The opening of the Lord’s Prayer — “Our Father in heaven” — can sound revolutionary to many people, especially in religions where God isn’t seen as personal or close. Nehemiah with FMI says this message carries vital meaning for people in Afghanistan.

He shares the story of Maqbool.

An example of a house in eastern Afghanistan, Nuristan Province (Photo courtesy of Mustafa via Unsplash)

His father was martyred in Afghanistan for the faith in Christ. Later, extremists burned Maqbool’s home and all his possessions. Instead of breaking him, the tragedy taught Maqbool to rely on God as his Father.

Nehemiah says, “Today, he introduces other fatherless children and families to the same Heavenly Father he has come to know.”

One such story includes Sami, an 11-year-old orphaned by the Taliban and sold into slavery. He worked more than 20 hours a day, barely bringing home enough food to feed his siblings. When Maqbool met him, he knew the Gospel had to be practical.

“When Maqbool learned of Sami’s situation,” Nehemiah adds, “he did not just speak about Jesus, he lived the Gospel. Moved by compassion, Maqbool paid the ransom to free Sami from bondage!”

The act stunned the local tribal chief, who asked who this Jesus is. Maqbool replied, “Jesus is the one true God. He teaches me to love, to serve, and to care for people like Sami. And he does not call us to war or violence, but to peace and joy. He is the reason I am here.”

Touched, the chief allowed Maqbool to teach the community about Christ. The village even hosted a movie night to watch the Jesus film.

Representative photo: Traditional Afghan Attire in Rural Setting (Photo courtesy of Faruk Tokluoğlu via Pexels)

“About 70 men, women, and children gathered to watch, hearing in their own language the story of the Redeemer — the One who frees people from both physical and spiritual bondage,” Nehemiah says.

Find your place in the story. Continue Maqbool’s work through prayerful intercession for Sami, other fatherless boys, the tribal chief, and the people in the village. Pray they would grow in the love of their Heavenly Father.

The work in Afghanistan is challenging. A recent attack on Lala Zeeshan is a reminder that evangelists often pay a high price to bring the Gospel to their people. You can help by supporting FMI’s work — including practical needs like transportation:

“Help them with buying transportation — motorbikes, four wheels, whatever they can do,” Nehemiah says. “This is a great opportunity to help our brothers who work in very, very hostile conditions.”

Header representative photo of an Afghan boy (Photo courtesy of Sayed Rashid Khan via Pexels).

Photo credit to Uncharted Ministries

Pakistan (MNN)—Religious intolerance is on in the rise in Pakistan—a country that already had a history of Christian persecution. 

This persecution takes many forms: Christians are treated as a lower caste, subject to unfair imprisonment and blasphemy laws, violence, forced conversions, and more. Many are trapped in poverty and low-wage jobs. Girls risk being victims of abductions and  forced marriages—in 2021, human rights organizations estimated as many as 1,000 Christian, Hindu, and Sikh girls are abducted each year.

“And then there is also the just the terrible needs, where, because of the poverty, if they have a financial emergency, they have no means to get money,” says Bruce of Uncharted Ministries, “and they have to then go to a Muslim brickyard owner, and that Muslim owner will provide the money, but to do so the Christian man and his family have to move onto his brickyard, and then they pay off the debt by making bricks. It’s just like Israel and Egypt all those years ago. It’s a modern day slavery on a scope that’s stunning.”

There are estimated to be 3.5-4 million people trapped in debt bondage in Pakistan, many of them Christians, across approximately 20,000 brickyards within the country. Uncharted Ministries works to rescue families from these inhumane conditions—families like that of Ahmed.

“Ahmed was a Christian. He had his faith. That’s what’s astounding, is in the worst conditions, they still hold on to their faith in the Lord. That’s all they have to cling to. I mean, they’re in just the most horrific sort of living conditions and work six days a week in the blazing sun, with child labor, but they’ve held on to their faith.”

