Month: February 2025
Challenge: Eat Like a Refugee for Five Days
Source: Jeannie Marie
Ready for a preposterous global challenge (that you can do right at home?)
Imagine experiencing what refugees eat every day—not just thinking about it, but actually living it. I’m inviting you to try something radical: eat like a refugee for five days.
Just oatmeal, rice, beans, and flour. That’s it. Whether you do this with your family, small group, or entire church, one thing’s certain: this experience will change you.
Why? Because when we step into someone else’s reality—even for a few days—it transforms our perspective forever.
Can’t travel overseas for a short-term trip right now? Perfect timing to bring this global experience home.
Get directions to do your own Eat Refugee Rations Global Challenge with your family, small group, or your whole church. A project for Lent? Jeannie shares lots of fun ideas for how you can make this work.
Data: The Number of Unreached People Groups Is…
Source: Joshua Project
Mobilizers, prone to simplify things, like to weave statements like this into mission presentations: “According to Joshua Project, there are 7,190 unreached people groups.” But you don’t have to delve too deeply to see that the number of unreached people groups—or people groups in generals—is more complicated than it appears.
One layer of complication comes from this question: Do we count a group like the Bambara, who live in 12 West African countries, as 12 groups or one?
- Taking the first approach produces a list of 17,280 people groups, 7,190 of them considered unreached.
- The second approach leads to a list of 10,296 people groups, 4,422 considered unreached.
Joshua Project plans to start using the second set of numbers alongside the first. Learn more about the benefits and challenges of making this distinction. You might also want to read a short article from Joshua Project Executive Director Chris Clayman, People Groups: A Missional Priority or a Problematic Paradigm?
Interested in how many languages are spoken in the world today? The new edition of the Ethnologue, released February 21, lists a total of 7,159 living languages worldwide—a net decrease of five languages since the previous update a year before.
Invitation: The Personal Retreat, One Day a Month
Source: Personal Retreat Days
Aren’t you tired of the 24/7 hustle culture? We’ve bought into society’s lie that says if we aren’t getting the results we want, we just need to work harder. But pushing yourself too hard is counterproductive and leads to burnout.
The Personal Retreat Day Method is a better path to a fulfilling life: Invest 12 days over the next 12 months to design a life filled with purpose, intention, and well-being.
Simply schedule one day a month to rest deeply, reflect on the past, and reorient towards a purposeful future.
Learn more. I found this website when adding items to our Missions Catalyst events calendar. Missio Nexus will be offering a webinar on this topic on March 20.
You might also appreciate (as I did) the 2020 book, Try Softer. Great title, no? It was recommended to me by a counselor who specializes in trauma-informed therapy and helps missionaries with mental health challenges.
Books: How Kingdom Movements Are Multiplying Across the Unreached World
Sources: Various
Forests in the Seed: How Kingdom Movements Are Multiplying Across the Unreached World, by William J. Dubois, Stan Parks, and Justin Long. Patmos Education Group, 2024. 269 pages.
Forests in the Seed tells how God is working in amazing ways to bring the gospel to people everywhere through multiplying disciples and churches in the most challenging places in the world.
I appreciate how it blends story and strategy, graciously but helpfully addresses common objections to movements, and briefly compares what we see today with previous movements like Methodism, the Naga revival, or, going back further, the Celtic and Slavic mission movements.
The book also illustrates how God has used “families” of related movements to start new movements and reach other groups in their regions. One family of 90 movements in Southeast Asia has impacted more than 130 unreached groups. Another movement family in South Asia has spread to more than 400 people groups in 12 years, reaching not only Hindus but engaging with Muslims, Sikhs, animists, and others.
“We are thrilled to see over 2,000 movements,” say the authors, “but we realize we probably need 50 times as many.”
Learn more or buy the book for US$11.95 to $16.95. Looks like you can only get it through Amazon, which is too bad, but the authors have scheduled several free days for the Kindle edition, including February 28 (tomorrow, if you’re keeping up with email!)
See also another new book about movements, this one focused on Africa. Living Fire: Advancing God’s Kingdom in Challenging Places describes 22 factors that enable these movements to ignite, accelerate, and sustain the advance of the gospel among unreached groups, illustrated with powerful stories from the messengers leading the ministries.
Events: Conferences, Classes and More in March
Source: Missions Catalyst Calendar
March 3 to July 6, Perspectives on the World Christian Movement (online). New online classes begin regularly.
March 4-6, Standards of Excellence introductory workshop (online). Provided regularly to help short-term mission leaders and mobilizers make their mission trips better. Also offered April 29 to May 1.
March 4-6, Frontier Filmmaking Seminar (online). Learn to make cross-cultural evangelistic films with Create International.
March 9, Call to Prayer (online). Monthly virtual prayer gathering for members of Missio Nexus.
March 10-14, Refugee Highway Partnership Roundtable (Malaga, Spain). An annual gathering.
March 17 to April 12, COMPASS (Palmer Lake, CO, USA). Language and culture acquisition provided regularly by Missionary Training International.
March 18, Contend: Monthly Day of Prayer For Mission Mobilization (global). Coordinated by GMMI and held on the third Tuesday of each month.
March 20, Rest, Reflect, Reorient with Personal Retreat Days (online). Webinar from Missio Nexus.
March 26, From Collaborative Giving to Collective Impact – A CEO Thought Leader Briefing (online). Virtual event from Missio Nexus.
March 27-28, Support Raising Bootcamp (Cincinnati, OH, USA). Provided by Via, formerly Support Raising Solutions. More classes held around the world throughout the year.
