DAWN Fridayfax 1997 #41

DAWN News from Israel and Kazakhstan

Israel: new hunger for Jesus among Moslems

We included an initial report about God's work in the "West Bank" in the last Friday Fax. Here are some further reports from the organisation "Christian Friends of Israel":
Conversions in jail
Mohammed, an ex-Moslem and now courageous evangelist, has been in jail for 3 months following false accusations. According to the report, he is being beaten and tortured, and has wounds on his body and a broken hand. He reports, though, that 5 Moslem fellow prisoners have become believers through him. One of Mohammed's younger brothers reports that he also began to read the New Testament, and had a vision of Jesus on the cross, with himself also crucified with Jesus. He instinctively knew that the vision was true.
Breakdown with consequences
N., also an ex-Moslem, has been following Jesus for 6 years. He became a believer a few weeks after his car broke down on the road to Tel Aviv. Who was it who picked him up and drove him home? A Christian pastor! N. saw that the back seat of the pastor's car was full of Arabic Bibles, and thought that an angel had come from heaven to rescue him. A month later, after reading books which the pastor gave him, he decided to follow Christ.
House churches on the West Bank
N. and another ex-Moslem now evangelise together. Although they are restricted in their work by the Palestinian Authority, there are now 30 people in N's home village who follow Jesus, and another 50 in a neighbouring village. One day, a Sheikh came to N and wanted to convert him back to Islam. Two hours later, N sent the Sheikh away with a gospel. One month later, the Sheikh said that he had also come to believe in Jesus and wanted to leave the mosque. He was so determined, that he shaved off his beard- and was promptly persecuted and driven away, and now lives in another village. Pastor J started a house church in his living room in a West Bank town, at first with only 3 members. A few months later, it had grown to 30.
Source: Christian Friends of Israel, e-mail:cfi_jeru@netvision.net.il

Kazakhstan: cell-church growth in Almaty

A cell-church movement in the Kazakh city Almaty is one of the fastest-growing church movements among predominantly Islamic populations. Founded only a few years ago, the movement focuses separately on each of the 15 people groups in the city. Reliable reports indicate that not only around 300 Russians but also over 300 Moslem Kazakhs and a large number of Chinese (Moslem) Uighurs have become Christians and been integrated into the rapidly-spreading cell-church movement.
Kazakhstan: raised from the dead
The Kazakh part of the above-mentioned cell-church movement is led by a 24-year-old who has been a Christian for only 2 1/2 years. Supernatural experiences are, he says, order of the day, and mentions one example: one day, a woman living next to one of the cell churches was weeping terribly. When the Christians asked what had happened, she told them that her child had died. After the Christians prayed for it, the child was raised from the dead. The cell churches normally have between 10 and 15 members. In one evangelistic crusade carried out entirely by the cells, around 120 people were won for Christ and integrated into the cell churches. "In our evangelisation, we often use examples from the season. For example, before a harvest festival, we emphasise 'spiritual harvest' in order to make contact with non-Christians."
Tartarstan and Bashkortostan
Up until recently, only a few of the traditionally Islamic Tartars and Bashkirs could be reached with the gospel and integrated into mainly Russian churches. That could be about to change: around 25 future church-planters are being trained in the Kazakh cell-church movement and are planning to plant the first national church for the autonomous republics Tartarstan and Bashkortostan.
Church-planting to raise the moral standard in an Islamic city
The population of several cities in the autonomous republics of Central Asia is up to 90% Moslem. A Russian pastor has now been invited by the Quieda city council to plant a Christian church in the city. The council is worried about the moral standard in the city and hope to improve it with this move. The church was planned to be planted in October 1997.
Christian writes religious law in an autonomous republic
As a non-Christian student, he wrote a thesis about "The role of religion in society". Today, the man, who we will leave unnamed, is a lawyer. Special circumstances made it possible for him to fly to an AD2000 seminar in Korea in 1995, where he met a western missionary. "The Holy Spirit came so powerfully on the lawyer from Ufa in the autonomous republic of Bashkortostan that he could suddenly speak English so fluently that we could speak with him the whole evening," says the missionary. There, the lawyer received a new missionary vision for his republic. He was recently surprised to be asked by the government in Ufa to write the republic's new religious laws.
Source: Florian Bärtsch, Kingdom Ministries, fax(41)-31-4370016

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