DAWN Fridayfax 1997 #18

DAWN News from India, Philippines, Algeria, Sri Lanka

North India: a Kairos moment

"North India stands at a unique moment in its history; the Holy Spirit is moving as perhaps never before. In the last 25 years, only 9 organisations have started more than 5,682 churches and preaching stations," says AD2000's Luis Bush. If church-planting is an indicator of a beginning revival, the figures below showing the number of churches planted in the last 25 years by various organisations are very interesting: India Evangelical Team: 700 churches; India Evangelical Mission: over 400 churches; Friends Missionary Prayer Band: over 400 churches; Evangelical Church of India: over 400 churches; BCM-Bible Christian Mission: over 312 churches and more than 1500 preaching stations; Rajastan Bible Institute: over 600 churches and prayer groups; Gospel for Asia: 750 Churches; Filadelphia Fellowship churches: 550 Churches; Vishwa Vani: 80 churches. The many independent churches and small denominations and mission agencies are not included in these figures.
Source: Dr. Raju Abraham; D.S. Ponraj, (contact: Mission Educational Books, Lalgarh, Madhupur, Bihar 815353, India) Trust; Luis Bush, AD2000

North India: tribal openness

A large part of the revival, according to Bihar's mission researcher S.D. Ponraj in his recent book "The Tribal Challenge", has occurred within various tribes which are very open for the gospel; in Bihar, one of India's states, 34,000 people from the Maltos and Santhalis tribes have been baptised in the last decade, and now meet in 375 churches and groups. A growing number of Indian networks and groups sees a 'kairos' moment in God's plan for North India which must not be missed, and are making appropriate plans. "World Reach", the missionary section of the Christian Broadcasting Network (Virginia Beach, USA) and Newlife Fellowship Churches, a network of over 1,200 house churches in Bombay, have started a strategic cooperation to reach 500 million people through evangelistic direct mail and a personal follow-up within 6 weeks. The group expects 65 million 'decisions' by the year 2000.
Source: Dr. Raju Abraham; D.S. Ponraj, (contact: Mission Educational Books, Lalgarh, Madhupur, Bihar 815353, India) Trust; Luis Bush, AD2000

Philippines: one evangelical church per 2,309 inhabitants

The Philippines, divided into 16 regions, 78 provinces, 66 towns, 1537 municipalities and 41,949 'barangays' (neighbourhoods), have a population of 68,611,363. In "ekklesia '96", a recently-published study by Philippine Challenge and the DAWN 2000 Research Group, Chris Balaga shows that there are 29,175 evangelical churches, among others, with an average of 58 members; one evangelical church per 2,309 inhabitants. This means that 6.3% of the population is evangelical. It is estimated that the Philippines will have a population of 77,191,515 by the year 2000. The study shows that there are 26,675 barangays without a church, and the research team believes that another 52,684 churches will be necessary to reach particularly the least-evangelised provinces Sulu, Lanao del Sur, Tawi-Wawi, Basilan, Northern and Eastern Samar, Masbate, Batangas, Maguindanao, Samar, Quezon, Cebu, Leyte and Capiz. These figures of what is yet to be done should not hide the fact that the population of 4 provinces is already more than 15% evangelical: Benguet: 15,7%; South Cotabato: 16%; Sarangani: 16,1%; Ifugao: 22,4%. The Philippines' most Christian city is Baguio: 23.5% of its 226,883 inhabitants attend one of its 194 evangelical churches.
Source: Chris Balaga, DAWN 2000 Research/Philippine Challenge, Manila

Algeria: over 400 Moslems are saved in a few months

In the midst of terrible circumstances in Algeria, where fundamentalist Moslem groups still carry out brutal attacks even on women and children, the Christian church is quietly growing. According to one of the country's Christian leaders, who we of course cannot name here, one of the groups has grown from 1,600 to 2,000 members since November 1996; all of the new members are ex-Moslems. According to eye-witnesses, the relatively quick growth is due to "increasing manifestations of the gifts of the Holy Spirit".
Source: name and address withheld.

Sri Lanka: over 100,000 attend evangelistic events

According to the organisers, over 100,000 people attended the evangelistic events held by Christ for All Nations' Dr. Reinhard Bonnke in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital. This makes the event the largest Christian gathering in known history. The evangelistic events were organised by a group from all of the island's denominations and churches.
Source: Evangelical Alliance UK, Sri Lanka.

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