Month: June 2019

Sources: Various

Christian charity The Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation reminds us of the healing power of sports and how we can help. See Football Pitch in Iraqi Refugee Camp Needs Urgent Funding (with video).

World Vision published a beautifully illustrated article about the Rohingya Refugee crisis, with five signs of hope from what has become the world’s largest refugee camp. Cox’s Bazar, in Bangladesh, is now home to one million refugees. Pray for them!

The Institute for Security Studies reports growing European pressure on Africa to take back migrants, though little success. Read article or watch a related video to see why.

Evangelical Focus tells us a large number of Latino and African migrants joined French Christians in a March for Jesus in France. They prayed for the nation, gave out Bibles in French and Arabic, and lifted up Jesus through posters, songs, and conversation. Wonderful.

Source: Christian Freedom International, June 6, 2019

Reports are trickling out of police in Eritrea raiding private gatherings and arresting Christians while they pray. Eritrea outlawed most Christian denominations and closed evangelical churches in 2002. Christians who worship in unregistered churches are considered enemies of the state. Jailed without charges or trials, some are beaten, kept in shipping containers in the desert, hanged from trees, and tortured.

“The torture of Christians is widespread” in Eritrean prisons reported a recent global review of persecution by the Bishop of Truro. Eritrea has been called the “North Korea of Africa.” President Isaias Afwerki has ruled with an iron fist since 1993. Pray for:

• Miracles to free and heal Christians and prove Jesus’ power.
• Truth to break through and open the eyes of Eritrean persecutors.
• Justice, righteousness and grace to spread and transform Eritrea.

» Read full story with more prayer points.

» See also 30 More Christians Arrested in Eritrea (Open Doors).

Source: Ethnos360, May 26, 2019

“Mar 28, 2019 9:45 a.m., Tigak New Testament finished.” That was the text message I got from my teammate Ned yesterday morning. He’d been working with a couple Tigak guys and [translation] consultants over the last weeks to check over the last remaining books of the New Testament. As you know, we’ve all been pushing, especially the last few months, to see this happen, and many of you have prayed. Thank you. God has provided and here we are. This is good news! It’s huge!

God loves the Tigak. He loved them enough not only to send Jesus to make a way for them to be reconciled to himself, but also to orchestrate things throughout history so that they would be given the opportunity to actually read about that—and so much more—in their own language.

You know there are hundreds of languages around the world in which the written Word of God still does not exist? Sometimes I forget. Because his love for each of those people groups is great, God will continue his tiny picture/big picture efforts to change that. But let us also pray that he would send out more laborers to take on that task.

» See full story with pictures.

Source: World Venture, June 14, 2019

In 2015, Megan Murphy started The Kindness Rock Project. She left a rock on the beach of Cape Cod with the words “You’ve Got This” painted on it. Facebook rock painting groups began where communities did a grown-up Easter egg-like hunt for hand-painted rocks, leaving pictures with hints on Facebook groups so a family or person could find it and report it to the group. Over the past year or two, I’ve participated in this trend as a form of community outreach for online connections. Last week, my prayers yielded phenomenal results.

Kairi and her mom were hiking in the Dells in Prescott, Arizona when Kairi discovered my painted rock sitting near the Highline Trail. She turned the stone over and saw the contact information Modge-Podged and taped to the back.

The back of the rock contained a QR code, my email, and the instructions, “Please post to the Chino Valley Rock Facebook Group.” The QR code included a link to BibleGateway. Kairi sent me a message through her mom’s email account, saying, “Found your rock. I am 11 years old, and I want to do what you are doing. I want to be a missionary when I grow up.”

» Read full story. Yet another picture of creative ministry using social media. Let’s pray for young Kairi and God’s work in her life.

Source: 30 Days of Prayer, June 4, 2019

Gathered on the floor, around a tray full of lamb, dates with cream, vegetables, and bread, sat an array of unlikely people. We had all come together for celebration of divine Love revealed.

The guests were a mix of local people—only some of whom knew the Love being celebrated on this day. Three different languages were used around the table as everyone was welcomed.

The host explained, “Because this feast of Eid is so important to us we wanted you, our friends, to join us in the festivities.” He went on to share the story that gives the “Love with Us” celebration its significance. He shared how even though we slaughter a lamb for our feast, we no longer need to, because Love became the Lamb, restoring what was broken.

