Greg Yoder with ministry Keys for Kids says, “Many of the people who are Muslim within the nation, moderate or not, hate the Taliban. They don’t like that form of Islam.” 

Since retaking control of Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban has required women to wear full-body veils and have male chaperones. The Taliban’s supreme leader has repeatedly called for complete obedience to his directives as a matter of national and religious obligation. Greg Yoder says he is hearing stories of portions of villages being wiped out for not agreeing with the Taliban’s form of Islam. 

Another path

Image courtesy of Keys for Kids

In a country of public floggings, oppression, and fear, people are looking for a message of hope. 

“But then when they hear about God being a loving God who wants to have a relationship with you — that’s beyond what they ever imagined in their form of Islam. That’s when it starts changing,” Yoder says. 

Keys for Kids distributes solar-powered MP3s called Storytellers that have an audio Bible. God opened the door for them into Afghanistan when a former member of the Taliban came to faith in Christ and started bringing the Storytellers across the border. 

Yoder tells the story of an 11-year-old orphan boy. He learned about Jesus, took the Gospel to his village, and brought his imam to faith. It marked the beginning of a church planted in that village. More than 23 churches have been planted in that one region alone since 2025 thanks to the Storytellers. 

A heavy cost

Yet the risk is high for converts and missionaries.

Image courtesy of Keys for Kids

“If they come to faith in Jesus Christ as a Muslim, that’s death, that’s apostasy,” Yoder says. 

One evangelist was stabbed for sharing Storytellers at a mosque. He survived, and now he wants to return. 

Yoder shares the man’s words: “Now I’m going to go back and tell them, ‘You can’t stab me, because you tried that before and God protected me, so you need to listen to the Gospel.’” 

Pray for Afghanistan

Pray for Keys for Kids’ indigenous partners in the country. They risk their lives every time they share the Good News. In the midst of these dark realities, pray for protection, courage, and wisdom for believers, and ask God that those affected by the Taliban’s persecution would come to know Jesus. You can donate to the Keys for Kids program to be part of what God is doing in Afghanistan. 

“God is at work, and hearts are open in Afghanistan,” Yoder says.

Header image courtesy of Keys for Kids

The talks raise an important question: what do they signal about the potential legitimization of Taliban authorities?

Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations says, “I think every country, with maybe the exception of Russia, is tiptoeing around the Taliban. Russia is really the only one that I’m aware of that has legitimized the Taliban in any kind of a formal way. Everybody else is sort of acknowledging them. They might have interest. Some are reopening embassies and things of that nature.

Taliban fighters patrol Kabul, August 2021.
(Wikimedia Commons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Taliban_Humvee_in_Kabul,_August_2021_(cropped).png)

“But nobody is in favor of how the Taliban operates. I mean, you’re talking about incredible amounts of human rights violations.”

It’s a disturbing reality for Afghan Christians going back.

“Almost all Christians inside of Afghanistan are what we call MBB – Muslim background believers,” says Kelley. “So they’ve converted from Islam, which, from their perspective and their version of Islam, is total apostasy, which is a capital crime. So I mean, living inside of Afghanistan as a follower of Jesus is maybe the most difficult place in the world to do so.”

Despite the danger, Kelley says ministries are finding ways to equip believers for outreach.

“There’s tremendous opportunities to train Afghans who are in these other countries who are ultimately going to be going back. I mean, Pakistan has pushed [out] hundreds of thousands of Afghans, deported them back. At Unknown Nations, we saw that as a green light opportunity and began doubling down on our strategies of training Afghans.

“We’ve trained over 800 Afghans – Christian leaders who are now missionaries inside of Afghanistan.”

Afghanistan (Photo courtesy of Rahmat Alizada/Unsplash.)

Pray for the Gospel’s spread in Afghanistan. Kelley asks for prayer in the words of Jesus from Matthew 9:38, “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest.”

Kelley says, “How crazy is this, that the Lord of the harvest would equip Afghans…to go back into Afghanistan? That’s what we’re doing at Unknown Nations – coming alongside these precious men and women, giving them as many solar-powered audio Bibles as we can in their language [so that] there will be revival in Afghanistan.

“There is such a hunger among the Afghan diaspora that is scattered all over the place, and they want to go back into their country and share the good news of Jesus Christ.”

Header photo: EU flags waving in front of the European Commission building in Brussels, Belgium. (Photo, caption courtesy of Marco/Pexels)

The Argobba are a traveling people, an unreached Muslim group of no more than 250,000. Farming and trade shape their daily lives. However, external pressures continue to disrupt their stability.

Argobba people in Koremi, Ethiopia (photo courtesy of Ahron de Leeuw via Wikimedia Commons)

Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations says, “They’re in the middle of a massive tribal conflict between these majority people groups.”

