Lunar New Year is coming up and may bring record-setting travel within China. Also in this edition, stories that might—or might not—make Heaven’s headlines.
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Source: Back to Jerusalem, December 31, 2022
The world is about to see the most insane New Year’s celebration that has ever been witnessed!
No, I am not talking about the New Year’s bash in New York’s Time Square, but something a lot bigger with a lot more people—Chinese New Year—[which in less than three weeks will be the largest human migration on the planet.
More than 3 billion people could be traveling. The biggest problem this year is that the Chinese have been forced to stay in their homes for the last three years. Airports have been closed, freeways have been closed off, cities have had barriers to keep people from coming or leaving, and even homes have had fences erected around them and doors welded shut.
Those living in these conditions for the last three years are about to be released to freedom!
The government just did a surprise pivot from mandatory quarantines only a month ago announcing that they were dropping all Covid-19 related restrictions. This unexpected announcement has caused a flurry of Chinese families making plans to go and see their families. Many will be leaving the country.
This year, Chinese New Year will fall on Sunday, January 22, so travel will officially start for many people on Friday, January 20th. The travel nightmare will not end until about mid-February.
See also Lunar New Year: 15 Days, 15 Ways to Pray (Christar).
While most of those who travel for Lunar New Year soon return home, other migration waves may be more permanent. See Top 10 Migration Issues of 2022 (Migration Policy Institute) and pray for those involved.
Source: Religion News Service, December 29, 2022
Taken as a whole, the news of the past 12 months tells a story of deepening division in American and global society, as issues from abortion to antisemitism seemed to not only inflame debate between individuals but to destabilize institutions. Faith communities and organizations, often at the center of some of the year’s most indelible moments, were no less vulnerable to these roiling shifts. Here are RNS editors’ picks for the most significant stories in faith in the last year.
See what makes the list. Not sure more than a few of them would make what we at Missions Catalyst think of as Heaven’s headlines, though other stories in this edition of news briefs might.
Source: Dave Coles, Mission Frontiers, January 1, 2023
I often tell people, “My job is to hear about the incredible works of God and proclaim the incredible works of God. That’s a pretty unbeatable job.” Sometimes when speaking to a group, I tell them, “I’m going to give you some good news: the kind of news you almost never find on the internet or on TV. Most of what’s out there is bad news. Scary news. Irritating news. I’ve got news that is thrilling!”
Read this issue of Mission Frontiers. It reports that the number of known disciple-making movements has more than tripled in the last five years. And they’re spreading. New research suggests that 80–90% of currently existing movements have been started by other movements rather than an outside catalyst.
Want the data? Read Justin Long’s article How Long to Reach the Goal? or see the recently updated DMM Dashboard. “If you have prayed for movements to spread around the world… they have,” he says.
You might also be interested in Ministry Leaders Unite on Fulfilling the Great Commission by 2033 (Empowered21, via Christian News Wire).
Source: Morning Star News, December 4, 2022
[On November 20] Muslim extremists burned down a house where a cell fellowship was meeting in eastern Uganda, a week after Muslims in another area caned two converts, sources said.
Arafah Senyange, 28, and his brother Zulufa Hajati Nakimuli, 43, were beaten with [a] cane on November 13 in Busembatia town, Bugweri District (formerly in Iganga District) for converting from Islam to Christianity in October, Nakimuli said.
The two brothers were studying the Bible under a mango tree outside their father’s home after returning from a Sunday service in Busembatia when one of their brothers, mosque leader Hamuza Lubega, arrived shouting the jihadist slogan, “Allah Akbar [God is greater],” he said.
Lubega seized their Bible and began tearing its pages, then called their brothers Shafiki Kato and Ahmad Sewanyana, Nakimuli said.
“We were accused of bringing an unholy, corrupted book into the home of a Muslim family and following Issa [Jesus] as the Son of God, which is blasphemy in Islam,” Nakimuli told Morning Star News. “Shafiki was sent to get some more family members with [a] cane to use on us. As they arrived, they started beating us with it.”
Read the full story. Also from Morning Star News: Killings in Kaduna State, Nigeria Darken Christmas Season.
Source: Voice of Justice and Jubilee Campaign, November 2022
There is no shortage of human rights atrocities taking place across the world at this very minute, from the military coup in Myanmar, to the slaughter of Christian communities in Nigeria, to the internment of millions of Uyghur Muslims in China. While we wish it was possible to be on the ground in every one of these places and contexts offering legal and humanitarian assistance and speaking to admirably resilient faith-based communities, we recognize that we must work within our geographic and personnel constraints.
Voice for Justice has worked tirelessly to expose the ever-increasing thousands of cases in which young girls from the Christian community in Pakistan are abducted from their workplaces, their educational institutions, and even from the refuge of their own homes, at which point they are forcibly married to men 20 and 30 years their elder and converted to Islam against their will. Meanwhile, these girls’ families are largely left helpless as the very state actors—police officers, courts of law, judges, religious leaders, and the like—who are tasked with protecting the nation’s people and advancing their interests instead aid and abet perpetrators, breeding a culture of impunity under which these horrific crimes can persist unmitigated.
See the full report, Conversion Without Consent.
Also from Pakistan, a Chinese missionary to Pakistan declares, “If I Die in Pakistan, Leave My Body There” (Back to Jerusalem). The author adds, “This sacrifice is the heart of preaching the gospel message to all the nations; it is the heart of the Chinese missionary vision, and it is perhaps what is needed to complete the Great Commission in our lifetime.”
