Category: News Briefs

Source: Open Doors, April 3, 2019

[On April 3], the full extent of Shari law [went] into effect in Brunei. The newest and third phase of the law is difficult news for Christian converts who are expected to have to go into deeper hiding in the small Sultan-ruled country on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo where conversion from Islam is illegal and punishable by death.

Since first introducing Sharia law in 2014, the Sultan, 72-year-old Hassanal Bolkiah, has been encouraging Islamization of the country where Muslims make up about two-thirds of the country’s population of 434,000. He has called for “stronger” Islamic teachings in Brunei.

The new laws—what some have called “cruel and inhuman”—carry the death penalty for a variety of offenses, including apostasy (converting from Islam), adultery, robbery, rape, sodomy and insulting the Prophet Muhammad (blasphemy).

The first phase, which covered crimes punishable by prison sentence and fines, was implemented in 2014. The new phase covers crimes, such as theft, punishable by amputation and stoning.

The law mostly applies to Muslims, including children who have reached puberty, though some aspects will apply to non-Muslims. For example, those who “persuade, tell or encourage” Muslim children under the age of 18 “to accept the teachings of religions other than Islam” are liable for a fine or jail. Individuals who have not reached puberty but are convicted of certain offenses may be instead subjected to whipping.

» Read full story.

» Also read Committee Formed to Advance Nationalist Hindu Movement in Nepal (Missions Network News).

Source: Marti Wade

Some 45 years since the concept of unreached people groups began to be popularized, many still have little access to the gospel and some missiologists are advocating for new categories and definitions. These days we hear as much about least-reached groups, unengaged unreached groups, and frontier people groups.

Clarifying or confusing? I’m not sure. Each way of slicing up world populations has its strengths as well as its limits. Some of the new categories may obscure the complexity of reaching large but under-engaged groups like the Turks, Thai, or Japanese. But definitions matter, key groups have been overlooked, and the newer thinking may be just what we need to mobilize or redirect strategy and prayer.

» To understand the ins and outs of all this, read Why Missions Experts Are Redefining “Unreached People Groups” (Christianity Today) and Clarifying the Frontier Mission Task, by Rebecca Lewis (International Journal of Frontier Missiology).

» See also Year of the Frontier (Global Prayer Resource Network), which describes a new, daily prayer effort focused on about 400 of the largest frontier people groups. And it looks like the year has already begun: It’s May 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020. Visit the website for related resources.

Source: Open Doors, April 15, 2019

Three years ago, the church in Syria was all but dead. The vicious civil war and invasion by Islamic State militants threatened the very existence of Christianity. But our partners on the ground say the story is changing and continues to transform. God is resurrecting the church in Syria.

Still, becoming a Christian and expressing your faith in the Muslim nation (814,000 Christians out of 18 million people) is a risky choice. If or when their conversion is discovered, new believers could lose their family, friends, their job, even their life.

Recently, we were privileged to be there when a group of young adults from the Alliance Church in the city of Aleppo gathered to worship. Listen and sing along with them as they proclaim, “Christ the Lord is risen today.”

» Read full story and watch the video. You might also be interested in Open Doors’ booklet Rise Up: 40 Days of Prayer for the Middle East (free, but you have to sign up for their mailing list).

Source: INcontext Ministries, April 9, 2019

During the first three months of 2019, hundreds of lives were lost, and hundreds of homes were burned, raising new concerns about the truth behind the violence occurring between Muslim Fulani herdsmen and predominantly Christian Bachama farmers in Nigeria.

In addition to the seemingly countless numbers of people killed, it has been estimated that as many as 300,000 people (mostly Christian farmers) have been displaced from their homes by the violence.

[Some narratives] label the Muslim Fulani attacks against Christian farmers as a “genocide” perpetrated by radicalized Muslims looking to drive Christians from their homes. But even though this might be fully true, it is not the full truth.

» Read more.

» See also Seeking God on the Edge of the Sahara (Pioneers USA).

