All articles in category Asia
May 2017
Syria
Pray for Christians in Syria
The Syrian government’s use of sarin gas on civilians has seen US President Trump and Russian President Putin at loggerheads after months of seeming mutual respect between them. After Trump ordered an air strike on Syrian government military bases, seemingly carried out without prior consultation and voting agreement at the United Nations, Putin expressed ‘anger’ at the US air strike. As tension mounts between the two superpowers once again, Christians on the ground in Syria and Iraq are facing intensified attacks on all fronts. According to reports from Barnabas Fund, the fighting has now shifted to the edge of the Syrian capital Damascus, in the...
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May 2017
Israel
Reaching out to Holocaust survivors
Grace and Truth Congregation at Rishon- Le-Tzion, Israel, hosted a concert featuring Finland’s Nina Åström on 7 March 2017, in which she performed gospel songs and shared her Christian faith with attendees. In a Grace and Truth newsletter, the organisation expressed gratitude to Nina, who was called to minister to prisoners in Russia, the Ukraine, Holland and other Baltic and Balkan countries a few years after performing in the Eurovision Song contest. Eddie, a Grace and Truth evangelist, organised buses for 160 people from different veterans’ clubs to attend, and the church hall was packed with more than 200 people. The newsletter said, ‘It was...
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By Mike Wakely
April 2017
Pakistan
Education crisis for Pakistan’s Christian community
A recent survey, released by UK charity Starfish Asia, highlights the dire state of education for the downtrodden Christian community in Pakistan. Conducted in Pakistan’s Punjab province, the survey covered 604 schools for 85,000 poor children. It revealed that four out of five teachers have no teaching qualification, 10 per cent of schools have no blackboards, and 24 per cent of class-2 children have no textbooks, notebooks or pencils. The survey focuses on low-cost, private schools which educate 5 million of Christian background in Pakistan. UNESCO has already highlighted the extent of the nation’s education crisis, saying that Pakistan has ‘some of the worst education...
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April 2017
Articles > World Mission > Asia > Southern Asia > Pakistan
Pakistan
Officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a federal parliamentary republic in South Asia on crossroads of Central Asia and Western Asia. It is the sixth-most populous country with a population exceeding 200 million people. It is the 33rd largest country in the world in terms of area with an area covering 881,913 square kilometres (340,509 square miles). Pakistan has a 1,046-kilometre-long (650-mile) coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest and China in the far northeast respectively. It is separated from Tajikistan by...
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By David Zadok
March 2017
Israel
Encouragement in Israel
On 20 October 2016, the Grace and Truth Christian Congregation, Rehovot, celebrated its 40th anniversary. It was an historic event, not only for this congregation, but also for the body of Christ in Israel. Not many congregations in Israel were established before 1976, and this was certainly a sure sign of the faithfulness and goodness of the Lord to our people. By his grace, we were able to celebrate in our new building. Some 250 people gathered, including recent and previous members of the congregation, representatives from other congregations in Israel and guests from overseas. From the beginning, the planning committee had determined that...
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By Tony Reinke
January 2017
Nepal
Nepal’s most unlikely church planter (2)
The outcast — ‘hated by his gods’, despised by his village, a disgrace to his family — was now embraced by Jesus Christ (see ET, December 2016). His reputation as a thug was infamous, and rumours of his transformative conversion spread quickly. Suraj’s mother could not believe the change. She wanted to meet the pastor of the church to tell him, ‘My son was dead, you made him alive’: words of high praise from an orthodox Hindu woman with a lifelong suspicion of ‘cow-eaters’ [Christians]. ‘The despair I felt in my life before Christ, all those suicidal thoughts, were replaced by a joy and delight...
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By Tony Reinke
December 2016
Nepal
Nepal’s most unlikely church-planter (1)
Down the valley from Kathmandu, the ancient capital of Nepal, rests an even older city. In Bhaktapur, the timeworn traditions of Hinduism sink as deep into the dry soil as the white-capped Himalayan mountains rise in the background. Bhaktapur looks like it was built one brick at a time. Narrow, brick-paved city streets are lined on both sides by three-story brick buildings, built into each other over time to become a continuous wall of homes and stores. An occasional small tractor or motorcycle putters slowly by, joined for a few steps by a wandering goat or chicken or dog. Delivery men on bicycles snake through...
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By Doug Nichols
November 2016
India
God’s plan in a TB sanatorium
While serving with Operation Mobilisation in India in 1967, tuberculosis forced me into a sanatorium for several months. I did not yet speak the language, but I tried to give Christian literature written in their own language to patients, doctors and nurses. Being an international seminary student in America, and studying the Protestant Reformation in Germany, as well as more recent church history in England and America, made me realise how little I know about the Reformation in my own country of Finland. Everyone refused — some politely, some rudely. I sensed many weren’t happy about an American (to them, all Americans are rich) being...
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By Brian Ellis
July 2016
Philippines
Grace Ministerial Academy, Philippines
31 March 2016 was a special day for Grace Ministerial Academy (GMA), as nine men completed four years of study in the academy. They came from various locations in the Philippines, and most will be returning to the churches they are from, although some will take up pioneering work in different situations. GMA is a ministry of Cubao Reformed Baptist Church, which is located in Quezon City, a very busy and bustling part of Metro-Manila. The academy has been training men for the ministry for at least 20 years. Faculty We are greatly blessed to have Pastor Noel Espinosa as our principal and main lecturer....
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By Andy McIntosh
June 2016
India
The need of the Indian Christian student community
In February 2016, I had the privilege of speaking to many in India on the authority of Scripture, in relation to theistic evolution teaching coming into India. With my colleague Dr Nigel Robinson (PhD, Molecular Biology) we were able to reach a good number of UESI (Union of Evangelical Students of India) fellowships (Indian equivalent of the UCCF) in the universities and colleges across India — Delhi, Calcutta (Kolkata), Trivandrum, Cochin (Kochi) and Madras (Chennai) — and warn them of the bad science as well as bad theology coming from the West. Professor Enoch During this visit it was an honour to give the Professor...
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January 2016
Armenia
Armenians, ‘experts in the art of dying’ – and also in the art of living (2)
Continued from Armenians, ‘experts in the art of dying’ — and also in the art of living (1) Christian evangelist Roger Carswell has provided this edited version of a booklet first penned by his grandfather, Rev. Sisag Manoogian, at the time of the Armenian genocide (1915–1917). Sisag continues: I keep a small photo which shows the deportation of women and children from one village. Their husbands and sons were driven into the desert some few months previously. These women were gathered by gendarmes and sent after them to roam in the desert until some at least should meet merciful deaths, as did their husbands. Armenian...
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