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)

But for countless Christians, Ramadan means a special season of praying for Muslims to encounter Christ.

(Photo courtesy Prayercast)

“When God’s people pray, He moves,” says Suzanne Heegaard with Prayercast. “It’s a mysterious work — I don’t understand it. And it’s so exciting because He does not need us to save those who He’s going to save, but He invites us to be a part of the process.” 

If you know Christ, Heegaard invites you to join this year’s 30-day Ramadan prayer campaign. God has already been revealing Himself to Muslims in recent years in incredible ways, and you can be part of that mission. 

“He’s moving by the thousands. He’s showing up through Jesus in dreams and visions to Muslims worldwide, whether they have contact with a believer or not. He is showing up as Issa, their Messiah, telling them that He is the true light,” Heegard says.

Muslims have amazing faith, Heegaard says. “I’m pretty awestruck at their devotion, their discipline, to their faith. And yet, in their faith, there’s a lot of seeking to please Allah. There’s a fear of not being able to please him well. So for us to be praying for them during this time to know the love of Jesus that’s so freeing — [it] is just profound.”

Join this year’s Prayercast Ramadan challenge at www.prayercast.com.

“Sign up. Put your email in. You’ll get a prayer video each day from a Muslim-background believer, and you’ll get to pray along with that Muslim-background believer for Muslims,” says Heegaard.

(Photo courtesy Prayercast)

This year’s prayer challenge also puts you in sync with even more believers around the world. Prayercast has partnered with several other ministries to follow the same daily topic calendar of people groups, nations, and issues in the Muslim world. 

“It’s such a privilege to pray with fellow believers, to be a part of the work God’s already doing but He invites us into,” says Heegaard. 

The Prayercast Ramadan challenge is also available in Arabic on Facebook, Mandarin on YouTube, Portuguese on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and Spanish on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

(Graphic courtesy of Prayercast)

Header photo courtesy of Prayercast. 

While Christianity is legal in Egypt, converting from Islam is not, and conversion to Islam is encouraged. Though Christians make up about ten percent of the population, because of corruption, they can face obstacles getting permission to operate.  

Erik Ouimette with Uncharted Ministries says that when meeting someone in Egypt, their name is often the first giveaway to their religion. Many Muslim boys receive names like Jihad, Mustafa, Islam, and Osama, while Christian boys have names like Joseph, Samuel, or Mena.

“Inspiring the Body of Christ to rise up and join the new great awakening among Jews and Muslims in the Middle East and in uncharted territories around the world.” Caption and photo courtesy Uncharted Ministries.

Some of these converts choose to change their names to biblical ones like Paul or Sarah, but many choose to keep their Muslim names.

Ouimette says, “It is a shocking thing at first, but then an increasingly encouraging thing to meet a Muslim-background-believer, strong believer, with a great faith who can recite scripture and dwells on the Word of God like it’s the word of life, and have that person stick out their hand and say, ‘Nice to meet you. So encouraging to meet you. My name is Jihad (which means holy struggle or holy war in Arabic), or my name is Osama, and I love Jesus, or my name is Islam, but I’m not Islamic.’”

Christian Egyptians also face difficult decisions regarding school for children. The free Egyptian public schools are muslim-believing and teaching, and many Christian parents do not want their children to be instructed in the way of Islam. 

Some choose to keep their children at home and have them farm instead. As a result, there are more illiterate Christians, especially in rural areas. Uncharted Ministries provides tools like audio Bibles to meet these needs. 

Ouimette says, “The vast majority of the work that the uncharted team is doing is in the realm of helping share the good news about Jesus Christ to Muslims so that they might then come to a right understanding of who Jesus was, who Jesus is, and how they are then to live. We see this happening hundreds of times a year, thousands of times a year, where Muslims say, I’m no longer a Muslim. ” I’m now a follower of Jesus.” 

Please pray for the on-the-ground gospel work happening in Egypt, and that many will come to know Jesus Christ and experience a saving relationship with Him.

Pray that families will prayerfully seek wisdom in how they school their children. 

Pray that the Uncharted team will receive favor with security and that gatherings of Christians and Muslims will be passed over. 

