Day: April 5, 2023

1. Brazil: Women Believing Behind Bars
2. Myanmar: Revival Brings Opportunity, Demand for More Bibles
3. Iran: An Update on the Underground Church
4. Niger: US Aid Worker Jeff Woodke Released After Six Years
5. China: 5 Million Secret Church Meetings Every Week?

Greetings this Holy Week!

This edition includes more than a few reports of answered prayer. Let’s keep praying. For those who use prayer guides and find them helpful, have you ever thought about creating your own strategic prayer guide?

See the recent Mission Frontiers article, Develop and Implement a Contextual Prayer Strategy.

The author is well-known to me and has a gift for making things very clear and as simple as possible. The principles can apply to many different prayer needs. I am even using this strategy to pray for my adult children.

Praying with you,
Pat Noble

Read or share the email edition or scroll down for individual stories.

Source: Haggai Ministries, March 22, 2023

Every Saturday, you’ll find Renata da Silva Sousa in prison. No, she isn’t an inmate, but she goes to spend time with the women there who are. Her goal is to be a listener and an encourager for those women. Renata always has a word of comfort to share with the people in her life—and whenever possible, she introduces them to Jesus. In the prison, that is through planting seeds of hope and renewal, where otherwise it would be hard to find.

“My personal mission is to reach this generation of women, equipping them to grow and reach their full potential, so that others in that community will join our churches,” said Renata, an accountant and financial analyst for a large company by day.

A few years ago, Renata joined the leadership team of Projeto Bellas, a group of women who travel to the prison every weekend to disciple the women there. They pray for them, pray with them, and distribute Bibles. Currently, they’re ministering to approximately 50 women, with plans to baptize 19 of them as soon as they’re granted permission by the prison board to release these women for the duration of the ceremony. Today, they are working on expanding to include recovery houses and shelter homes for abandoned children or those who have been abused.

Read the full story.

On a related note, a reader asked if we had any news about a revival in the prisons of El Salvador. We found Reform and Revival: Gang Members Find Christianity in El Salvador Prisons (Washington Post, 2019). Have newer news? Let us know. El Salvador now has the world’s highest incarceration rate, with nearly 2% of the population imprisoned (GZERO Media). The country just built what is expected to be the world’s largest prison.

Source: Asia Harvest, April 2023

From across the densely populated plains of Myanmar—inhabited by Buddhist peoples like the Burmese, Chaungtha, Mon, and Rakhine—reports have emerged of families and sometimes whole communities being transformed by the Lord Jesus Christ.

The current revival has almost exclusively occurred through house church discipleship networks. Gone is the division between paid clergy and laymen. The current move of God is also unlikely to produce a single visible church building. Myanmar does not need one more cathedral or church building. Now, tens of thousands of newly redeemed brothers and sisters with a simple yet powerful faith gather in homes, basements, shops, halls, thatch huts, teahouses, or wherever else they may choose to meet.

Although no one except God currently knows the extent of the revival in Myanmar, what we can tell you is that when our co-workers there began to field requests for Burmese Bibles, requests flooded in from more than 100 different Myanmar church and ministry leaders, begging for the Word of God so that new believers could be established in the faith and the gains from the revival would not fall by the wayside.

Read the full story. See also a related article with a snapshot from the country’s history: Adoniram Judson, a Life Poured Out for God.

You might also be interested in a new series from Christianity Today, Engaging Buddhism. It explores different facets of Buddhism and how Christians can engage with and minister to Buddhists. Read the first article.

Source: Mission Network News, March 21, 2023

Iran is a country known for its strict adherence to Islamic law, which makes practicing any religion other than Islam difficult. Despite the challenges, the underground church in Iran has been growing over the past few decades. Estimates suggest that there are currently between 300,000 to one million Christians in Iran, most of whom are part of the underground church. This growth can be attributed to several factors.

Firstly, the underground church in Iran has a strong sense of community. Christians in Iran face many challenges, including social isolation, discrimination, and persecution. The underground church provides a sense of belonging and support to believers who might otherwise feel alone.

Secondly, the underground church in Iran is innovative in finding ways to connect with other believers and spread the gospel. They use social media, satellite TV, and other online platforms to connect and share the good news of Jesus Christ.

Thirdly, the underground church in Iran is committed to discipleship and training new leaders. Christian leaders in Iran face significant risks, and there is a shortage of trained pastors and teachers. The underground church has taken on the responsibility of training new leaders and helping them to grow in their faith.

Read the full story and check out Heart4Iran, a network of 100+ ministries.

Source: God Reports, March 22, 2023

After more than six years in captivity in West Africa, longtime American Christian aid worker Jeff Woodke has been released.

His wife, Els Woodke, was told Jeff was “in good condition,” according to a statement on a website campaigning for his release. “She has expressed her profound thanks to the many people in governments and others around the world who have worked so hard to see this result,” the statement said. “She praises God for answering the prayers of Christians everywhere who have prayed for this outcome.”

Jeff Woodke was kidnapped from his home in Abalak, northern Niger, on October 14, 2016. His kidnappers, suspected members of a radical Islamic group called Mujao, reportedly took him toward eastern Mali. Since then it appears he has been taken across borders to other nations.

The Christian aid worker was released outside of Niger, in a border area with Mali and Burkina Faso, a US official told The New York Times. He was then moved to Niger’s capital Niamey for medical checks.

Read the full story which includes several links. See also a more recent article from WorldWatch Monitor following a March 31 press conference in which Woodke described how he was treated during captivity.

See also The Sahel: What Does the Future Hold? (Lausanne Movement).

Source: Back to Jerusalem, March 2023

Christian leaders in the underground house church in China have recently shared that this is now one of the most challenging times “in the history of the church.”

“China’s control over the population is more extreme and the monitoring is constant,” according to one pastor who spoke with BTJ on condition of anonymity. “The church has been forced back into the 70s and 80s,” he said, even stating that pastors have to hide in the trunks of cars in order to get into different villages in China. This is a method that was commonly used to transport ministers in the 1980s and 1990s. “It [pastors traveling in the trunk of a car] has become so common that it is being called the ‘prayer closet.’”

In the recent months of [COVID-19] restrictions in China, there has been a limit to the number of people allowed to meet together. The underground church has had to adapt. The maximum number of people gathering cannot be more than 20 people in urban areas and 10 people in rural areas. This government-imposed limitation was the very thing that catapulted the underground church in China 20-30 years ago. With over 100 million Christians inside China, there would easily be more than 5 million meeting locations nationwide.

The biggest prayer request coming from the pastors inside of China is to pray for new leaders and shepherds. With the decentralization of meetings, the demand for leaders is extremely high.

Read the full story. As you pray for China, lift up the families of 30 million teenagers reportedly suffering from depression (World of Chinese). Found that story in Justin Long’s The Weekly Roundup. Thanks, Justin!