DAWN Fridayfax 1997 #42

DAWN News from Brazil, China, Turkmenistan/Kyrgyzstan

Brazil: a sleeping giant's brave dream

Brazil: a country with around 161 million inhabitants and which, with an area of 8.511 million square kilometers (3.32 million square miles), constitutes around half of South America; even a very casual analysis of the situation of the country's church shows that many more local churches must be planted. So says "Brasil 2010", a strategy movement coordinated by Mario Scartezini Filho. Around 18 million - around 11% of the population - Brazilians consider themselves to be Evangelicals. This number is growing at 5.2% per year, which is 2.7 times as fast as the population growth of 1.9%. Other figures are significantly higher, but the movement deliberately does not want to count nominal Christians. 139 indigenous peoples - 59% of the people groups in Brazil - are considered unreached. The "Brazil 2010" project has set the target of planting 150,000 new churches by the year 2000, 40,000 of which should be in the Amazon Basin alone. With this, they aim to plant a local church within the reach of every inhabitant during this generation.
The project considers itself to be a national expression of the DAWN strategy and the church-planting track of the AD2000 Movement. To assist in achieving their aim, they have divided the country into over 5,000 districts and areas. Each district will have a general, prayer, and research coordinator to motivate local churches to fulfill their part of the task. The project does not attempt to eliminate theological differences or replace existing denominations, but instead aims to help them increase their effectiveness and fulfill God's calling in the spirit of mutual respect.
"Brasil 2000" has recently published the results of its research, coordinated by Lourenco and Estefania Kraft.
Source and information: Brasil 2010, CP 65, CEP:70359-970, Brasilia, DF, Brazil. Fax (061)-346-7473. Internet: http://www.infobrasil.org/brasil2010.

China: the first 1,000 Daur

Only a few years ago, very few of the Daur, a Mongolian minority group in China's Northeast, had heard of Christ. Since recently, though, according to Asian Minorites Outreach (part of Youth With a Mission), there are 1,000 Daur who have become Christians.
Source: AMO, Box 17, Chang Klan P.O., Chiang Mai 50101, Thailand, Tel/fax: (66)-53-281778.

China: God amongst the Nosu, the people of the High Cold Mountains

For 1,600 years, the Da Liang Shan (High Cold Mountains) have been the home of the Nosu, a people group of around 1.7 million in the south of the Chinese province Sichuan. Tall, warlike and proud, the Nosu took slaves until the late 1950's, looking down on all other tribes.
The Chinese had to pay dearly to bring them under the power of the central government in 1956: reports speak of 10 Chinese deaths for every fallen Nosu. From that, they earned the nickname "the iron peas". The traditionally animistic tribe, with widespread Shamanism, was also an "iron pea" for Christian mission.
Interestingly, the Nosu have a legend of a 'Great Flood': one day, God sent a messenger to three sons, to warn them of a flood. The eldest brother wanted to kill the messenger, the second bound and interrogated him, and the third, called Dum, built a wooden boat. 20 days later, the rain started, and lasted 7 days and 7 nights, flooding the whole earth. The boat landed in the snowy mountains of Tibet. Dum had three sons, from whom all humans are descended (Source: History and Culture of the Nosu Yi People of the Liang Shan). A few months ago, the outside world received the following report: a missionary who had been working amongst the Nosu for 10 years was asked to meet some members of a 'sect'. 18 of the sect's leaders had travelled for two days to discuss the gospel, of which they had heard. After only 1 day, the two most important leaders stood up and left the sect, saying that they would now travel to spread the truth of the gospel. 8 of the leaders were baptised, and in the last year, according to the report, 10,000 Nosus have become Christians.
Source: AMO, Box 17, Chang Klan P.O., Chiang Mai 50101, Thailand, Tel/fax: (66)-53-281778.

Turkmenistan/Kyrgyzstan: crippled grandmother healed

A missionary team gave this report of their visit to the Central Asian republics of Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan: "Our outreach reminded us of Acts," writes the team leader, "On one weekend, a crippled grandmother decided to become a Christian. The team also prayed for her physical healing, because she had been unable to walk for months. An hour later, as a local pastor was preaching, there was a disturbance in the meeting: the old woman had just come in to hear more about this Jesus who had just healed her. As the word of her healing spread, 77 others also decided to become Christians."
Source withheld

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