DAWN Fridayfax 2004 #08

Algeria

Police protect Christian church

"Muslims who find Jesus are regularly threatened by fundamentalist Muslims," reports a mission agency from Algeria. They are told that they are not allowed to visit Christian churches, but churches are forming in various places throughout Algeria, and experiencing astonishing growth. Two students, motivated by church planting training, planted a new church with 12 members. After only one year, the church had almost two hundred members. God shows his might through the many miracles which occur, changing many people's lives, and the area. Some Muslims recently went to the Police to complain about the Christians, but the Police told them that since the church had started, drug consumption, alcoholism and theft had significantly decreased, and warned them to leave the church in peace, because it had a good influence on society.
Source: name and address withheld for security reasons

Germany

Seek first the Kingdom of God...

"'The church which gives world mission priority will have no lack,' said a church member ten years ago, while we were discussing the size to plan our new church building," remembers pastor Reinhard Weber of the Königsbrunn Evangelical Fellowship near Nuremburg, Germany. "The church had 58 members, and gave 3% of donations to world mission. Should we spend 1.5 million Euro on a new church building? 'Yes, we'll take the chance - but we won't cut back on the missions collections!' we said. Today, ten years later, we've moved into the new church building. Church membership has almost tripled, to 160, but our missions contribution has grown twentyfold."
Source: EMO Aktuell Feb/March 2004

India

40,000 attend Yesu Darbar each week

"Yesu Darbar - 'Jesus' Royal Court' - is a weekly event at the Allahabad Agricultural University in northern India, attended by 40,000 people every Sunday. They experience healing and deliverance, and hear the Gospel," reports Operation Agape. The event was started by B. Lal, Vice Chancellor of the University. In January 2003, attendance was 25,000 each week; since then, attendance has grown by 15,000, or 60%.
Source: Operation Agape

China

Aunty Mabel's story

They call her Aunty Mabel. She remained single in order to care for her sick brother. She came from a wealthy family living in a large house in the centre of Beijing. In 1949, she was branded a 'rich landowner', and was forced to leave her villa and live in a garden hut. Following the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, she lost her job as a doctor, and was sent to a labour gang, where she had to shovel sand. The Red Army severely humiliated her, beating her, parading her through the streets with a sign listing all her 'crimes'. They put a sign outside her house, labelling her as an outcast for distributing 'imperialistic literature' (the Bible).

From outcast to anchor

Mabel went through hell. Beaten and humiliated, she returned to her hut one day and told God "I can't go on any more". She took a large chopping knife and held it over her wrist. Before she struck, she prayed "Lord, if this is wrong, help me!" She didn't use the knife, but instead sat down and broke out in tears. She endured the beatings and scorn for eight more years. "Somehow, God gave me the strength to go on," she says. She only understood many years later; at the end of the 1970s, the Red Army was disbanded. Mabel was not rehabilitated, and was not given her house back. Instead, people sought her out; to her astonishment, many of them were high-ranking Communist officials. Even more astonishingly, they all asked for Bibles. "Why do you come to me? Of all of Beijing's population, why come to the house of a 70-year-old woman?" The answer was always the same: "During the Cultural Revolution, there was a sign in front of your house listing everything you did wrong. One of them was distributing Bibles. I came in the hope you might still have one."

The reason for the suffering

It was wonderfully poetic justice that the very sign which made her life hell was the key to missionary work. Through contact with a Western missions organisation, Mabel managed to open the first Bible smuggling channel into the Chinese capital. Some of the Christians among the high-ranking Communist Party officials have Mabel to thank for their faith. Mabel recalls "Every day was a battle, and it was hard. But it was good to see the reason for the suffering. That strengthens my faith."
Source: Alex Buchan of Open Doors

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