Fadi Sharaiha serves with the MENA Leadership Center. This fall, their Emerging Leaders Program has made strong mentor-mentee pairings for Christians from the Middle East and North Africa seeking to grow.

“[A] mentor is someone who has been in the field for some time with a track record of spiritual maturity, achievement, and professional conduct,” Sharaiha said. 

One such match is for an Arabic-speaking church plant in Europe.

(Photo courtesy of MENA Leadership Center)

“They are trying to figure out what to do, what’s next for them, how to conduct the ministry in different levels,” Sharaiha said. “For them, we have someone who has been a pastor [and] who took care of pastors in Europe as well.”

Mentorship isn’t just for leaders. Jesus modeled personal discipleship in His earthly ministry, choosing twelve men and then three even more personally. That means investing spiritually in others is a call for every Christian, in big or small ways. 

“It’s an open invitation from God Himself to us as people of the Church to be more aligned with His purposes and to be more aligned with His heart,” said Sharaiha. 

Sharaiha invites you to dive into both giving and receiving mentorship as part of the Body of Christ! 

“How are you using your time, gifts, and the history, the experience that you have? Are you using it for the glory of God — through mentorship as an example?” Sharaiha said. “The reason I think that the Lord created the whole Church as one body is that we help each other. We are there for each other.”

Interested to take discipleship a step further? Reach out to the MENA Leadership Center if you might be able to offer mentorship to a leader in the Middle East and North Africa. Or consider partnering with this ministry financially to sponsor a life-giving mentorship already taking place.

Header photo courtesy of HIVAN ARVIZU @soyhivan/Unsplash.

In countries where mosques dominate the skylines, people still have the freedom to choose what fills their screens. Responding to changing needs, SAT-7 has expanded into a new format to reach more people with the hope of Christ. Now, viewers can even watch The Chosen on the platform!

People across the Middle East and North Africa can now grow in their faith through SAT-7 PLUS. The ministry has gone beyond satellite television, offering a streaming platform accessible on any device — like Netflix, Disney+, or Hulu. But there’s a key difference. Joe Willey from SAT-7 explains:

“What is unique about SAT-7 PLUS is that it is free. And so this is free Christian content across the Middle East and North Africa, and it can be accessed around the world with the SAT-7 PLUS app.”

Man checking his phone (representative photo courtesy of Ragu Raja via Pexels)

Satellite TV is widespread in MENA, but so are smartphones and tablets. The region has nearly the same access to mobile technology as the West. So, it’s the Gospel brought not just to their homes, but even closer — right into their pockets.

“You can just download SAT-7 PLUS from your favorite app store, whether that’s Apple, whether that’s Google. Right now, the programming is available in Persian and Arabic,” Willey says.

Another standout feature of the platform is its availability. Users don’t need to log in or create an account, crucial in regions where being a Christian can be dangerous.

“There are places in the world — in the Middle East and North Africa specifically — where it is dangerous to be a Christian,” Willey says. “So we are trying to be mindful of security and ensure that people can safely access SAT-7 PLUS.”

So far, nearly 1.3 million unique users have visited the platform. And they’re not left to navigate their spiritual journey alone. A dedicated team is ready to respond to questions, go deeper with viewers, and pray alongside them.

“SAT-7 doesn’t just broadcast and then leave people to figure things out. We are also there for them on their faith journey,” explains Willey.

Viewers can explore a variety of content, including discipleship programs, films, children’s shows, and more — all pointing to Christ and freely accessible. Joe Willey encourages to support the SAT-7 ministry in prayer:

“Pray that SAT-7 — its producers and leadership — will have discernment to know which programs to create and which to air. Pray that God would move mightily in the hearts of people across the MENA region, so they may come to an understanding and true knowledge of Jesus!”

Header representative photo courtesy of Cedric Fauntleroy via Pexels.

Bringing Community to the Isolated

Dennis Wiens with SAT-7 says they recently launched a show called, You Are Not Alone.

Wiens says, “A lot of our viewers are isolated believers… We have 18-year-olds that have come to faith through watching the programs and they can’t even tell their folks they’re a Christian. There’s no church for them to go to. They’re isolated believers, and so we want to assure them that they are not alone.”

(Image courtesy of Jose Antonio Alba on Pixabay)

The program reaches people through two Arabic satellite TV channels covering North Africa and the Arabic-speaking Middle East. For instance, believers in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the Gulf, Egypt and more would all be able to tune in.

