Back in the early 90’s, that abortion rate in Eastern Europe was even higher, with women aborting 54 percent of their pregnancies. This was due in part to the fact that contraceptives had limited access under the Soviet regime.

While the abortion rate in Eastern Europe has gone down, it remains an epidemic, emotionally and physically scarring the women who chose or were forced to end the lives of their babies, and wiping out millions of infants in a generation.

But there is hope — both for the healing of women who’ve had an abortion, and for saving the lives of babies in jeopardy.

Tom Lothamer leading a conference workshop for missionaries in Slovenia. (Photo courtesy of Life Matters Worldwide via Facebook)

Tom Lothamer with Life Matters Worldwide recently conducted two workshops for a conference of ABWE missionaries in Portorož, Slovenia two weeks ago. Missionaries hailed from countries all over Eastern and Central Europe. They gathered together for a time to rest and refocus their vision for God’s Great Commission.

The two workshops led by Lothamer covered prayer for the ministry, and casting the vision for pro-life ministry on the field.

“One of the ways here and around the world where we can reach men and especially women is through this type of ministry — letting them know there’s people who care, who can help them, they can go through post-abortion recovery. It’s a real neat ministry that gives the missionaries an opportunity to share the Gospel. Many are coming to Christ because of this. And also on the front end of pregnancy, before they get an abortion, babies are being spared.”

For women who have undergone an abortion, often the last place they want to go to is the Church. However, Lothamer says pregnancy and post-abortion care services are great ways believers can reach out.

“This is a natural way of interacting with people in the community who maybe would never come over to their church plant, but they would come for that type of service and help…. A young woman who is afraid, who is alone, and then she hears about this ministry that will serve her and help her, guide her, and so she’ll come. There’s all different kinds of ways that women find it.”

(Photo courtesy of Life Matters Worldwide via Facebook)

Pro-life ministry opportunities don’t just focus on early life and pregnancy. Lothamer also spoke on ways missionaries can care for and involve the elderly in community.

“We talk about the whole idea of the Church first of all ministering to the Body within their church family; and to those who are elderly, those who are sick, purposefully and intentionally ministering to them, caring for them, connecting with them,” says Lothamer.

“Also, this can spill outside the Church where people in a community, in a neighborhood…have elderly neighbors [or] sick neighbors and they can then choose to minister to them…to create a relationship with them and possibly have an opportunity to share the Gospel with them.”

Congregations often have great programming for youth, teens, and families. But when it comes to reaching out to senior individuals, not all churches make it a priority.

“People in this time of life are very vulnerable. And even in this country in the United States, there are many people who are elderly, sick, and frankly, alone. It’s not generally the desire of the Church to leave them alone, they just need to learn of ways they can effectively do that and put it on the front burner, as it will, of the church ministry.”

Bottom line, pro-life ministry touches on several different subjects: pregnancy care, elderly ministry, healing for the sick, quality of life for the disabled, combating sexual slavery, fighting poverty. And above all — fullness of life in Christ.

“No matter what the situation is, our call is still to reach out to those in need who have very physical issues, very emotional issues, spiritual issues, and to share the Gospel.”

The missionaries have since left the conference and gone home to their mission fields across Central and Eastern Europe. But Lothamer asks for your prayers.

“Pray for those who are experiencing great trauma, but also for the Christians to be alert to opportunities to minister to people in unique ways, wonderful ways. And pray for the missionaries who are serving over there, not for their own needs, but they’re serving there because they’re called.”

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ABTS is a ministry of Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The school's dean, Jim Blumenstock, says the school is located in Chiang Mai, Thailand. "We're known as a 'seminary in a suitcase' because we can travel to different countries and do education where the pastors and Bible school leaders are."

Blumenstock describes what ABTS is offering. "We have two masters degree programs accredited through Cornerstone University. These are U.S. degrees, which are highly valuable in Asia. And we do two-week module courses in six different countries."

Approximately 140 students are taking classes in these countries. "Our headquarters are in Thailand. We have two sites there and four sites in the Philippines. We also have sites in Singapore, in Burma, as well as Papua New Guinea. We just finished a cohort there with 11 graduates."

ABTS is unique in that all of the faculty are required to raise their own support, just like missionaries. Students are treated a little differently, too. "We're training people who are in third world countries and cannot afford an education, so we only charge what they can afford, which typically is less than it costs us."

