Source: Cry Out Now, January 2016

2015 could rightly be described as the “year of displacement.”

• At least 40% of Syria’s population, or 7.6 million people, have been internally displaced, the highest number in the world… 4.4 million registered Syrian refugees have been externally displaced as [of] December 10, 2015.
• 13.5 million Syrians will be displaced in 2016 according to the Syria Humanitarian Response Plan, of whom 6 million are children.
• 807,000 Syrian asylum applications were received in Europe between April 2011 and November 2015 compared to 137,947 during 2014.
• Less than 20% of Syrian refugees seek safety in Europe.
• 3.6 million Syrians registered by UNHCR are in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.
• Germany has officially seen one million people (from all nations) arrive in the country as asylum seekers in the course of 2015.
• In November alone, more than 200,000 people were added to the list, smashing all forecasts.
• 218,394 were registered in Greece by October 2015 with an average of 6,604 refugees arriving each day in Macedonia.
• 3,485 refugees have drowned or have gone missing the past year.
• The oldest refugee passing through Macedonia has been a 105-year-old woman from Afghanistan. The youngest refugee passing through Macedonia has been a 20-day-old infant. 51.2% of all refugees are children younger than 18 years of age.

“Lord, would you use the terrible situations refugees are facing all across the region and into Europe to bring many thousands to yourself, and would you revive the church through your work among them? Lord, we pray in 2016 for peace and a beginning of a return back for many.”

» Read full story and see the UN data source.

Source: Open Doors, January 2016

The Open Doors World Watch List highlights the 50 countries where it is most difficult to live as a Christian. These are the places where followers of Christ must keep their beliefs hidden and where living the gospel means facing beatings, imprisonment, discrimination, and abuse.

The list reports that persecution became more intense in more parts of the world in 2015. While North Korea remains the most difficult place in the world to be a Christian, persecution is growing most rapidly in Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa. In the Middle East, Islamic State violence in Iraq and Syria has increased the pace of the exodus of the Christian population from the region and is also having a global impact.

Christians living in these countries need the support of their family, the body of Christ, to help them stand firm in their faith.

» View map, facts, faces, country profiles, and more and see the Open Doors January 13 press release.

Source: Frontiers UK, January 8, 2016

Matt leads a team and has an animal feed business in Central Asia. Through this business, local families are trained in how to set up and operate their own small-scale farms. The business helps them get started by providing them with a small investment of livestock and feed.

Matt hired Adem, who had recently become a believer, as the company’s first national employee. Later he became the company’s first distributor. “It’s easier to talk about Jesus now that I am a businessman,” Adem says. “It has opened many doors for me because people respect me. They trust me. I find it is easy to start talking about spiritual things with people because I am already involved in their lives.”

Adem has several new believers he is discipling, teaching, and equipping to obey Jesus’ commands. Through Matt’s mentoring and encouragement, Adem has grown into a spiritually sensitive entrepreneur, constantly looking for new opportunities to grow the business and expand the kingdom.

» Read full story.

In this Issue:

1. WORLD: Window into Our Current Soul
2. CENTRAL ASIA: Through Mountain Darkness
3. PAKISTAN: Christian Slum Dwellers Fight Eviction
4. ASIA: “We Need Your Voice,” The Call for Women in Leadership

This issue features stories and links having to do with ministry to (and through) the world’s women. (UN Photo/Kibae Park)

Greetings!

Have you noticed how analysts love to make lists this time of year? It happens every New Year, but this year has more than ever. Take a look at just a few.

• The Top Five Testimonies of 2015 (Christianity Today)
• Five Trends That Will Change Your World in 2016 (Charisma Magazine)
• Six Parts of Kingdom Innovation (J.D. Payne)
• Seven Ways to Approach Your Bible in 2016 (The Gospel Coalition)
• Nine Keys to Working With Muslims (The Zwemer Center; mid-2015)

My favorite is a piece from INcontext with five steps to start the New Year and help us keep our focus on the Kingdom of God. They write:

“Just like preconceived notions prevented the religious rulers at the time of Jesus to recognize the Messiah, preconceived notions will prevent modern-day believers to identify the greatest opportunities of our generation. With millions seeking refuge, wars abounding, nations in turmoil, leaders fighting for power, the Muslim world at a cross roads, and the Christian center of gravity shifting to the East, there is no doubt that we now live in the ‘days of opportunities.’ How do we then transform from our religiously preconceived notions and theologies to being Kingdom-minded?”

Great questions to be asking.

This issue also features stories and links having to do with ministry to (and through) the world’s women.

