Earlier this year, the ministry sent another shipping container to landlocked Malawi in southern Africa. (More on that update here.) The Bibles and Christian books in that container are now getting into peoples’ hands! 

Jason Woolford, the president of Mission Cry, says of their local partner in Malawi: “They do three things, and do it very well: minister to orphanages, [engage in] prison ministry, and then they have a mobile library.”

This bookmobile is a truck loaded with potential to reach anyone with the gospel.

“We stop, we put out signs, start distributing and then move on to the next town,” Woolford says. “So we’re able to get into some of these areas where someone may not be in prison or in the orphanage, [they] might not be in church, but they’re willing to take a book and read about our Lord and Savior.” 

You can play a part in this story! Is there a Christian book on your shelf you think someone in another country could benefit from? Consider donating it to Mission Cry! Visit Mission Cry’s website to learn how to send books.

Woolford says these books could be “any Bibles, Christian-authored books, seminary materials — and what I mean by seminary materials would be Bible commentaries, Bible dictionaries, study Bibles, etc — and then Christian education [materials].”

(Photo of Malawi courtesy of Mission Cry)

If you don’t have books but want to sponsor this Malawi shipment, Mission Cry invites you to join them. Because of the generosity of partners to date, they have been able to ship more than 480 million dollars’ worth of Bibles and Christian resources to 278 countries.

“[Malawi] is a regular place that we send to when we get the containers funded,” says Woolford. It usually costs $11,000 to send a shipping container with half a million dollar’s worth of Christian materials.

“Malawi is double that cost because it’s landlocked and it’s very difficult to get to those areas. We sent this on faith,” he explains. “If those that are listening [or reading] want to partner with us in supporting this container, we would appreciate that.”

Header photo of Malawi courtesy of Mission Cry.

Hong Kong is also a stop along the way to bring the Bible deeper into Asia. 

Jason Woolford with Mission Cry says, “This year, they finally lifted the COVID restrictions [so] now people are able to travel if you have a good social score. In other words, [if] you haven’t been in trouble, or you’re following the rules of the Chinese government, then that allows you to freely travel within certain places in China and to Hong Kong.”

(Photo courtesy of Mission Cry)

With a Mission Cry shipping container awaiting them in Hong Kong, Christians from northern China risked the journey south to bring Scripture to their communities.

“We were able to get [these believers] down into the south and gave each of them about 20 pieces of the Book of John in simplified Chinese and other materials. I’m happy to report that all of them have made it back to the north and they’re distributing the Word of God as we speak (in late July 2024).”

Around 400 Books of John or children’s Bibles were distributed. Woolford says each book will likely be shared among 20 people, for an estimated impact of 8,000 people. 

Mainland China isn’t the only focus at Mission Cry. Woolford says one of their goals is to send two more containers to Hong Kong the next five months. 

“At Hong Kong University, our materials are being distributed and used by students there for evangelism and for outreach,” he says. 

Please support Mission Cry’s work through your prayers. Now is the time that they have the means, the partnerships and God’s favor to do this work in Asia.   

“Be praying that we continue to have protection over our team there — that we continue to have inroads to be able to do this when so many others do not have that opportunity,” Woolford says. 

Visit missioncry.com learn how you can sponsor an upcoming shipping container full of Christian resources. Each container carries over half a million dollars’ worth of Bibles and Christian resources and costs only $11,000 to send. 

Header photo courtesy of Mission Cry. 

Firefighters responded to the blaze but used water on incorrectly labeled hydrogen peroxide. This caused further explosions that killed some firefighters and even people in the surrounding streets. A few residents were killed after approaching the fire to film it on their phones.

Chittagong sits on the Bay of Bengal and is Bangladesh’s second-most populous city.

Bruce Allen with FMI compares the tragedy to the Beirut explosion of August of 2020. “Reports that I received say the debris from the explosion was found a third of a mile away from the blast site. And the impact area was at least one and a half miles around the site, shattered windows and all that sort of thing.”

FMI has a thriving church plant in Chittagong. FMI partners from other areas are on their way to the city to help with the recovery process. Pray their love would point many to Jesus.

Industrial disasters

The fire broke out at a shipping container depot outside the city.

This isn’t the first time Bangladesh has suffered an industrial accident through carelessness. Just last year, fires at a food processing plant and a factory both killed around 50 people. Another 39 people died when a fire broke out on a ferry that was traveling at 170 percent passenger capacity.

Over 70 people died in 2019 when a fire from a warehouse spread into a neighborhood. And in 2013, the collapse of a building killed 1,136 people.