Many of these groups are pastoralists who depend on grazing land, making territory a major source of tension. Conflicts between larger groups, including the Tigray and Amhara, have gone on for years.

“And you’ve got this small group,” Kelley explains, “like the Argobba, who just want to live peacefully and tend their plots of land. But others are coming in, pushing them out, and moving them from place to place. Those are the dynamics that make Gospel witness very challenging.”

As their land and resources are threatened, many Argobba are forced to move.

This is where ministry partners with local believers who know their country. Kelley explains, “They’re distributing our solar-powered Audio Bible in their local dialect, their local language, and listening groups are forming.”

As a result, Argobba people are beginning to know Jesus as they hear the Gospel. “It’s because of the hands and feet of brave Ethiopian nationals who are going into these areas,” says Kelley.

The Gate of Mercy, that served merchants handling trade from Argobba, an Afar region (photo courtesy of Bikoadem via Wikimedia Commons)

It highlights the work of local evangelists answering the call of the Great Commission.

While on earth, Jesus cared for people from many different groups. His ability to focus on the few and reach the many is a model we can follow. The Argobba are one of those “few” we are called to reach.

“It requires great determination from the body of Christ to find people groups like the Argobba — dedicated men and women who love Jesus, who will lean into that apostolic calling to take the Gospel where it’s never been,” adds Kelley.

Pray for the Argobba people of Ethiopia to learn about their Savior. Pray also for the evangelists who pursue them — wherever the road leads them.

Visit Unknown Nations to learn more about unreached people groups and support the mission to bring them hope.

Header photo: A crowded market place in northern Ethiopia (photo courtesy of Lesly Derksen via Unsplash).

“There’s an undertow of frustration and discrimination, if you will, against the Afghan people,” Unknown Nations’ Greg Kelley says.

Military tensions escalated last week as both nations closed their borders. Pakistani airstrikes killed civilians in Afghanistan following a terrorist attack in western Pakistan. “This is an area that has had continuous conflict,” Kelley notes.

“From an Afghan perspective, there’s been a long-standing border dispute. They disagree with the borders that were drawn, and that has caused frustration,” Kelley explains.

“[The boundary line] went right in between the Pashtun people, so half became Pakistani citizens, the other half became Afghan citizens, and that has not set well with Afghanistan and the Taliban.”

Meanwhile, Pakistani officials “look at Afghanistan as being a sanctuary for terrorists that are causing disruption inside of Pakistan.”

Forced returns: a silver lining

Diplomatic fallout between the neighboring countries hits refugees the hardest. So far this year, roughly a third of all Afghan refugees living in Pakistan – some one million people – have been forced back to Afghanistan.

Yet hope follows on the heels of hardship. Afghanistan and Pakistan have “high concentrations of oral learners, so we send our solar-powered audio Bible in the languages spoken by the people of both countries,” Kelley says.

“We just trained about 200 Afghans that were forcibly sent back into Afghanistan (from Pakistan), and that created an opportunity for the Gospel.”

How to help

Consider partnering with Unknown Nations to send audio Bibles into these Muslim nations. A gift of $35 shares Jesus with eight people, often leading to two new decisions for Christ.

A worker distributes aid to vulnerable Afghans.
(Photo courtesy of Unknown Nations, formerly known as World Mission)

“We need to find creative solutions and partner with organizations, like Unknown Nations and others, who have infrastructure in these areas where the Gospel is being shared,” Kelley says.

“We cannot, as the Church, steer away from these places because of the complexities.”

Most importantly, pray. Ask the Lord to strengthen and empower church planters in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pray that Unknown Nations will receive the funding it needs to send more audio Bibles to the region.

Header and story images courtesy of Unknown Nations. 

“It seems like since this point, the general population is not really happy with the political situation,” he says. 

Courtesy of Sazzad Bin Jafor via Unsplash

Grandy observes that the majority Muslim population is looking for something different.

“They’re seeing that a secular government isn’t working for them, so it seems they may be open to a more fundamental Islamic push toward Sharia law; and those that are pushing Sharia law are seeing the opportunity here, and they’re promoting that.” 

In recent visits to Bangladesh, Grandy and his team saw impromptu political rallies on the streets, bolstered by social media campaigning and widespread political messaging. 

What does a push toward Islamic fundamentalism mean for Christians? As for other religious minorities in Bangladesh, including Hindus, it means increased religious targeting. 

One way Unknown Nations ministers to families is through preschool education, a door through which whole families have come to Christ. 

“But as a result of that, sometimes those places get targeted,” Grandy says. “So we’ve had one of our buildings where we were holding these preschools ransacked and destroyed.” 

