Qatar (Photo courtesy of Ayush Pappini via Unsplash)

On Wednesday, Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gas field. Iran responded on Thursday with strikes across the Gulf region, which included a gas facility at Qatar’s Ras Laffan plant. These events have made crude oil prices even more volatile. 

As the economic impacts of the war spread across the world, so do the psychological and human costs. Fadi Sharaiha from the MENA Leadership Center recognizes people growing numb to living under sirens, missiles, and drone strikes. 

“This is what we call the mechanism of defense for people. If you are going through a trauma, what happens is you justify the trauma, or you normalize it,” he says. “This is really a dangerous I would say ‘mental health’ concern that I have for people.”

Iranian boy in a jacket (picture courtesy of Hiva Sharifi via Unsplash)

The numbers surrounding this war keep rising, yet Sharaiha notes, “The first casualty in a war is truth. So nobody knows really the numbers, or what is really happening on the ground.” 

Even with the mass of data in Middle East news reports, the fact remains that every person who has been killed was made in God’s image, as well as every person displaced or suffering any kind of loss. 

“For me, those are not numbers. Those are faces. Those are people who are created in God’s image. They have aspiration, goals, feelings, emotions. They want to live their lives,” says Sharaiha. 

Find your place in the story

As Christians watch the news and pray, Sharaiha urges us to think personally, “to have a face to the number.”

“Please pray for the peace in the Middle East,” he says. “Pray for those people who are being displaced — like 1 million people in Lebanon.”

Lebanon (Stock photo courtesy of Nathan McBride via Unsplash)

Pray for endurance for Christians in the Gulf region. This is so important, because Sharaiha says, “It’s very easy to lose focus and faith whenever you’re going through a trauma, war, or conflict.” 

Also, pray a big-picture prayer! Ask God to use His people around the world to speak the true hope of Christ in significant ways during the Middle East conflict. This is tied to what Sharaiha calls “the prophetic voice” of the Church. 

“That [prophetic voice] is not politics. We need to go back to peace-building, reaching the unreached, loving people, and making sure that we are available for people to help and support,” he says. 

In early March, the MENA Leadership Center’s most recent online training was attended by students whose countries were being bombed in the newly-begun US-Israel-Iran war. Sharaiha says future courses will include an introduction to refugee ministry and a course on conflict resolution. 

“We are trying to respond to whatever is happening today, on the ground of people going through war, going through trauma, going through bad times,” he says. 

Learn more about the ministry and mission at menaleadershipcenter.com. 

Header photo courtesy of a user named Pavellllllll on Pixabay.

With Qatar’s mediation, the two parties agreed to establish an international committee to oversee their stalled July ceasefire. 

Pastor James Byensi serves with Rebuilders Ministry, a partner of Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF). He says war-torn Congo desperately needs the prayers, advocacy, and support of the global Church.

Photo of North Kivu and Ituri Provinces courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

“In these 30 years, we have lost over 10 million people, and we have over 13 million displaced people,” he says. 

He explains that the war centers on the Congo’s rich natural resources more than anything else.

“The cobalt, the gold, the rare earth minerals which are finding their way into our phones, our tablets, our homes, they are coming from the Congo. And they are coming in exchange [for] millions of deaths,” he says. “So awareness is needed.” 

He says 152 rebel groups operate in the nation and that in eastern Congo’s Ituri Province alone, there are between seven and nine known militia groups. This makes traveling by road dangerous. For Pastor Byensi, flying is the only way to reach other areas.

“We thank God for MAF, because they have airfields almost everywhere. Whenever we have to travel for any mission, we benefit from their partnership and their help,” he says.

(Photo courtesy of MAF)

The DRC’s biggest challenge today is the rise of Islamic extremist groups.

“Nowadays, they are burning churches and killing people, slaughtering people. This is way more brutal than it has ever been,” Pastor Byensi says. 

This makes the mission of Christians especially dangerous. Rebuilders Ministry focuses on evangelism, discipleship, peacemaking, humanitarian aid, vocational training, and other initiatives as the hands and feet of Christ.

“The risk is very high, especially because of the rebel groups. They don’t want you to work towards peace and evangelizing for peace,” says Pastor Byensi. 

Now that you know, please commit to pray, advocate for, and support gospel ministry in the Congo. 

Header photo courtesy of Mission Aviation Fellowship. 

The airstrike came one day after terrorists killed six people and wounded more than 20 in Jerusalem. Hamas claimed responsibility for that attack. 

“This has shown the world that Israel is not messing around. They want to get Hamas out of Gaza,” says Tom Doyle with Uncharted Ministries. “But then, on the other hand, you look at Israeli hostages that are still trapped. What’s going to happen to them? Will there be a retaliation?”

