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Source: Mission Network News, July 14, 2021
Christianity in Lesotho, a small landlocked nation in southern Africa, is often blended with folk traditions like ancestor worship or witch doctors. (See related article.)
Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) has partnered with local pastors for their Lesotho Flying Pastors program [which reaches] people in Lesotho’s remote and mountainous regions for Christ.
MAF pilot Joe Adams says, “There’s a lot of undercurrents and quiet obstacles that are a little hard to see at first, especially for those of us that aren’t from the culture. So that is what’s great about the Flying Pastors ministry. We are sending people who are Basotho, who speak the language, who understand the culture, and they’re able to go out and to get to the heart of the issues very quickly and address the challenges that are faced.”
This is what makes the ministry of local pastors so critical.
“It’s not just an evangelism ministry. It’s also a discipleship ministry,” Adams says. “They’re trying to see self-replicating groups of believers [and] churches that will be able to spread the gospel to their own communities.”
Read the full story or check out the Flying Pastors website to meet some of those involved.
Other news from Africa includes several stories about religious liberty: Five abducted Christians in Mali have been freed (International Christian Concern) and a Nigerian pastor was also released after an eight-month abduction (The Christian Post). From Asia, The Christian Post also reports the acquittal of a Pakistani Catholic couple who were on death row for seven years for allegedly sending blasphemous text messages.
Source: International Christian Concern, July 7, 2021
On June 19, Zhejiang Province’s state security officers arrested Chen Wensheng, a Christian from Hengyang City, Hunan province. After transporting him back to Hengyang, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities held Mr. Chen for ten days under residential surveillance at the West Lake Resort.
During his detainment, the Bureau of Ethnic and Religious Affairs leaders and the State Security department interrogated Mr. Chen. They tried to get him to stop preaching the gospel on the streets.
Mr. Chen was released on July 8. Throughout his time detained, CCP security officers communicated with him almost continuously. They told MR. Chen that they knew exactly where he had preached the gospel over the last two decades.
According to China Aid, CCP authorities knew all of the trips Mr. Chen had made in that timeline to different places throughout China, as well as the individuals who had traveled with him. The officers even had documented when Mr. Chen had traveled with four other Christians through numerous countries on their way to Tibet, where they preached the gospel.
In response to this unsettling information, Mr. Chen recently said, “Thank God for the CCP’s thorough knowledge of the fact that I go to different places to preach the gospel. They recounted my record as if they were enumerating the heirlooms of their own family. Authorities also told me that by 2021, I had been to other regions to proclaim the gospel more than 1,000 times.”
Regarding China, see More Nations Formally Recognizing the Genocide Against Uyghurs in China (Jubilee Campaign), On The Uyghur Genocide (Southern Baptist Convention), Is This China’s Final Solution for the Uyghurs? (Mission Frontiers) and Where Are the Voices of Central Asian and Russian Uyghurs? (Global Voices).
Source: God Reports, June 10, 2021
Every day a “JESUS” film team here begins their ministry with the same prayer. “Holy Spirit, where should we go today?” One day as they walked and prayed, they heard the voices of children. Following the sound, the team entered a compound filled with children and began talking to them about Jesus.
The police heard what they were doing, moved in, and arrested them. Before being hauled away a team member had the presence of mind to quickly turn on a NewLifeBox in his backpack… leaving the backpack behind.
[Later] the team made their way back to the compound to retrieve the backpack. To their amazement hundreds of children were quiet, sitting in groups, eyes fixed on their smartphones, watching something…but what?
As they got closer, their best hope was confirmed: the children were watching the film “JESUS” on their phones. You see, the battery-powered NewLifeBox they left behind creates a Wi-Fi hotspot, inviting anyone looking for a hotspot, and within 150 feet, to watch a film about Jesus.
Later, the team learned that the compound was a training center for the children of wealthy militants.
Read the full story or see the original report from Jesus Film Project.
Showing the JESUS Film to children without their parents knowing may make us squirm, but consider reports that a recent massacre in Burkina Faso was carried out mostly by children, according to the UN and the country’s government. More than 130 people were killed (The Guardian).
Source: Frontiers USA, July 7, 2021
“Do you know anything about Jesus Christ?” asked Ismail, a Muslim stranger standing at Driss’s door.
Ismail explained that Jesus had appeared to him in a dream and instructed him to come to this exact house to learn about Him.
Driss invited him in and told Ismail that he had recently become a follower of Jesus. He wasn’t sure he could answer all of Ismail’s questions. But he would certainly try. Driss felt excited at the chance to try answering Ismail’s questions about Christ.
Then Ismail explained that he was an Islamic scholar, and Driss panicked.
Driss was an uneducated man, and he worried that his answers would sound foolish to the high-status religious leader. The new believer had been studying God’s Word with Joseph, a Frontiers worker. But Driss knew he still had much to learn from the Bible.
“I have a friend who knows more about Jesus than I do,” Driss backpedaled. “He can answer your questions better than I can.” He called Joseph and asked him to come over.
When Joseph arrived, Ismail asked him question after question. Their discussion lasted hours. Ismail kept asking to hear more about Jesus.
Finally, Joseph suggested they finish for the day. Then he said, “But I think you two should meet together and study God’s Word to learn more.”
Again, Driss felt panic rising inside him. “Joseph is sending me to the wolves,” he thought. “I’m a simple man. I’ll certainly fail!”
Read the full story to find out what happened next.
Source: Jeff Frazee, via World Venture, June 26, 2021
The Syenara people of Mali are subsistence farmers and animists. Numbering about 200,000 people, they are one of about 30 dialects of the Senoufo people of West Africa are a subgroup of the Senoufo people of West Africa. The Syenara speak to their idols in their own language, but they speak to Allah only in Arabic, which they don’t understand.
Let us ask God to make himself known as the loving father he is, that he might be worshiped rightly in their language, too.
Read about a visit to the Syenara and watch the short (4.5-minute) video, Syenara Prayer, below.
