Month: August 2025

Source: Frontiers UK, August 8, 2025

Growing up in northeast Iraq, Kojin was surrounded by a 100% Muslim population. There wasn’t a single follower of Christ.

He read the Quran several times, trying to convince himself that it came from God and that it would be a sin to question its teachings. But in his heart, he couldn’t accept that as true. He understood that ideas have consequences, and it was not possible for him to accept the consequences of this book as divine.

For a while, he tried to be an atheist and freethinker, but he couldn’t sustain that approach. Several times, drawn by fear and conscious of the supernatural, he tried again to faithfully practice the Islamic religion. One day, in the window of a bookstore, he saw a little book titled The Gospel According to Luke. The bookstore owners had only one copy, so they offered to let him pay a daily fee to borrow it. He read it in a single day and loved it.

Desperate to know more about Jesus, Kojin searched. But he found no further information anywhere.

“When I took the book back to the bookstore,” he said, “I asked them if they had any other books about Christ. They said, ‘No, that’s all we have.’”

A few years later, Kojin finally met some followers of Jesus, people who had been discipled by our team. After that, everything changed—not just for him, but for the many people in his region that he eventually led to the Lord. Read the full story. It also describes the great progress made in engaging unengaged Muslim groups since the Vision 5:9 campaign was launched in 2001. Frontiers is now focusing on 100 priority groups, with a growing number of its new teams going to those groups each year.

Source: Morning Star News, August 18, 2025

A Muslim who put his faith in Christ after receiving a vision in a mosque in Uganda was hospitalized after relatives beat him, demolished his home, and took in his wife and six children.

Wambuzi Maka Uthman, a 39-year-old former sheikh (Islamic teacher), went to Friday prayers in Mayuge town council, Mayuge District in eastern Uganda on August 1 as usual, then went to sleep in a corner of the mosque, he said.

“There I saw a man dressed in white, long clothing, surround[ed] by four angels – the man called me by my name, ‘Uthman, Uthman, Uthman,’ three times,” Uthman told Morning Star News. “I was so frightened as I drew near to Him, knelt down and worshiped Him. Thereafter, He told me to go to my people and to tell them to repent and turn to the living God.”

As he returned home, he met a pastor from Elim Church.

“I shared with him the strange message that I received of repentance,” Uthman said. “He took me to his church and shared deeply about the vision that I had. I then understood that it was Issa [Jesus] who had sent me to my fellow Muslims to repent.”

[Then] he began telling his wife and six children, as well as his neighbors, about Christ.

Read the full story to hear what happened next.

See also God’s 21st-Century Smugglers, an interview with Open Doors president Ryan Brown about how ministering to the persecuted church has changed since founder Brother Andrew’s day (Christianity Today).

1. World: Why Missions Training Still Matters in 2025
2. Mexico: First Zoque Believers Baptized
3. Turkmenistan: New Visas for Visitors
4. Syria: Targeted Christians Fear for Their Lives
5. Nigeria: Fulani Missionaries Prepare for Outreach
6. Bhutan: Christian Worship in a Tiny Asian Hermit Kingdom

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

Thanks for reading!

Source: Global Frontier Missions, July 23, 2025

In an age of rapid technological advancement, instant communication, and global access to information, some may wonder: Is formal missions training still necessary? With Bible apps in seemingly every language and translation tools at our fingertips, the idea of preparing for years before going to the mission field can feel outdated. But the truth is, missions training in 2025 is more essential than ever. Here’s why.

1. Cultural complexity has increased.
2. Theological foundations are more critical than ever.
3. Spiritual warfare is real.
4. Long-term impact requires preparation.

Read the article and encourage those you influence to get trained. GFM offers excellent options, and you’ll find others on our mission events calendar.

Also from GFM: Spiritual Warfare on the Field: What Every Missionary Should Know and Language Learning Tips for New Missionaries.

Source: International Mission Board, July 17, 2025

International Mission Board missionary Tammy Richardson knelt beside the river with her phone.

Her husband, Clay, and their local pastor stood in the river, preparing to baptize Leana—the first Zoque believer to make a public confession of faith in more than a decade of ministry in southern Mexico.

As she got ready to capture the moment of Leana’s immersion, suddenly, her teammate leaned down and said, “There’s one more.”

Richardson glanced up in surprise. A moment later, tears flowed unchecked down her face.

Over the last 12 years, in raw moments of prayer, Richardson has wrestled with questions like ‘Should we go somewhere else?’ and ‘Is this ground just too hard?’

When they moved to Mexico in 2013, the Richardsons were not prepared for how long it would take to see gospel transformation among the Zoque people. Or, that it would all begin with an unexpected relationship, right under their very own roof.

