Category: News Briefs

IRAN: Christian Sentenced to Flogging and Prison

Source: International Christian Concern, April 22, 2020

On April 21, 2020, Christian human rights activist Mary Fatima Mohammadi received a suspended prison sentence of three months by the Iranian government. The sentence included a directive ordering Mary to receive a flogging of ten lashes.

Mary has come under significant pressure from the Iranian authorities over the years because of her Christian human rights activism. In the latest incident, she was arrested because she was present in the area of a protest where Iranians had rallied regarding the government’s downing of Ukrainian Airline Flight 752, [which is] highly sensitive in Iran.

After her arrest, Mary disappeared for nearly a month before she was discovered in Qarchak Women’s Prison, a jail with a reputation for various types of gender abuse. While there, Mary reported that she was beaten and suffered other kinds of mistreatment. She was eventually released on bail and charged with “disrupting public order by participating in an illegal rally.”

Her court hearing was initially delayed because of COVID-19 but took place on April 17. Iran’s Human Rights Activist News Agency (HANA) reports that during the hearing, the judge repeatedly questioned Mary about her conversion to Christianity.

» Full story includes responses from Mary and commentary about the prison system in Iran.

» See also Iranian Christians Sent to Jail, Unable to Afford Bail (Article 18).

LAOS: Christians Flee Destroyed Homes

Source: Open Doors, April 25, 2020

[Three] months ago, in northern Laos, three Christian families woke to the thundering voice of the chief in the remote village where they lived. As he stood outside their homes, the leader of the community they had been part of their whole lives announced that he and the entire population of the village were there to destroy their homes.

That day, these families lost their homes and their community—because they left the tribe’s religion to follow Jesus. The families fled together into a nearby rice field where they cobbled together makeshift shelters. Days later, the villagers found where they were and destroyed their “homes” once again.

A couple of days ago, we received an update from the local pastor of the families’ church. After relocating yet again into another village, these families have been told by that village chief they must move once more because they might “anger the spirits of the village.”

» Full story includes a picture, reports how Christians have stepped in to help this family by providing housing and other needs, and describes religious persecution in Laos.

» From another part of Asia, read Pastor in Nepal Re-Arrested on New Series of Charges to Keep Him in Jail, Sources Say (Morning Star News).

SIERRA LEONE: Growing in Trust, Finding the Path of Truth

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.

PAKISTAN: Rooftop Sunrise Church Service

Pakistan roof preacherA 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).

KENYA: How Can You Socially Distance in a Slum?

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).

CHAD: Believers Reach Neighbors for Christ

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).

WORLD: A Different Kind of Ramadan

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).

USA: When COVID Changes Your Overseas Plans

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.