Month: January 2023

Source: Back to Jerusalem, January 2023

“It is time to begin preparing Bibles again to go into North Korea,” came the text from [a missionary] last week.

Getting money, food, supplies, and not least of all, Bibles, into North Korea in the last three years has been tough as North Korea has isolated itself from the rest of the world, but that might all be changing in 2023.

In his speech at the end of December 2022, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, alluded to opening North Korea back up in 2023. The North Korean self-reliant Communist strategy of Juche has clearly not worked.

North Korea’s borders between China and Russia have been tightly closed since 2020, but now, due to a lack of money and economic activities, the cross-border traffic between the nations is about to resume.

North Korea watched as China opened up its border to Hong Kong in the 1980s to become one of the busiest economic cross-border ports in the world. They mimicked the activity with a special economic zone that mimicked China’s Shenzhen and Guangzhou. In doing so, North Korea’s cross-border activity with China grew to be so influential that North Korea started to use the Chinese Yuan as their primary currency.

Chinese missionaries stand by, ready to participate in cross-border commerce with North Korea the moment they open.

Read the full story.

You may know that neighboring South Korea is one of the world’s top missionary-sending countries, with some 22,000 foreign missionaries, some of them featured (for good or ill) in a recent article. See Christian Missionaries Target the Birthplace of Buddha in Nepal (BBC).

Source: International Mission Board, January 4, 2023

The watchman. He was the grandfather who loved spy novels, Manchester United, and coffee.

Dawit was Matt and Gretchen Clay’s door to communities with no gospel presence. He made introductions for the International Mission Board missionaries and translated from the trade language to the regional language. Dawit helped the Clays begin their ministry in the area by translating for their community development projects.

“He ushered us in,” Gretchen said.

With his high level of English, he was overqualified for the security job, but he saw serving as a watchman as a way to serve and give back to his community.  

When the Clays felt the Lord calling them to move deeper into the region where their people group lived, they told Dawit he was welcome to move with them, but they weren’t requiring it, and they blessed him to retire whenever he saw fit.

“If you’re going, I’m coming,” he told Matt and Gretchen. He lived with the Clays for the past few years in a standalone room next to their house and was a daily part of their lives.

This summer while the Clays were in the U.S., Dawit unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack. His death was devastating. All the missionaries he helped, whether still in the country or back in the U.S., were grieved.

For two months, Gretchen didn’t go into his room. The grief was still too raw. When she did go in, she picked up a piece of paper with random numbers jotted down. She flipped it over and found a note.

“I’ve been working with a family for many years, this American family, I’ve really loved my work with them. They are good people. I like them and their children. They are very good for me. They believe in the one, true God, in Jesus Christ, me too,” the note read.  

Gretchen said it confirmed that he had indeed committed his life to Christ. 

Read the full story.

Source: Back to Jerusalem, December 31, 2022

The world is about to see the most insane New Year’s celebration that has ever been witnessed!

No, I am not talking about the New Year’s bash in New York’s Time Square, but something a lot bigger with a lot more people—Chinese New Year—[which in less than three weeks will be the largest human migration on the planet.

More than 3 billion people could be traveling. The biggest problem this year is that the Chinese have been forced to stay in their homes for the last three years. Airports have been closed, freeways have been closed off, cities have had barriers to keep people from coming or leaving, and even homes have had fences erected around them and doors welded shut.

Those living in these conditions for the last three years are about to be released to freedom!

The government just did a surprise pivot from mandatory quarantines only a month ago announcing that they were dropping all Covid-19 related restrictions. This unexpected announcement has caused a flurry of Chinese families making plans to go and see their families. Many will be leaving the country.

This year, Chinese New Year will fall on Sunday, January 22, so travel will officially start for many people on Friday, January 20th. The travel nightmare will not end until about mid-February.

Read the full story.

See also Lunar New Year: 15 Days, 15 Ways to Pray (Christar).

While most of those who travel for Lunar New Year soon return home, other migration waves may be more permanent. See Top 10 Migration Issues of 2022 (Migration Policy Institute) and pray for those involved.

