Gospel.com Blog

This is a repost of a Gospel For Asia update on the situation in Orissa. Head over to their site find out ways in which to pray for them.

Click on the play button to hear a message from Gospel for Asia Founder and President K.P. Yohannan.

Increasing attacks on Gospel for Asia-related work in Orissa have resulted in the deaths of at least six local believers since radical mobs went on a rampage after the murder of a leading anti-Christian activist.

Saturday night, Swami Laxamanananda Saraswati, a top leader of the VHP (World Hindu Council), was killed in an attack by 20 men suspected of being Maoist rebels. The Maosts had earlier warned the swami to leave the area. The attack, which included gunfire and a hand grenade, also killed four other people.

GFA President K.P. Yohannan strongly condemned the gruesome killing of Swami Laxamanananda and demanded that those who were guilty should be punished.

Because the swami was a leading opponent of Christian work in India, his followers in the ultra-fundamentalist VHP have used his murder to incite hundreds of their followers to go on a rampage of death and destruction across several districts in India’s Orissa state.

According to the latest reports, at least six Christians who attended GFA-related churches have been killed.

The latest detailed reports list more than 15 GFA-related church buildings destroyed and at least 110 church members’ homes burned to the ground. Other Christian groups have also suffered, with many deaths reported and attacks on ministers and missionaries being widespread. There are even reports of Catholic nuns being gang raped and murdered by the extremists.

“We are also deeply shocked and anguished to hear of the atrocities and violence meted out to the innocent Christians and churches in Orissa as a backlash of the sorrowful event,” Dr. Yohannan said, “and we are praying for an immediate halt to the violence.”

Dozens of pastors and their families have been attacked by roving mobs, and many have fled with their congregations into the surrounding forests. Some children and their parents have been in hiding, without food or water, since the rioting began on Sunday.

One GFA Bible college is under police protection, while a GFA Bridge of Hope children’s center was closed when a mob threatened to attack. They threatened to kidnap one of the workers, so the staff and 120 children left the area. It is not known what has happened to the center property.

“What is most disturbing is that these attacks seem to be well organized and orchestrated,” Dr. Yohannan said. “We have reports that the VHP have actually held strategy meetings in order to plan and coordinate this campaign of violence against peaceful Christian families and churches.”

Pamphlets have been printed and widely distributed accusing the Christians of the swami’s murder, even though most authorities indicate it was most likely Maoist rebels who were responsible.

“We thank God that the government officials are protecting our Bible college campus and trying to protect our people,” K.P. added. “That is a true blessing.”

But as the violence has increased, many fear the government’s actions are not enough.

Reports note that the mobs are using firebombs to attack homes and churches, and there is little evidence of police or other government intervention.

There are more than 295 GFA-related churches in Orissa. GFA has dozens of missionaries in the state, and the people have been very receptive to the message of Christ’s love for them.

“But the fundamentalist groups have always opposed us,” noted one GFA worker, “and now there is great tension prevailing, and Christians are running away for their lives.”

“My heart goes out to the missionaries and believers,” Dr. Yohannan said. “We must pray with all earnestness for the suffering church in Orissa at this time.”

Those who wish to help meet the needs of the suffering believers in Orissa may give to GFA’s Persecution Relief Fund.

Mission Network News reports on the AIDS pandemic:

Approximately 2 million people died from AIDS in 2007, down from about 2.2 million deaths in 2005, UNAIDS reported on Tuesday.

However, Gary Schneider, President and CEO of Every Orphan’s Hope, warned that the battle is far from over. The report also showed that some 2.7 million people worldwide were newly infected in 2007, bringing the total number of people infected with AIDS to 33 million.

“We have seen tremendous progress being made on the fight against HIV/AIDS, but I think even to applaud those numbers might be a little bit premature,” Schneider said. “We see that there’s still 2 million people a year who are dying from HIV/AIDS, and the total number of people receiving new infections each year is still continuing to rise.”