Header Image by  abdelazizmagdy40 from Pixabay.

But there’s more than economic opportunity at play. In a similar way, spiritual doors are opening for Gospel work. “Syria has opened up,” Marc with Global Catalytic Ministries says.

“Because it’s now accessible for the first time in decades, we are starting work in Damascus.”

Working through a network of Syrian Christians, Marc says, “We’re going to be spreading to the north and south, building disciple-making communities, starting to see house churches formed, starting to see baptisms happen.”

Global Catalytic Ministries is known for equipping Muslim-background believers in underground churches across the Middle East. More about that here. These believers, once hesitant, are now eager to bring others to Christ.

“When our people come into contact, they’re already ready; the harvest is truly ready. We have a disciple maker sitting in Syria about to baptize a new believer tonight,” Marc says.

(Graphic courtesy of VOM Canada)

Still, eagerness doesn’t always come with experience. Many Christians from Muslim backgrounds long to share the Gospel but lack practical training.

“We’re seeing this massive hunger for disciples to be made,” Marc says.

“I sat in a room with 25 locals yesterday, pouring into them for about five hours on disciple-making strategies, and they’re like, ‘Tomorrow, more. Friday, more. We need more,’ because they’ve never had this before.”

This hunger offers hope in a region where traditional churches often struggle to grow.

“In this region, not many people are coming to the Lord because the churches are content with the status quo. They’re just moving Christian-background believers from church to church,” Marc says.

As Syria opens to new opportunities, believers see a rare chance to plant seeds of faith that could flourish for generations. Pray for training to take root, for leaders to rise up, and for the Gospel to spread like wildfire across the country.

Header image is a representative stock photo depicting a market in Damascus courtesy of Mahmoud Sulaiman/Unsplash.

A prominent human rights group accuses Sudan’s army of torturing people to death through “execution chambers.” Meanwhile, cholera has now spread to every state in Sudan, claiming at least 1,000 lives since January.

Additionally, famine-like conditions are deteriorating in refugee camps. Around 25 million people – nearly half of Sudan’s population – are facing severe hunger, while 3.5 million women and children suffer from malnutrition.

A Gospel worker we’ll call John says, “The situation continues to get worse.”

Refugees wait for water distribution. (Photo courtesy of Robert Stansfield/Department for International Development via Wikimedia Commons)

Yet hope remains. People are turning to the Lord as they encounter the peace only He can offer.

“One of the guys that I work with, who was an imam [and] became a Christian, he says, ‘In my lifetime, I never believed that I would see a Muslim come to know Christ. And then in the space of a year, I’m seeing them lead 50 to Christ,” John says.

With help from John’s ministry, which remains unnamed for security purposes, new believers from Muslim-majority Sudan learn how to share Jesus and start churches.

“We have about 26 teams: 15 are inside Sudan, and 11 are in refugee points outside Sudan. They’re all leaders we have trained at our school; [350] Muslim-background believers from 65 tribes,” John says.

“We’ve been working in Darfur for a long time. Many of the house churches that were underground in Darfur are displaced, and they’re now in Chad.”

While church planting is the believers’ primary focus, they offer limited aid whenever possible.

“We’ve given them training; we try to give some support,” John says. “We did a feeding program in Chad, just the 100 most vulnerable in three camps. We were able to feed for two months and give tarps for shelter. That’s all we could do.”

In recent weeks, the leaders held biblical trauma healing workshops, and 150 Muslims came to the Lord. “Satan wants hope to be contraband, because it is hope that removes the control of the enemy; it removes their power over a person’s life,” John says.

“Help cannot be brought without hope. It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ that makes a person whole on the inside.”

Ask the Lord for mercy. Pray He will introduce millions in Sudan to the peace only Christ can offer. Then, support the efforts of John’s organization here.

Header image is a representative photo courtesy of The Voice of the Martyrs USA. 

“Geographically, they are neighbors, but culturally they are extremely different. There is lots of discrimination going on in Egypt,” for example, “because of their color, their background,” he says. 