“We decided to celebrate this year,” he continued, “by telling each other how this great Love has personally changed our lives.” After sharing our stories, the meal was enthusiastically eaten with games following. Before leaving, everyone received the gift of a flashlight with words, spoken by Love Himself, attached, “I am the light of the world. He that follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light of life.”

After this event, the host was told by one of the guests, “You know, we grow up hearing that people like you are horrible, but we have never had the chance to hear a little about what you believe right from your mouth. The time at your house was a really good opportunity for us.”

» Read full story with pictures and prayer points. As we’ve reached the end of Ramadan, pray that around the world Christians and Muslims would share meals and lives together, and that both would come to know Jesus more deeply.

»  See also an interesting article from OMF, How the Loneliness Epidemic Should Affect the Way We Do Missions.

Source: Christian Today, May 7, 2019

Iran’s intelligence minister, Mahmoud Mahmoud Alavi, openly expressed concern about the spread of Christianity in the Islamic republic and said that some converts to Christianity were summoned to explain why they have converted.

According to the International Shia News Association, Alavi blamed evangelical propaganda for the increase in Iranian Muslims converting to Christianity in certain areas of the country.

Despite Christianity being criminalized in a country where the government is entangled with hardline Islam, the nation is experiencing one of the fastest evolving underground church movements in the world.

The intelligence minister reportedly said that although the agency is not responsible for finding the root cause of the mass religious conversion to Christianity in Iran, it is “happening right before our eyes.”

Underground house churches continue to spring up across Iran, although they must do so in secrecy because they risk torture and imprisonment in the Islamic republic.

Believers can be arrested for preaching the gospel or having a copy of the Bible translated into Farsi.

Although it’s hard to get an accurate read on how many Christians are in Iran, estimates have ranged from 800,000 to over 1 million.

» Read full story.

» See also Worth A Thousand Years of Waiting: The Staggering Rise of the Church in Iran (Desiring God), which suggests four reasons for the growth and three ways to pray.

» In other religious liberty news, Iran’s neighbor Turkmenistan continues to tightly control the practice of Islam. Muslims are afraid to fast during Ramadan, attend mosques, or grow beards, lest they be labelled extremists (Forum 18 News Service). Forum 18 also reports that in Russia, at least 56 organizations and 103 individuals faced prosecution in 2018 under new anti-missionary legislation.

Source: Mobile Ministry Forum, May 15, 2019

Five years ago, I grew impassioned for the idea that a media strategy could be used to reach nomads in East Africa. Time and again, I ran into people [who] pushed back, saying: “Oh, they don’t use media,” “They are in the bush,” and “There is no wifi.” Then they were willing to say, “You can try it, but it needs to be high quality.” Their request would have meant thousands of dollars and long production delays.

Finally, they allowed me to just use my phone for creating a simple video showing local women at work with a recording of Proverbs 31. Then we advertised the video only in areas where these nomads were predominant. 10,000 people have watched the video so far, and 200 have asked us for more videos from God’s Word.

When I took these results to locals and my leadership, they said, “We could never have believed that 10,000 Afar would hear God’s truth all for US$20 and a little time investment.” Now I have the blessing of leaders to move forward on using mobile engagement in digital ministry as broadly as possible.

Mobile ministry can be effective as we are released to try it.

» Read full story. Check out the Mobile Ministry Forum website for more stories, training, and other resources.

» Also read about Sanusi and his tribe of desert nomads who have nobody bringing them the gospel. Includes ways to pray for the nomads of the Muslim world (Frontiers USA).

Source: Mission Network News, May 27, 2019

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist group, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), won [last month’s national election] by a landslide—guaranteeing five more years of power.

“My friends in the business community [find] it to be a good thing because they see it as a political stability… they don’t expect any major changes. But, I’ll tell you from the Christian community, it is really not a good thing,” [says Bible for the World’s John Pudaite].

“We have seen the escalation of persecution… during the last five years that this current party has led the government. Christians across the country are bracing themselves for another five years of the same, and many are expecting it to get worse.”

Last fall, Hindu nationalists rallied around the goal of making India a “Hindu Rashtra” (Hindu nation) by 2024. Modi and the BJP support the concept, making no secret of their “Hindu first” agenda.

» Full story explores what Hindu nationalism means for Christians and suggests ways to pray for India.

» Another article from MNN reports that Indonesia’s national election has exposed a rift.