Every Orphan’s Hope ministers to orphans impacted by the AIDS crisis in Zambia, the home of about a million orphans. It comes alongside the Zambian church to care for about 400 children on a monthly basis and to reach a total of several thousand children every year through its Camp Hope Bible camps.

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Read more over at Mission Network News.

It’s a situation that seemingly keeps getting worse. Mission Network News has an update on the ongoing catastrophe in Myanmar:

Myanmar’s junta government has been quietly evicting cyclone survivors from shelters and shutting down refugee camps. They’re sending the people home for “reconstruction,” but there’s nothing left in most villages.

The government has now imposed martial law in many areas of the delta affected by the cyclone, and some local officials are being accused of abusing their authority.

Donor organizations are still NOT allowed into the villages affected. They are allowed to deliver supplies to an SPDC (Burma Army)-controlled warehouse in township areas where who knows what is happening with the supplies donated. There are growing concerns that the government is merely stockpiling the supplies and issuing propaganda showing distribution.

Vision Beyond Borders’ Patrick Klein says in order to get aid to these areas, “There’s a list. For that village, you have to be on that list; you have to be approved by the village leaders. If it’s not (on the list), you’re turned back, and any supplies you’ve brought for the cyclone victims will be confiscated by the government. I don’t know how our friends are getting on those lists, but they are going in with a team.”

Read the whole thing. And here’s another article on Post-Storm Problems. Continue to pray for Myanmar, they’re going through a lot.

From our friends over at Mission Network News comes a story about an Old Testament Audio recording project in the works for the Hausa language:

There are 24 million Hausa speakers in Nigeria and Niger, along with another 15 million who speak Hausa as a second language. In these areas, many non-readers are coming to Christ through the audio Gospel. However, that is creating a need for more grounding in the Old Testament.

Audio Scripture Ministries’ Chad VandenBosch says they’re addressing this with the help of a partnering group called Theovision. “Church growth is being stifled by illiteracy and the lack of access to the Scriptures and the truths found in those Scriptures. So they asked us, specifically, if we could go in and record the Old Testament, to have that available as well as the New Testament.”

For the many who do not read, an audio copy of the Old Testament will be their only way to hear of God’s work through the ages. VandenBosch says the project will cost $16,000. The team is about halfway there.

According to the Human Development Report, over 30% of Nigeria is illiterate. Niger’s rate is closer to 70 percent.

You can read more about the project over at Mission Network News.

So often we feel like we need to go somewhere else to do God’s work, but so often God is already working where we are. Spanish World Ministries is a ministry who ministers to their native lands. Their main way to do so is through a radio program called El Camino de la Vida (The way of life).

For more information on their philosophy, check out this excerpt from The National Missionary Connection page:

Who is a national missionary? A national missionary is a person who is serving Christ while living in the country in which he or she was born or has become a permanent resident through the means of immigration or marriage. National missionaries have the same culture, language, economic status, and physical features as those to whom they minister. They eat like they eat. They talk like they talk. They think like they think. They live like they live. They are educated like they are educated. They look like they look. A national missionary understands and intimately identifies materially, emotionally and intellectually with the people he or she is trying to reach for Christ.

Here’s a great summary of what their mission:

Our confidence is that every day, somewhere in Latin America, many people are hearing that Jesus is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the World.

Gospel For Asia wrote in to tell us about an upcoming conference they’re putting on called Renewing Your Passion:

What could inspire hundreds of North American Christians to return to their homes and churches “on fire” for Jesus and ready to change the way they live their daily lives? What could motivate a young person to spend a year as an unpaid intern helping reach the lost of Asia with the Gospel?

It’s the Gospel for Asia Renewing Your Passion Conference. It is returning to Dallas, Texas, July 11-13, and you are invited to experience it! Join us at the Hilton Anatole Hotel for three days of worship, prayer, fellowship and gripping, firsthand testimonies from the field.

