DAWN Fridayfax 1998 #04

Worldwide statistics plus news from Bulgaria, Chile, Brazil

In this issue:
10 million new converts per year
Bulgaria: Evangelical Alliance UK receives official status
Chile: 18-year-olds weep and pray for young teenagers
Brazil: when a witch repents

10M new converts, 32M Christian children per year

Decisive factors influencing today's global church are, according to David Barrett's colleague Justin Long:

New converts: around 17 million people become church members each year through conversion, and some 7 million leave the church;
biological growth: 53 million are born into Christian families each year, and 21 million church members die.
That makes a daily growth rate of some 115,000 people, 27,400 of which are new converts, 87,700 babies.

(Editor's note: the sometimes quoted figures of 70,000, 120,000 or even more conversions per day are based on evangelistic estimates without an empirical base. Generally, these figures include seekers or those indicating an interest in Christianity, but far from becoming members of any church.)

Source: Justin Long, Assoc. Editor of World Christian Encyclopedia (David Barrett)

Bulgaria: Evangelical Alliance UK receives official status

Finally, after a 5-year struggle, the Bulgarian Evangelical Alliance UK has received offical recognition from the government. The registration process began in 1993 as the answer to a growing anti-Evangelical campaign in the country, headed by the Orthodox church. Evangelical churches existed in Bulgaria even before the country's liberation from the Turkish empire 150 years ago, says Nikolay Nedelchev, General Secretary of the Bulgarian Evangelical Alliance in Sofia. "For a long time after the fall of the Communism in 1989, the media confused Evangelical churches with sects. The Bulgarian government is currently examining a new religious law, which many observers fear could be very restrictive, similar to the new Russian law. For this reason, the Evangelical Alliance UK is organising a national conference on 31 January 1998, to assist the Bulgarian government and the press to arrive at an objective opinion." He continues: "Now that we have legal status, we can open Bible schools and bank accounts, and buy land. We are Bulgaria's largest Evangelical association, and the second-largest in the Balkan area. We can now move freely and carry out our business."

Source: Nikolay Nedelchev, Bulgarian Evangelical Alliance UK

Chile: 18-year-olds weep and pray for young teenagers

Wesley Campbell reports from a youth conference in Santiago, Chile: "We experienced a truly lively summer youth camp. It was very moving to see the burning hunger which the youngsters have to pray for each other. Many 18-year-old young men prayed for 13- and 14-year-olds, and how! The older ones would pray, all the while weeping and tenderly stroking their faces of their younger brothers. There was none of the foolishness that so pervades the culture of North America. Even after lights out at 2:30 am, the guards could still hear the youth praying one for another, and weeping before the Lord. Many decions and fresh dedications were made."

Source: Wesley Campbell
The full report can be read at http://www.revivalnow.com/wesley,

Brazil: when a witch repents

Luiz Antonio is a gynaecologist and member of our church in Uberlandia. A lady called Cassia asked him if she could have the placenta when the child after the birth of the child so that she could offer it to "orixas" - a kind of god with authority over some African cults in Brazil. Instead, Luiz Antonio shared the message of the Gospel with her.

A few days later Cassia phoned him, asking if he could visit her. Luiz called his pastor, to ask him to go with him. "We were amazed to discover that she was the leading witch of the best-equipped centre of witchcraft in our city," reports the pastor. "Later on we found out that the mayor, bankers and people of influence in the city used to visit her weekly seeking advice, and local newspapers would interview her every year for her predictions for the city. She shared how she was depressed, frustrated and looking for answers in her life. The night before she had gone inside the centre and asked Jesus to come into her life and take away all her despair. We told her about the way of salvation and prayed, and she confessed Jesus as her Lord. Her husband was there, a young man who used to be an Evangelist of the Assemblies of God in Manaus. Cassia, his wife, had also been living with another woman for 8 years in a lesbian relationship and had been involved with spiritism for 17 years."

Source: Resources Intl., E-mail: ron@missionnet.org.

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