Source: World Watch Monitor, December 5, 2014<\/p>\n
In a country where Christians often must meet secretly to avoid arrest, a group of women have taken the opposite approach: hiding in plain sight. They meet to pray and encourage each other in a coffee shop, in one of the largest cities in Central Asia.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is better for us to gather in a public place such as a coffee shop than to secretly meet in an apartment,\u201d the wife of a secret church pastor said to Open Doors International, a charity that supports Christians whose faith puts them at risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeighbors of the place where we gather for a Sunday service may know who we are and they could call the police any minute, so we have decided to gather for a Bible study in public places. A coffee shop is ideal. We just need to follow a couple of small rules for our safety,\u201d said the pastor\u2019s wife. While praying together they keep their eyes open and Bibles in their bags at all times. After the women pray for each others\u2019 needs, their meeting comes to an end.<\/p>\n
\u00bb Read full story<\/a>, which also describes government restrictions on Christians in three Central Asian countries. See also Two Azerbaijani Churches Ordered to Liquidate Themselves<\/a> (Barnabas Aid).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: World Watch Monitor, December 5, 2014 In a country where Christians often must meet secretly to avoid arrest, a group of women have taken the opposite approach: hiding in plain sight. They meet to pray and encourage each other in a coffee shop, in one of the largest cities in Central Asia. \u201cIt is … Continue reading CENTRAL ASIA: \u201cSecret Church\u201d with Coffee and Cakes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5243,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5242\/revisions\/5243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}