In Ethiopia, Sudanese are not welcome because of political differences. In Uganda, refugee camps exist but are often underserved. This plethora and diversity of challenge is experienced by the approximately 3 million IDP who fled to other countries  since Sudan’s civil war began on April 15, 2023. 

The Gospel and Darfuri diaspora

Sudan’s northwestern region of Darfur is especially ravaged by the ongoing conflict. Historically, the area has been distinctly Muslim. Eric says he knew of only one Christian from Darfur when he moved out of Sudan in 1995. Since then, spiritual transformation has rippled through the growing wave of refugees. 

“Today, the church is flourishing among the Darfuri people: in Chad, in Egypt, and even in Southern Sudan,” he says. 

Eric suggests that refugees from this region are responding to the Gospel for two main reasons. 

The first is disillusionment with Islam. 

“Those people are being killed by their own brothers and sisters, so we realize that Islam cannot be the solution that we have been always seeking out.”

The second reason is that Christians are proactively engaging displaced Sudanese with the love of Christ. 

“I just got back from Chad where I baptized in one day 250 Muslim-background believers from Darfur,” Eric says. 

Ministry to Muslim-background believers

The encouraging reality of a growing church among Darfuri diaspora is sobered by the unique challenges faced by Muslim background believers. Eric explains that they must overcome theological challenges as their worldview is overhauled; spiritual challenges as they seek freedom from the spirit of bondage; and liturgical challenges as they learn how to worship and mature in their newfound Christian faith. 

Growing up in a devout Muslim family, Eric experienced these obstacles firsthand. Before he became a believer, he witnessed genocide from the perpetrator’s perspective. 

“People got killed in Southern Sudan because they were followers of Christ. And I used to belong to the group that wanted to finish those people,” he says. 

That’s why when he became a follower of Jesus, the first thing Eric learned was how to live in peace with others. 

“And this is what we are lacking in Sudan. It’s not the political intellect or the resources, but we just don’t know how peace works,” he says.

Eric now serves the church of Muslim-background believers worldwide, working with Horizons International, an MNN partner based in Lebanon. 

“What we need as Muslim-background believers: people to help us find our identity in Christ,” he says. “Sometimes people think that we became Christians because Islam is bad. No. We became Christians because Jesus touched our hearts.”

He says ministries should seek to drive that point home by engaging with, listening to, and answering the questions of Muslim background believers, being careful not to provide content without context. 

Find your place in the story

In a short documentary about his conversion, Eric credits his salvation to a persecuted Christian’s 25 years of supplication on his behalf. This Christian was once the victim of a brutal attack by Eric himself, years before he knew the Lord.

“That’s the answer to persecution, to hate,” he concludes. “It’s prayer.” 

Please pray for the country of Sudan. Pray that the warring parties, primarily the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, would seek peace in the best interest of their people. 

Pray also for the Darfuri people and other refugees fleeing the country. Pray that in the midst of turmoil, they would encounter the transforming love of Jesus Christ. 

Click here to financially support Bishop Yassir Eric’s ministry in Sudan. 

(Photo of Khartoum, Sudan courtesy of Ammar Nassir via Unsplash)

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Middle East/Near East (MNN) — God sends hope into the unrest of the Middle East and Near East today through a simple tool called “Storytellers” for kids.

These devices from Keys for Kids are handheld players loaded with audio Bibles and more. They’ve been translated in Urdu, Pashto and soon to be Farsi to reach entire communities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and beyond! 

Greg Yoder says they’ve heard incredible stories from distributions just this year. “Where we’re actually seeing not just kids coming to faith in Christ, not only memorizing Scripture, not only memorizing the stories, but adults being able to see the simplicity of what it means to follow Jesus Christ and want that in their own lives.” 

In recent years, one player somehow reached the son of a tribal chief in Pakistan. He was notorious as a bad, troublemaking boy, but two days after he started listening, his dad said, “What is going on with you? You’re now a nice kid. What is going on?”

(Photo of a boy in Pakistan with a Storyteller courtesy of Keys for Kids Ministries)

His son said, “I know Jesus.” 

“What do you mean you ‘know Jesus’?” 

