DAWN Fridayfax 1998 #06

News from Colombia, Ethiopia, India and Worldwide

In this issue:
Colombia: church fills the Colliseum 3 times a week
Deteriorating world religions - open door for the gospel
Ethiopia: raising the dead, with side effects
India: freed from husband's black magic

Colombia: church fills the Colliseum 3 times a week

Last year, we reported about the growth of pastor Cesar Castellanos' church in Bogota, Colombia. Castellanos miraculously survived an assassination attempt in early 1997. The church he leads in Bosnia, 'Mision Carismatica Internacional', has, according to DAWN missionary Berna Salcedo, grown to over 25,000 house churches, with an attendance of 250,000. At the start of 1997, they had around 10,000 house churches. Despite multiple services, the church's 5,000-person auditorium became too small, so the services are now held in Bogota's Colliseum three times each Sunday. The cell groups have an average of 10 members, which means that around 150,000 people have joined the church in the last year - one of the highest church growth rates in the world.

Source: Berna Salcedo

Deteriorating world religions - open door for the gospel

One of the most important figures in this year's "Annual Statistical Table on Global Mission", published in the January 1998 issue of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research describes the 'volcanic eruption of tribal religions' in the developing countries, according to Justin Long, staff member at one of the mission study centers led by Dr. David Barrett. Since the start of the 20th Century, the number of members of tribal religions (animist, polytheist, shamanist), has remained a relatively stable 100 million. The most recent statistics now show this number to have grown to 244 million, divided amongst 5,600 people groups and tribes. The explanation for this phenomenon is simple, according to Long: it is now one generation since the majority of old European colonies won their independence. It is now also around a decade since the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR. In many countries, people previously counted as members of their country's majority religion are refusing this label; most affected are Hinduism, Islam and Marxist Atheism. They now emphasise that they are followers of their 'local' religion. According to the 1946 UN resolution, a person's religion is exactly that which they themselves declare; nobody has the right to ignore this declaration. Long now asks what the meaning of this massive religious change is. Far from being a threat to Christianity, he sees it as a very important opportunity for global Christianity. Tribes which were previously officially Hindu or Moslem used to be almost impossible to reach with the gospel, but missionary history has shown that local religions, animists, fetishists, shamanists and so on were always far more open to the gospel than officially closed world religions. But, according to Long, the door may remain open for only 5 or 10 years.

Source: Justin Long, e-mail: gem@xc.org

Ethiopia: raising the dead, with side effects

"My name is Haptamu, and I live in Welega (Lekant), about 600 kilometers south of Addis. I lead the Rhema church there. Less than 6 months ago, we heard that the sister of one of the believers was sick, and when we arrived in her village, we discovered that she had already died. We asked the people to show us the body. As we started to pray for her, the people watching us pray started to shout and fall to the ground. They were oppressed by demons, because there is a lot of witchcraft in that part of the country. We stopped praying for the dead woman, and prayed that the villagers would be delivered from the demons. Once they had all been driven out, we returned to our business of praying for the dead woman. After praying, we laid our hands on her, and her life returned. She sat up, and we gave her a meal, because she was hungry, but healed and delivered."

Source: Russell White; e-mail: russellw@unisrv.com

India: freed from husband's black magic

Gracy is married to a Bengali man, and lives in the Bandra district of Bombay. Her life was hard; her husband mistreated her, sometimes beating her daily. One day, he brought home something wrapped in a red cloth and hung it in their apartment, and also hid a silver image of Kali, the goddess of revenge, in the wall. In her desperation, Gracy began attending a Christian church, and one day invited some Christians to pray in her home. They not only prayed, but prophesied: 'Something is hidden in the wall'. They broke through the plaster and found the image of Kali, and also opened the red cloth, which concealed a coconut containing a dry bone - a symbol of black magic. As they prayed, a cooling fan on the table fell over without cause. Some non-Christian neighbours who watched the prayer out of curiosity were very astonished, particularly those who fell down because they could no longer stand. It was clear that Jesus had more power than black magic.

Source: New Frontiers, Fax (91)-22-6420201

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