Ahmed has three children, including a daughter whose legs were severely damaged when she was ran over by a truck at the brickyard as a toddler.

“But because her father owed the brick owner money for slavery, he refused to give her any medical help. So the father had to take this girl with crushed, bleeding legs into his little brick hut and lay her in there with no medicine, no medical treatment, nothing. And her little legs became all twisted and deformed.” 

The debt that kept Ahmed’s family in bondage and stopped his daughter from receiving medical care—often made unpayable due to meager wages, fraudulent bookkeeping, and high interest rates—was only $700. Through the help of Uncharted Ministries, Ahmed’s debt has been paid, his family has been freed, and he is financially independent, working as a cobbler at his shoe shop.

“There’s so many parallels to what Jesus has done for us. We were enslaved and indebted.”

Now, Uncharted Ministries is looking to get his daughter the surgery she needs. In the meantime, they’ve helped her to get proper nutrition and tutoring.

“And now you look at her, it’s just like a different person, and she’s excelling and doing so well. And they just are so thankful, and they never imagined to be set free and to have freedom. So that’s any that’s one family of dozens that we’ve been fortunate to pay the debt and work with. That paints a picture of one family—and God’s at work in the most horrific of situations. He’s very, very present there.”

To help Uncharted Ministries continue reaching Christians in bondage, Bruce is asking for prayer for their ministry and for Christians in Pakistan, and, for those who feel called as a family, Sunday school class, or other group of believers, to consider pooling resources to help support the rescue of a family. 

“The need is enormous, but we can make a difference. We just fold the resources straight over there and it the like I said, the dollar can go a long way. But think of it. We were rescuing families for $600-700—they would never be able to be rescued.”

To learn about Uncharted Ministries and the work they’re doing, go to UnchartedMinistries.com.

Photos courtesy of Uncharted Ministries.

While the practice of bonded labor in the country has been illegal since the 1990s, it is not commonly enforced. Debts carry on to children so the slavery is cyclical and inescapable. Entire generations are being born into slavery as families work for years to pay off their initially small loans. 

These factories, which require the laborious and exhaustive work of adults and children, are known to cause severe health issues and do not report back to families on how much debt is owed or what the interest rates are.

Brian Dennett with AMG International says, “These [kilns] are all over Pakistan and [slaves] make bricks one by one, by hand. This has been going on for years and years. It’s a long-held practice in Pakistan. People are forced to toil from dawn to dusk with quotas of what they have to produce.”

(Photo courtesy of Muhammad Muzamil via Unsplash)

Thanks to AMG and its supporters, Rasul and his three children were rescued from slavery in a brick kiln. 

“This was [his] daily nightmare,” says Dennett. “Working conditions where your lungs are filled with dust all day long. [Spending] hours in the hot sun, sunburns, [with] his own young children working right alongside him stacking bricks instead of learning to read and write.”

“Many of these families are Christians, our brothers and sisters [who are] highly discriminated against in the workplace anywhere else in Pakistan. It drives them into these terrible situations.”

The AMG team in Pakistan works with legal professionals to try and rescue these families and stop this cycle. Last year they began to raise money for a school so that the children of slaves will have an opportunity to escape the cycle.

Set to open in the next couple of months, Dennett says, “We’re going to have a beautiful, safe facility within walking distance of the brick kilns in that area. This is going to provide many children the opportunity to study in a Christian environment where the gospel is shared [and] where hope is shared. We’re just excited for this to grow and to see more and more families get out of slavery like Rasul was able to.”

The school will share the gospel and hope of Jesus and will welcome the children of slaves from all faith backgrounds. 

The school will be operated using child sponsorship funding but has a remaining need of roughly $40,000 for final startup expenses, like school supplies and furnishings and welcomes funding for this project and in general. 

Please pray for the team working in this area as the gospel is not always welcomed in Pakistan. Pray that God’s hand will be on the school and a step toward ending this labor. Pray that the resources and support for this ministry will be strong and empower the team to do good work. 