Palestinian man. Image courtesy of hosnysalah via Pixabay.

The situation is incredibly complex. But Doyle shares that Palestinian Christians have strong opinions about Hamas. 

“As [the strikes] happened, we were getting texts from former Muslims in Gaza that were thrilled that, as they said, ‘The people who have made our lives miserable in Gaza — Hamas — are slowly going. So many of the leaders are gone now.’” 

Behind the headlines, Doyle says, believers in both Gaza and Israel are seeing greater openness to the gospel. 

“In the midst of the war, there are Muslim background believers with joy on their face,” says Doyle. “They’ve had times where they were struggling to get food without getting shot at or robbed, yet now they have the fruit of the Spirit on their face.” 

Their joy is leading fellow Palestinians to ask them why, leading to a chance to share about Christ. 

In Israel, Doyle says that one man who survived the Holocaust recently passed away. He had resisted the gospel for decades, believing that Nazis were Christians. But another Christian prayed for him for more than 20 years. At age 98, the man received Jesus as his Savior. 

“He became someone [who] just started sharing with his Jewish friends about Jesus,” Doyle said. “He would say this: ‘I don’t have a lot of time left in life, so I may not get to ever talk with you again. So please listen to what I say.’”

A Palestinian believer and Jewish believer pray together at the Gaza fence.
(Photo, caption courtesy of Uncharted Ministries)

This man passed away recently. At the funeral, his son accepted Christ. 

Find your place in the story

Pray for people to come to know Christ all across the Middle East. 

“[Lasting peace] won’t happen through government or the UN or any one country. Only Jesus can bring peace in their hearts, to where people won’t hate each other and the war won’t just keep going on and on and on,” Doyle says. 

“What we’re praying right now is for peace and for a great awakening in the Middle East, where millions are turning to Jesus as Savior.” 

Header photo courtesy of Kyle Glenn via Unsplash. 

This development comes a week after the president of the United States made a similar pledge to remove sanctions on Syria. 

“It sounds like the push is for other Arab nations — like Saudi, like Qatar — to make a huge push of investment into Syria to reestablish, rebuild infrastructure, recreate jobs, create opportunities for Syrians once again,” says Samuel* with Redemptive Stories. 

“Syria, before the war, was very self-sufficient. They have a lot of industrial experience and skills. Even before the war, [they were] quite tied off from the rest of the world and able to exist very comfortably in that kind of environment.”

Boy sitting in a broken car in Syria. (Photo courtesy of Ahmed akacha/Pexels)

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has promised to make Syria a place where all communities are protected. But episodes of sectarian violence have challenged that. Hundreds were killed in the early March attacks on predominantly Alawite villages. Syria’s Druze community has also been impacted by violence. 

“The Christians are asking themselves, ‘When will our turn be?’” says Samuel. “So there’s still deep concern and fear among all the minorities that this new government does not have the right visions of what a pluralistic society could look like for them.”

Find your place in the story

It’s a new economic season for Syria, but there’s a deeper reality facing the global Church. 

“It is a great opportunity for the Church to stand with the Syrian church and say, ‘No, we will walk with you through these waters, and we will help you and invest in you,’” says Samuel. “We’re already seeing that change in some way, shape, or form occur. More organizations have been able to go in after the fall of Assad’s [regime] to help, and [the fact of] these sanctions being removed will even help more.”

Pray for Syrian believers. Years of economic challenges have pushed many Christians to leave their homeland. Today, the threat of persecution adds another layer of impetus. Yet Samuel says many who could leave instead choose to stay for the sake of Christ. 

“They’re saying that more than ever, they’re seeing other minority groups like the Alawites and the Druze respond to the gospel — and the Kurds in the North.” 

*Name changed for security

Header photo: A gathering of the people and residents of Daraa city in Al-Karama and Al-Hurriya Square after the fall of Bashar Al-Assad (Photo, caption courtesy of Mahmoud Sulaiman via Unsplash).

The negotiations are set against a backdrop of heightened tensions. Israel recently stopped supplying electricity to Gaza in an effort to put pressure on Hamas. The Israeli delegation hopes to secure the release of the 59 hostages still left in Gaza.

Hamas parade (Photo by Fars Media Corporation, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=134754919)

Pastor Tes Kahasi with Beit Hallel Congregation in Ashdod says Israelis have differing views on where to go from here.

“There are some groups, especially on the left wing, they say that we have to release the hostages with any price. And there is the other group, the right wing especially, they say no, we can’t pay the whole price. Because with this terrorist group, if we pay them the whole price, if we give them everything that they want, we are just pushing them to do the same thing next time. That means kidnapping other people, kidnapping other kids.”