Read on!

Pat

Source: INcontext Ministries, January 1, 2016

[Were] the Islamic State and the terror attacks in Iraq, Syria, and Paris really priority to most people during the past year? Were there dramatic changes in priorities after millions fled to Europe from North Africa? Did the looming economic crisis change perceptions and lifestyles? Apparently not!

There are a number of ways to recap the past year. But how do you really get a twelve-month snapshot of a culture’s zeitgeist? Dr. James Emery White writes as follows:

“I would argue for two words: ‘Google searches.’

“I’m not saying that this will be what historians will mark in 10, much less 100 years, even less what is most significant. But I will say that it may be the clearest window into our current soul.”

» Read full story including several “top 10” lists and find more data on Google Trends.

» See also an interesting infographic and analysis from Esquire and NBC looking at current events through the lens of what makes Americans mad.

Source: IMB Connecting, January 2016

Nan Kirby and her teammate Khorvash quickly hiked through a deep mountain gorge on the way to a remote Central Asian village. The autumn sun sank behind the mountains, leaving them in the dark for the last leg. Alternating between carefully watching the narrow mountainside path and looking up toward the faint glow of village fires in the distant darkness, they finally arrived at their friend Homid’s two-room home.

“You know, my friends,” Homid said, “I have been watching you and other followers of Jesus for over seven years now. You really believe in what your Holy Book says. You are different. You are hopeful. It’s real. I want this Jesus.”

Nan showed a short, evangelistic video on her phone, and Khorvash opened the Scripture and explained the gospel again. “Yes, I believe this,” exclaimed Homid.

As Homid prayed, he asked Jesus to forgive him for his sins and recognized Jesus as the Son of God and his Savior. Nan was in awe, amazed at the Holy Spirit’s work to bring about salvation in the hearts of the men and women in Central Asia.

During the evening meal of bread, yogurt, and tea, Nan asked Homid what he witnessed in Christians that made him realize the truth about Jesus…

» Read the rest of the story, with pictures and links to additional resources about praying for Central Asia.

» Readers might also be interested in the most recent edition of Mission Frontiers, which features a wealth of stories of women engaged in church-planting movements among the unreached.

Source: Morning Star News, December 9, 2015

Yaqub Masih is one of thousands of impoverished Christians facing demolition of his makeshift home in Islamabad after a government agency last week stated that informal slum settlements of Christian migrants threatened the city’s Muslim-majority demographic.

“It is one thing being poor, but things are far worse if you are poor and Christian,” said the middle-aged man who ekes out a living as a mason. “Has the government even considered where I would take my family if they put us out on the street?”

In a statement that rights groups called bigoted, Pakistan’s Capital Development Authority (CDA) asserted on December 4 to the Supreme Court of Pakistan that “it is necessary to identify the fact that most katchi abadis [slum settlements] are under the occupation of the Christian community” from other parts of Pakistan, and “this pace of occupation of land may affect [the] Muslim majority of the capital.”

Not all of Islamabad’s slum dwellers are Christian, and initially the CDA had generated propaganda that the settlements housed Islamic terrorists as justification for the evictions, as many of the settlers in [this area] were from the Khyber Pakhtunkwa Province, a heavily radicalized area formerly known as North-West Frontier Province along the Afghanistan border. Islamabad’s settlements overall, however, are largely inhabited by Christians, estimated at nearly 80,000.

» Read full story.

» Also read 2016: The Global Punishment for Being a Woman and a Christian. Among other things it addresses how religious persecution plays out for Christian women in Pakistan (Women Without Borders).

Source: Mission Network News, January 4, 2016

Is there still a glass ceiling when it comes to women in ministry leadership? In the United States, the response may be “it’s being shattered.” Mary Jo Wilson, Vice President for Missional Engagement for Asian Access, believes the response should be the same for women around the world.

“I think it’s been difficult sometimes to capture those women and to find a place where we can engage them and develop them as leaders because they are in the background and often they’re more comfortable in the background.”

Mary Jo’s personal investment resulted in a white paper on women in leadership. “As I studied and prayed, the point of my paper was women and men serving together and how we can come together in the body of Christ and be all about the mission—not separating and not limiting anyone to serve and be about the Great Commission.”

Her studies are now being used by Asian Access to develop better methods to engage women in their servant leadership ministry.

» Read full story and a related story on the Asian Access website.

» Another story from Mission Network News also caught our eye: this one explains how Wycliffe Associates anticipates a record-setting 500 new Bible translation efforts starting in the year to come (thanks in part to some new technological solutions and strategies).