Header photo of man in Lahore, Pakistan courtesy of Lumensoft Technologies via Unsplash.

Meet a common reality of Lebanon’s kafala system. 

“The kafala system is a migrant labor system in the Middle East that is often described as modern-day slavery,” says Ghinwa Akiki with Thimar-LSESD. 

Many migrant workers are young women from underdeveloped countries. “These women come to the region hoping to earn money for their families back home, and upon arrival, they often find themselves in low-wage domestic jobs which are different from what they [had] been told,” Akiki says.

Food assistance, relief and development (Photo courtesy of Thimar-LSESD/MERATH)

As you can imagine, these men and women are often abused. Their legal status and employment are tied to a local sponsor.

“[That means] the employer has full authority over their ability to change jobs or leave the country,” Akiki explains. 

The past year of conflict in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah has made migrant workers even more vulnerable. Hunter Williamson with Thimar says they have heard stories of workers being locked inside houses in southern Lebanon as their employers fled bombings. 

“Who knows how many migrant workers were killed because of this?” he says. “Here in Beirut, where Thimar is based, there were migrant workers who were sort of deserted by their employers and by the families that they work for. These workers ended up on the beaches and along the seafronts, with nothing, just the clothes that they had.”

Meet Hayat

The team at MERATH, one of Thimar-LSESD’s ministries, recently encountered one such migrant worker. MERATH focuses on relief work so they can demonstrate the Gospel, not just proclaim it. Through one of their partner ministries, they met a young Ethiopian woman we’ll call Hayat, who shared her story.

Akiki says, “[Hayat] bore harsh mistreatment for three years, but eventually, when she felt like a prisoner, deprived of every right, she decided freedom over slavery, putting herself in a bigger danger and the inability to travel back home because her passport remained with her employer.”

Undocumented and without work for most of the war, Hayat has still pressed forward with her life and faith in God. She’s part of a local church. Though she doesn’t know what’s next for her, she trusts God. Read a beautiful glimpse of Hayat’s story here.

For now, please pray for Hayat and other migrant workers like her. Hayat recently wrote a book of Christian devotionals to encourage others, borrowing money to pay for the publishing costs. Ask God to help her find work so she can repay that debt. 

Then, pray for God’s grace upon the ministry of MERATH as they share practical help and the eternal hope of the gospel. Learn more about their work here. 

Header photo is a representative stock photo courtesy of Samuel Tsegaye via Unsplash.

A hidden layer 

Bruce with Uncharted Ministries says that at first, their team didn’t realize the scale and depth of suffering that Pakistani Christians endure. Then, a young Christian leader in Pakistan revealed another layer to them through a simple request. 

“We were introduced to this [reality] by him just sharing a need,” Bruce says. “He didn’t ask for any money. He just said, ‘Please, please pray for this young 13-year-old girl.’” 

The teenager had been kidnapped by a man in his forties, then forced to marry him and convert to Islam. 

“[She spent] five months chained to a bed and [was] malnourished but was rescued. She was later found pregnant as a 14-year-old and gave birth to a little baby girl,” Bruce says. 

Hers is just one story among hundreds that rarely have a happy ending. 

“Over 1,000 Christian young women are kidnapped, and only 10% ever make it back to their homes,” Bruce says. 

Lifted up out of poverty  

By God’s grace, Uncharted Ministries is able to come alongside vulnerable Christian families with practical help and even freedom (more on that here). 

“Christian women are in a tough way, so we’ve been providing six-month training courses for Christian young women to be seamstresses or beauticians,” Bruce says. “[They are] six-month classes, 15 students in each one for six months of training in the business skills but also being discipled, being loved. They become a little family.”

A young Christian woman shows what she has sewn. (Photo courtesy of Uncharted Ministries)

The training courses have served 120 women so far. Bruce says it’s amazing to see how God has opened the way for this ministry.

“After successfully completing the course, they are given their sewing machine, a work desk, chair and supplies to begin their business,” he says. 