Source: Religion News Service, December 29, 2022

Taken as a whole, the news of the past 12 months tells a story of deepening division in American and global society, as issues from abortion to antisemitism seemed to not only inflame debate between individuals but to destabilize institutions. Faith communities and organizations, often at the center of some of the year’s most indelible moments, were no less vulnerable to these roiling shifts. Here are RNS editors’ picks for the most significant stories in faith in the last year.

See what makes the list. Not sure more than a few of them would make what we at Missions Catalyst think of as Heaven’s headlines, though other stories in this edition of news briefs might.

Source: Dave Coles, Mission Frontiers, January 1, 2023

I often tell people, “My job is to hear about the incredible works of God and proclaim the incredible works of God. That’s a pretty unbeatable job.” Sometimes when speaking to a group, I tell them, “I’m going to give you some good news: the kind of news you almost never find on the internet or on TV. Most of what’s out there is bad news. Scary news. Irritating news. I’ve got news that is thrilling!”

Read this issue of Mission Frontiers. It reports that the number of known disciple-making movements has more than tripled in the last five years. And they’re spreading. New research suggests that 80–90% of currently existing movements have been started by other movements rather than an outside catalyst.

Want the data? Read Justin Long’s article How Long to Reach the Goal? or see the recently updated DMM Dashboard. “If you have prayed for movements to spread around the world… they have,” he says.

You might also be interested in Ministry Leaders Unite on Fulfilling the Great Commission by 2033 (Empowered21, via Christian News Wire).

Source: Morning Star News, December 4, 2022

[On November 20] Muslim extremists burned down a house where a cell fellowship was meeting in eastern Uganda, a week after Muslims in another area caned two converts, sources said.

Arafah Senyange, 28, and his brother Zulufa Hajati Nakimuli, 43, were beaten with [a] cane on November 13 in Busembatia town, Bugweri District (formerly in Iganga District) for converting from Islam to Christianity in October, Nakimuli said.

The two brothers were studying the Bible under a mango tree outside their father’s home after returning from a Sunday service in Busembatia when one of their brothers, mosque leader Hamuza Lubega, arrived shouting the jihadist slogan, “Allah Akbar [God is greater],” he said.

Lubega seized their Bible and began tearing its pages, then called their brothers Shafiki Kato and Ahmad Sewanyana, Nakimuli said.

“We were accused of bringing an unholy, corrupted book into the home of a Muslim family and following Issa [Jesus] as the Son of God, which is blasphemy in Islam,” Nakimuli told Morning Star News. “Shafiki was sent to get some more family members with [a] cane to use on us. As they arrived, they started beating us with it.”

Read the full story. Also from Morning Star News: Killings in Kaduna State, Nigeria Darken Christmas Season.

Source: Voice of Justice and Jubilee Campaign, November 2022

There is no shortage of human rights atrocities taking place across the world at this very minute, from the military coup in Myanmar, to the slaughter of Christian communities in Nigeria, to the internment of millions of Uyghur Muslims in China. While we wish it was possible to be on the ground in every one of these places and contexts offering legal and humanitarian assistance and speaking to admirably resilient faith-based communities, we recognize that we must work within our geographic and personnel constraints.

Voice for Justice has worked tirelessly to expose the ever-increasing thousands of cases in which young girls from the Christian community in Pakistan are abducted from their workplaces, their educational institutions, and even from the refuge of their own homes, at which point they are forcibly married to men 20 and 30 years their elder and converted to Islam against their will. Meanwhile, these girls’ families are largely left helpless as the very state actors—police officers, courts of law, judges, religious leaders, and the like—who are tasked with protecting the nation’s people and advancing their interests instead aid and abet perpetrators, breeding a culture of impunity under which these horrific crimes can persist unmitigated.

See the full report, Conversion Without Consent.

Also from Pakistan, a Chinese missionary to Pakistan declares, “If I Die in Pakistan, Leave My Body There” (Back to Jerusalem). The author adds, “This sacrifice is the heart of preaching the gospel message to all the nations; it is the heart of the Chinese missionary vision, and it is perhaps what is needed to complete the Great Commission in our lifetime.”