Displaying items by tag: Asia

The Free Burma Rangers (FBR) deliver emergency medical assistance to sick and injured internally-displaced people, and train teams in frontline medical treatment, humanitarian relief and reconnaissance techniques. On 21 October one ranger wrote, ‘We evacuated more people from Seri Kani, including some wounded. We drove through the Free Syrian Army (FSA) who looked at us threateningly but when we smiled, some smiled back. The city is in ruins. The hospital was damaged and is controlled by FSA - I came face-to-face with them. I walked up to one and said ‘God bless you’ as I smiled and hugged him. He smiled back. We found civilians hiding behind the hospital and we helped evacuate them. On the way out there was more shooting. None of the bullets hit us and we thank God. As we left, we passed an FSA group by the roadside with their weapons and chanting “Allahu Akbar!” We thank God and all who made this operation possible.’

After the election last month, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had 28 days to secure the 61 seats necessary to achieve a functioning majority government by building support from smaller parties in the Knesset. After nearly a month of fraught negotiations he acknowledged his failure to cobble together a coalition, and returned the mandate to President Reuven Rivlin. Rivlin has turned to Netanyahu’s principal rival, Benny Gantz, of the centrist Blue and White party, who tweeted, ‘It is time for blue and white.’ Pray for the new government to bring God glory, and may the fear of God fall on all those who are in the political arena.

Alexey, a middle-school dropout, first went to the missionaries’ church for food when he was a homeless beggar. When he got a job and could feed himself, he stopped attending church. He met Anya and they had a baby boy, but he fell into substance abuse and his income did not cover family costs. When child welfare authorities arrived at their door to take their son away, they successfully pleaded for more time to show they could care for him. Realising his need for God, Alexey took his family to church the following Sunday. He repented and asked believers to pray for them. ‘From that day, a huge change took place in our lives. We got married, I ended drug and alcohol abuse, and we read the Bible daily. Thanks to God for the miracle He has done in our lives.’

The families of suspected IS militants are being held at a number of camps for displaced people in northern Syria. Al-Hol camp houses almost 70,000 people, of whom 11,000 are foreign nationals; 94% are women and children. In these camps there are thousands of terrified orphaned children whose parents supported IS. Most of their home countries don't want them back. Please pray for these lost children of the caliphate, orphans of IS fighters fending for themselves in camps now being bombed in Turkish offensives as the war in Syria reignites. In one camp are three children from London, whose parents joined IS five years ago, and were subsequently killed in the fighting. The children - Amira, Heba and Hamza - are stranded and in danger. They want to come home to a grandmother in England. Ain Issa camp held 12,000 displaced people, including 1,000 foreign women and children. It is now empty of women, according to Save the Children.

At a UN summit on religious freedom, Donald Trump praised President Erdogan. But since 2016 Turkey’s Protestant community of mostly Muslim converts, meeting in 150 Christian fellowships, report an increase of crimes against churches. There have been targeted deportations of senior foreign Christian leaders, many long-term residents. Since the Ottoman era Turkey has recognised Orthodox faiths, but now the interior ministry refuses to allow new patriarchs to be elected. Protestants are refused religious worker visas and are barred from running educational programmes. Forcing out Christians once welcomed in Turkey is part of a systematic attempt to eradicate them. There is now concern for Christian refugees in Turkey: 6,000 to 10,000 Iranians and thousands of Iraqi and Syrian Christians are under threat. Deportation for many could equal a death sentence. Many are demanding that the authorities explain how these Christians are a threat to Turkish society.

A local authority has ordered the demolition of a newly-built church after a month of use, ostensibly for lack of planning permission, even though no other building in the locality had any. Pastor Newton Das bought land for a church in August 2018. To save costs he hired local contractors and had substantial help through congregation volunteers, eager to begin worshipping in a proper church. The vision was fulfilled on 7 August, when 200+ believers attended 'Church of Jesus’ Anointing' at its launch, but by the second week the church was asked to close as they had no planning permission. Discussions were unsuccessful, and a JCB demolished the church boundary wall and building. Other unplanned buildings have been left intact. The congregation have not let hatred towards them shake their confidence or love for God.

The persecuted Iranian Christians belong to what is said to be the fastest-growing church network in the world. The core of their theology is that all roads lead to Jerusalem, which is why they are praying for the salvation of Israel. They feel that it has been prophesied (Jer. 30:7; Zech. 14:2) that in the days approaching Jesus’ return to Jerusalem as King, there will be trouble for the Jewish state. The Persian people (as many Iranians still prefer to be called) blessed Israel in the past. King Cyrus freed the exiles so that they could return to the Land and rebuild the Temple; Queen Esther saved her people from extermination, so that Iranian Christians might stand in the gap for the Jewish people. What Satan has meant for evil, God can turn for good.

After a US policy reversal, withdrawing its troops, Turkey was free to send forces into northern Syria, and they have done so - causing tens of thousands of people to flee an area controlled by the US-backed Kurdish militia who fought against IS. Turkey is bombing people who are also part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). It wants a ‘safe zone’ along its border where it can send an unwanted 3.6 million Syrian refugees, and also aims to prevent Kurds from establishing a self-ruling Kurdish area on its doorstep. Pray that the Kurds, the Middle East’s largest ethnic group without an independent country, will be allowed to settle without persecution. Pray for the safety of Syrian refugees forced to move to a ‘safe zone’ and the refugees fleeing current bombing. Pray for the 60,000 fighters of SDF, cut loose from America, who may be looking for alliances with Russia or Iran. Also, SDF Syrian prisons hold 10,000+ IS fighters who could now escape and find a path back to the battlefield. See also

Bishop Samson Shukardin of Hyderabad told Aid to the Church in Need that abuse was an issue for minority students at public schools. He said that Christian parents in the country are resorting to giving their children Islamic names to prevent them suffering ‘abuse’ at school. With Islamic names, they will not be singled out as Christians and become potential targets for discrimination in primary or secondary schools or colleges. The bishop said that even school textbooks portrayed minorities in a negative light, and they are considered as infidels. The fundamentalists believe that Islam is the only complete religion - that salvation is only found in the Qur'an as the last holy book. Therefore most minorities, particularly Christians, are persecuted, and some religious minorities are at risk of being kidnapped.

The ancient Silk Road connected east and southeast Asia with Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, East Africa, and Southern Europe. Recently, after Central Asian pastors and leaders fasted and prayed for three days, a vision to raise up strong, unified, consistent prayer for this region of the world was ignited. With Central Asian Consultation, they are launching ‘Silk Road Prayer’, sending out regular prayer updates with specific information on how to pray for current needs in the region, and using social media to spread information for focused prayer. Intercessors everywhere are invited to join them in this effort to see God move in a new and unprecedented way along the ancient Silk Road. May believers and churches facing persecution across the region have His great strength to stand strong. Current needs are for churches in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to have registration to meet freely without persecution and a Kazakh church to have justice in a court case.