“These young women [will] earn money for their family, but then they’ll attract a young man someday who’s also upwardly mobile, and they together can work and increase their standard of living. So we’re looking at generational change, where God is going to transform their lives.”

One of Uncharted’s contacts in Pakistan recently told Bruce, “It’s so encouraging to know that we weren’t created just to be hated.” 

“That stuck with me,” he says. “They feel so reviled in the culture, but what God is doing [is] He’s just plucking these people out and giving them skills.”

You can have a place in this life-changing ministry. Gifts to Uncharted Ministries designated “Pakistan” will aid frontline efforts of rescuing families from slavery, supporting young women who have been sex-trafficked, and training girls in business skills. Visit unchartedministries.com to make a gift under the “Pakistan” designation. 

Header photo courtesy of Paul Jai/Unsplash.

Nearly every commercial and residential building in Pakistan is built of bricks made in over 14,000 brick kilns scattered across the country. These kilns are operated by 4.5 million enslaved people. 

Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations says that often what happens is that vulnerable people will be exploited by slave owners offering to pay their bills for them and their families. In exchange, the whole family becomes bonded to the brick kiln owner. 

“And in many instances, I mean, we’ve met people that have been in these kilns for 20 and 30 years,” Kelley said. “So once they get into the brick kilns, they literally never come out.”

Brick kiln workers often never leave. Photo courtesy of Arsalanashraff71 via Wikimedia Commons.

Though technically illegal, politicians in Pakistan frequently succumb to bribery and ignore criminal activity happening in these kilns including organ harvesting and trafficking children of kiln workers. 

Kelley believes that since this type of indentured servitude has been part of the culture in Pakistan for so long, it has become widely accepted. 

“But I think that it’s the lowest caste, most vulnerable people who don’t have any influence,” Kelley said. “And so, you know, nobody cares about that. So they’re the ones who will suffer the most.”

However, for Kelley and his team, these brick kilns offer an opportunity for ministry. 

By paying the owners of the kiln around $2,500, they can essentially buy the freedom of the workers for a day, allowing their team access to provide a meal, a time of rest, and the Gospel message to the kiln workers. 

Kelley describes these days as holidays for the kiln workers. Since many of these people work every day from around five in the morning to six at night, they never have a complete day off.

“So it’s a real celebration when they do get their time off,” Kelley said. “And when we come in, we share the Gospel always. So many of these slaves, because they suffer so much, their hearts are wide open to the message of hope.”

Every time this happens, people come to Christ. Even more, recently kiln owners – a traditionally Muslim group – have increasingly been giving their lives to Christ. 

Transformation happens when these owners come to know Christ, changing their behavior and setting slaves free. 

“But that’s the evidence and the impact of the Gospel,” Kelley said. 

From this, the kilns then offer an opportunity to establish churches. With kiln workers sharing close quarters and gathering together regularly, new believers naturally worship together, pray together, and create disciples of other kiln workers, aided by the audio Bibles Kelley’s team leaves them with. 

In many communities in Pakistan, Islamic forces often impose anti-conversion laws on Christians. However, inside brick kilns, Kelley has seen success in discipleship due to the close-knit communities built there. 

“Jesus said to care for the least of these,” Kelley said. “And it’s hard to think of the slaves in the brick kilns of Pakistan as being nothing other than the least of these, but these people are precious in the sight of Jesus. We need to be praying for them, lifting them up, many of them we haven’t been able to get to yet…are suffering just terribly.” 

Kelley calls for prayers for Pakistani Christians to be raised up to go into the brick kiln mission field and be mobilized to create disciples from these enslaved people. 

Though a harsh mission field, Kelley prays that God will send more people into these places to share the good news of the Gospel. 

Header photo courtesy of Dolon Prova via Wikimedia Commons. 

This might look like forced labor or even forced marriage. Slavery exists in nearly every country around the world, the study found.