Blumenstock says it costs them about $100 per credit hour. In Burma, the poorest country in which they work, students pay about $1 per credit hour. "It costs us $300 per course. So in order to continue offering our courses there, we do need some kind of ability to offer scholarships to these students."

That's where you can help. It's called the ABTS Scholarship Fund. "83% of our students cannot afford what it costs us to offer our program. If we were able to raise 120 commitments of $50 a month, we could continuously offer scholars for the 83%."

Blumenstock says the program works. He says as students graduate, they're investing in people's lives. One student is teaching Christians in Thailand and also "bringing in people from Laos as well as from Southern China. They come in for a period of time. What he's doing is teaching them ABTS classes in an informal setting."

As you provide scholarship dollars for a student, you're actually investing in a multiplication effort to train even more leaders. Click here to support the work. Make sure you select "ABTS Scholarship Fund" in the drop down box.

The Bowers had taken a flight to
pick up a visa in Brazil for Charity. Their
son, Cory, then six, was also in the plane when the military jet opened fire on
them in April 2001.   

Jim Bowers, their son, Cory, and
the pilot, Kevin Donaldson, survived the plane's crash into the Amazon.

The release of the current report
shows that C.I.A. officers misidentified the missionary plane as a
drug-smuggling aircraft and ordered the Peruvian military to shoot it down. Then, the investigation shows routine
procedure violations by those involved with the secret counter-narcotics
mission and a pattern of covering up their mistakes, ultimately misleading
Congress during an inquiry shortly after the incident.  

As a result, the U.S. government suspended
the practice of advising foreign governments on shooting down planes over Peru
and Colombia. They then discontinued the program. 

The U.S. government paid compensation of $8 million to the Bowers family and the
pilot.   

CIA Director Leon Panetta said 16
current and retired agency officers received administrative punishments over
the incident.

Jim and Roni Bowers began serving in Peru in 1995 as
houseboat missionaries with the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism,
or ABWE. 

Their job was to creatively spread the gospel to 50 remote
Peruvian villages accessible only via the Amazon River. For six years, they traveled in their
floating home to towns along a 150-mile stretch of water: evangelizing,
preaching, teaching and discipling. The Bowers held leadership training classes and
seminars to equip local believers.

The work was
disrupted, but ABWE is still active in Church planting, theological
education, camp work, river evangelism, and aviation. A team of 15 is
active throughout the rural and urban parts of Peru.

Meanwhile, Jim Bowers is
rebuilding his life. Several years later, he authorized a book
about the incident and remarried in December 2003. The new Bowers family lives
in Raleigh, N.C., where they're planting a Hispanic church.  

According to reports, it's the first public disclosure of the number of planes shot down between 1995 and 2001 as part of the Airbridge Denial Program, a CIA counter-narcotics effort that killed an innocent American missionary, Veronica Bowers, and her infant daughter in 2001. A State Department investigation into the incident at the time said the Peruvian fighter jets forced another 23 planes to land.

Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra says most of the 15 planes shot down with the help of the CIA crashed in the jungle. The wreckage has not or could not be examined to ascertain whether narcotics were onboard the aircraft.

"The Bowers could have gone in the same category if they had crashed in the jungle," Hoekstra said of the Michigan family who served with the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE).

The Bowers' plane made an emergency river landing after it was hit.

Excerpts from a CIA inspector general's report released in November raised questions about whether the missionaries' plane was the only craft mistakenly suspected of drug-smuggling. The CIA report said that in most of the shoot downs, pilots fired on aircraft "without being properly identified, without being given the required warnings to land, and without being given time to respond to such warnings as were given to land."

The IG report said the CIA withheld from the National Security Council, Justice Department, and Congress the results of multiple investigations that documented continuous and significant violations of aircraft interception procedures created to prevent the shoot-down of planes unconnected with the drug trade. The classified report was completed in August and sent to Congress in October.

The CIA report directly contradicted the State Department's findings in 2001. The State Department at the time said the other planes were shot down only after "exhausting international procedures for interception."

CIA Director Michael Hayden is appointing a six-person board, including two current CIA officers, to determine whether any disciplinary action is warranted, according to spokesman Mark Mansfield. CIA accountability boards can look at both current and former employees.

Hayden has also directed CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence to identify lessons learned that remain relevant to CIA's current operations, as was recommended by the classified IG report. "Director Hayden is absolutely committed to a process looking at systemic issues and accountability that is as thorough and fair as possible," Mansfield said.