The goal of each program is to encourage people that there are other Christians standing with them throughout the region. Isolated believers are part of the larger Church. Even within their own countries there are other followers of Christ who face the same pressures and stresses.

“It’s been a tremendous encouragement for these isolated believers to know that they’re not alone, that the global church is interested, is praying for them and is aware of them,” Wiens says. “That’s such an encouragement to those that are really isolated by conflict and chaos.”

Personal Stories

Part of the show includes sharing stories of isolated believers. One woman came to faith through SAT-7, but was scared to tell her husband and family.

(Image courtesy of Engin Akyurt on Pixabay)

Wiens explains, “She asked her husband to take her on a shopping trip to Europe. She figured that if she told him in Europe and he divorced her, she’d be in Europe and she could apply for asylum. But a couple months later, they did take a trip to Europe, shopping trip, and she told him that she had become a Christian. His question was, ‘When did this happen?’

“And to her surprise, he didn’t get mad. She told him the story, and he says, ‘You know, I noticed when your life changed, and I’ve been watching you all these months. I want what you found.’”

This type of testimony not only showcases God’s radical ability to change hearts, but it offers encouragement to women in similar situations. In the middle of all the hurt and pain people living in conflict zones face, God is moving. People are coming to faith and the Church is growing.

Get Involved

Despite the many successes of the Gospel, believers are still living in isolation and facing the trauma of constant conflict. Wiens asks the Church to pray.

“Pray for those doing the programs; they’re looking in the into a camera lens and speaking to millions of people. Pray for the people receiving the message – that the Holy Spirit will work with His word, work in people’s hearts so people can see the hope of the Gospel in it, and they’ll have the strength, even in difficult situations, to trust what they’re hearing.”

If you want to help support SAT-7 programming, click here.

Image courtesy of Bananayota on Pixabay.

Over 82 percent of Sudan’s 171 people groups do not know Christ and have no access to the Gospel. John*, an unfoldingWord partner, says Sudan’s current war is driving many individuals from these unreached people groups closer to believers.

“Refugees from those tribes are coming across the border, and now they can [join] the disciple-making movement,” John says.

“Only God can do this.”

unfoldingWord and John’s organization, which we cannot name for security purposes, train Sudanese Christians in Church-Centric Bible Translation. More about that here.

The goal is to make God’s Word accessible in Sudan’s minority languages and fuel church-planting efforts among unreached people groups or UPGs.

(Photo courtesy of unfoldingWord)

“These translation teams have already translated 50 Bible stories that take someone from Genesis to Revelation,” John says.

When the war broke out last April, believers organized themselves into seven teams working in seven locations along the Sudanese border. At least 10.7 million people in Sudan have been uprooted by conflict, and over 1.5 million Sudanese have fled to neighboring countries.

As they meet refugees from their tribe, believers introduce them to the God of heaven. Life-changing transformation is the result.

“It provides an opportunity for them to interact with God, for the first time, in their heart language because in Islam, God speaks Arabic,” John says.

“Most of these people have never prayed to God in their own language ever.”

People are open to something other than Islam for the first time in centuries. Help give the Gospel to Sudan here.

*Pseudonym

Header image is a representative stock photo depicting a group of men in Khartoum, Sudan. Photo courtesy of ammarhreib/Pixabay.

The reality is Palestinian women in Arabic culture are not often celebrated. In fact, women tend to be treated as second-class citizens.

Bethlehem Bible College’s communications officer Amira Farhoud says, “Each house here has a different story. There is a lot of beating, a lot of threatening, [and] a lot of abuse for women and for kids all behind closed doors. We know a few, but there are a lot of stories that are hidden.

“A woman can’t defend herself because your father will tell you that your husband can do whatever he wants with you — beat you, hit you, humiliate you. You’re his now. So yeah, we have this culture.”

At home and in society, Arabic women often hear they are worthless, or at least “worth less” than men. Then they open up social media and are bombarded with messages that if they want to achieve a sense of worth, they have to strive for impossible beauty standards or become a counter-cultural “boss babe.” Neither messages are ultimately fulfilling.

(Photo courtesy of Bethlehem Bible College)

The Gospel’s message to women is entirely different in every way: God has instilled women with inherent dignity, value, and worth as co-heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven.