It’s a stark risk, underscored by the still-fresh memory of the returned bodies of the two youngest October 7th hostages, Ariel and Kfir Bibas. Forensic evidence revealed they were brutally murdered “in cold blood” by their terrorist kidnappers.

Amidst these challenges and fears, believers in Israel are pointing people to a greater hope.

“People are hearing the national TV, the news, and everything — and they are frustrated,” says Kahasi. “They are full of fear…. When we are trying to solve the problem of this country, laying on politicians and different kinds of secular personalities, we couldn’t find hope. We couldn’t find peace.

“But we are preaching the Gospel of Christ, and we are preaching this Gospel in our church. So we say to the congregation every time that the hope of this nation is Yeshua.”

Please pray for godly wisdom, peace, and trust in Christ.

Learn more about Beit Hallel Congregation here!

Header photo of Doha, Qatar. (Photo courtesy of Radoslaw Prekurat/Unsplash)

Todd Nettleton with The Voice of the Martyrs USA says the economy of Qatar is powered by immigrant workers. “Many come from Asia and Africa. And many of those are Christians. Most of the talk about the World Cup as it relates to human rights has been about the workers who were hired to build the stadiums, hotels, roads, and everything needed to put on the Cup. And the working conditions were very difficult and bad for those people.”

Human rights advocates have also criticized Qatar for its harsh treatment of women and LGBT people. Women in Qatar cannot leave the house without a male escort. To marry, work in a government job, or access healthcare, they first need male permission. LGBT people have often been arrested without cause and assaulted by police.

Religious persecution

Nettleton says Christians have a similar target on their backs.  “Qatari citizens are predominantly Sunni Muslim. They are expected to remain Sunni Muslim until they die. Outreach to them is closely watched and is forbidden. Anyone who is a Qatari Christian must be very secretive about that.”

“There are places where foreign Christians can worship in Qatar. But they cannot evangelize.”

The danger comes from the government but also from their own families. Ask God to give them boldness as they share Jesus’ story.

Pray also that they have access to Bibles, whether in paper or digital form. Nettleton says, “The Voice of the Martyrs is also working with Qatari Christians, especially converts who face persecution, maybe being kicked out of their families. So you can respond practically through ministries like The Voice of the Martyrs.”

The header photo shows a scene from the World Cup in Qatar before a match between Korea and Uraguay. (Photo courtesy of Korea.net / Korean Culture and Information Service [Photographer name], CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons) 

According to Reuters, most of Yemen’s reported COVID-19 infections were discovered within the last ten days; health experts say this indicates community transmission. At the same time, the World Health Organization is closing dozens of its major health programs over the coming weeks.

Along with 24 million Yemenis requiring humanitarian aid to survive, “[15.9] million of the people in Yemen are already suffering from hunger [and] you’ve got five years of civil war that has ravaged the country,” Nathaniel explains.

“All of [these conditions] set it up to be a potentially catastrophic situation when you layer COVID-19 on top of it.”

More Yemen headlines here.

Arabian Peninsula vs. COVID-19

At press time, the number of COVID-19 cases in Yemen stood at a mere 128 with only 20 deaths. On Thursday, an NGO worker in southern Yemen warned of underreporting and described these conditions to BBC News:

Our teams on the ground are seeing how people are being sent away from hospitals, breathing heavily or even collapsing. People are dying because they can’t get the treatment that would normally save their lives. There are patients who go from hospital to hospital and yet cannot get admitted.

Arabian Peninsula countries identified in green. (Image courtest of Wikipedia)

“You’ve got hospitals that are closed that have been damaged by the war; you’ve got people dying that can’t even get treatment,” Nathaniel adds. “There are only 500 ventilators in the entire country, and only four labs that can that can even test for the virus.” More about facilities and resources here.

Yemen isn’t the only country struggling to contain COVID-19.

“The peoples of the Arabian Peninsula have been hit extremely hard and are suffering greatly as a result of the virus,” Nathaniel says.

“Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait — these countries are reporting significant numbers, in terms of positive tests and even deaths relative to the total population.”

Coronavirus prevalence in Saudi Arabia is prompting officials to reinstate restrictions, even during Ramadan – one of Islam’s most significant rituals. Face masks recently became mandatory in Qatar and Kuwait; yesterday, Bahrain’s COVID-19 caseload rose by 200.

How to help

Now that you know, how will you respond? Pray this difficult season would cause people of different faiths to seek and encounter Christ. Islam started in the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century and quickly became the region’s dominant religion.

