Read or share the email edition or scroll down for more.
Image: Dr. Ken Elliott from Australia has been freed after spending seven years as a captive in West Africa. See the story below.
Source: Frontiers USA, May 15, 2023
I was enjoying the last rays of the Middle Eastern sun late one afternoon when my friend Khaled called me.
“Hey, Trevor,” he greeted me. “You have a pool, right?”
“A pool?” I glanced across the yard at the inflatable kiddie pool my children used on hot days. “Yeah, a little one for the kids. Why do you ask?”
“An adult could fit, right? I need it next Wednesday.” His words came out in a rush. “Can you bring it to the garden? And then can you fill it up?”
I raised an eyebrow, even though Khaled couldn’t see me. “Sure, but what is this all about?”
“Salwa wants to get baptized!”
Salwa lived in a neighboring region that foreigners couldn’t access. For years, my team and I had prayed fervently for the people of this area, but all our attempts to reach them with the gospel had failed.
Salwa had been making regular treks to our city for the past several months. Here she’d met Khaled and some other local Muslim-background believers my team and I have been discipling. When they shared the gospel with Salwa, she eagerly decided to follow Jesus.
Now, Khaled’s invitation to her baptism was a stunning answer to prayer.
I grinned. “I’ll be there. And so will my pool.”
Read the full story and prayer points. Also from Frontiers, read The Grumpy Samaritan.
Source: International Christian Concern, May 24, 2023
Kenneth Elliott, an Australian doctor kidnapped in Burkina Faso and held captive by al-Qaeda for more than seven years, has finally returned home to his family.
“Kenneth Elliott was safe and well and was reunited with his wife and their children on Thursday night,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong told the Associated Press.
“We wish to express our thanks to God and all who have continued to pray for us,” added Elliott’s family in a statement released by Wong’s department.
On January 15, 2016, Elliott and his wife Jocelyn were taken from their home in Burkina Faso by the Mali-based terror organization al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Jocelyn was quickly released in February 2016.
Elliott and his wife had been running a hospital in Djibo. The hospital, which could hold 120 patients, was closed due to Elliott’s absence after the kidnappings. He was the only surgeon in the area and made his services free to the population of roughly 2 million. He was given the nicknames the “Doctor of the Poor” and “Savior of the Sahel” for the work he was doing.
Read the full story or one from the Associated Press. The family’s statement says, “At 88 years of age, and after many years away from home, Dr. Elliott now needs time and privacy to rest and rebuild strength.”
Apparently, the Sahel now accounts for nearly half of global terrorism, with more people killed by terrorists there than in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia combined (Unherd). On the weekend the Elliotts were kidnapped, the same group took credit for a terrorist attack in Ouagadougou that killed 30 others from at least 18 nationalities.
And in other news of captives released, an Iranian judge freed a Christian couple and ruled that house church gatherings are not illegal, and another judge reduced a Christian’s prison sentence for holding services in his home from ten years to two (Article18).
Source: Pioneers-USA, May 17, 2023
Do you know about the Fulani? Considered the world’s largest nomadic people group, they are found in many countries across Western Africa and beyond. Most Fulani people are Muslims, and occult practices are also widespread among them. Many have been disenfranchised by their communities and as a result, are quite poor. So it is not surprising that the majority are illiterate.
During a week-long training, a group of Fulani women who follow Jesus or have expressed strong interest learned oral discipleship methods. These strategies are effective with both educated and uneducated people and are great for mixed groups. As the days went by, trainers saw the Lord use this course to speak into the hearts of the women and their families.
“At one point, we were talking about repentance. During the worship time that followed, all of the women felt convicted to kneel before God to sort out the hidden things in their lives. We witnessed how the Holy Spirit was transforming their hearts. It was incredibly moving. We were also encouraged to see several men participating.
“God deeply touched the husband of one of the women there. He told us that he had been a ‘friend of evil spirits,’ but that from now on he would leave all of that behind. At the end of the week, he decided to be baptized.”
Read the full story and another testimony about a husband’s new-found faith and how his wife responded.
Source: The Christian Post, June 5, 2023
The Ghana National Association of Authors and Publishers has offered an apology and admitted to errors amid criticism from parents, educators, and the country’s deputy education minister for a textbook’s negative depiction of the impact Christian missionaries have had on the country.
In a statement, the association offered an “unqualified apology” to the Ministry of Education, The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, Ghanaian Schools, Nananom, the Christian Council of Ghana, and “any Ghanaian who find the statements obnoxious.”
The book, titled History of Ghana for Basic Schools, Learners Book 4, reportedly touches on what it describes as the negative consequences of Christian missionary activities and claims Christianity has led to an increase in poverty in the country, according to Ghana’s largest English radio station.
As of the 2021 census, Christianity is the predominant faith in Ghana, practiced by 71.3% of the population across numerous denominations, [and] Islam constitutes the religious beliefs of 19.9% of the nation’s total populace.
Read the full story. It’s an interesting, current example of the debates about whether missionaries destroy cultures.
You might also enjoy reading about OneWay Ministries’ Livingstone School of Missions in Ghana.
Finally, from a different part of the world, hear what an American’s Filipino translation partner told him about how his parents responded when missionaries first arrived in their area (Ethnos360).
Source: Christian Today, May 29, 2023
During a recent trip to Chad [to] implement an emerging model of Bible translation called church-centric Bible translation, I worked alongside other members of the unfoldingWord training team to train and resource Chad nationals to translate 50 Bible stories into eight minority languages.
Muslims and Christians [came] together to embark on this translation journey [which] takes a fraction of the time. Ultimately this will have the potential to impact around 2 million people in Chad who speak something other than Chadian Arabic.
I knew it would be a challenging road ahead as a group of eight language teams, with five members each (two all Muslim, two all Christian, and four mixed groups) came together. I have spent decades of my working life developing leaders and teams and didn’t underestimate the barriers they needed to overcome as they began the first in a series of six translation workshops.
This translation project succeeds the first translation group of its kind in Chad which began in 2018 and was completed 18 months later. From this first group of eight language teams, at least two new churches have been planted and the new believers are assigned to the associated missionary for the people group.
Read the full story or a similar one from Christianity Today.
Did you know? Chad is home to more than 200 ethnic groups who speak more than 100 languages, according to 5 Things You Need to Know about Chad (World Relief).
