The presence of Jesus is badly needed, and yet there are 34 million unreached people across 20 million people groups. That means 34 million people in Yemen have never heard the Gospel message.

What does it take to fill that void?

A localized translation of the Bible might be a good start.

But given the constant turmoil racking Yemen and the sparsity of the local Church, creating that translation is proving to be a challenge. Between extremist religious groups and a strong sense of tribalism, many Christians can face banishment or death for simply proclaiming their love of Jesus Christ, let alone translating Scripture.

“There’s a huge stronghold there because of their belief system – the things that they think they know about God, who He is, and what they believe to be true,” says Amy of Strategic Resource Group. “They’re so rooted in that – it’s not just what they believe, it’s part of their life and their culture.”

That’s why so few of Yemen’s Christians are able to share their stories with the rest of the world. “There’s a significant risk on people’s lives if they share these stories, and if they tell the good things that are happening,” Amy says.

But the Bible translation is still in the works. The believers working on the project put in fulltime hours working on the localization, all while weathering bombing and conflict. They’re working on the project while staying in hiding.

And yet: “God continues to draw [Christians] unto himself. [T]hey are being encouraged by that and seeing the fruit of what God’s doing in their lives and in live the people around them, which encourages them to continue on doing their work.”

For example, while working on the translation, some of the believers have felt called to writing their own worship songs. Not translating existing songs; they’re writing localized songs from scratch. “Now in their heart language, it has a deeper meaning and impact on their lives, because they’re able to understand it in a more complete and deep way.”

Want to help? The Church in Yemen needs your prayer. “Those of us who are aware of what’s happening and know what’s going on need to commit to prayer for the people that are doing the work for the people that God still wants to reach with his word. Pray that God would continue to soften their hearts so that they’ll be prepared to hear the word.”

Header photo courtesy of Unsplash.

Mike Ansari with Heart4Iran says, “They’re asking the hard questions. Is there a God? Am I just an accident on this Earth? What is happening? What is the divine plan?”

Many Iranian Christians think they are alone. When they connect with Heart4Iran through Mohabat TV, they learn how many others Christians live in the country. Ansari says, “They think they are the only Christian families, isolated converts. And then they get to know that there is a huge family of Iranian believers outside of Iran and inside the country, praying for them.”

The power of prayer

Ansari has seen the power of this prayer.

One day, he met two Muslim men who wandered into a church. Their father was dying, and they were sad. Ansari went with them to the hospital and asked if he could pray to Jesus for the man. They not only agreed, but the whole family joined in.

Then, something remarkable happened. Ansari says, “As we prayed, the wife had her hands on the toes of her dying husband, just praying for him. And all of a sudden, she started screaming.”

The sick man moved in the middle of the prayer, despite having suffered a stroke and paralysis. Ansari says, “In about 30 seconds, the patient in a coma opened his eyes. And he sat up and said, ‘Jesus.’ And then he just laid back down.”

A family changed

Months later, the father and his family visited Ansari’s church. They said, “We want Jesus.”

The entire family, including in-laws and grandparents, became Christians. Ansari says, “Their son, the one that had come to church the first time, eventually became our Christianity 101 teacher at the church.”

(Header photo courtesy of Heart4Iran on Facebook) 

The flooding killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands, even creating a 100-kilometer-wide inland lake. The Pakistani government estimates the damage from the flooding to equal $30 billion.

Nehemiah with FMI says, “More than 2000 people have died because of the flooding. About 10 million people have lost everything. They are forced to live under the open sky.”

And the government is nowhere to be found. Nehemiah says, “Because of the financial and political instability in Pakistan, we cannot see any government official or any government effort.”

Get involved

Two FMI partners saw their houses and possessions washed away. FMI is sending help to these Christians as well as others who need help.

You can join the effort here. Nehemiah says, “Help our Christian brothers and sisters so they can help other people in the majority religion see God’s hand in their life and that there are other people ready to help them. Although it is not a good time, it is a good time to testify about Jesus Christ.”

Pray many in Pakistan will experience Jesus through the love of local Christians.

The header photo shows the effects of the flooding in Pakistan. (Photo courtesy of Ali Hyder Junejo, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Brian Dennett of AMG International says Indian Christians are no exception. “Our partners in India have been reporting just a dramatic [infection] increase in staff as well as students in schools and in health care centers that they’re doing there. [They’re also reporting] the very, very serious illness of some very key important leaders.” Dennett asks readers to pray for healing among these leaders and other Christians who are sick.