Hoekstra said the report identified personnel by name who misled Congress and obstructed a Justice Department investigation into whether criminal charges should have been filed in the case. Justice Department in 2005 ultimately decided against filing charges.

The Airbridge Denial Program was shut down after the death of Bowers and her daughter.

Brought to Jamaica by
Spanish colonizers, African slaves were among the first to inhabit the island.
Slavery was sustained by British colonial rule and continued into the mid-19^th
century, until slave revolts finally abolished the practice.

Although English is
the official language of Jamaica, most speak a dialect combining elements of
Creole English, African and Rastafarian. The vibrant culture this history
created also influences Jamaica's Christian denominations. Elements of Spiritism–a belief that twists the definition and intention of the Holy Spirit and
teachings of Jesus–are woven throughout Christian beliefs on the island,
thereby weakening the clarity and strength of the Gospel. ABWE desires to
correct these illusions and train pastors in Biblical truth, so that they may
strengthen and build congregations on the rock of Christ.

New Hope is the first pregnancy crisis center to be established in Liberia, and the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE) desires to see it change the community. Most young people in the country were raised without parental guidance due to the civil war, and they are therefore a generation with confused morals, life philosophy and biblical principles.

God is opening doors for more Liberians from the capital to be involved in leadership.Tom Lothamer of BFL, Inc. gave the leadership team training for a transition into board responsibilities, as well as encouragement in many areas of the ministry.

Volunteers of the center need your prayer. Many walk far to get to work, and some struggle to obtain daily food and send their children to school. The rising cost of rice and other necessities have made life harder. Pray also for the volunteers as they share the hope of Christ with the women who come to the pregnancy center seeking help.

"Your local church would spend around $1600-$2000 to send
you here to Brazil,"
he explained.  "For ten percent of that,
you would be able to sponsor one or two students for the entire trip and help
them multiply disciples here in Brazil. And that can happen all around the
world. We'd be more than doubling the number of people who would be sharing
Christ on these missions trips." 

Moody recently returned from a missions trip to one of Brazil's
capital cities. 75 Brazilians and 8
North Americans traveled from many different churches to participate and to share the Gospel with hundreds of families in the space of two
weeks. Moody believes that national
missionaries are not only cost-effective, but they are also more effective
overall. 

"They know the culture," he said. "They have the same calling we do: to get the
message out. And they are much more capable in many ways within their own
culture to reach their own people." 

This missions movement has grown out of a youth ministry
called PEPE, based on Colossians 1:16, which says that Jesus Christ created all
things through and for Himself. The
overall strategy of this movement is very God-centered. 

"The basis of our PEPE youth ministry is: youth ministry
does not exist for the youth, but it exists for God," Moody explained. Missions trips are undertaken with a similar
philosophy. 

"We say that whoever can hide behind the cross of Jesus and
never be seen is the winner," Moody continues. "Success for each of our trips is usually defined: did we worship God with
all of our heart in every place? We
believe that evangelism is simply extravagantly worshipping in front of
unsaved people." 

Outreach teams also use vacation Bible schools, sports
ministries, and survey evangelism to reach the lost. Brazil has been strategically
divided into five regions, containing about 2-5 states each. Preparation has already begun to establish a
base for regular evangelism in each region and eventually to send outreach
teams into other regions and countries. 

As the third-largest city in the world, Sao Paulo is a strategic location for the
base of the movement. 

"There is potential for Brazil to be one of the greatest
sending countries seen in the history of missions," Moody said. Churches in other countries have the
opportunity to partner with the Brazilian church in reaching the lost. 

"Raise a little bit more money for your next missions trip,
and partner with nationals," Moody suggested. "This partnership can be with students that will serve with you on the
same field, or even can be done in another part of the world — by having
simultaneous prayer meetings, exchange of videos, and possibly exchange of
students, to stimulate a global vision. Even though we won't be in the same place at the same time, we can partner." 

In the meantime, Moody already sees great things happening
among the youth of Sao Paulo. 

"I see them changing their local churches," he said. "I see that they're starting evangelism
programs in their churches where the adults haven't started them. I see them
motivating other people to be a part of sharing Christ and worshipping Jesus in
front of unsaved people every day."

Click here to see the ministry's new English Web site. 