Allen says, “Pray for Bangladeshi society in general, as a nation, that they would recognize the significant need to reform their construction codes, their business practices, and their safety procedures.”

The header photo shows the port of Chittagong in the morning. (Photo courtesy of A junaid alam khan, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

The October 1 rally, entitled “Stop Religious Conversions,” had heavy political support in the Chhattisgarh region. Chhattisgarh also has anti-conversion laws, designed by Hindu extremists to harass religious minorities.

Mission Cry’s work

Many Hindus throughout India claim that huge numbers of conversions to Christianity or Islam threaten their religion. Despite this, Mission Cry has seen a great demand for Bibles and Christian books in neighboring Odisha State in Eastern India, the home of many ancient Hindu temples.

Jason Woolford says, “We’ve sent two containers, actually, to that area for the sake of evangelism. We also want to get three seminaries credentialed there. We provided over $2 million worth of free Bibles and Christian books, in order to help all three of the seminaries have a lending library and a seminary library.”

You can help finance the shipping containers Mission Cry uses to transport these materials. Ask God to use this ministry to fill many hearts with the hope of Jesus. Woolford says, “People have the ability to sponsor the Mission Cry Bible at $2 a Bible, producing that and getting it in the hands of somebody overseas. You can also mail extra copies of your Bibles and Christian books that are sitting on your shelf.”

The header photo shows a Hindu temple in Odisha State. (Photo courtesy of Supgiri, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

The U.S. imports many goods from overseas, including semiconductors, car parts, rapid COVID-19 tests, and even shipping containers themselves. The country has often relied on cheaper labor available in other countries.

Shipping containers

Jason Woolford says Mission Cry is spending more on shipping containers to transport Bibles and Christian books. “Where that’s affecting us as a ministry is containers are about 30 to 50 percent more than what we were paying for them before. And normally I would have been able to order a container and have it here within the same week. As of right now, we’re out a month.”

China produces the majority of the world’s shipping containers, which is creating a bottleneck. Woolford says, “If we send the container, whenever that container comes back, it leaves with something. Say it’s going to Kenya. It’ll leave Kenya and go to India, but those containers are always filled with something. It keeps the supply chain going. But China paid for those containers to come back empty from all of those places.”

Future plans

Mission Cry wants to send four containers of Bibles and seminary books before the end of the year to Kenya, Ghana, and Pakistan. You can help them supply books, or even pay for the shipping containers.

Woolford says, “Last year, we sent 24 sea containers around the world reaching 1.2 million people with a free Bible. And our goal is to reach 1.5 million this year with free Bibles. We cannot do that without sending them via shipping containers.”

Mission Cry has teams all around the world ready to receive these Bibles and send them out. Woolford says, “The next container that’s headed out tomorrow is going to Ethiopia. And then on Thursday, we have a container headed to Ghana. Pray for the safety of that, the release of it, and the distribution.”

Header photo courtesy of dendoktoor from Pixabay.

Photo courtesy of Tent Schools International.

Anne Hamming says the truck will be able to reach refugee kids anywhere in Lebanon. “Our partner in Lebanon has had a fair amount of success reaching out to Syrian refugees with schools in shipping containers that he has set up in or on the perimeter of different refugee camps. However, with time, we’ve learned that there is a problem with that system because the refugee camps can actually be disbanded with pretty short notice.”

“Basically, there are several camps that have a lease on farmland. And the farmer sometimes just says, ‘I’m done with this.’”

At different times, the truck will be used to train kids of different ages, including teaching trade skills to young adults. When the truck isn’t being used for school, it won’t sit idle. Hamming says, “It can be used to help meet any of several dire needs in Lebanon right now. Lebanon has been on lockdown. And they’ve only partially reopened, where only banks and grocery stores are open right now.”

Photo courtesy of Tent Schools International.

Tent Schools has finished funding for the project, and the truck school should be rolling around Lebanon by sometime this summer. If the project goes well, Hamming says they hope to replicate this format in other countries as well.

Visit the Tent Schools International website to find out how you can get involved. And pray the care of Christians for refugee kids will point many to Jesus.

The header photo shows concept art for the project. (Photo courtesy of Tent Schools International)

In 2002, Eritrea outlawed all religions aside from Sunni Islam, The Eritrean Orthodox Church, Roman Catholicism, and the Lutheran Church, and the government keeps even these churches on a tight leash. People who worship in unregistered churches are considered enemies of the state.