March 27-29, Ralph D. Winter Memorial Lectureship (Wilmore, Kentucky and online). Theme: Dusty Feet Among the Twice Dispossessed: Incarnation and Land in Mission Among the Urban Poor.
View the complete calendar. Submissions welcome.
News from India, Egypt, Afghanistan, Senegal & More
- India: A Call for Violent Attacks on Christian Villages on March 1
- World: Loving Muslims Well During Ramadan
- Egypt: Yemeni Christian Detained for Three Years, Now Released
- Afghanistan: Digital Scripture Reaches Marketplace and Beyond
- Senegal: Circle of Light, the Adama Diouf Story
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India: A Call for Violent Attacks on Christian Villages on March 1
Source: Back to Jerusalem, February 8, 2025
I came across a social media post and also saw a video of a man named Aadesh Soni calling 5,000 people to gather on March 1, 2025, to join “Gau Nyay Yatra,” which means “cow justice parade.” He is asking to enter three villages in Chhattisgarh, India—Bishrampur, Janakpur, and Ganeshpur, where the majority of residents are Christians.
He is urging the people to invade homes, violate their daughters and their daughters-in-law, and publicly commit obscene acts. He justifies this by accusing Christians of slaughtering cows, which are considered sacred in Hinduism, and claims to have the support of the administration.
In another video, a Hindu priest has called on 1,000 people to kill those accused of cow slaughter, stating that they should kill them first and then get hanged by the government.
Can such incidents happen? Yes, they can.
Please, if you are reading this, take a moment to pray for the protection of these women and our Christian family in this state. What is being threatened is worse than getting arrested or going to jail.
Read the full story and pray for peace in this region.
See also a recent report, Hate Speech Events in India. It states,
“The number of hate speech incidents targeting religious minorities [in India] surged from 668 in 2023 to 1,165 in 2024, marking a staggering 74.4% increase. Dangerous speech—defined as speech that ‘increases the risk that its audience will condone or participate in violence against members of another group’—also saw a significant rise” (Center for the Study of Organized Hate).
World: Loving Muslims Well During Ramadan
Source: Global Partners, February 10, 2025
When living in a secular, Muslim-majority country, we knew about Ramadan and realized that many observed it. However, because the city we lived in was predominantly Catholic, it seemed that it was a minor blip on the radar. Now that we live in a Muslim-majority city in North America, we can more clearly see the impact of Ramadan.
Ramadan is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar and is a special time to hear from Allah. The month is meant to commemorate when Mohammed first received his revelations from Allah. It is spent fasting from food, water (or any drink), smoking, sexual relations and several other things from sun-up until sundown. Once the sun goes down, many will attend a special prayer time at the mosque and then go and break their fast—first by eating dates and then feasting on other things, like various rice and meats, stuffed grape leaves, and lots of bread.
It is during this time of Ramadan that many Muslims believe that their good deeds are multiplied, their prayers are multiplied, and they will cleanse their bodies of impurities to reset [them] for Allah’s will for them. Since Islam is a works-based religion, this time is very important to store up extra “credits” with Allah.
And since Muslims can only eat during sundown, many families will stay up late and wake up early to get in extra meals before dawn. This means that people get little sleep during the month. Some of my friends are quite thankful that Ramadan is starting to fall during our winter months, compared to summer, when it doesn’t get dark until nearly 10:00 pm!
The most interesting thing is the tension between Ramadan hours and “normal life hours.” Just because someone slept three hours each night for the month of Ramadan doesn’t mean that they can skip out on school or work. And yet, many Muslim-owned businesses—particularly restaurants and cafes—shift their hours from 9:00-9:00 to 5:00-5:00. It is fascinating to see much of life shift here in our city.
See also five short prayers, one for each week of Ramadan. I plan to use them all (about six minutes total) repeatedly throughout the month. The images are beautiful, too!
The number of prayer guides for this season keeps growing. Get global guides in digital or print from Pray30Days.org. Follow the links to special editions for kids. Join a prayer campaign focused on a specific group or place. Sign up for daily video-based emails from Prayercast. You may also hear directly from organizations you support, many of which produce their own materials. See the latest from Frontiers USA.
Our friends at OneWay ministries tell the story of a Pakistan pastor whose heart changed after joining one of these prayer efforts. He set a goal with his church to share the love of Jesus with 300 Muslims in the next year. And after that, God gave them a vision to do much more. Wonderful.
Egypt: Yemeni Christian Detained for Three Years, Now Released
Source: Jubilee Campaign, February 12, 2025
Egyptian authorities detained Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo without trial [for three years, including] several months in solitary confinement solely for exercising his freedom of religion and expression. Today, Abdulbaqi is finally free and reunited with his family in Canada, thanks to persistent international and domestic pressure.
Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo is a Yemeni Christian from a Muslim background. After threats from family and community members, he, his wife, and children were preparing to leave the country when his wife was tragically murdered. Abdulbaqi, now a widower, and his four children fled Yemen to Egypt in 2014.
Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo was registered with the UNHCR and later remarried. On December 15, 2021, plainclothes police raided his home at 2:00 am. The authorities confiscated his mobile and laptop and those of his family members. Authorities kept Abdulbaqi under pre-trial detention for more than the two-year limit prescribed by law. This practice has been heavily criticized by human rights experts.
See also two articles related to religious liberty in other regions from International Christian Concern.
- The first is from Malaysia: Proposed Guidelines for Muslims Participating in Non-Muslim Celebrations Raise Concerns.
- The second is from Nepal: Nepalese Government Detains, Questions 17 U.S. Citizens on Proselytizing Charges (Note that they were soon released. Local Christians would face more severe consequences).