The latest edition of the Lausanne World Pulse magazine is online, and this issue focuses on a major challenge facing the church today: how can we be an effective global church given the many different cultures (each with its own history and values) in which the church exists? How do we relate to believers who live in radically different cultures than our own?

The magazine breaks this broad question down into a number of more specific essays, including:

• What does it mean to be the church in different cultures? Is it possible to present the Gospel in a contextually-relevant, culturally-comprehensible way without watering it down?
• The dilemma of state church structures in Europe. With the much-discussed decline of the institutional church in Europe, what can the church to rebuild itself throughout the continent?
• Churches in homes and House church in England, about a new, simpler style of church-building.
• Two essays about ministry to the desperately poor “garbage villages” of Cairo.

There’s much more, so be sure to stop by and read through all the new articles in this issue.

(Image: Cairo, Egypt, where missionaries and church workers are ministering to the people of the city’s “garbage villages.” Photo by Asandei Radu.)

Mission Network News has some great news to share. One of Wycliff’s translators just finished a translation of the New Testament in the language of the Kagayenen language.

This is notable because this marks the first time:

An African-American woman has completed a New Testament translation.

An African-American has completed a NT translation with Wycliffe Bible Translators.

An African-American has completed a NT translation since the early 1900s.

But most notably this is also the first time the Kagayenen people can read about Jesus in their own language. Just imagine how much this priviledge has meant to you. Imagine not having the bible, and the joy of not only getting to read about it, but read abut it in your native tongue.

Here’s more from the article:
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Christian ministries working in Kenya can use your prayers this month—unrest in Kenya following disputed elections in late December have disrupted missions work and made life difficult for ministry workers. At least two Gospel.com community ministries have been affected:

• Navigators, an evangelistic ministry operating in Kenya and over 100 other countries worldwide. When the Kenyan crisis erupted late last month, several Navigators staff were forced to go into hiding and an international leadership meeting had to be postponed until the situation settled. From an update at their website:

  Navigator staff in Kenya are facing what has been described as the country’s “gravest crisis” following disputed elections held in late December. Violence has left 600 people dead. Another 250,000 have fled their homes. Some areas have been burned, including the homes of staff friends and relatives. One staff member said he has never been more alarmed by unrest in his country.

  In the week following the December 27, 2007, elections, some Navigator staff needed to go into hiding while others sought police protection to distribute food to the needy. Some took friends and family into their homes for safety—as many as 50 people in one home. One Navigator heard gunshots and wailing near his home for several nights. Another woman heard displaced people wandering outside her house late in the night.

  Although things have calmed a bit, the situation remains tense and Navigators is requesting prayer for their team members and everyone else affected by the crisis.

• InterVarsity, a large evangelistic ministry with a special focus on campus missions. InterVarsity has been running the Kenyan Global Project ministry for over two decades, but founds its ministry work disrupted when the crisis shut down the University of Nairobi campus. A report at Mission Network News discusses the crisis and its effects on InterVarsity’s work there.

So if you can spare a few minutes this week, remember to pray for a peaceful resolution to the situation in Kenya. These ministry workers, in addition to the countless Kenyans whose lives have been disrupted, need your prayer support.

Is there room for the Gospel in a world marked by war, genocide, and terrorism? The latest issue of the Lausanne World Pulse focuses on the challenge of proclaiming the Gospel in the face of war in the Middle East and genocide in Africa.

Lon Allison’s opening essay talks about the Gospel as a source of hope in a broken world. Another article provides a case study of relief work and evangelism in Uganda, where “a 19-year war… initiated by the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) against the government of Uganda has subjected its people to brutality and violence beyond imagination.” Despite the horror that many in Uganda have suffered, the Gospel is providing hope to traumatized survivors at a care center for child mothers.

Other essays talk about the plight of Christians in Iraq today, ministry in the red light districts of Kolkata, India, and media evangelism in the Middle East. Lots of good material on the theme of missions and evangelism in some of the most battered and wartorn areas in the world—give it a read and get a glimpse at the state of global mission work today.