DAWN Fridayfax 1996 #23

DAWN News from China, Cuba, Mexico, Chad, USA

China: Coffin becomes a pulpit

First 10 hours in an old bus, then 50 hours in the train: nothing could prevent Wen Rou, in her mid-50's and without much education, visiting a theological seminary in central China.

"I know over a thousand young people who would like to serve the Lord", she says. And she wants to help them. Wen became a Christian only a few years ago. Before that, she suffered from an illness so bad that she was bed-bound and her family ordered her coffin. Most of the villagers thought that she had already died when they saw the coffin being carried into the house.

However, some Christians in the area also heard about her illness, and came to speak and pray with her.

Wen gave her almost destroyed life to Christ and was slowly but surely healed - but was no more the same. Her coffin became her pulpit from which she spoke to not-yet-Christians. "We now have 1,000 meeting places in the region, all of which started through God's power!".

Wen now leads a house church.

Source: Open Doors, June 1996, fax (+41) 21-6483803

Cuba: Orson Vila starts a church in prison

The Cuban preacher Orson Vila, who was imprisoned on 23 May 1995, was released on parole on 2 March 1996. The authorities had wanted to force him to close his house church, which had up to 2,000 visitors. In prison, his fellow prisoners asked him if his conviction were a punishment from God. His answer: God loves the prisoners, and had sent him to them to tell them about Jesus.

Soon afterwards, a church started inside the prison. Four days after his release, he was again preaching in a small Pentecostal church in Camaguey, attended by 400 people. Looking back at his 9-month imprisonment, Vila says "God is good to me. He knew what he was doing. I needed the rest in prison."

Source: Open Doors, June 1996

Mexico: Cacique plants a church

According to the mission agency "Open Doors", Manuel San Juan, a Mexican Cacique (village chief) who played an important role in the persecution of Christian Indians in Chamula (Chiapas), has become a Christian. His life is now also in danger; he has already been shot at. Despite that, he has a service in his house in Arbenza Il every Sunday morning. His dream is to build a church on his own land.

Source: Open Doors, June 1996

Chad for Christ

"If you want to win the world for Christ, you have to win every continent for Christ," said Rev. Daidanso, Associate General of the 'Association of Evangelicals for Africa' (AEA) at a Lausanne Movement seminar in Stuttgart at the end of February 1996. "If you want to win Africa for Christ, then every country must be won for Christ, and that includes Chad, my home country. And if Chad should be won for Christ, that means that every village must be won."

Based on this reasoning, the Protestant denominations in Chad, one of Africa's poorest nations, made an evangelistic plan in 1993, with the aim of planting a church in every village which does not yet have one by the year 2000. They want to reach all of Chad's 6.3 million mostly Moslem and Animist inhabitants.

Rev. Diadanso told us: "We started in 1993 in Fianga province, which has a population of 151,000 in 172 villages, of which 35 had no church. Today, there is a church in every village and 14,000 people have become Christians."

What is the secret? "Apart from prayer, the key is to train people - the right people." In 1994, they concentrated on Pala district: 223 villages, 74 of which had no active church. "We could evangelise in 225 of the villages, and planted a church in 67 of the 74. We have to return, because we did not reach some of the villages. In 1995, we evangelised 750 villages, 211 of which did not have a church. The results are not yet known."

The plan is to have reached all of the country's provinces and districts in this manner by the year 2000.

Source: AEA, Rev. Daidanso; reported by Steven Downey, in "World Evangelization, magazine for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization" Tel/Fax (+47)-22-200358

USA: Hospitality Olympics

The organisers say it should be "the ultimate display of Southern hospitality." Spurred by the Olympics, a cross-denominational group including hundreds of Atlanta's local churches, has organised a huge hospitality project for the Olympic Games. 8,000 families in Atlanta have declared their readiness to house families of athletes during the games. The event was started and is being organised by Reid Lamphere of the Christian athlete's organisation 'Athletes in Action'.

Source: Joe Smalley, AIA Europe, FAX (+49)- 7631-12178

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