After his son started playing the storyteller for him, the chief then ordered 200 more players for other village kids. After the kids began to change, he instructed the imam to play the devotional content from the village mosque loud speaker. The village began to change!

There’s another layer! Not only Muslims but also Christians need the encouragement and content on these audio players. 

“The pastors and evangelists and lay leaders in this area of the world are saying they’re game changers, not just for evangelism, but for discipleship, because some of these pastors are learning more about the Bible than they’d ever known before,” says Yoder. 

“Since most of these pastors haven’t been Christians for very long — Muslim background believers — they’re learning as if they were a child learning about Scripture.” 

Today Keys for Kids is raising funds for thousands of players to load with content in Pashto, Urdu and soon Farsi. The opportunity is urgent, and the potential for impact is incredible! 

“Those two languages (Pashto and Urdu) need 10,000 units right now. Then, the Farsi translation project has already been started,” Yoder says. 

“We’re being told by pastors, especially in Pakistan, that they could use 3,000 units a month.”

Find your place in this story! Join the campaign with Keys for Kids to reach families in the Middle East and beyond with the hope of Jesus.

Header photo: Ameen, the son of a tribal leader in Pakistan, had a reputation as a rude and rebellious boy. However, his actions and attitude began to change after receiving a Storyteller. (Photo, caption courtesy of Keys for Kids)

“For seeing a lot of Muslims receive Christ – some of them dramatic conversions – but they don’t last long,” he says. “Within a year, two years, even up to ten years, they withdraw, backslide, go into the world, or return to Islam.” 

Three decades ago, when Houssney became aware of this, he sought the Lord in the spirit of John 15:8, “This is to my Father’s glory that you bear much fruit.”

Later in the chapter, Jesus emphasizes what kind of fruit:

“Fruit that will last.” 

God answered Houssney’s prayers with the idea for a discipleship curriculum, one Houssney created 30 years ago and has been using with thousands of Muslims ever since. The thrust of the program is a weeklong training conference. 

“In one week, what can you do?” he asks. “What I can do is basically explain to them what it means to be a Christian: lifestyle, disciplines, and worldview.”

Beyond the week, participants receive a two-year supply of study material and are encouraged to form groups of like-minded believers to grow in discipleship together. The curriculum is available in Arabic, English, and French, with more translations underway. Houssney has used it with Arabs, Turks, Albanians, and others from across the Muslim world. He is observing its impact. 

“Rather than 80% recanting, now we have about 10 to 20%.”

But this begs the question: if Muslim believers grasp the Gospel at conversion, why do so many of them fall away? 

Houssney thinks it has to do with Christians’ approach to evangelism. Often, we proclaim the Gospel with an emphasis on grace and freedom found in Christ. This paradigm shift is attractive to Muslims who come from an extremely moralistic background. While it is true that Christ offers freedom, oversimplification of a grace-based theology can be problematic for Muslims. 

“It’s accurate theologically, but the impression they get is, ‘I’m free from all these restraints and requirements that God has put on me,’” Houssney says. “And so they don’t go to church, they don’t read the Bible, they don’t even pray. They don’t know how to pray.” 

Those who do go to church or pray often maintain an Islamic lifestyle, Houssney says. James 2:14 comes into play here: 

“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?”

Please pray that ongoing Cubs to Lions trainings would be effective. Pray that Muslim-background believers would be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. Pray that their faith would transform every aspect of their lives and produce lasting, Godly fruit. 

Houssney says his biggest prayer request is for disciple makers: people who are willing to bring new converts into their homes, lives, and fellowships.

“Give them the theology of suffering, the theology of the cost of discipleship, the theology of exchanging the pleasures of this world with leading a life that is Godly, holy, and sanctified,” Houssney asks.

For mature believers, here lies a starting point for discipleship ministry: 

“Those things need to be taught but also modeled.”

Featured images courtesy of Horizons International

“Five years ago, no Sudanese would have ever believed that what is happening to them and their country could ever take place,” a Gospel worker we’ll call John* says.

“Many of those who are displaced outside of Sudan feel that they have no real country to return to.”

The war triggered the world’s largest and fastest-growing displacement crisis, while famine has been confirmed in several areas of Sudan. Over half of Sudan’s population – more than 30 million people – need help to survive another day.