“Our worth is in Jesus,” Farhoud says. “We know that He loves us. He respects us. He gave us our dignity. He gave us our worth. The Gospel of God makes the whole difference.”

Ultimately, Bethlehem Bible College is educating and uplifting women in the heart of the Gospel. The college even has a women’s ministry that encourages female staff and students with biblical counseling. Today, their aim is to celebrate these women!

“In a society that doesn’t respect women a lot, here at Bethlehem Bible College we are well respected [and] well treated,” Farhoud says.

“We came to say that you are celebrated even if you are an ordinary woman…. The small things that you do are extraordinary, like cooking for your kids, like teaching them, like managing all of that while being a full-time staff or a full-time working mom. You are extraordinary. So that’s the idea of the campaign.”

This International Women’s Day, Farhoud asks, “[Be] praying for us, of course — especially for us as women in our daily life jobs that we do and for our families, for our children, and even for Arabic society.”

(Photo courtesy of Bethlehem Bible College)

Pray for Palestinian women to embrace their worth in Jesus Christ and be beacons of confident faith to their families, friends, and communities.

Click here to learn more about Bethlehem Bible College.

Header photo courtesy of Bethlehem Bible College.

The Yazidi had lived in Upper Mesopotamia for centuries, but hundreds of thousands dispersed from Northern Iraq to nearby countries. Many Yazidi made their way to rural Lebanon.

That’s where the ministry Cry Out Now started working with them. David says, “We got to meet one family. We discovered, after listening to their story, that before they fled, some people connected to ISIS actually took some of their daughters. They essentially brainwashed them and took them away from their parents. The family was heartbroken.”

Ministering to the Yazidi

David says they began to tell this family about Jesus, his love for them, and his sorrow over evil. The family soon became Christians.

Yazidis speak Kurdish and Arabic, but most cannot read in either language. David says, “So maybe they’ve made a decision to say, ‘Yes, we follow Jesus.’ But then they don’t really know anything else, because they don’t know how to read.”

“So what we’ve been doing is making visits to people like this, and teaching them using audio Bible stories.”

The Yazidi people do not practice Islam, but a monotheistic religion that draws influence from ancient Iranian religion, Judaism, and Nestorian Christianity. Yazidis believe that one supreme god created the world, but then ended his involvement with it.

How to pray

The Yazidi have suffered greatly during Lebanon’s financial crisis. Ask God to strengthen these new believers. And pray they themselves would be able to share about Jesus’ love and make disciples.

The header photo shows Yazidi refugees. (Photo courtesy of DFID – UK Department for International Development [picture: Rachel Unkovic/International Rescue Committee], CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Tens of thousands of Afghans have fled the country. Those left are in danger of punishment, imprisonment, or death if the Taliban catches them with biblical literature. On Open Doors’ World Watch List tracking countries with the worst Christian oppression, Afghanistan recently unseated North Korea’s spot at number one for extreme persecution.

Mission Cry has distributed Christian books and Bibles to 1,000 Afghan Christian refugees in Pakistan. But now they have their sights set on reaching Muslims inside Afghanistan.

Jason Woolford with Mission Cry says, “This coming year, we’re actually working on plans now into crossing the border into Afghanistan and specifically working with Sunni and Shia followers of Islam and hoping to give them the Word of God. Some of them are open to it secretly — to reading the Bible about the one true God.”

The Mission Cry Bible in English (Photo courtesy of Mission Cry)

To effectively share the Gospel with Sunni and Shia Muslims, the ministry plans to translate and distribute the Mission Cry Bible in Arabic.

“Some of these strategic areas where the Devil is really working overtime, where English is not available, we hope to give the Mission Cry Bible which is the New Testament, the plan of salvation,…and a discipleship program that I wrote in the back called the G300.”

Woolford says, “We’d appreciate prayer [for] our Mission Cry missionaries, my wife and I, our leadership; that you’d pray for us and our families. We’re taking back some serious ground from the Devil.”

Please pray for the hearts of Muslims in Afghanistan to soften to God’s Word. Ask the Lord to miraculously open doors for those seeking spiritual truth so they will find and know Jesus as Savior.

You can also get involved by sponsoring a Mission Cry Bible — or several! It costs less than you think.

(Photo courtesy of Wanman Uthmaniyyah via Unsplash)

“We produce the Mission Cry Bible for $2, and that includes us getting it into the hands of someone overseas — so creating it, producing it, printing it, and getting it overseas,” Woolford says. “As a friend of our ministry said, there’s no greater bang for his buck, so to speak, when he’s wanting to get the Word of God to people.”

