Missions Insider
Exclusive Stories from the Mission Field
June 29, 2023
A young woman from Afghanistan who came to faith as a refugee in a Middle Eastern country feared her husband would divorce or kill her if she took off her head covering. Removal of her hijab would reveal that she had left Islam, and the leader of a native ministry prayed with the young mother of two children about her fears and shared Scripture with her. “She came back to us wanting to be baptized, showing us that she was indeed growing in her faith,” the leader said, adding that he asked her what her husband might do if he heard she were baptized.
June 22, 2023
Native Christian workers assisting a refugee mother in Greece had learned that two of her three children were lost somewhere near Greece’s 132-mile border with Turkey. When she went to police to report them missing, they put her in jail for lack of legal documents and sent the 5-year-old, autistic son with her to a children’s hospital. “The situation was very bad, and the woman was very frustrated,” the ministry leader said. “The autistic child, who was very much dependent on his mother, was asking for her and didn’t eat anything.”
June 15, 2023
A crowd of murderers, thieves and other violent men, women and minors in Mali were incarcerated uneasily in the same prison when guards called them into the courtyard. An officer told the inmates that Christians had come from hundreds of kilometers away to give them advice, and to please listen to them. The hardened faces softened as the native Christian worker spoke of disobedience, sin and salvation. The worker knew this might be the only chance the criminals from different tribes had of hearing the gospel, the ministry leader said.
June 8, 2023
Three months after arriving at a seminary in the Middle East, a student already working as an assistant pastor wanted to drop out and return to his troubled congregation in Sudan. “But every time I prayed about it, the Lord would tell me in one way or another to do my best and persevere, so I did,” he said. When he returned to a church that was rife with conflict and low on evangelistic zeal, he was a different man eager to help his congregation become a different fellowship.
June 1, 2023
A pastor in Laos recently went to an area heavily influenced by “old school” soldiers in the communist country who strongly detested Christianity, the leader of a native ministry said. “The pastor took the risk to evangelize in this area and led 20 people to the Lord,” the leader said. “The village authorities were shocked, and the police came to drive the pastor away – with the threat to arrest him, if he returned.” The pastor told the ministry leader and others at a conference that he was not frightened by the threats.
May 18, 2023
Visiting a town downstream years ago, a tribal leader in Brazil had sold many of his goods and spent the earnings on alcohol. Though drunk, he was heading out in his small canoe to the tribal village he had founded. “Unable to paddle, he was swept away by the current of the river,” the leader of a native ministry said. “He lay on the hull of the canoe, and he was taken downstream far from his village. He was swept away by the wind and the river.”
Exclusive stories from the mission field