Kassar

Bruce Allen with FMI says, “This is a global problem. To put a face to it, I’d like to tell you the story of a guy named Kassar. He works at one of the 20,000 brick kilns scattered across Pakistan. Many of the buildings in Pakistan are made with rudimentary bricks. You have these smokestacks dotting the landscape.”

Kassar is 11 years old. He lives with his family in conditions Allen compares to the book of Exodus. They are not allowed to leave or take breaks. The workers don’t ever make enough to erase their debt.

An FMI partner visited the brick kiln, trying to help people in any way he could. Allen says, “Pastor Naveen, who is supported through FMI partners here in the US, has planted multiple churches at various brick kiln sites. He recently gave Kassar’s father an audio Bible on an mp3 device.”

“Now, even as they labor together under the sun, parent and children, the whole family is uplifted by listening to scripture in their own language.”

You can send Bibles to places like Pakistan through FMI. In October, donations to FMI will pay for twice as many Bibles.

Jubilee

Just as God set His people free from slavery in Egypt, He will set them free from all slavery when Jesus comes again. Allen says, “The book of Exodus is about brick kiln workers and their liberation. When Jesus picked up the Torah scroll and read from it, He mentioned that part of His purpose was to set the captives free, to announce the year of Jubilee.”

Ask God to free slaves all around the world.

The header photo shows workers in a Pakistan brick kiln. (Daniel Buckles, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

“It truly is modern-day slavery in every sense of the word,” says Greg Kelley with World Mission. “We met people that had been born in these brick kilns that have been there 40 years, members of second and even third-generation families. [Their] slavery was initiated by a debt of maybe as little as $100 of a medical bill that they couldn’t pay. The slave owners pay that debt;  then they own these people.”

Horrible conditions

These people have to live in shacks near the kilns. If they do not make their brick quotas, they are assaulted or starved. Sometimes, the owners even kidnap the daughters of the kiln workers, selling them into the sex trade.

Kelley recounts one of the most harrowing stories from his trip. “A woman approached me, and it was clear that she had a child in her hands – an infant, maybe not even a month old. … She said, ‘Please take my daughter. I can’t bear the thought of her living the life that I have.’”

How to pray

Kelley says World Mission paid one day’s wages to some of the kilns so the slaves could take a day off. “It was like a Christmas celebration because they didn’t have to work. … we were able to gather these people together at these different brick kilns we visited and [share] the Gospel. I would say 90% of these slaves were coming to receive Jesus.”

Pray for the eradication of this practice and that many more kiln workers in Pakistan will encounter Jesus, the One who sets slaves free.

The header photo shows workers in a Pakistan brick kiln. (Daniel Buckles, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Tasos Ioannidis says this problem is particularly bad in Greece. “Because Greece is at the crossroads between Asia, and Europe, and Africa. So, you have a lot of people who are transported to Europe, particularly for prostitution. They include ladies that come from Asia, from Eastern Europe, from Africa, and they are enticed to come to Greece with the promise of work, or they are forcibly transported into Greece, by traffickers.”

How to fight slavery

You can help sponsor a child to make sure they get the education they desperately need. (Photo courtesy of AMG International)

Education provides a buffer against trafficking by making children and parents less vulnerable and less susceptible to severe poverty.

The best way to fight human trafficking is to prevent it before it happens. Ioannidis says, “The best way to do that is come alongside the parents, provide the children with an education, train the parents, support the parents, and support the whole community. We come alongside the local churches in those areas.”

When slavery has already happened, Ioannidis says slavery is much harder to fight. “First of all, it’s hard to rescue them in the first place. The people who are trafficking them see that as a loss of revenue for them. They will try to prevent the girls from leaving, and they will use violence.” Pray for the safety of AMG workers as they try to rescue as many as possible.

These women also face a long road psychologically, having already undergone so much trauma. They need to learn basic life skills like money management. AMG helps provide this training.

 “We also try to help them with job placement and things like that.”

Pray that parents will understand the value of education and keep their kids in school. Right now, COVID-19 is making school in any setting more difficult.