Click here to learn more about Mission Cry!

Header photo of Afghanistan flag, courtesy of Farid Ershad via Unsplash.

At first, van der Knijff studied econometrics, which is the mathematical side of economics. But he eventually left that line of study to attend a seminary in Amsterdam. There, he obtained a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology.

Teaching theology

In the spring of 2021, he and his family moved to Lebanon, where he began teaching at the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary. He says, “I’ve been teaching a course on providence and prayer, the relationship between God’s plans, God’s care for creation, and our influence when we pray. That has been a joy to do. In the future, I will be mainly teaching systematic theology and historical theology.”

What is the difference between historical and systematic theology? van der Knijff says, “Historical theology is mainly where we study the development of Christian thought throughout history and the worldwide church.” Meanwhile, systematic theology looks at different doctrinal topics and expresses what the Church believes and why.

Challenges in Lebanon

Right now, van der Knijff spends a lot of his time learning Arabic. He intends to stay in the country, despite the financial crisis and unstable political situation. “Prayer for Lebanon and for the people who are suffering is much needed. For the region, I would say in almost all the countries where students from ABTS live, the church is in a difficult situation. It takes great courage and great wisdom to be a pastor and to be a church in those circumstances.”

ABTS students work in churches across the Middle East and North Africa. The seminary gives them affordable education they can use right away in their ministries. Ask God to strengthen these churches.

And pray that God will equip van der Knijff and his family as they adjust to life and ministry in Lebanon.

The header photo shows Kees van der Knijff. (Photo courtesy of ABTS)

John Frick with SAT-7 says, “SAT-7 is providing four years’ worth of educational programming for the younger ages: kindergarten through third grade. Heart For Lebanon will implement this curriculum with kids who are just not able to go to any of the schools, even the ones Heart For Lebanon is putting together.”

Children attend the My School programs three days a week at Heart For Lebanon’s two centers in the Bekaa Valley and in Southern Lebanon. They primarily learn Arabic, English, and Math.

Changing lives through education

The program has already changed the trajectory of many children’s lives. Some lived in suspicion of teachers, even throwing rocks at them as they approached. Now they have hope for the future.

Education is so important for these kids, Frick says. That’s what fueled the partnership. “Conversations began probably six months, maybe a year ago about this. The question was: how can SAT-7 come alongside and serve or complement what Heart For Lebanon was doing on the ground? It came to this opportunity for SAT-7 to share programming.”

Pray this ministry will clearly display the love of Jesus for all people.

Pray also for the continuing financial and political crisis happening in Lebanon. Frick says, “And COVID-19 has piled on top of these other issues. There are a lot of people that are hurting. And the church continues to need prayers to be the light in a dark area. So pray for the church, pray for leadership, and pray that God’s name would be lifted up and be glorified.”

Header photo courtesy of SAT-7 USA. 

For instance, one group of Brazilian Christians uses the app as they fellowship with Afghan refugees. Tippit says, “The Afghan refugees have been sent all over the world [since the Taliban seized control of the country]. And they’re receiving in Brazil thousands of Afghan refugees. The group that we’re working with has taken in a number of them. They use the Portuguese app and the Dari app because the materials are exactly the same. They can disciple Brazilians and Afghans using both apps.”

Tippit says that’s the ultimate vision for this app: discipleship across languages. “Because you find in the book of Acts when people heard the Gospel in their own language, everyone was in amazement.”

Get involved

You can join this same work by downloading the app for free. It’s available in the Apple Store and Google Play. Tippit says, “There are people from all over the world right here in the US. Do you know someone who speaks another language like Russian, Romanian, Dari, Arabic, Spanish, or Portuguese? We have all this material in those languages.”

Just search for “Sammy Tippit” to download the English app. To download the app in another language, Tippit says, “Just type in ‘Sammy Tippet’ and put the language: ‘Sammy Tippit Punjabi’ or ‘Sammy Tippet Hindi’ or ‘Sammy Tippet Spanish.’ That discipleship app will come up and you’ll be able to download it.”

The header photo shows Afghans evacuated from Kabul, Afghanistan shortly after the Taliban takeover. (Photo courtesy of Staff Sgt. Trevor Rhynes, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)