Category: News Briefs

Source: International Mission Board, May 19, 2020

A former missionary reflects on crisis of belief during civil war in Sierra Leone:

Each day we were in the war of Sierra Leone, God would address the trust issue with me. I wanted to trust God, but I was so upset! I had such doubts. Everything was out of my control. I was grasping for control by praying—or more like telling God how things should be or how I wanted them to be. God used a refugee as the hinge pin that not only swung me back but jolted me into real focus.

A few months after the rage of my trust issues and the war, I was asked to go to the refugee camp in another country where a young man from Sierra Leone came after he escaped a rebel attack on his village. He had seen his mother, father, and brother killed before he ran.

As Alsuine ran, he kept saying, “Allah, I think I am on the wrong path of life. I need to find the right path.”

Christian workers gave him a blanket and rice and told him he could come any day to hear a lesson from God’s Word. [At one lesson] the center director read him John 14:6 in English, saying, “Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life; no one can reach God unless he walks Jesus’ path.”

This truth hit him to the core of his being (literally translated in Krio, “it goes to the bone”). With enthusiasm, he proclaimed that the true and living God had answered what he was seeking in life on his path of escape from the rebels.

As if that wasn’t enough, he turned to me with the sincerest heart, eyes, and words: “If it wasn’t for the war in Sierra Leone, I would still be walking the wrong path.”

It was like a knife that pierced my heart—the hinge pin that jolted me back, as the Father said once again, “Do you trust me?” This time, with every fiber of my being I said, “Yes!” It was humbling. It was hard. It was a turning point of growth toward fully trusting God.

» See full story with pictures.

In this edition:

1. PAKISTAN: Rooftop Sunrise Church Service
2. KENYA: How Can You Socially Distance in a Slum?
3. CHAD: Believers Reach Neighbors for Christ
4. WORLD: A Different Kind of Ramadan
5. USA: When COVID Changes Your Overseas Plans

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A ministry in Pakistan has begun preaching the gospel and praising God from the rooftops while their city is on lockdown (BosNews Life).

Source: BosNews Life, April 26, 2020

An evangelical church and mission group has launched rooftop services in Pakistan after authorities banned regular church meetings amid a national lockdown to halt the coronavirus pandemic.

The Global Vision Ministries (GVM) blasted the gospel of Christ through loudspeakers from a rooftop in Faisalabad, the country’s third-largest city, explained its pastor Suneel A. John.

The last three worship services featuring the pastor and a small group of musicians and staff included a sunrise service on Easter Sunday. John added it was “a miracle that police allowed our service on the resurrection day of Jesus Christ. We likely held the first sunrise service on a rooftop in Faisalabad’s history.”

GVM also distributed breakfast to over 650 families living in the area. Separately it has been distributing food packages lasting a month impacting hundreds of families, the pastor stressed.

[This] comes while a growing number of people face starvation as lockdown measures affected impoverished daily wage earners. “Especially Christians suffer. I know of a Christian father who wanted to hang himself because he could no longer provide for his hungry wife and two daughters. We learned about their situation and could help the family.”

Separately, GVM has rescued 100 Christian families, all slaves, in brickyards.

» Full story includes a five-minute video from the sunrise service as well as background on Pastor John, who was delivered from a gang lifestyle after a suicide attempt.

» See also a story about missionaries in Madrid singing a gospel song for their neighbors on Easter Sunday (International Mission Board).

Source: Compassion International, April 23, 2020

Guadencia carefully steps across her brothers’ outstretched legs, weaving her way between family members until she reaches the doorway. Thrusting aside the floral curtain, she pokes her head outside. Fresh air cools her face, tainted by acrid smoke and the eye-watering smell of open drains. Still, it is sweet relief to escape from the stifling tin room her family of seven call home.

Her neighbors are just yards away, separated by only a few sheets of rusting corrugated iron. Around her, thousands of shacks are packed together so tightly they are accessible only by foot. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a steady stream of people walks past.

To curb the growing number of cases of the highly contagious virus, the Kenyan government has instructed citizens to maintain social distance and practice good hygiene. But in Kibera, a slum in Kenya’s capital city of Nairobi, physical distancing is a luxury few can afford.

Half of Kibera’s residents are unemployed. The rest work mostly as casual laborers, earning just enough each day to survive. If they don’t go out to work, their family may not eat that day. The pandemic has already left 10-year-old Guadencia’s family on the verge of homelessness.

“It has been a difficult two weeks,” says her mother Dorcas, who works as a cleaner in a Nairobi factory. Her sweet face, usually quick to smile, creases with worry. “We have not been paid this month since the boss had traveled to India and has been unable to come back.”

» Full story includes similar stories and reports from slums in Nicaragua and the Philippines. Also from Compassion’s blog, read Compassion Fatigue in the Time of Coronavirus.

» See also Are Slums More Vulnerable to the COVID-19 Pandemic? Evidence from Mumbai (Brookings).

Source: Missions Network News, April 21, 2020

A small cluster of about 22 denominations and organizations in Chad have been gathering and praying together for a number of years. They felt the Holy Spirit was laying on their heart that they needed to be the ones to reach these unreached people groups in their own country, David Reeves of unfoldingWord tells MNN.