How did things get so bad?

Dennett talks about how things got so bad so quickly. “The population is enormous. And you also really see people living on top of each other. In such close proximity, it’s very easy to understand how this could happen. I also think that there was maybe a bit of overconfidence early in the year that the COVID-19 numbers had dropped, and that they were moving beyond it. And that just hasn’t been the case.”

Want to help? You can show the love of Jesus through AMG’s relief work for India. Learn more at amghelp.org.

(Header photo courtesy of ChocolateLr18, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

The Compassionate Care team with Audio Scripture Ministries stands in the gap for Mozambicans who need hospice or palliative care. They recently celebrated their 100th patient — a sobering milestone showing how necessary their care has been.

Joshua Harrison with ASM explains, “Our Compassionate Care team helps distribute God’s Word in audio to their patients, and they deliver basic hygiene products and medicine. They offer compassionate care being the hands and feet of Jesus to people who receive very little hospital care, palliative care, [or] pain medication.”

(Photo courtesy of Audio Scripture Ministries)

The Compassionate Care ministry was started in 2015 by ASM missionary Dara Vanden Bosch in Mozambique. “She saw a young girl suffer with uncontrolled pain and die. As a trained nurse, Dara wanted to help reach out to that need in the community.”

Since then, Harrison says, “She has been training a team of three Mozambican women who now make regular visits to patients.”

There are currently 24 patients being served by ASM’s Compassionate Care team. The weekly journey to see each patient is difficult, and the team has to go “deep into the bush over pretty wild roads, sometimes bringing the supplies, bringing the care, talking with the patients, taking care of basic medical needs, and praying with them as well as seeing what they are listening to on their audio Bible and answering questions.”

The audio Bible distribution is just as critical as the medical care, if not more so. While the Compassionate Care team meets temporal, physical needs, they also address spiritual needs.

ASM records and distributes audio Bibles around the world, and making these resources available to patients in Mozambique prepares them for eternity.

“As people are lying there, many times unable to move from their sick beds and their families maybe don’t even know how to take care of them, we come, we pray with them, we give them some basic medicine, [and] we see how God brings physical comfort as they are listening to the audio Bible and amazing spiritual peace to those who are turning to Him.”

(Photo courtesy of Audio Scripture Ministries)

Last month, ASM also celebrated World Hospice and Palliative Care Day. The theme was, “Because I matter.”

Harrison says, “This resonates with our vision for the Mozambican Compassionate Care team because everything that we’re doing there is because each person is precious to God.

“As believers, we know everyone matters to God. ‘For God so loved the world.’ It’s a basic, underlying principle of why God is doing what He is doing and why He is calling us to reach out and to love people and to bring them into His Kingdom to proclaim the Gospel.”

Knowing this truth — that each person is precious in the eyes of our Heavenly Father — how does that drive us to action?

One thing you can do is come alongside ASM and their Compassionate Care team as they provide palliative and hospice care to beloved men, women, and children in Mozambique.

“We ask you to pray for our team as they make these visits. The travel is often precarious. The situations are often difficult. Many times since many of these patients come when they are at death’s doorstep, a lot of times the team doesn’t have long with these patients. So pray for open hearts to receive the Gospel,” asks Harrison.

(Photo courtesy of Audio Scripture Ministries)

“Pray for strength for the team as they meet with and pray for these patients and help their families cope with loss, that God would strengthen our team and also that He would do great things in people’s lives.”

To learn more about partnering with ASM, click here!

Header photo courtesy of Audio Scripture Ministries.

Giving Your Prize Away

(Photo courtesy of Family Christian)

To help spread the message and love, Family Christian recently held a social media contest where the winner would have the opportunity to donate 120 Barnabas Bears to a charity of his or her choice.

Family Christian’s Daniel Warren explains, “It was one of those things when we first started looking at different ways to bless the communities that we’re involved with, and what we really wanted to do was reach out to our Facebook fans and say, ‘Here’s an opportunity.’ It’s kind of an unusual contest that, when I was thinking about it, usually when you win a contest you win something for yourself.”

Family Christian’s social contest winner was an Indiana schoolteacher, Jennifer Ellingwood.

“One of her students, a young lady by the name of Kennedy, has been battling cancer nearly her entire life. And this child had such a deep impact on the teacher that when she won the contest, she knew immediately how she wanted to use it.”

