Violence Returns to Troubled Manipur State
6. India: Christian Leaders Attacked by Sikhs With Swords

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