Greg Musselman of Voice of the Martyrs Canada says Eritrea used to be a part of Ethiopia, and the Gospel grew quickly after the country gained its independence. “Evangelical churches especially were growing. Many people were leaving the state church and becoming evangelicals, and that caused some difficulty for the state church. The government began to basically shut down evangelical churches. Once the churches were closed down, believers continued to meet, and then they were arrested.”

Eritrean prisoners are sometimes held in shipping containers such as this one. (Photo by Victória Kubiaki on Unsplash)

Held in shipping containers

Many prisoners in Eritrea are held in severely overcrowded prisons where they are constantly in danger of beatings and abuse. Their shelter? Metal shipping containers that expose them to the heat in the day and cold at night. Many Christians have died under such harsh conditions, and others have fled the country to avoid them.

Musselman says only a tiny fraction of Christians have been released, but he is hopeful that more will be released in the coming days. In July, 22 Methodist prisoners were released as well.

How to pray

For those who have released from prison, Musselman says we need to pray they can reintegrate into society and find healing. Some of them have been in prison so long that some of their family members have died.

For those still in prison, pray they would be strengthened by Christ, and would soon be released. Musselman says, “We’ve even gotten letters that have come to us, from people that we had met. They’ve been in prison for many years, and that they are committed to sharing the message of God’s love in these prison cells.”

The header image shows students in Eritrea, who are forced to undergo military training as high school seniors. (Photo courtesy of Voice of the Martyrs on Facebook)

As focus turned to function, the leaders of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom say that religious liberty is an “essential element” of human dignity and its protection deserves prominence in U.S. foreign policy.

The State Department and the religious freedom commission both named Burma, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan as “countries of particular concern.”

It’s a designation that Eritrea both disputes and ignores. However, there have been multiple reports of a widespread crackdown on Christians this year, especially for those outside the state-approved churches.

(Photo courtesy Open Doors)

While children were once considered exempt from it, that’s not the case anymore, says Jerry Dykstra, a spokesman for Open Doors USA. “We believe there’s been about 200 Christians that have been incarcerated in military camps. That includes 39 students who had just completed the training for military and for schooling. They were not allowed to go forward. Instead, they were arrested because of their ‘Christian beliefs’ .”

According to a statement on the official Eritrean Ministry of Information website, 17,000 students of the 26th national service intake graduated on July 13. According to the announcement, all these students had successfully completed eight months of academic studies and four months mandatory military training. These students will now proceed to Senior Secondary school to complete grade 12.

The group of 39 was taken to the Sawa Military training center. Sources told Open Doors that the arrests came as a result of the students’ “Christian beliefs and for their commitment to Christ.” Dykstra says, “They now face beatings, hard labor, lack of food and water. But, if they renounce Christ, then they can go back to their studies.”

Since the beginning of the year Christians belonging to groups outside of the government sanctioned Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran churches have faced a widespread arrest campaign. More than 200 men and women of various ages have been arrested since the beginning of the year, he adds. “They have no judicial system. In other words, they’re arrested, there are never any charges, there’s no trial. They just disappear into thin air.”

(Photo courtesy Open Doors)

One 85-year-old woman is being held in a shipping container and has contracted pneumonia. She is still being refused medical attention because she will not agree to camp authorities’ terms for receiving medicine. Military training forms part of the Eritrean curriculum. But after completing school all Eritreans must also do national service.

Since 2002, worship has been forbidden outside the government-sanctioned Sunni Muslim, Eritrean Orthodox Church (EOC), Roman Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran Church of Eritrea, with Protestant worship a criminal offense. In 2005, authorities also began persecuting the EOC, particularly those in the church’s renewal movement. The flip side, Dykstra observes, is “Where there is hostility toward the church, Christ spread the church and grows it. That’s what’s happening in Eritrea.”

The fact that it’s a seemingly sanctioned campaign is disconcerting, at best. “A government official stated that there are three things that need to be eradicated from Eritrea: HIV/AIDs, the regime of arch-enemy Ethiopia, and independent Christians.” At least 105 Christians were arrested in 2012, and 31 Christians were reported to have died in prison.

(Photo courtesy Open Doors)

Dykstra goes on to say that it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. There’s a new peril. “Another growing threat is the rise of the Muslim terrorists in the country, besides the government. We’ve seen the increase of that over the past year.”

Pray for God’s strength for Christians imprisoned in containers, especially those arrested in 2012. Pray for spouses and families who are forced to live as refugees in different countries, and for worldwide awareness of the plight of Eritrean Christians.