Ellingwood chose to donate the 120 Barnabas Bears to Riley Children’s Health at Indiana University Health, where her student Kennedy receives treatment. Kennedy is now five-years-old, but she has been battling a brain tumor since she was 19-months-old. Now, not only Kennedy has a Barnabas Bear to remember Christ’s love her, but so do 120 other children as well.

Warren says pictures from when the Barnabas Bears were handed out at Riley’s show how excited the kids were to get their bears. Since 2003, the Barnabas Bear is meant to make the abstract idea of Christ’s love concrete. Also, the bear’s name tag has a prayer the child can pray to accept Jesus into their hearts.

About the Barnabas Bear

(Photo Courtesy Family Christian Stores)

However, before worrying that the Barnabas Bear is just a regular teddy bear, know that it’s not. Each bear’s foot comes with an inscription that reads, “Jesus Loves You”.

Furthermore, Warren says the entire corporation gets involved when prepping the bear for production.

Family Christian staff vote on bears from numerous different locations until they find the one that is just right.

Warren takes it a step further in the bear’s design by having his children come in and give the different bears “hug tests” in order to find which one is the most ‘huggable’.

Want to donate a bear?

Barnabas Bears can be purchased online or in-store for only $5 a piece. At the time of purchase, guests can choose to give the bear away through Family Christian, or to take it with them and give the bear to a child they know who could use some extra love and the reminder that Christ is with them. Furthermore, Barnabas bears donated online are given to Back2Back Ministries.

Also, would you pray? Pray for these bears to continue to impact children and be a tangible way of experiencing Christ’s love and the Gospel. Pray also for these bears to continue to be put into children’s hands during those moments when these kids need the hope of a Savior and love of a Heavenly Father.

To purchase and donate a Barnabas Bear, click here!

Emmanuel: God with us
(Photo courtesy HCJB Global)

Ghana (HCJB) — Emmanuel wasn’t always called Emmanuel. His name today reflects a change that has come about in his life. Emmanuel means “God with us.” He didn’t always know or acknowledge that God was with him.

Emmanuel–or Tome as he was previously known–lives in a small village in New Bakpa in Ghana’s Volta region. For many years he suffered from lymphatic filariasis, a tropical disease more commonly known as elephantiasis. The illness is transmitted by mosquitoes carrying parasites that cause abnormal enlargement of body parts, resulting in pain and severe disability.

Emmanuel’s leg was swollen, and the skin had broken down, forming a large ulcerated area covering the bottom third of his leg. He believed that his suffering was caused by evil spirits. His family had abandoned him and his wife had divorced him, blaming his condition on his worship of idols.

In June a team of HCJB Global summer interns and medical professionals joined with staff members from Ghana-based partner Theovision International and traveled to the country’s Volta region. That’s where they first met Emmanuel, standing in the hot sun, waiting to be seen by doctors. Sheila Leech, HCJB Global Vice President of International Healthcare and a registered nurse, decided to clean his leg.

“I saw that his lower leg was covered with filthy rags, so I decided to clean it up to make it easier for the doctors to see what the problem was,” she said.

“As I took the rags away, my heart sank at the sight of what looked to be a huge necrotic sore on Emmanuel’s leg and foot. Necrosis usually needs to be surgically removed, and I was fearful that Emmanuel would lose his foot.”

However, as she gently cleaned the wound, she realized that the black appearance had to do with local remedies and leaves that had been applied. “There was a huge sore there, but maybe this leg could be saved,” Leech thought.

As doctors attended to him, Emmanuel shared his story with them. “Abandoned by family and friends because of the ugly malodorous leg that afflicted him, he literally had nobody to take him to the hospital and nobody to help pay his bills,” Leech explained.

Emmanuel was quoted as saying, “I inherited idols from my fathers. After years of practice, I realized that my leg was swelling up. There was nobody to take me to the hospital because my immediate family had abandoned me due to my idol worship.” Emmanuel was now living with a friend who also worshiped idols.

Two of the staff members from Theovision accompanied Emmanuel to the local hospital where he was given a clean dressing for his leg. However, Emmanuel would need further hospital visits for his dressing to be changed.

“Thankfully, the Theovision Bible listening club was able to continue supporting him with the help of HCJB Global donors who covered the costs of dressing changes and his bus fare to the hospital each week.

Four months later, HCJB Global missionary doctors Mark and Laurie Nelson and engineer Adeline McCartney were able to do a follow-up visit. They were astonished to find a man radiant and praising God. It was Emmanuel. His leg was healed, and through receiving love and kindness from members of the Bible-listening club, he had listened to the Word of God and committed his life to Christ.