(Photo courtesy of Milada Vigerova via Unsplash)

“Pray for all the people in the AP; just pray for the Lord’s mercy to bring a halt to the spread of this virus… it’s going to take supernatural mercy,” Nathaniel says.

“Pray believers will stay strong in their faith, trusting in the Word of God and His promises. It’s so hard not to be shaken by the situation and circumstances around us.”

Use the prompts listed alongside this article to pray specifically for Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula. Pray globally using this Prayercast special.

*– Name changed for security purposes.

Header image is a representative stock photo obtained via Pixabay.

The end goal is seeing biblically-healthy churches form and multiply among 90 unreached people groups of the Greater Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan.

“There are multiple organizations that try to reach people groups, and with some measure of success, but rarely do you bring all the ministry sectors together in one effort,” says David Pope, President of POPE Initiatives.

Specific efforts include “Bible translation, which typically exists in a silo; orality, prayer mobilization, any kind of media approach; along with the things we call the core missiological tasks: proclaiming the Gospel, making disciples, and developing leaders,” Pope says.

How to reach a region for Christ

Traditionally viewed as an Islamic stronghold, the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan are home to approximately 395 unreached people groups. While definitions vary, WorldAtlas.com identifies 19 countries as being part of the MENA region: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. POPE Initiatives and its partners expanded their regional focus to include Pakistan because it contains a large number of unreached people groups.

(Photo courtesy of Prayercast)

In unreached communities, most people have never heard of Jesus and have no access to the Gospel. There are no, or very few, indigenous missionaries because less than two-percent of an unreached people group knows Christ – that’s what keeps them “unreached.”

Thankfully, it’s all about to change. “We have a great opportunity to see the Gospel spread and churches multiply where they aren’t, at least not yet, in that part of the world,” Pope explains.

“If we can foster biblically healthy churches and multiply them in this region, it’ll impact the entire Muslim world.”

Instead of working in “silos”, hundreds of ministry workers are combining their skills and resources in one collaborative effort. This task is monumental, to say the least, and there’s a critical place for you in the story.

“I think everybody’s heard the three ‘pray, give, and go’ [responses] but, for us, prayer mobilization and intercession is not an afterthought. It’s actually the groundwork before we go in,” Pope says.

Find your place in the story

Join MNN and our sister ministry, Prayercast, in surrounding this initiative in prayer. Use this video to start.

(Stock photo obtained via Pixabay)

“We’re working with Prayercast to produce prayer awareness videos for every people group in this initiative, so we’re generating prayer on a grand scale globally,” Pope says. “We’re also engaging large-scale prayer networks around the world to [translate] these prayer tools into major languages like Portuguese, Mandarin, and Korean.”

If God’s blessed you with resources and you’d like to support this effort financially, contact POPE Initiatives here. “The beauty of this is you’re not really investing in a project… or a ministry partner, you’re investing in a process,” Pope says.

Sign up for daily emails here to learn which unreached people groups are next on the list.

Header image courtesy of Prayercast.

Christians face extremely high levels of persecution in the nine countries of the Arabian Peninsula: Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Converting from Islam to Christianity is forbidden and even carries the death penalty in some AP nations.

The AP is also a hotbed for Islamic extremism. Church growth seems extremely unlikely in conditions like these. But that’s exactly what’s happening according to Chris*, a believer whose organization supports persecuted AP Christians.

(Wikipedia)

“Twenty years ago, [there were] no believers,” he says. Today, God is raising up Christian leaders in the region through Chris’s organization.

“I think that’s incredible, what God is doing…I want to tell you in order to get more engagement, to have you praying and…standing with us to reach out to the local believers.”

Some AP citizens spend their summer holidays in Europe, where believers reach them with the Good News. Others encounter Christ through dreams and visions. Media ministries reach yet another group of people.

In Yemen, the “[Holy] Spirit is working more ‘forcefully’; we see fruit and a lot of believers coming together,” Chris shares.

Praise God with us for this development, and please continue circling the Arabian Peninsula in prayer. The number of believers in the Arabian Peninsula is still very small, and they often get discouraged by their minuteness.

“Pray that God will open the gates,” Chris requests. “Although we are thankful for the believers that God is bringing, my prayer is that God will open the gates a little bit wider so that we could see 10 to 15 in one place coming to faith.”

Pray also for Christian women, as they experience isolation to an even further degree.

“[It’s a challenge for] ladies…to come out of their houses, even. That’s just the way that society has built itself,” explains Chris.

Ask the Lord to connect Chris and his organization with nonbelievers who’re seeking to truly know God. Pray strength and encouragement for the small but growing number of AP believers.