Surrounded by unreached people groups, Chadian believers feel the Lord calling them to make his name known among their neighbors. However, Reeves explains, they don’t have the resources or training they need to fuel community outreach. That’s when global ministries, including unfoldingWord, came alongside to help.

First, unfoldingWord taught Chadian believers how to use their open-source material to translate 50 Bible stories into the language of a neighboring unreached community. “Our Open Bible Stories project is a set of 50 stories released in Creative Commons,” Reeves explains, “so they’re free to take and translate without having to have additional permissions from us. The stories cover the metanarrative from Genesis to Revelation.”

Chadian believers collaborated with JESUS Film and World Mission to create additional evangelistic materials and load them onto solar-powered devices. Once everything was finished, Chadian church planters and evangelists immediately put the resources to use. In a three-day outreach event, believers shared the gospel with over 8,300 people.

» Read full story.

» See also Chad Is Not an Easy Location (SIM USA).

Source: INcontext International, April 22, 2020

Most of this year’s Ramadan celebrations have been canceled or moved online due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. Egypt—along with Malaysia, Singapore, and others—has banned all prayer gatherings and encouraged those celebrating to end the daily fasts alone, or only with those in their household. In an effort to keep the community aspect of Ramadan celebrations, many mosques and Islamic groups are holding online prayer services, sermons, and Quranic recitations. Ramadan usually also provides an economic boost for many communities as the feasts lead to increased food sales in local markets. The inability to buy and sell at markets could have a long-term economic effect.

From a Christian perspective, we have seen how the coronavirus outbreak has caused many people to seek answers, and how many of them have joined online Christian services, dramatically increasing [church] attendance. As Muslims are forced in this season to conduct many of their activities in isolation, perhaps they too will search for answers in these uncertain times and find some of these many Christian resources online.

» Read full story with prayer points. INcontext also reports, “We have not seen a single event give birth to so many conspiracy theories, hoaxes, and fake news as we have seen with the coronavirus.” Read their response to some end-time theories related to the virus (and Bill Gates).

» See also In Shadow of Coronavirus, Muslims Face a Ramadan Like Never Before (Reuters).

Source: Go.Serve.Love, March 27, 2020

You planned for so many eventualities in going overseas. What if we can’t raise all our support? What if my dad goes into the hospital? What if we can’t get visas? But it was pretty hard to see COVID coming.

Now maybe you’re wondering if you’ll be able to go at all.

And the gravity of this feels real. You’ve made tremendous personal sacrifices already, upending your life like a junk drawer.

What do all these sacrifices mean if they don’t result in you going? Isn’t the need still as great, or even greater?

» Read more.

» Calling off that mission trip? Tune in to the May 26 webinar You Don’t Have to Go to Give from the Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission. It will feature Steve Corbett (of When Helping Hurts) and others.

1. USA: Former Missionary Kids on “The Good Road”
2. CHINA: Signs of Revival Stirring Again
3. EUROPE: Ministry Doubles After Lockdown
4. INDIA: Lockdown Triggers Biggest Migration Since Partition
5. IRAN: Digital Church Unites Christians

Up for some armchair travel? Join two “philanthropologists” with cameras who explore courage and kindness around the world. The Good Road is a new series from a couple of grown-up missionary kids now airing on PBS in the US.

Source: Baptist News Global, April 6, 2020

A new television series [which premiered] April 6 on PBS promises to introduce viewers to some of the most innovative acts of courage and kindness around the planet.

“The Good Road” is a journey led by philanthropists and adventurers Earl Bridges and Craig Martin who seek out and celebrate individuals whose creative compassion shines in all manner of desperate situations.

A backdrop to the series is their life-long friendship. They first met as students of at the International School of Bangkok.

Their new show was three years in the making and evokes a travel-and-adventure format with its remote, exotic, and sometimes dangerous locations.

» See full story and The Good Road website to learn more, or just watch the season trailer. Note that the series is designed to appeal to secular audiences and avoids evangelical messaging.

Source: Asia Harvest, April 2020

Many people are asking, “Where is God?” during the current crisis. Friends, he is where he always is—ruling over the universe and working his perfect will and plan of salvation, as time marches forward to the end of the present age.

In recent months, house church leaders across China have reported a new openness to the gospel since the virus appeared, and even though meetings are not allowed and the Communist Party has shut down many Christian websites and social media platforms, many thousands of people have placed their trust in the Lord anyway. This week, [one of] our contacts in China wrote:

“More people are realizing that money and possessions will not save them, and many churches have been started through telephone and website evangelism, which has been very effective! Church planting has been going on, and just last week, in a five-day period, we distributed almost 40,000 Bibles to new believers! The more difficult the environment, the more opportunities we have for ministry. Now it is very effective to share the Word of God with non-Christians in China.”

» Full story also includes a look back at China’s pneumonic plague of 1911 (with 100% death rate: 43,942 infections and 43,942 deaths).

» See also Chinese Christians Defy Orders to Shut Down Online Services, Evangelism (Open Doors).