“Now the elephantiasis–the disease that he thought was caused by evil spirits and threatened to consume him–had been conquered,” said McCartney. “And through this united witness, he has given his life to Christ and has been baptized with a new name: Emmanuel.”

Emmanuel is now attending a Bible-listening club and services at New Bakpa Baptist Church, but McCartney stressed the need for people to continue praying that he “wouldn’t be tempted to return to idol worship and that he’d be a witness to his idol-worshiping friend.”

“Emmanuel is a testimony to Jesus’ saving and healing power,” said Leech. “Emmanuel. God with us? Yes, all the time; not just at Christmas!”

One kind of natural disaster they are not prepared for: a cold
wave. Unusually cold weather has struck south Asia,
with dozens of people reported to have died in Bangladesh and
India as a result.

There are three distinct seasons in Bangladesh: a hot, humid
summer from March to June; a cool, rainy monsoon season from June to October;
and a cool, dry winter from October to March. In general, maximum summer
temperatures range between 30°C and 40°C (86 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit). April
is the warmest month in most parts of the country. January is the coldest
month, when the average temperature for most of the country is about 10°C (50
degrees F).

Compassion International Communications director Kathy Redmond
says although news is scarce about the situation, "We have about 2,000
families that are really suffering through this right now. Compassion is
providing blankets for people, and of course, they can go to the church project."
 

Nearly every walk of life has disrupted. Poor people in the northern region of the
country are the worst affected, Redmond adds. Families from 22 Compassion projects were
affected by the cold weather. "These are people who are used to living
in a tropical region, who have mud huts with dirt floors and corrugated roofs. They
don't have a lot of insulation from that cold. They don't really have a heat
source. They have never NEEDED a heat source."

Unable to buy warm clothes, poor people are struggling to ward off
cold bite at night. Compassion teams are
responding, says Redmond. "The country office is distributing the blankets, working with them and our partner churches at our Child Development
Centers. People can go there and get whatever they need."

There are widespread
reports of people wrapping themselves with gunny and plastic bags, torn cloth,
mosquito nets, etc. Coping with the cold
and damp reveals who is the most vulnerable. "This is really directly a poverty issue. When you have such cold
temperatures and you don't know how to survive it…you don't have the tools to
survive it."

As a result, there has been a reported wave of cold-related diseases like bronchial asthma,
pneumonia, coughing, and Rota viral diarrhea as children and the elderly are
hit hardest. In addition, there are concerns about how the
unusual turn in weather will affect the crops in the region. 

In the event of food shortages or medical needs, because of the
testimony of the believers working with Compassion, "They [people in the community] see the church as a place where they can go and get their needs
met," explains Redmond. And with that comes the Gospel. "The Gospel talks about loving your
neighbor, loving your brother, putting other people above yourself. I think
that's something that really resonates with people who haven't heard it."  

It's a hope they've not had before, but "people are being
able to see us as the hands and feet of Christ, and they are being able to see
the church as the body of Christ." Please pray for God's protection of those who
are not accustomed to the cold temperatures and for His care of those suffering
illness.

Guatemala is under water in several areas. "We've had about three weeks of rain, and there've been floods in different areas of the country," Gloria Caceres with Orphan Outreach tells us from Guatemala. "There've been about 17,000 people that have damages all over the country."

Orphan Outreach has not been directly affected so far–a fortunate feat since the ministry had a team there in the midst of storms just last week. But thousands around them have lost their homes or have been forced to flee. Caceres reports that entire communities have been wiped out and will need to relocate.

So far, the government has been unable to keep up with the relief and relocation efforts. The rain has yet to stop.

The longer clean-up processes take, the more potential for further disaster. Illnesses are already cropping up around the nation.

"We're still under Red Alert," notes Caceres. She says that many people "are already suffering from respiratory issues and have colds, and it might possibly turn into pneumonia due to the weather."

Diseases are frequent house-guests of major floods. Fortunately, Orphan Outreach is prepared to take on that challenge. The short-term team that was in the country last week not only was able to treat 500 patients with various conditions then, but they were also able to leave ongoing aid as they left.

"They were able to leave a lot of medicine that I'm going to relocate, and hopefully some of the affected people will get some of that medicine," says Caceres.

More than that, they were able to spread the Gospel to hundreds of children and adults. Pray that Orphan Outreach would be able to continue spreading Christ's love as they dispense the medicine.

Orphan Outreach has a school, a few orphanages, a clinic, and more in Guatemala. You can learn more about their work or support it when you click here.