Ioannidis says, “From what experts are telling us, most of the kids who leave school right now, because of COVID to earn a living, they are never going to go back to school. So that increases the risk for them. And it basically means that their future is less rosy. To put mildly, their outlook is not very good.”

Header Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay

Juneteenth Encourages Conversation

Chelir Grady with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship explains:

“That’s an important moment in African American History, in particular, for us just to recognize that. Because at the end of the day, even if in 1863 there were black slaves that were celebrating all over the country, there were still those people in Texas, so many slaves in Texas, that were still living that life. It wasn’t until this moment that they were totally free.”

(Photo courtesy of Wil C. Fry via Flickr)

Juneteenth also tugs at an important conversation for the Church as it moves towards unity. Grady explains that on a micro-level, Christians were involved with the Underground Railroad and sought to end slavery. But on a macro-level, the collective Church was involved in the actual business of slavery.

Parts of the Church in the U.S. once distorted God’s Word to exercise control over black slaves. These events impact communities today. Joining this conversation requires recognizing and understanding the mistakes from the past. It also requires seeking forgiveness and reconciliation.

(Photo courtesy of Lisa Nottingham via Flickr)

“I think it’s important for the Church to have conversations around this because it’s a part of our history as a Church. But it’s also just the history of the people that are in the Church…And so, I think if the church opens the door for this type of conversation [and] in a way it’s kind of like an act of repentance…so that we don’t repeat our mistakes,” Grady says.

Grady explains that if the Church is to correct its mistakes, it can’t remain silent about hard issues today. Acknowledging sin opens the door for the Holy Spirit to change our hearts and continue the process of sanctification.

“If the Church is talking about these things, and the Church is discussing these things, then the Church is opening up the door for us to not repeat the same mistakes because we’re allowing the love in the room and the unity in the room to help,” Grady says.

“That’s why I would say it’s a conversation that matters.”

Seeking a Better Way

Let’s enter this conversation intentionally, as the Church, to move towards a more unified body, reconciled by Christ and exuding the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Let’s live in a way where everyone knows that we belong to Christ by our love for one another, regardless of the color of our skin, our race, or our ethnicity.

But refusing to acknowledge the mistakes of the past and seek amends is costly to the Gospel.

“I can’t tell you how many young black millennials that I talk to that are literally okay with Jesus, but hate the Church. When I say the Church, it’s not just white churches, it’s also black churches. The reality is that we as believers have to recognize that if we want to be like Jesus, we need to be able to be radical and want to bust up the world and the religious systems that aren’t in alignment with God’s Word.

“The Pharisees were all about…what the law says…But they weren’t loving people. They weren’t seeing the sick, the poor, the needy. They weren’t leading these people, as Jesus says in Matthew 9. [They were] lost sheep looking for a shepherd. Today, there are so many lost sheep that are looking for a shepherd, but they want a better way,” Grady explains.

Responding With Prayer

What could happen if the Church gave its brokenness to God, surrendered the collective sin, and did better, loved better like Jesus? Let’s find out.

(Photo courtesy of Nathan Dumlao via Unsplash)

Ask God for a heart of repentance. Pray for awareness and conviction. Pray for courage to speak up against injustice and for the courage to speak out on issues like race and ethnicity. Also, ask God for humility so the Church can follow the Spirit’s lead. Finally, pray for the joy which comes from unity in Christ.

Let’s pray these things for ourselves, but also for the Church in the U.S.

“My prayer, my hope is that we would not repeat the mistakes of the past and be willing to be radical and shake things up the way that Jesus did. And realize that in doing that you’re going to reveal to the world those that really aren’t about this life…really not about being like Jesus,” Grady says.

“But those who are really wanting to be like Jesus, if they…are open to the Spirit’s movement, I believe there’s so much that could happen in the North American Church.”

Find more ways to join this conversation and get involved with InterVarsity here.

(Photo courtesy of Roven Images on Unsplash.)