Missions Insider
Exclusive Stories from the Mission Field
March 12, 2020
Among the more than 2 million people who have fled Islamic extremist violence in northern Nigeria are hundreds of Christians who have been denied resettlement help because of their faith, aid workers said.
Displaced Muslims have received government-built homes, new land and financial support for resettlement, but 347 Christians in urgent need have been denied help because of their faith.
“We cannot watch them die while others unwillingly turn to Islam to get support while we look on,” the leader of a Christian organization based in Nigeria said.
February 20, 2020
In a country where rice is already in short supply due to drought in some areas and flooding in others, those who follow Christ are even more threatened as officials withhold rations from those who have left the ancestral gods for Christ.
At the same time, villagers refuse to sell staple items to Christians.
Many villagers are torn between love of the Lord and need for food.
February 13, 2020
With the economy in his Middle Eastern country in tatters and his wife leaving him, Mohammad saw no hope for himself or his young daughter.
He spent most nights drinking, and his daughter was largely uncared for during the day as well, when he would look for odd jobs.
“They were very poor, and when he took out a loan, he spent it on alcohol and other nasty habits,” said a native missionary in Turkey. “Then he came to Turkey as a refugee and decided to repent of these bad habits and return to his Shiite religion.”
October 3, 2019
Relatives hostile to Christian faith, flooded roads that damage motorcycles, government restrictions on travel – all can instill fear in both native missionaries and new Christians in Laos.
In one of the world’s last bastions of communism, a 2016 religion law known as Decree 315 threatens to cripple efforts to spread the gospel. Gathering together, holding worship services, traveling and planting churches where none existed require prior permission.
Native missionaries are confronting a new level of fear and intimidation.
September 26, 2019
An influential Shia Muslim leader in a Middle Eastern country heard Allah telling him to go to a majority-Sunni Muslim country to convert Sunnis to Shia Islam – or so he thought.
Zain was well suited to Allah’s call: Soon he had converted a number of Sunni Muslims to Shia Islam.
Somehow, God broke through to him – and his Shia converts. The native missionary who baptized them is still wondering how it all happened.
May 23, 2019
Ben Adebayo was earning a good living cultivating human body parts from people he killed for witchdoctors who use them in potions or amulets, which in many parts of Nigeria are believed to make people invincible. “He used this to make so much money, and he became so deeply involved in killing that he destroyed more than seven girls,” a ministry leader said. With the same intent, Adebayo arranged to meet a young woman who, he was unaware, was a missionary with the locally based ministry.
Exclusive stories from the mission field