This photo and header photo courtesy of Bornil Amin via Unsplash

In the last few weeks, the violence has intensified, including in the form of physical attacks on ministry leaders. 

“People are nervous; we have a network of over a hundred leaders who are currently in hiding because they’re being targeted,” Grandy says. 

He points out that the violence is connected to the upcoming election, but it’s also par for the course on the spiritual warfare front. 

The Kingdom of God is expanding even as opposition rails against it, but the realities of the persecuted church are heavy. 

“They don’t live in fear, but they face things that we can’t really comprehend in our culture, in our society.” 

Please pray for boldness, courage, and discernment from the Holy Spirit for our brothers and sisters in Bangladesh. 

Pray also for the ministry of Unknown Nations as they continue working to distribute audio Bibles, serve through humanitarian projects, and equip the church through leadership training in Bangladesh. If you’d like to support this work financially, click here.

New regulations published September 15 by the CCP outline how clergy can and cannot use internet platforms to preach and teach. They are no mere suggestions but rather statements of the new normal in a nation with a formidable surveillance infrastructure. 

“They have the capacity to track down and shut down as they please. I have friends that will testify to that,” says Joe Handley with A3. 

Yet at the same time, we shouldn’t think of Christians in China as being in retreat. Years ago, one pastor told Handley, “We grew up in an era where our churches went from underground to overground and back underground. We know how to pivot on the fly.”

“No matter what thing comes their direction, they’re resilient,” says Handley.

Photo courtesy of Timothy Eberly via Unsplash

Don’t take that the wrong way, though. The resilience of Chinese believers comes from God, so there’s every reason to keep praying. The new regulations limit the use of social media, prohibit short-form content and more for clergy. They also require support for socialist values and government oversight, among other CCP goals. 

(Read the full translation of “Regulations on the Online Behavior of Religious Clergy” here.)

“It’s critical that we pray that those of us [who] are involved in the leadership development space are thinking ahead of the curve,” says Handley. 

Pray especially for God’s grace upon future church leaders in China. They have not experienced faith under pressure in the same way that their parents and grandparents have. 

“The next generation is going to be critical, because they’re the generation that will carry the gospel. So pray for the young people of China, that they will be able to weather the storms that come their way,” says Handley. 

“Pray for A3 as we try to equip the church around the world. They’re hungry for the gospel. The church leaders are hungry for leadership [and] equipping. It’s one of the greatest needs of our era.”

Header image is a representative stock photo courtesy of Rosalind Chang via Unsplash.

UN officials urge global involvement as fighting spreads into previously safe areas, and neither side shows signs of backing down.

“The warring parties appear unrelenting in their resolve to pursue military objectives,” warned Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, in a June 27 address to the UN Security Council.

She noted that advanced weapons like long-range drones are spreading violence into previously stable regions. Earlier, UN official Virginia Gamba warned that resistance forces and their allies are increasingly targeting minority ethnic groups — a potential path to war crimes.

Darrell Templeton with MegaVoice highlights the gravity of the situation: “A lot of the genocide, a lot of the killing that the RSF is doing is very tribal in nature.”

Image courtesy of MegaVoice.

MegaVoice offers both spiritual and practical hope. First, solar-powered audio Bibles provide perspective from God’s Word. “There’s an audio series called ‘Am I My Brother’s Keeper?‘ which is all about reconciliation between the tribes in Sudan and South Sudan,” Templeton says.

“This audio has been used and is continuing to be used to provide a biblical reason for reconciliation among the people groups.”

These devices also have a tangible purpose. The most popular audio Bible model has a built-in light.

“It’s called the Ember because it has a little flashlight on it that’s brighter than a cell phone flashlight. Most of these areas have very limited electricity, and so to have a light that they can use for finishing cooking, to walk around in the dark, this has been a big benefit to our pastors and the leaders there,” Templeton says.

“To have a solar-powered audio Bible that provides not only spiritual light for their lives, but physical light is a big blessing.”

Help send more audio Bibles to Sudan by giving through MegaVoice International.

“Mission Network News has been a big help in making sure people are aware that this crisis has not gone away. The crisis is still very real, and we need to uphold our brothers and sisters in prayer,” Templeton says.

Header image is a stock photo of fighters in South Sudan (Photo by Randy Fath on Unsplash)

Vulnerable groups are coming under fire. “It’s soft targets; these are not military bases,” Darrell Templeton with MegaVoice says.

“Less than 10 percent of the hospitals and clinics in the country are even operational, and so the humanitarian crisis just continues to rise.”

Despite the scale of the crisis, few outside Sudan are aware. “The situation has gone from bad to worse,” Templeton says.

“It’s the largest displacement of people anywhere in the world, and, unfortunately, because Israel and Iran are getting all the headline news, this has dropped off the radar of most people.”