Source: WEA News, April 14, 2019

The Senior Leadership Team of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) together with several regional Alliance and WEA network leaders attended the Opening Celebration of the AEA Plaza. The 10-story building in Nairobi, Kenya, that will serve as the new headquarters of the Association of Evangelicals in Africa is the fulfilment of a vision and the result of many years of labor. Bp Efraim Tendero, WEA Secretary General, was invited to share remarks at the ceremony and commended the great achievement, saying “Africa, your time has come!”

» Read full story and watch the five-minute video of the Secretary General’s remarks.

» Also read an article that states, “Africa is set to be the global center of Christianity for the next 50 years” (QuartzAfrica).

Source: Christian Headlines, March 21, 2019

“In the West, we often take the Bible for granted, but I recently saw a video … of underground Chinese seminary students receiving their first Bible,” wrote Jeff King, president of International Christian Concern. “When the boxes were opened, they all converged on the box to make sure they got their own copy. Each one then held their Bible, kissed it, and wept. They had finally received the book that gives life!”

The video is at least five years old and shows several dozen Christians in a building opening the box. International Christian Concern said none of the Christians are in danger because of its release. International Christian Concern posted the video on its website and on social media this month as part of its new campaign to raise money for Bibles to be sent to countries where Christianity is either outlawed or severely restricted.

Christians in the US said the video is convicting.

“If only we had the same zeal as these students,” Susan Elise Pearson wrote on International Christian Concern’s Facebook page.

Charity Meyer [added], “How beautiful. It made me realize how much I take reading and holding my Bible for granted and that my life is so easy.”

Satan “knows well that the Bible is the most dangerous book in the world,” King said.

“Everywhere it goes, it smuggles Jesus and his Spirit into the hearts of dead and dying humanity, and exposes Satan and his schemes,” King wrote. “The Bible is, in fact, spiritual fertilizer. Everywhere it goes, life springs up.”

» Read full story and watch the video (less than a minute long).

» See also a video about a small tribe in Northeast India receiving scripture lovingly translated into their language for the first time (Asia Harvest), and read North Korea: More than 100 Underground Churches Planted in 2018 (Cornerstone Ministries via God Reports).

Sources: various, April 2019

This was all over the news, but here are a few pieces we recommend:

• Notre Dame: Grieving the Wreckage, Holding onto Hope (Preemptive Love Coalition)
• 9 Things You Should Know about Notre Dame Cathedral (The Gospel Coalition)
• Assessing the Damage at Notre Dame Cathedral – in Pictures (The Guardian). See also a 40-second video of the inside as firemen work.

» See also, from a ministry colleague, May God Bring Beauty from Ashes in France, which includes scripture and links to other sources (Jen Oshman).

Algerians for Missions aims to send out 1,000 Algerian mission workers by 2025. The training center mentioned in this video opened in December 2017. See related story below about how God is using this ministry (Operation Mobilization).

Source: Operation Mobilization, March 22, 2019

“I’m so excited that God is working mightily in Algeria. You might have heard about the revival; you might have heard about people becoming Christians. …But when you are there for yourself and you see for yourself, then you begin to be reminded that God is so powerful,” Hee Tee said. In 1988, she and her husband, Youssef, OM Field Leader for Algeria, returned to his native country to pioneer church planting and discipleship ministry there.

Now, with churches filled and thousands of people coming to faith, the couple recognize a new need: believers in Algeria know about Jesus, but they don’t know about missions.

Algerians for Missions, Youssef and Hee Tee’s new ministry passion, aims to send out 1,000 Algerians for missions by 2025 within Algeria and beyond. By the end of 2018, Youssef reported that 130 Algerians had already been sent on short-term trips.

To facilitate this process, Youssef and Hee Tee advocated for, fundraised, and oversaw the building of a new missions training center: the Timothy Mission School. “That building, as far as I know, is the first in the whole Middle East and North Africa that recruits Muslim-background believers, trains them and sends them out for missions,” Youssef stated.

“Truly God has a special plan for the Algerian church, and he is putting all the puzzles together to accomplish his plan,” Hee Tee said.

» Read full story.

» Speaking of Algeria and its gifts to the church, have you seen the new movie Augustine, Son of Her Tears? It looks like a good one!