(Photo courtesy of Robert Stansfield/Department for International Development via Wikimedia Commons)

The region’s dominant religion offers little help. John says, “Sudanese from all strata of society are genuinely and desperately seeking inner peace, and Islam is generally silent.”

Yet hope remains. “In the middle of everything we’re talking about, more are coming to Christ out of Islam than [at] any other time in our ministry,” John says.

“God is moving in a powerful way.”

We can’t mention John’s group’s name for security purposes, but it offers evangelism and discipleship training, trauma healing, and targeted relief. Your support keeps this work going.

“It (the relief aid is) opening doors; within two months of doing that, we had 50 house churches, and we’re having baptisms in IDP camps,” John says.

“We’ve trained and sent out over 325 Muslim background believers from 61 tribes of Sudan, and they are all among their people, serving.”

Will you keep Sudan on your prayer list? “Prayer releases God’s power for ministry,” John says.

“As you pray for the people of Sudan, pray for God’s healing power to be released into broken hearts, bodies, and spirits. Pray for the growth of the Church in Sudan and its diaspora. Pray for growth and multiplication among the churches being planted.”

*Pseudonym

Header image depicts Sudanese refugees who have fled the conflict in Sudan register for food aid in neighboring Chad. (Photo courtesy of FCDO/Russell Watkins via Wikimedia Commons) 

Since the late nineties, all religious organizations in Kyrgyzstan have had to officially register with the Ministry of Justice in order to operate. While the national mandate originally required groups to submit proof of 200 founding members, the new law increases that number to 500. These members must be current, adult residents of the region where the religious group operates. 

But Greg Musselman with VOM Canada says the number is unrealistic. Even if a group had that many initial members, some may have passed away or moved out of the area since the group’s founding. 

“The government in Kyrgyzstan obviously has realized that by putting on more of these oppressive measures toward the churches, it’s going to cause the churches to stop meeting. And that’s ultimately what their goal is,” Musselman says. 

He has seen this play out in other countries. 

“It basically causes the churches to have to go underground because they will not be able to meet publicly,” he explains. 

Government restrictions are often a first step toward tighter national clampdown on Christianity. Thus, Musselman isn’t surprised to see these kinds of laws coming from Islamic countries. The question, he says, is how will believers react? In his experience, persecution can embolden believers.

“It can actually cause the church to become stronger and more committed.”

Matthew 16:18 reminds us that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. But while some believers are firmed up by resistance: 

“There will be others that will be very timid. They will stop meeting, and we know that when there’s not a community of believers gathering together, it can really cause a lot of problems for individual Christians,” Musselman points out.

Rural Kyrgyzstan. Courtesy of EJ Wolfson via Unsplash.

Muslim-background believers face constant pressures from family and society, which are often more persuasive than those coming from the government. Because Islam is so woven into society’s fabric, any conversion to Christianity is seen as a threat. 

“That disrupts, in their mind, the culture,” Musselman says. Fear of Christianity prevails even when Christians practice good citizenship while carrying out their faith. “When you have a government that doesn’t see it that way or a society that doesn’t see it that way, that’s where you’ll see more of the opposition.”

Muslim-background believers have much to overcome, and their future is uncertain. 

“It gets back to: how strong are some of them?” says Musselman. “For them, leaving Islam is a big step in itself.” 

This is a tremendous prayer opportunity. Please pray not only for the salvation of citizens in Kyrgyzstan, but also for ongoing courage and growth amidst ostracization from family and society. Pray also for ministries in Kyrgyzstan. Musselman and several of his VOM Canada colleagues are focused on teaching a theology of persecution, especially to leaders who can spiritually equip their own flocks. 

“The key thing is discipleship,” he says, “and also to encourage them, saying ‘You’re not alone. What kind of resources do you need?’”

Please pray that Christians in Kyrgyzstan won’t compromise. Pray that church leaders would have wisdom and words before government officials. Pray that believers would have clarity about how to proceed as congregations under new restrictions, and pray that they would love those persecuting them. 

Featured image courtesy of Jacqueline Macou from Pixabay