Yet the Lord hears their cries. In the midst of chaos, believers are holding fast.

“If I could get out of there, I would. And yet, we hear stories of pastors and lay leaders that choose to stay and shepherd the few believers they have and be that beacon of hope in their communities,” Templeton says.

Through partners like Samaritan’s Purse, MegaVoice audio Bibles bring both hope and help.

“They not only carry the Bible and Scripture, but they also carry different content that some of our partners will put on it,” Templeton says.

“They can add local content, be it medical information for the family on how to do wound care, or even Bible stories in the local language.”

Pray for strength and resources for medical workers, and ask God to meet urgent needs.

“The whole cholera situation is a growing epidemic this year,” Templeton says. “They think it’s going to be worse than what it was in 2023.”

Header image depicts a family in Sudan. Photo courtesy of Sudan Envoy/Wikimedia Commons.

A string of attacks starting on March 31 and leading into April displaced 15,000 people, according to one report. For some people, it was their third or fourth displacement. 

Paolo*, a partner with MegaVoice, explains that the insurgency started small in 2017 after the discovery of massive natural gas reserves. It has now become a seven-year-old conflict that has killed more than 4,000 people and displaced 800,000.

“Anyone in front of them, they were killing. They were burning house[s],” Paolo says. 

“[It] was not necessarily a religion conflict. [It] was because there’s a financial possibility in the region. But definitely these affect a lot of the [religious] work, especially because many missionaries moved from there because of security issues.” 

But MegaVoice’s local partners have stayed. This is a good thing! Paolo says these people are essential for distributing audio Bibles. 

“They have access to the people. They know the language, they know the necessity, where people [have] needs,” he says. 

A gift people ask for

Paolo says many people in northern Mozambique have had no chance at education. “So the only way to have access for the Word of God is through the audio Bibles.”

Image courtesy of MegaVoice.

One woman received an audio Bible and listened to it while she worked in her croplands. She was playing it loud, and someone overheard.

“What’s that?” the man asked her. “Because this is in our language — I’ve never heard something in our own language!”

She told him, “This is the Bible. This is the Word of God.” The man went to the missionary house where the audio Bible had come from and said he wanted God’s Word, too. 

Layers of challenges and need

Mozambique is also enduring lingering political unrest after its contested 2024 elections. In the midst of these dynamics, the MegaVoice team and its partners hope to see many things happening. 

“We want people groups receiving discipleship, learning about God’s Word, growing [in] God’s Word,” Paolo says, “and they could be missionaries. They can share the gospel with others. That’s the most important for us, because we are looking for not just church-planting, but we want to see [a] reproducing church among these people.”

Paolo invites you to stand with them in this work. 

“[Our partners] see how important the Bible is for them [themselves]. They understand the Bible is important for others, and they are participating. They are praying for access. They are praying for people that are able to go there. They are investing. They are supporting the Bibles. We can make this happen,” he says. 

“It’s not one or two organization[s], [it] is not one or two people. Is an entire body of Christ involved to make this happen.”

Learn more about MegaVoice’s mission here. 

*Name withheld for security

Header photo of children in Mozambique courtesy of Hidlson via Pexels.

For example, a large order was taxed at 145 percent in late April. 

“For a large order, that could be a couple thousand, or sixteen to twenty thousand dollars, just in tariffs.”

International partners aren’t ready for this kind of unexpected charge, as tariff charges are not a budgeted expense. 

“What we’re seeing happen is uncertainty, and because of the uncertainty, some of our partners are holding off or asking to hold off on their orders of audio Bibles,” Templeton says. “The Kingdom work suffers because people are not able to receive and engage with the Word of God.”

What’s more, Templeton says the ripple effect downstream can be large. Missions trips teams are being stalled, and orders are having to be shipped directly to other countries rather than hand-carried from the U.S. 

“When you’re trying to ship to some countries, it might not be the 145% tax, but you might end up with delays of months in customs, and still have to pay, you know, 30 percent tax.”

MegaVoice is on track to begin manufacturing audio Bibles in India this summer.

“That will be, perhaps, a solution; and then we’re also looking at being able to provide assembly of the same units in other countries,” Templeton says. Those include South Africa and Israel. 

He says plans to relocate manufacturing and assembly were already in place when the tariffs were levied. 

“As we look in hindsight, we see the Lord was helping us prepare.” 

Please pray that God would give the MegaVoice team wisdom and favor to continue serving the needs of the church through the distribution of audio Bibles. Pray that partners would be understanding and that donors would continue their support to fund the process of sending God’s Word to those who have not heard it.

(MegaVoice audio Bible, photo courtesy of Mega Voice)

Featured photo courtesy of Markus Winkler via Pexels.