Read the full story with pictures.

For more good news from Mexico, read Seeing God at Work: Reflections on Culiacan (Global Recordings Network).

From the U.S., two rather different stories about spiritual hunger:

• The Witches of Etsy describes GenZ interest in the occult (World).
• Praise God for this: 35,000 Worship and 3,200 Accept Christ in Portland, One of America’s Most Secular Cities (CrossWalk). 

Source: Back to Jerusalem, August 2, 2025

Turkmenistan, a former Soviet state, is showing signs it’s ready for tourism, which is a positive sign for missionaries who have been praying for the country to open up for decades. Not many people know much about Turkmenistan, but that is because it is about as inaccessible as North Korea, Yemen, or Eritrea, but the country surprisingly began to open up their visa process to tourists in April.

Turkmenistan has been a somewhat impenetrable Muslim nation, completely cut off from the rest of the world. According to the Joshua Project, of Turkmenistan’s 49 people groups, 16 are completely unreached.

Read the full story.

Interested in Central Asia? The Ferghana Valley is open for visitors (BBC). For more suggestions, read The 25 Best Places to Travel in 2025.

We also praise God for those able and willing to stay in places don’t make that kind of list. Read about a long-term Irish missionary among nine people kidnapped from a Haitian orphanage.

Source: Middle East Concern, July 21, 2025

Syria has witnessed three major violent events targeting religious and ethnic minorities in 2025: violence against Alawites on the coast in March, a suicide attack on St. Elias church in Damascus in June, and recent violent clashes between the Druze and the Sunni tribes in Suwayda governorate in the south.

Christian communities were favored and protected by the previous regime and now feel extremely insecure in light of this year’s events, doubting that the government has their best interest in mind, and that it may not be willing or able to protect them, even though the interim government’s statements have always described Christians as a valued, vital, and equal part of the Syrian community.

There have been dozens of smaller incidents threatening Christians through pamphlets, insulting social media posts, attacks in the streets and intimidation in casual daily interaction, but also through planned bomb attacks that were foiled by the government.

Read the full story and prayer points.

Also from the Middle East:

• Recent clashes pause Gospel work among the Druze (Mission Network News)
• Christians in Gaza Feed Thousands in Crisis Across Ethnic & Faith Lines (The Roys Report)

Source: Mission Network News, July 22, 2925

Christian leaders in Nigeria are calling for prayer as believers face unrelenting attacks from Fulani herdsmen.

Christian communities continue to suffer raids, sexual violence, killings at roadblocks, and kidnappings. Recent victims include two teenagers and a nine-month-old baby.

Believers aren’t the only ones who suffer. Fulani herdsmen, although Islamist, also attack properties owned by Muslims.

The Fulani were among Nigeria’s first converts to Islam, and this religious system is central to their identity. Yet hope remains for this people group. “We’re seeing God move in very unique ways,” [says Greg Kelley of Unknown Nations].

“He’s saving people who come from these aggressors and using them as missionaries. 300 Fulani leaders are going to be trained in the next few weeks.”

Ask the Lord to put his words into the mouths of Fulani gospel workers.

“The most passionate and enthusiastic laborers are coming out of the three largest Muslim people groups,” Kelley says.

Read the full story with links.

Also from Mission Network News:

• What’s really at stake with India’s anti-conversion laws
• How solar radios transform Haitian communities
• Pakistan reels from record-breaking floods

Source: International Christian Concern, July 7, 2025

There aren’t many reports of Christians being attacked in Bhutan. For that matter, news of any sort from Bhutan is relatively scarce.

And yet Bhutan, an ostensibly serene little Buddhist hermit kingdom that emphasizes “Gross National Happiness,” currently ranks as more oppressive than Egypt toward Christians. An added factor here is that most Christians in Bhutan are ethnic Nepalis.

Bhutan has a complicated relationship with its ethnic Nepali population, regardless of religion. Toward the end of the 20th century, many native Bhutanese became concerned that ethnic Nepalis were gaining too much influence within their country.

So, the Bhutanese government began rescinding the citizenship of more than 100,000 ethnic Nepalis (which is no small number in a country with less than 1 million persons overall), then seizing their property and expelling them from the country.

The full story reports that the country’s Christians, whose numbers are growing, meet in private settings and are both joyful and fearful.

Two more stories from East Asia:

• See Refugee Church Finds a New Home in Texas, a story about the so-called “Mayflower Church,” believers who fled China seeking a new place to worship freely (Outreach Magazine).
• Read Muslim Mob Attacks Christian Youth Retreat. This is one of several recent events related to the contentious question of where Indonesian Christians can practice their faith (Christianity Today).