Winget says he and his wife, Penny, planted a church in
Ukraine in 2003 with a missions vision. From
there, a connection with the ABWE hospital in Togo opened some unique doors. "We found out that there was a
possibility to support a young church planter/pastor in a village near the
hospital in Togo." The Wingets asked
their ABWE contact, Sharon Rahilly (a nursing educator at the hospital in Tsoko),
to investigate what they could do.   

The idea started when they heard: "Pastor Sakpa
Boniface had started a church [in Agou], and they were meeting in a school
building and were beginning to make plans to build a building." In Togolese currency, saving up for that
could take a long time.

Winget says the Ukrainian church started supporting the
Togolese church with $10 a month. "The
pastor very dutifully saved that money as it came in until they were ready to
purchase some property and break ground on their church building."

When an invitation was extended to the Ukrainian church to
visit, a team assembled, and they went to see the fruit of investment in a
vision. "We made the trip, we got to
meet the pastor, and we actually got to help hands-on with some of the church
building." The team was also able to
take a sizeable cash gift to help to furnish the new church building with pews
and hymnals.

With the help of the short-term team, the church building is
well on its way to being completed. More importantly, says Winget, "Our presence
was a great encouragement to a young pastor and to his church." The
building is fully funded, and it serves as an exciting testament to the living
body of Christ in communities that are two worlds apart.

Jim Latzko with the Association of Baptist for World Evangelism says Filipino Christians are very effective in cross-cultural outreach. "Living in the Philippines, they're just a very short very inexpensive flight away from some major population centers in the east. Also, because of the economic situation in the Philippines, there are 2,000 Filipinos who leave the Philippines every day looking for work overseas."

Once they get work, they send the money back home to their families. In some cases it's the only way to provide for their families.

Because of that, Christians are developing programs that help fellow believers use this work opportunity for Kingdom purposes. "One which was just recently launched, called Worker to Witness, is focusing on converting people from just going overseas for money to also seeing a great reason for their overseas job."

Many of these believers are rethinking the reason for being in these countries, says Latzko.

ABWE is doing something similar to the Filipino program. "Ours is visiting individual churches and talking with individuals in those churches who are interested in missions. We give them some basic training in missions to prepare them as they go overseas to be ready for some of the things they would say."

According to Latzko, especially in Asia, many times Filipino believers make better missionaries than western workers because they have common ground, "as far as the types of food that they eat, the way that they live — finances and things like that. So,their level of adjustments often times in their neighboring cultures are much less than people from Europe or America might have."

Latzko says the number of overseas Filipino workers is growing, so the number of overseas Christian workers is growing, too.

Pray that many will respond to their efforts to talk about Christ. Pray also for their safety and that God will use them to accomplish much.

David and Evelyn Stone are missionaries with the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism in Lima, Peru. They just returned from an assessment trip to Ica–the hardest-hit area and one in which they lived and worked for 12 years.

Evelyn says, "50-percent of the people/houses were affected in that area. We have about 15 churches in that area. And we found 3 churches which are [devastated] and need to be rebuilt. Other churches just have small sections that have fallen."

After-shocks continue to hit the region and are shaking damaged buildings, taking even more lives as they collapse.

According to Stone, the disaster is causing other problems. "The other danger in the area is looting. Because of the depravity of man, there are a lot of people taking advantage of the fallen walls. [They're] going into houses and taking what they can. So we need prayer both for the people who have lost their homes and for protection from the people who are looting."

Stone says ABWE and other organizations are helping, but getting aid into the area is difficult because the Pan American Highway is damaged. "We went down with a four-by-four vehicle as soon as it was opened. In places we had to go around where the road's been broken up. And, [there are] places where the traffic is lined up and we sit for hours. That's when there is danger from the crowds of people who are attacking and trying to steal the supplies from the trucks."

However, ABWE was able to bring some assistance, and Stone says the supplies they provided opened doors for outreach. "We were in the center of six house that had fallen, and we passed out supplies. A Peruvian pastor stood there and preached the Gospel to that group, and we could pray with them, we could talk to each individual family. People will be saved through this without a doubt."

Stone says funding is needed to help the victims of this devastating quake. "We are going to funnel help from our mission to rebuild the churches and also rebuild the homes of the people who lost everything. There are many unsaved families around them, as well, who have lost everything, so we'll see how far our help can go."

If you'd like to follow ABWE's progress in Peru or would like to support their efforts, click here.