DAWN Fridayfax 2001 #21

England

Prayer cleaning

Diana Brown calls herself a 'praying litter collector'. It all started when she began collecting and throwing away litter on her prayer walks in Rossendale. The local council soon heard of her, and employed her. She can now officially pray and collect litter. The simple idea of linking prayer and cleaning the streets has spread quickly, and has even been taken up by an entire church - voluntary litter collecting has even become a hobby for many in Rossendale. "Occasionally, local shop owners organise a large team of volunteers to clean up the whole valley," says Diana. The local newspapers regularly report about the new movement...
Source: Diana Brown, e-mail vicbrown@cwcom.net

North India: Punjab

Church planting aim achieved

Operation Agape, a movement of missionary Christians in northern India, aimed to carry out Jesus' Great Commandment through planting new churches. The aim, almost inconceivable when it was set a number of years ago, was to start a church-planting movement in each of Punjab's 491 Pin Codes (postal code areas). Recent research shows that this aim was achieved at the end of 2000. The movement's next aim is to plant a Christian church in each of the state's 12,800 villages - within five years.
Source: Operation Agape, PO Box 225, Kottayam 686001, Kerala, India

India: Madhya Pradesh

First smaller, then more numerous, then more

Madhya Pradesh's Jabhu district has 1,113 villages with a total of 1.1 million inhabitants, and a vanishingly small percentage of Christians. Patras Habil didn't want to accept the status quo, so he started to plant churches - mainly house churches. A Christian group saw what he was doing, and joined him. The group had a staff of 310, including 40 women, and oversaw 15 large churches. Once they understood the concept of house churches, they reduced the size of their churches, forming 150 house churches, in order to grow by multiplication, not addition. The new house church movement now consists of 1,600 Christians, 85% of which are from the Bhil tribe.

From opponent to church planter

Nabu (name changed) was an influential man in Madhya Pradesh's Jabhu district. He had three wives and 29 children - and energetically resisted all evangelistic activity in his vicinity. He repeatedly warned Patras Habil and his friends not to preach the gospel in his area. Patras did not give up, and prayed for Nabu. One day, Nabu had a serious accident. He had often heard that Jesus had helped people supernaturally, so he sent his men to ask Patras to visit him. When Patras and some of his friends arrived, Nabu asked for their forgiveness for his previous behaviour. Patras and his friends then prayed for Nabu, and explained the gospel to him. He decided to follow Jesus, and after some time, was completely healed. A growing house church now meets in his home.
Source: Operation Agape, PO Box 225, Kottayam 686001, Kerala, India

Australia

'Playboy' stopped by Christian group

When the Sonnemans moved from the USA to Australia, they were shocked by the prevalence of pornography. Neither of them were willing to bring up their daughter in surroundings in which it seemed acceptable to show pictures of naked women everywhere. When Mrs. Sonneman spoke with her neighbours about the matter, they just shrugged, saying "It's always been like that, what can we do?" Pornography was everywhere, in shops and filling stations, and according to the Sonnemans, "the worst was that children could buy it." They founded the Australian Federation for the Family (AFF), which has become a thorn in the flesh of the porn industry. One of the AFF's aims is "to protect our children from pornography". In 1983, they started work on causing the pornographic magazine Playboy to stop publishing in Australia. They have now achieved that aim: the magazine is ceasing publication of its Australian edition. In the words of AFF founder Jack Sonneman: "Many people told us we didn't stand a chance, but we listened to God, not people." To start with, the AFF publicly targeted companies advertising in the magazine, and many ceased advertising. A further step was to lobby for legislation forbidding the sale of pornographic magazines to children. Their next target is another pornographic magazine: Penthouse.
Source: AFF, via American Family Association, www.afa.net

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